Osbournes

OZZY Osbourne’s warts-and-all autobiography will be published “uncensored” after his death aged 76 – with a foreword from his wife Sharon.

His Last Rites book, finished just before he passed away, will recount his relationship with hairstylist Michelle Pugh, which spanned from 2012 to 2016 and drove his wife Sharon to nearly kill herself.

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The revelation shattered his marriage and Sharon, then 63, was left blindsided by the betrayal. She bravely revealed she attempted to end her life after learning the full extent of the affair.

“I took, I don’t know how many pills,” she said. “I just thought, ‘My kids are older, they are fine and can take care of themselves.'”

A publishing source said yesterday: “This book was basically Ozzy’s last confessions and contains a lot of passages about how he is sorry for the affair.

“As he was always brutally honest during his life, it’s been decided not a word will be changed, even about painful times in his life and how his affair affected Sharon.”

The insider added it is “early days” in terms of Sharon’s grief, but she will be asked to write a foreword to the book.

They said: “Sharon is made of stern stuff and the publishers know she will want to leave her fingerprint on this book. Writing its foreword will also be cathartic for her and act as a way of laying Ozzy to rest.”

Another source said the book contains Ozzy’s epitaph. He had joked before his death that he wanted four words carved on his gravestone: “Bats taste like s***.”

But an insider said: “This was just a joke and Ozzy wanted something a lot more profound on his gravestone.

“This book will reveal it.”

Last Rites already has a cover, showing Ozzy holding his hands in a prayer-style gesture to his face.

A blurb for the upcoming book, set to be published in October, says: “Last Rites is the shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Ozzy’s descent into hell.

“Along the way, he reflects on his extraordinary life and career, including his marriage to wife Sharon, alongside his reflections on what it took for him to get back onstage for the triumphant Back to the Beginning concert, streamed around the world, where Ozzy reunited with his Black Sabbath bandmates for the final time.

“Unflinching, brutally honest, but surprisingly life-affirming, Last Rites demonstrates once again why Ozzy has transcended his status as ‘The Godfather of Metal’ and ‘The Prince of Darkness’ to become a modern-day folk hero and national treasure.”

One excerpt from the autobiography features Ozzy saying: “People say to me, if you could do it all again, knowing what you know now, would you change anything? I’m like, f*** no. If I’d been clean and sober, I wouldn’t be Ozzy. If I’d done normal, sensible things, I wouldn’t be Ozzy.

“Look, if it ends tomorrow, I can’t complain. I’ve been all around the world. Seen a lot of things. I’ve done good… and I’ve done bad.

“But right now, I’m not ready to go anywhere.”

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A balladeer in the body of a headbanger, Ozzy Osbourne brought soul and emotion to the heavy-metal genre he helped invent as the frontman of Black Sabbath and which he turned into a global force as an outrage-courting solo act. Osbourne, who died Tuesday at 76 — just weeks after he gave what he billed as his final performance in his hometown of Birmingham, England — sold tens of millions of albums, was twice inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and late in life found an unlikely second career as a pioneering reality-television star. Here, in the order they were released, are 10 of his essential songs.

Black Sabbath, ‘Paranoid’ (1970)

As heavy as Black Sabbath was, the band could also be remarkably light on its feet, as in the group’s zippy breakout single, which hit No. 4 on the U.K. pop chart. “Paranoid” is narrated by a depressed young man who “can’t see the things that make true happiness,” as Osbourne sings against Tony Iommi’s chugging guitar riff. Yet the song keeps hurtling forward with a kind of dogged determination. Black Sabbath closed with “Paranoid” — current stream count on Spotify: 1.3 billion — at this month’s farewell concert.

Black Sabbath, ‘War Pigs’ (1970)
An antiwar protest song as pointed as John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son,” “War Pigs” couches its musings on the mendacity of Vietnam’s architects in images of witches and sorcerers poisoning brainwashed minds. The disgust in Osbourne’s sneering vocal is still palpable.

Black Sabbath, ‘Iron Man’ (1970)
Leave it to Osbourne to find the empathy in this bludgeoning yet weirdly tender account of a guy who travels through time to save humanity only to be “turned to steel in the great magnetic field” on his return trip. “Nobody wants him / They just turn their heads,” he sings, “Nobody helps him / Now he has his revenge.”

Black Sabbath, ‘Sweet Leaf’ (1971)
A love song addressed to weed? Osbourne stretches the bit about as far as it can go as Iommi cranks out the sludgy lick that would later be sampled prominently by the Beastie Boys in their “Rhymin & Stealin.”

Black Sabbath, ‘Changes’ (1972)
Osbourne’s most touching vocal performance came in this woebegone piano ballad from Black Sabbath’s fourth album; he sings with so much agony about a romantic breakup that the song doesn’t even bother with guitar or drums. In 2003, Osbourne recut “Changes” as a duet with his then-19-year-old daughter Kelly; a decade later, the soul singer Charles Bradley recorded a wrenching cover not long before he died.

‘Crazy Train’ (1980)
Osbourne got the boot from Black Sabbath in 1979 after his bandmates tired of his drug and alcohol abuse. Yet Osbourne quickly rebounded as a solo act, scoring a Top 10 rock radio hit on his first try with “Crazy Train,” which he wrote and recorded with guitarist Randy Rhoads, who’d left Quiet Riot to join Osbourne’s band. Lyrically, “Crazy Train” contemplates the “millions of people living as foes” amid the Cold War — a dark theme that somehow led to Osbourne’s most euphoric song.

‘Mr. Crowley’ (1980)
To follow up “Crazy Train,” Osbourne and Rhoads — who would tragically die in a plane crash in 1982 while on tour with Osbourne — revived Black Sabbath’s preoccupation with the occult for this midtempo jam about the self-styled prophet Aleister Crowley.

‘No More Tears’ (1991)

Unlike many heavy-metal elders, Osbourne stayed relevant into the grunge era with hits like the bleakly hypnotic title track from his quadruple-platinum “No More Tears” LP, which showcased his close collaboration with guitarist Zakk Wylde.

‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’ (1991)
“No More Tears” yielded another staple of early-’90s MTV in this soaring power ballad that Osbourne and Wylde wrote with Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead.

Post Malone featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott, ‘Take What You Want’ (2019)
At 70, Osbourne surprised many with his robust vocal cameo in this trap-metal pile-up from Post Malone’s smash “Hollywood’s Bleeding” LP. The singer’s collaboration with producer Andrew Watt on “Take What You Want” led to Osbourne’s recruiting Watt to oversee his final two solo albums: 2020’s “Ordinary Man” and 2022’s Grammy-winning “Patient Number 9.”