Having escaped a life of drudgery in Birmingham, Ozzy became the rare rock frontman you could relate to – and then, against the odds, a national treasure
News: Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76
Ozzy Osbourne: a life in pictures
A
s he would doubtless have admitted, the teenage John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne did not seem much like someone with a glittering future ahead of them. His childhood had been troubled – he struggled at school, partly as a result of dyslexia, and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of two older bullies – and his prospects after leaving school aged 15 seemed non-existent. Even his attempts to become a criminal ended in farce. He was, he later noted, “fucking useless” as a burglar: a television he was attempting to steal fell on top of him; operating in the dark, he inadvertently stole a selection of baby clothes rather than the adult garments he had intended to sell around the pubs of his native Aston in Birmingham. Finally, he was caught and sent to prison for six weeks.
