Louis Osbourne has opened up about his early memories of dad Ozzy Osbourne and has confirmed after some years that the Black Sabbath rocker did not murder 17 cats (Picture: Jack Osbourne/YouTube)
Louis Osbourne, Ozzy Osbourne’s eldest son, has made a rare public appearance with his half-brother Jack Osbourne to talk about growing up with the Black Sabbath legend – and he’s putting some rumours to bed.
The legendary frontman died in July aged 76 after months of worsening health, but not before he rocked out in his native Villa Park for his final outing as the Prince of Darkness.
While many people think of Sharon Osbourne, 73, Kelly Osbourne, 41, and I’m A Celebrity star Jack, 40, as Ozzy’s family, he had other children from a previous marriage and another daughter with Sharon called Aimee Osbourne, who opted out of the TV show and left home aged 16.
The frontman married his first wife Thelma Riley in 1971, when she was 18 and he was navigating the world of rock n’ roll. Together they welcomed Jessica and Louis, and Ozzy adopted Elliot, Thelma’s son from a previous relationship.
Ozzy’s only family to sign the statement announcing his death were Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.
Louis is 10 years older than Jack, so remembers Ozzy’s Black Sabbath days which were particularly drug-fuelled (Picture: Jack Osbourne/YouTube)
Jack, who is currently on I’m A Celebrity, also said he didn’t think Ozzy shot 17 cats (Picture: Jack Osbourne/YouTube)
While Louis, 49, briefly starred in the first series of MTV reality show The Osbournes, he rarely appears in public under the banner of his famous surname.
Now months after Ozzy’s death, Jack got his big brother on the latest episode of his Trying Not To Die podcast, in which Louis opened up about his memories of dad Ozzy growing up in the 70s and 80s.
When asked about his earliest memories of Ozzy, Louis – who was ‘sobbing’ at his dad’s final gig – said the rocker was often out on tour, as his childhood coincided with Black Sabbath’s biggest years.
When Louis was a pre-teen Ozzy was in his most chaotic, intoxicated period, with stories of ripping heads of bats and even trying to strangle his wife Sharon to death in a drug-fuelled state, coming out in the press.
‘The bat thing, I just thought it was funny,’ Louis said, before admitting to Jack: ‘There was that time he and your mum had that altercation and he ended up in the clink [prison], that was a bad one.
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Louis was close with Ozzy up until his death in July. He ‘sobbed’ during Ozzy’s last ever Black Sabbath gig (Picture: John Higgins/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
‘Your mum picked us up from school and spoke to us about that. Just reassured us everything was going to be alright, dad’s going to seek help, and all of that stuff.’
Louis also cleared up one long-held rumour – started by Ozzy himself – that the Changes hitmaker shot and killed 17 of the family’s cats.
During a 2007 chat with The Scotsman, in which he also detailed the night he tried to kill Sharon, Ozzy reportedly admitted: ‘I was taking drugs so much I was a f*****.
‘The final straw came when I shot all our cats. We had about 17, and I went crazy and shot them all. My wife found me under the piano in a white suit, a shotgun in one hand and a knife in the other.’
But now his son Louis has confirmed this didn’t happen.
‘We never owned 17 cats,’ Louis said, adding: ‘He did go and shoot a pen of chickens and set fire to it in a mad drunken rage one night.
‘But he never ever ever slaughtered any cats. I’m putting the record straight here.’
Jack agreed, adding: ‘I saw a comment saying, “He killed cats, f**k him,” after dad died. I know he said that, but there’s no actual evidence he did that.’
Jessica – Ozzy’s eldest daughter – and Louis previously revealed how Ozzy was an absent and often intoxicated father (Picture: Staff/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
Of his fonder memories, Louis said in the 1980s his boarding school housemaster allowed him and friends to stay up late to watch Top of the Pops when Ozzy was on.
While Louis revealed Ozzy’s fame didn’t fuel bullies like it did with Jack, he admitted: ‘What effected me more was missing him. He was on tour, I was at boarding school.’
Reflecting on how the response to Ozzy’s death shocked him, Louis said: ‘I always knew how cool my dad was but I never realised how f***ing cool. I’ve only realised since he’s gone.’
He also didn’t expect so many people to turn up to his funeral procession in Birmingham.
‘Because it’s my hometown where the cortege was, I live in Birmingham and I know the street that was going to be on,’ he began, continuing: ‘As we turned onto the street, or just slightly before we turned onto the street, I just thought it was going to be like two or three people deep for like half a kilometer before where the Black Sabbath bridge was and it would be a throng.
Ozzy and Thelma Riley were married for over a decade before Sharon, and the pair welcomed Jessica and Louis. Ozzy also adopted Elliot (standing on the right), who was Thelma’s son from a previous relationship (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)
‘As we came towards the street and turn onto the street, I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it now, it was f***ing insane.
‘Like people climbing up lampposts, hanging out of windows, standing on top of bus stops to get a look of it. It was awe inspiring.
‘Once we had all got out of the cars and showed our respects, and put some flowers down and moved on again, it kept on going for another half a mile and then people were following us all around town.
‘I knew people loved him, but I didn’t have a sense of how many and how much.’
For his adult life Louis has enjoyed a long career as a dance music DJ, first spinning decks in 1992 before hanging up his headphones in 2015 and taking on the job of managing DJs instead.
While he’s done the odd gig since, Louis revealed he doesn’t miss DJing, as in his later years he got anxiety about whether people were enjoying his sets or not.
For some time, Louis enjoyed taking part in competitive triathlons, but says it’s hard to trim down to race weight – which he is currently ’25 kilos over’ – in his late 40s.
Aimee Osbourne – sitting in the middle of this picture – opted out of The Osbournes TV show. She left home at 16 when they began filming in their home (Picture: Mtv/Kobal/Shutterstock)
Ozzy married Sharon a year after he and Thelma separated (Picture: Mike Maloney/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
In his 2009 autobiography I Am Ozzy, the rocker recalled how he and Louis’ mum Thelma met in the Rum Runner nightclub while she was working as a waitress.
‘She was beautiful and I wanted to talk to her,’ he wrote. ‘I pulled her on the dance floor.’
Ozzy continued: ‘A year or so later, in 1971, we got married in a registry office. I thought it was what you did: get some dough, find a chick, get married, settle down, go to the pub.’
According to reports, Ozzy went on in his autobiography to call it ‘a terrible mistake’ and admitted, ‘I put her through hell’.
He reportedly added: ‘I was a very selfish young man, full of drink and drugs, and I didn’t know how to be a husband or a father.’
Thelma, thought to have survived him, has kept out of the public eye following their tumultuous marriage and reportedly went on to work as a teacher.
After their split in 1981 Sharon and Osbourne tied the knot in Hawaii on July 4, 1982 having met in the 70s when she was 18 and her dad was Black Sabbath’s manager.
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