Sharon Osbourne Recalls Ozzy’s Injury: ‘I See Him Falling Again and Again’
Sharon Osbourne is still haunted by the memory of her husband Ozzy's injury earlier this year when the musician fell at home in the middle of the night and dislodged metal bolts in his collarbone from previous surgery. But after months with the rockstar on the mend, Sharon's sharing her opinion that Ozzy's upcoming album is "one of his best."
"Sometimes, when I look at him, that night plays frame by frame in my head like a movie," she told The Sun this week (Nov. 10) in an extensive interview. "I close my eyes and I see him falling again and again."
Of the February injury that resulted from what son Jack Osbourne described as Ozzy tripping while getting into bed after peeing, Sharon continued: "It was so quick and he was so sleepy that he didn't instinctively put his hands out to break the fall," she said. "So he then hit his head again, on the corner of our bed, which has a metal frame. … I saw it happen but I couldn't get to him in time."
It was at that point Ozzy made clear to Sharon just how serious the injury was. "Call an ambulance. I can't move," he said. But medical attention the musician received that night wasn't promising.
"The first hospital we went to said he was just badly bruised," she remembered. "I was thinking, 'This is fucking insane.' He couldn’t move his arms and he was in agony. … By that time it was 3AM and they've got all the usual drunks in there, the car accidents, people everywhere. It was dreadful and they couldn't give a damn."
Shocked, Sharon and Ozzy returned to their Los Angeles County home before the 70-year-old rockstar's condition worsened. He was unable to move the entire right side of his body by the time Sharon took him to a different hospital. There, an MRI scan revealed the metal bolts used to reconstruct Ozzy's collarbone after a 2003 ATV accident came loose. His spinal cord also showed compression.
"They fixed the collarbone straight away but his spinal cord was so inflamed they had to wait a week to do an operation," Sharon recalled. "He was in surgery for five hours and afterwards they told us it would take him a year to recover. … It's terrifying when you see somebody you love so incapacitated. They can't do a thing, and you're so engulfed with fear that you can't think clearly. So we didn't do any research or ask the right questions. … Now, certain doctors say, 'Well, maybe he shouldn't have had this operation.' … Every doctor seems to have a different opinion."
After the fall, Ozzy spent six weeks in intensive care and the following two months in the hospital doing physical therapy. Subsequently, he had to postpone previously rescheduled tour dates yet again, the initial cancellations resultant from a bout of pneumonia. ("He's just frustrated because he wants to be doing the tour," Sharon said. "If he just has to stand there and sing, that's what he's going to do.") Last month, Ozzy's European tour was again put off to help extend his recovery time. Those dates have since gotten rescheduled.
"We are hoping to pick it up in May and finish off all the dates," Sharon maintained before stating her confidence in Ozzy's fresh solo album. It was recently previewed with the singer's first new song in nine years, "Under the Graveyard." That tune bears the fruits of Ozzy's September collaboration with rapper Post Malone since it shares writing credits with their mutual collaborator Andrew Watt. The new Ozzy album is out in January of next year.
"In the middle of all the angst, Ozzy made an album and I honestly think it's one of his best," Sharon said. "It saved him from depression because he was down in the dumps. He couldn't watch anything with music on TV. He would say, 'I can't do this,' because he was so devastated. Then he started writing."
Photos: Ozzy Osbourne Through the Years