Ozzy Osbourne feared being a “loser” after Black Sabbath dropped him.
Osbourne was one of the founding members of the group back in 1968, but was dropped by his bandmates in 1979 due to creative differences and Ozzy’s reckless behaviour. Although he admitted to feeling “resentment” towards the group after being fired, the musician’s main concern was getting his profile back on track, which he did by going solo after being replaced by Ronnie James Dio.
“It’s just fucking… It’s what spurs you on, your fear of being a loser,” he told Kerrang! magazine. “The ego part of it goes, ‘I can’t let them fuckers get better than me.’ You’ve got to keep going. With success comes ego and with ego comes a lot of bad shit. Ego, drugs and woman have destroyed more bands than a f**king war, you know?”
It was Ozzy’s future-wife Sharon, whose father Don Arden managed the band, that proposed Ronnie take over from the star, but members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler weren’t bitter to see their former frontman start a career of his own. In fact, during the interview with Kerrang! both men expressed how proud they were that Ozzy managed to get himself on the mend thanks to the support of his spouse Sharon.
“We were really glad for him. He was really in a bad way when he met Sharon, she saved his life. He wouldn’t have lasted and we were really glad that he got himself together,” Geezer recalled of Ozzy’s unhealthy lifestyle. “We never lost touch with him. We were all really sad when he left the band but it was great to see him doing so well.”
The original line-up proved their bond when Ozzy, 68, first reunited with his bandmates for shows in 1997 and he was back in group properly when the Paranoid rockers released their last album, 2013’s 13.
