It has been 15 months since Ozzy Osbourne died at 76 at his home in Buckinghamshire, less than three weeks after a triumphant farewell concert with Black Sabbath in Birmingham. His widow, Sharon Osbourne, says she still visits his grave — in the family's own garden — every day.
"He was just so, so happy" after that final show, Sharon told the BBC, recalling how Ozzy had gone through reviews online afterward, bewildered that critics had been kind to him. On the morning he died, the couple had spoken in the night. "He goes, 'Hold me, hold me tight,' and I did," she said. "And then the next thing I know, it's early in the morning, and someone comes rushing into the room saying, 'Come down now.' I ran down, and that was it."
A private grave, after a very public grief
Thousands of fans lined the streets of Birmingham for Ozzy's funeral procession, laying floral tributes and singing Black Sabbath songs as his hearse passed, topped with a purple floral cross. Sharon chose not to bury him in a public cemetery. "There was no way I could put Ozzy in a public graveyard," she said. "I've seen what happens to other people in the public eye. There's no peace because people want to come and they want to pay their respects. That's an ongoing thing, and I wanted Ozzy to rest and just be." She still talks to him regularly, she said, declining to share what about.
Fifty years, highs and terrible lows
Ozzy and Sharon's relationship spanned more than five decades, from meeting in 1970 to marrying in 1982, through a turbulent history that included a 1989 arrest for attempted murder — charges Sharon later dropped — and a brief 2016 separation amid rumors of infidelity. "It was an unusual relationship because we had such highs and such terrible lows," she said, but at the end of his life, "he knew" how loved he was.
That love is the subject of a new family-sanctioned documentary about Ozzy's final concert at Birmingham's Villa Park, where he reunited one last time with Black Sabbath. The family has collected, sorted and photographed the thousands of cards and letters sent by fans, while the mountains of flowers left outside their home were composted for the family garden — the same garden where Ozzy is now buried.