Ozzy Osbourne obituary: A wild life of heavy metal, reality TV, and biting bats

Singer who found fame with Black Sabbath, launched the Ozzfest rock festival and became a reality TV star

Ozzy Osbourne in May 2010. Picture: Mick Hutson/Redferns)

If a single individual could be said to embody the attributes of heavy metal, it would be Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other disorders. 

In a career stretching across six decades, Ozzy Osbourne became a star with Black Sabbath in the 1970s, launched a hugely successful solo career in the 1980s, turned himself into a heavy metal entrepreneur in the 1990s with his travelling Ozzfest rock festival, and in 2002 became an unlikely but wildly successful reality TV star, thanks to the MTV show The Osbournes.