Ozzy Osbourne was close friends with many rock musicians—his star-studded July 5 farewell show, Back to the Beginning, was proof of that—but there was one fellow British rocker whom he liked to poke fun at, and he did it right up until the end.
In the Paramount+ posthumous documentary about Osbourne, Ozzy: No Escape From Now, the Black Sabbath singer took a final swipe at Sting while talking about his life as a rock star.
“I can’t complain, I was actively rocking until I was 70,” Osbourne said in the documentary, per The New York Post. He then added, “Hey, it could be worse. I could have been Sting.”
It was far from the first time Osbourne, who died on July 22 at age 76, took a jab at Sting. The Police frontman’s polished style was in stark contrast to Osbourne’s heavy metal madman persona.
In the “Dinner With Ozzy” episode of Osbourne’s 2002 MTV reality show, he talked about the things in his life he was “not proud of,” including his poor education and past drug and alcohol abuse.
“I’m not proud about biting the head off a bat. I’m not proud of a lot of things, but I’m a real guy, you know, with real feelings,” Osbourne said. “And I suppose that that kind of scares me sometimes, to be Ozzy Osbourne. But it could be worse. I could be Sting.”
So what was the beef between Osbourne and Sting?
In a 2000 interview with Rolling Stone, Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, provided some insight. After calling the “Roxanne” singer “Lord Sting,” she explained, “We call him Lord Sting because he’s licking a– big time to try to get knighted. Such a f–ing a—licker. I mean, he’s hugely talented. But he’s such a prat. And he’s taken big-time digs at Ozzy in the press.”
“He said that he was so glad that the first Western artist to be seen in Vietnam was him, because what would have happened if they’d seen Ozzy Osbourne first?” she claimed.
Sharon, who served as her husband’s manager, added that she and Ozzy ran into Sting at a cocktail party thrown by Elton John, but they stayed away. “There’s Sting and his wife looking at us like, ‘Please don’t talk to us.’ I was looking at them like, ‘Don’t f—ing worry, I ain’t coming near you,’” she recalled.
Osbourne and Sting seemingly made amends a few years later. The two rockers were photographed together at the Benefit the Elton John Aids Foundation Dinner in 2004 and at the 21st Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2006.
Ozzy: No Escape From Now drops Oct. 7 on Paramount+.
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