Perhaps the most notorious of Ozzy Osbourne’s outrageous on-stage antics was biting the head off of a bat. So as tributes for the late rocker poured in from around the globe, one stuck out as particularly surprising – from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).
The 76-year-old Black Sabbath frontman’s death was announced on Tuesday, with his family saying Osbourne – who suffered from various ailments, including a form of Parkinson’s disease – “was with his family and surrounded by love”.
Tributes soon poured in for Osbourne from musical world luminaries such as Elton John, Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart … and Peta, the famously strident animal-protection group.
“Ozzy Osbourne was a legend and a provocateur, but Peta will remember the ‘Prince of Darkness’ most fondly for the gentle side he showed to animals – most recently cats, by using his fame to decry painful, crippling declawing mutilations,” Peta said on its website and social channels.
“Ozzy may have been the singer, but his wife, Sharon, and his daughter, Kelly, were of one voice when it meant protecting animals.
“Ozzy will be missed by animal advocates the world over.”
Osbourne had famously partnered with the organisation in 2020 to speak out against the declawing of cats, and lent his face to an ad campaign showing his bloodied hands with the tagline, “It’s an amputation. Not a manicure.”
“Amputating a cat’s toes is twisted and wrong. If your couch is more important to you than your cat’s health and happiness, you don’t deserve to have an animal! Get cats a scratching post – don’t mutilate them for life,” Osbourne was quoted as saying at the time.
Peta suggests that those looking to protect their pets to seek out “humane ways to prevent cats from scratching on furniture”.
As well as biting the head off a dead bat he believed to be a stage prop in 1982 while performing in Iowa – and later going to hospital for a rabies inoculation – Osbourne also claimed to bitten the heads off two doves during a record label meeting the year before, supposedly having brought them to the meeting to release as a sign of peace.
