Ozzy Osbourne wanted back-up plan in case he was too sick for reunion gig
Late rock legend Ozzy Osbourne wanted a back-up plan to be drawn up in case he was too ill to take to the stage at the Black Sabbath reunion gig after he was admitted to hospital just weeks before the Back To The Beginning gig.
Ozzy Osbourne wanted a back-up plan drawn up in case he was too ill to perform at the Black Sabbath reunion gig.
The late rock legend was admitted to hospital in May just days after moving back to the UK with his wife Sharon after years living in Los Angeles and Ozzy feared his health might prevent him from appearing with his former bandmates at the huge gig in his hometown of Birmingham in July so he wanted a video made to replace him.
In an extract from his posthumous memoir Last Rites, which was published in The Times newspaper, Ozzy wrote: "Three days after we finally got to England I was back in hospital.
"My blood pressure kept me there for eight days, during which I had nothing to do but worry. Because the show kept getting bigger.
"As all these huge names were announced – Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Steven Tyler from Aerosmith – I was like, holy f***, it’s gonna be like metal’s answer to Live Aid.
"Lying in bed at night I’d be like, I can’t go, I can’t do this. I kept saying to Sharon, we’d better get a video made ’cos there’ll be an empty stage.
"She just looked at me like I was mad. She knows me better than I do. She knew I was just scared."
Sharon refused to let Ozzy make a back-up video and told him he would get up on that stage anyway even if his health prevented him from singing.
He added: "Sharon said: ‘Look, there’ll be no backup plan. No video. No prerecorded anything. If you can’t sing on the night, just talk to the crowd and thank them. All you need to do is get up there and be Ozzy'."
In the book, the Iron Man star admitted his health issues - which included Parkinson's disease and back troubles - nearly killed him before he moved back from the US.
He wrote: "They put me under in the middle of January and filled the cracks in my dodgy vertebra with this human cement stuff. I mean, I’ve got so many plates and bolts inside me already, why not pour a slab of concrete in there too?
"Then I got sepsis. It really was touch and go. I mean, at my age, with Parkinson’s and blood clots and all the other s*** that’s going on, I had about as much chance of surviving a major sepsis infection as I did of winning the next season of Love Island ...
"The whole family basically thought I was a goner."
Ozzy died aged 76 just two weeks after his star-studded final concert.
