Ozzy Osbourne wrote that his family thought 'he was a goner' months before he died

Ozzy Osbourne's family "thought [he] was a goner" back in January.

The Black Sabbath frontman passed away in July, aged 76, just weeks after his star-studded farewell Back to the Beginning concert in Birmingham but in his upcoming posthumous autobiography, Last Rites, Ozzy - who suffered from Parkinson's disease and other health issues - detailed how he was getting "weaker by the day" earlier this year after contracting sepsis after having spinal surgery.

In an extract from the book published by The Times, he wrote: "We were supposed to leave LA for Welders House, our place in Buckinghamshire, in early December 2024, giving me a good seven months to prepare for my big send-off at Villa Park in July. Instead my back went again.

"Then I got pneumonia, which is bad enough for a normal person, never mind someone with Parkinson’s. It kicked off my emphysema, causing one of my lungs to go down.

"My doctor flat-out refused to operate on my back. He said I was too weak, that the recovery could kill me. But I didn’t want to hear it. Neither did Sharon. So we went and got a second opinion, then a third, until eventually a team at Cedars-Sinai hospital said they’d give it a shot.

"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 shit 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.

"And of course when they put me on antibiotics for it, that churned up my guts so badly I couldn’t get any food down, so I was getting weaker by the day. Sharon didn’t tell me at the time, but the whole family basically thought I was a goner. They sat at the bottom of the stairs and sobbed their hearts out."

And Ozzy admitted he was resigned to his own demise by that point.

He added: "As for me, I was like, OK, I’ve had a good run, it’s game over now. But after two months of antibiotics — on a twice-a-day IV drip — somehow bounced back. I honestly couldn’t believe it. The sepsis hadn’t killed me. I was gonna live to do my last show.

"I celebrated by getting pneumonia again."

The Paranoid hitmaker felt death had been looming for the last six years but he had stopped worrying about it, though he insisted he wasn't "ready to go".

He wrote: "Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder. And at some point I’m gonna have to let him in. The funny thing is, I used to worry more about my mortality when I was younger.

"It’s weird. You get closer to the end — the very thing you were scared of your whole life — and suddenly the weight’s lifted off you. Not that I’m ready to go. But I’ve had a good run. I think I made a mark on the world. And I’m glad I didn’t check out early, like so many others.

"It’s just crazy how quickly a lifetime goes. I say to my kids, get out there, travel, do your thing, ’cos when you start going downhill it becomes a different f****** world, believe you me. Life’s so short.*