Ozzy Osbourne is done touring, confirmed his wife and manager Sharon Osbourne, who also revealed that the metal legend plans on playing two hometown shows in Birmingham, England, to “say goodbye” to his fans.
Sharon made the declaration during her “Cut the Crap” spoken-word tour stop in London on Sunday night (January 21st). “He won’t tour again but we are planning on doing two more shows to say goodbye as he feels like, ‘I have never said goodbye to my fans and I want to say goodbye properly’,” stated Sharon (as transcribed by Rolling Stone UK).
She went on to say that the two shows would take place his hometown of Birmingham, presumably the soccer stadium Villa Park. “We will do it in Aston Villa where Ozzy is from,” Sharon revealed.
Sharon concluded, “His voice is still absolutely perfect. And all the time he has been off he still does his singing lessons so his voice is perfect. And he can joke, yeah. He has all these melodies in his head. Even if you don’t like his music you can’t not like Ozzy. He just draws you in.”
Ozzy embarked on what was supposed to be an extensive multi-leg farewell tour in 2018. While he was able to complete a couple of legs, including an initial North American run, a series of health setbacks have prevented him from playing another full show since his Ozzfest performance on December 31st, 2018.
In early 2019, he suffered a serious fall at home that dislodged metal rods that were inserted to his body many years earlier due to an ATV accident. He has since undergone multiple surgeries to correct the damage. He also revealed in early 2020 that he’s battling Parkinson’s disease since the early 2000s.
While Ozzy announced in February of last year that he was retiring from touring, he painted a brighter picture in September when he said he hoped to release one more album and “then go back on the road.”
In the years since that Ozzfest concert in 2018, he has only performed a few times, singing “Paranoid” with Tony Iommi at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022 and playing a couple tunes a month later at the NFL Kickoff at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. He also sang with Post Malone and Travis Scott at the American Music Awards in November 2019.