Ozzy Osborne is on the road to recovery after a “major operation,” his wife, Sharon, said Tuesday while thanking fans for their support.
Appearing on last Friday’s episode of “The Talk UK,” Sharon announced that Ozzy would need surgery in Los Angeles and that she’d be flying out to be with him, taking her away from the show for the next month.
“He has a very major operation on Monday, and I have to be there,” Sharon said on the show. “It’s really going to determine the rest of his life.”
Neither Osbourne gave further details on the procedure, but Page Six reported that Osbourne had had several pins in his neck and back removed and realigned. Last month, Osbourne alluded to needing surgery in the area while speaking with Classic Rock magazine for its 300th issue.
“I’m just waiting on some more surgery on my neck,” he said in that interview. “I can’t walk properly these days. I have physical therapy every morning. I am somewhat better, but nowhere near as much as I want to be to go back on the road.”
On Tuesday, Sharon thanked fans for their support and provided an update on Ozzy’s health via Instagram.
“Our family would like to express so much gratitude for the overwhelming amount of love and support leading up to Ozzy’s surgery,” his wife wrote. “Ozzy is doing well and on the road to recovery! Your love means the world to him.”
Two years ago, Ozzy revealed that he had Parkinson’s disease, a brain disorder that can cause slow movement, stiffness and loss of balance, among other issues. Speaking with The Times in 2020, he said that he’d been diagnosed with the disease in 2003 and that he was on medication to manage it.
“I’m not dying from Parkinson’s. I’ve been working with it most of my life,” he said. “I’ve cheated death so many times. If tomorrow you read ‘Ozzy Osbourne never woke up this morning,’ you wouldn’t go, ‘Oh, my God.’ You’d go, ‘Well, it finally caught up with him.’”
Later that year, he said his most pressing health issues were related to a fall he took in 2019 that left him with lingering pain.
“I’d hit the floor at such a force that I pinched my spinal column,” Osbourne told the Sun in 2020. “They had to go in and open the passage. They had to cut through nerves to get there and it’s f–ked my neck, my back, my shoulders and my arms. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as f–king nerve pain.”