John Michael Osbourne or is famously known by his celebrity name ‘Ozzy Osbourne’ is an English professional music artist, singer, composer, and television personality. He is also called the ‘Prince of Darkness’ during his prominence in the 1970 as the lead singer of Black Sabbath.
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What is Ozzy Osbourne’s net worth?
Ozzy has an estimated net worth of over $200 million.
Most of his earnings came from his long history in the music industry. Other than that he has also ventured to other profitable opportunities. He pioneered one of the most famous music metal festival tours called the Ozzfest.
Up to this time, he continues to organize such events, his wife helped him by managing the events and his son also assisted. Ozzy and his wife are also active in the television industry by hosting tv events, reality shows, and band competitions. He also produced a publication of his autobiography, had his commercials, brandings, and video game investments.
How did Ozzy Osbourne get so rich?
Ozzy is one of the most successful artists in the industry of music, with this, he has profited more than hundreds of millions. Even before Ozzy and his wife became famous, it was believed that they had earned fair sums of money in their time.
The majority of his profits came from his music career, he has sold over 100 million albums in all his career. His Ozzfest and organized concerts were very profitable. It has an estimated gross profit of over $100 million.
By investing in his brands and products, he has earned an estimate of $50 million, making him the first heavy metal artist to have reached this amount through selling merchandise.
In addition, when he reunited with his former band ‘Black Sabbath’, he gained additional popularity and profit through television appearances and shows.
If we include his wife Sharon Osbourne, she also made hundreds of millions by supporting her husband as his manager. They were together when they started the Ozzfest. Apart from Ozzy, she had her own talent company called Sharon Osbourne Management that helps musicians. Two of their famous clients are Smashing Pumpkins and Motorhead.
The couple became popular television stars and they have earned an estimate of more than $15 million in the industry.
Early Years of Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne was born on December 3, 1948, in the town of Aston, Birmingham, England. His parents are Lilian and John Thomas Osbourne. His mother was a Catholic who had a day job working at a factory and his father was a toolmaker working night shifts at the General Electric Company. He has 5 siblings, three older sisters named Jean, Iris, and Gillian, and two younger brothers namely Paul and Tony.
They lived in a two-bedroom flat at 14 Lodge Road, Aston.
He got his nickname ‘Ozzy’ way back when he was still in primary school. At that early age, he encountered difficulties as a student because of his dyslexia.
It was not easy growing up for Ozzy, at the age of,11 he, unfortunately, experienced sexual abuse from his school bullies.
It was also in his school years that Ozzy found passion on the stage, he was actively participating in school plays like HMS Pinafore and The Mikado. He was quite distinctive as he uses a Brummie accent with a tune of hesitation.
His passion for music started at the early age of 14. It was that time he heard the first single released by The Beatles and from then on, he became a fan. He was very specific to remember their song ‘She Loves You’ that inspired him to become a musician. He knew instantly that he would be a rock star in the future.
At the age of 15, he left school to work on a construction site with multiple jobs such as a laborer, toolmaker apprentice, plumber apprentice, abattoir worker, and horn tuner in a car factory. At this age he also started to engage in criminal activities, he spent six weeks in prison for stealing clothes. For him to learn from his mistakes, his father did not pay for his fine.
Ozzy Osbourne Career Information
It was in late 1967 that Ozzy became part of a band that Geezer Butler formed. Initially, the band was short-lived as they broke up right after two shows. But Ozzy and Geezer were reunited again to create a band called ‘Earth’. In an incident that they were wrongly booked for a band that they shared a name with they decided to change its name and found their way to ‘Black Sabbath’, in 1969. The band name was based on a film with the same title. It tells the story of people being frightened and from there, the band incorporates it as they play heavy blues with a gloomy tune.
Their first song was inspired after Geezer woke up after reading an occult book and seeing a dark figure at the foot of his bedside.
The band built their infamous name around the unique eerie vocal of Ozzy, Geezer’s lyrical composition, Tony’s guitar riffs, and the heavy dark drum tempo of Bill. During that time, they were only given modest support from Warner Bros. Records.
It was an unexpected success for the band when they had their first album, but Ozzy appreciates it when they have chosen Don Arden as their new manager. Right after they released the song called ‘Paranoid’ it was followed through with ‘Master of Reality’. Their album reached the list of the top songs in both the UK and the US. In less than two months, the album was certified gold.
In 1980, the album received platinum certification and in the early 2000s went double platinum.
Continuing the release of their albums, it was a turning point in 1973 when they added a new album called ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’. It’s the first album where they received positive reviews from the community and press.
In 1978, Ozzy decided to leave the band to venture out as a solo artist. After three months and the request of his band member from Black Sabbath, he rejoined the group and went on a tour. It was a difficult time for the band when they recorded the album Never Say Die!. All of them were stoned most of the time recording and they just can’t get things right. They have to do the recordings over and over again. During their tour, many critics called them inspirational and just plain tired. The final tour before Ozzy last appeared in the band show was in 1978.
It was a conflicting time in 1979 with the other band members when Ozzy was asked to record over and over again while they kept on changing the tracks. It was from then on that the members voted to remove Ozzy from the band. He was replaced by Ronnie James Dio from the band Rainbow.
During his solo time again, he spent his share locked up doing coke and booze. Thinking that he will go back from where he started. But Don Ardern introduced and signed him to Jet Records so that he can keep himself on track. It was different from what he had imagined but he thrived by hovering around trying to earn a spot in a band. Finally, it was then that the Blizzard of Ozz came to fruition.
Part of his career success was the creation of Ozzfest. It is the biggest of his financial ventures earning him a large amount of profit.
Ozzy continued his passion and influence on music in the succeeding years and the 2000s he was able to produce albums, songs, and shows.
In 2011, the band reunited again to perform a tour featuring several artists and bands. In 2016, they started their farewell tour called ‘The End’, their final performance as a band. Later in 2017, they made a final show performance in Birmingham, England.
In 2020, Ozzy released an album after a decade. It gained positive reviews among critics and has reached the top three in the UK Albums Chart.
Another engagement in his career is the reality tv show called The Osbournes, which showed the realistic life of their family.
Ozzy Osbourne Awards and Achievements
As a legacy to music and heavy metal, Ozzy has made several contributions that earned him awards in the entertainment community.
It was in 1994 that the Grammy Award recognized one of his songs ‘I Don’t Want to Change the World’ as the Best Metal Performance award in that year. It was followed later in 2004 where he received the Godlike Genius Award from NME Awards in London, UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 as a member of Black Sabbath and as a solo artist, inducted in the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together with his bandmates in Black Sabbath in 2006, honored during the second year of VH1 Rock Honors in 2007, honored with a bronze star to his name placed on the Broad Street Birmingham, a first inductee of The Birmingham Walk of Stars, crowned as a Living Legend Award by the Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards in 2008, received the Literary Achievement from the Guys Choice Awards in 2010, receives the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement by the British Academy of Songwriters in 2015, and was inducted into the celebrity WWE Hall of Fame because of his numerous appearances in the events of 1986, in 2021.
It is also worth mentioning that he was an honored judge for the 6th, 10th, and 11th Independent Music Awards that supports independent artists’ professions.
Famous Quotes by Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy is regarded as one of the best musicians during his time He revolutionized heavy metal that he was titled the ‘Godfather of Heavy Metal’. His songs are well known for their profundity and depth of meaning.
Other than that, he has also shared several quotes that are both inspirational and motivational. Here are some of his famous quotes.
“Out of everything I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most!”
“Maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.”
“Hating people isn’t a productive way of living. So what’s the point in hating anyone? There’s enough hate in the world as it is, without me adding to it.”
“I love you all; I love you more than life itself, but you’re all fucking mad.”
“You learn who your friends are when the shit hits the fan.”
“I’m a lunatic by nature, and lunatics don’t need training – they just are.”
“What can go wrong will go wrong.”
“I used to get upset by people not understanding me, but I’ve made a career out of it now.”
“When you’re in love, it’s not just about the messing around in the sack, it’s about how empty you feel when they’re gone.”
“The funny thing is, I was never much of a fighter. Better live a coward than a dead hero, that was my motto.”
“The power of people, when they focus on something positive, never fails to amaze me.”
“You’ve got to try and take things to the next level, or you’ll just get stuck in a rut.”
“They teach you how to handle life in England, but they don’t teach you a thing about death. There’s no book telling you what to do when your mum or dad dies.”
“Still, one of the few good things about being dyslexic is that when I say I don’t read reviews, I mean I don’t read reviews.”
“But one of the many problems with being an alcoholic is that when people tell you how bad you are when you’re drunk, you’re usually drunk. So you just keep getting drunk.”
As you have read, these are short and powerful phrases. His influence came from his long history and exposure to different experiences. Some of them teach us how we should value ourselves and just don’t believe what others may criticize us. It also promotes equality, love, and peace.
