Originally appeared on E! Online
Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne lived the spectrum of their vows to each other a hundred times over.
“It’s incredible to think that I’ve had more of my life with Ozzy in it than without him,” Sharon Osbourne, who met the Black Sabbath frontman when she was 18, told Rolling Stone in 2023. “I just can’t think of my life without him in it. It’s unthinkable for me.”
But the 72-year-old knew it was a looming possibility. Ozzy died July 22 at 76, five years after sharing his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
“It’s just been heartbreaking for me to see my husband in a position where he’s not self-sufficient, he needs help,” Sharon Osbourne, who wed Ozzy Osbourne in 1982, told the Daily Mail in 2023. “He was so vibrant, with such a zest for life. But you learn to adapt.”
And she had experience adjusting to fit the moment, her marriage to music’s “Prince of Darkness” falling nowhere within the realm of easy. But it was the life she chose and — even though she pressed pause on it a few times — she stuck with her true love until the end.
PHOTOS Ozzy Osbourne, Rock Legend, Dead at 76
“I’ve never loved anyone as much as I’ve loved him,” Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone, “Our relationship hasn’t been rainbows and roses the whole time, and it’s been really tough. But that’s life, isn’t it? I just know that my life is better with my husband in it than it is without him.”
Though she met the then-22-year-old rocker (born John Michael Osbourne) in 1970, when her father Don Arden was Black Sabbath’s manager, their romance didn’t blossom until almost a decade later when she began managing Ozzy Osbourne’s career.
Together, the parents of Aimee Osbourne, 41, Kelly Osbourne, 40, and Jack Osbourne, 39, weathered his substance abuse issues and multiple trips to rehab, his infidelity, her battle with colon cancer, Jack’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis and everything else they encountered.
Their relationship also survived “The Osbournes,” the hit MTV reality show that followed the profanity-laced lives of Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack (Aimee took a hard pass) from 2002 to 2005.
PHOTOS Osbourne Family Tree
Still, life with Ozzy Osbourne had its challenges, Sharon Osbourne taking a month off from “The Talk” in 2015 amid what her rep called at the time “mental and physical fatigue.”
It was “just life,” she told Howard Stern about her retreat from the spotlight. “I couldn’t take it. My head fused.”
They separated the following year, but Ozzy Osbourne was quick to call it “a bump in the road.”
“It’s back on track again” he said on Good Morning America in July 2016. “Some days are good. Some days are terrible. Some days you just drift apart for a while but you get back on the horse.”
His fairer half would agree.
“No relationship is easy, and you have to work at it,” Sharon Osbourne told E! News in 2023. “You get your ugly times, your bad times and your horrific times. But if you love each other enough, you’ll work through.”
In their final years together, they relished being grandparents, Jack a father of four daughters — Pearl, Andy and Minnie with ex-wife Lisa Stelly and Maple with wife Aree Gearhart — and Kelly sharing son Sidney with fiancé Sid Wilson.
“I never had a chance to see much of my kids growing up because I was always on the road,” Ozzy Osbourne told Rolling Stone in 2023. “But being at home has allowed me to do that as a grandad, and little Sid is just f—— great.”
“I do count my lucky stars,” he added. “I don’t know why I’m still here and I do sometimes think I’m on borrowed time. I said to Sharon the other day, ‘What a great f—— life we’ve had and what a great f—– experience.’”
PHOTOSOzzy Osbourne, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2024
