Ozzy Osbourne ‘tried to stab’ Black Sabbath replacement when they first met
The King of Darkness had a longstanding grudge against his fellow rock legend.
Sharon Osbourne has revealed Ozzy ‘tried to stab’ his Black Sabbath replacement.
The late War Pigs rock legend, who died aged 76 on July 22 just weeks after his final ever show in his hometown of Birmingham, had a longstanding rivalry with Ronnie James Dio after he joined the Paranoid rockers in 1979.
Rock icon Ozzy had been fired from the group with the Rainbow frontman, who died in 2010, replacing him as lead vocalist alongside founding members Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler.
In new Paramount+ documentary Ozzy: No Escape From Now, which is set to drop on October 7, Sharon recalled how Ozzy changed his stance on Dio during his final years.
As reported by Rolling Stone, Sharon revealed her late husband watched lots of TV, including shows about World War II, Vietnam, murderers, and a lot of old Dio interviews.
‘It was like, ‘Why are you watching Ronnie?,”‘ she said. ‘He goes, “I feel sorry for him. I feel terrible.” He never really listened to any of those [Black Sabbath] records at all.
Ronnie James Dio was hired as Ozzy’s replacement in Black Sabbath (Picture: Ray Garbo/Shutterstock) The former Rainbow frontman joined in 1979 (Picture: Andre Csillag/Shutterstock)‘He never knew Ronnie. The first time he met him was when he tried to stab him at the Rainbow … with a fork.
‘He never really knew the guy and never knew his music. So he feels really bad. So he watches Ronnie James Dio interviews and I’m like, “What the f**k are you doing?”‘
Dio was part of the Sabbath lineup from 1979 to 1982, before joining again for a brief reunion across 1991 and 1992.
Ozzy had been kicked out by his bandmates (Picture: Chris Walter/WireImage) He never listened to Dio’s music with Sabbath (Picture: Pete Still/Redferns)After Dio’s death 15 years ago, Ozzy said: ‘Metal has lost one of its greatest voices.’
In 2022, the Changes hitmaker he was able to offer a different assessment on his replacement, admitting he did a ‘good job’.
‘At the time I was f**king sad because … they were the only thing that ever really happened to me,’ he said on SiriusXM’s Ozzy Speaks show.
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Previous Page Next PageHe praised his former bandmates for enlisting ‘somebody completely different’ instead of one of the ‘Ozzy sound-alikes’ gunning for the role.
Despite growing to respect Dio, he couldn’t bring himself to listen to Sabbath albums from that era – including Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules.
‘It’s like my ex-wife … [when] you leave a band like that, it’s just like getting divorced,’ he explained. ‘You don’t go, “How’s your new bloke? Is he better than me?”‘
Sharon recalled her husband trying to attack Dio with a fork (Picture: Greg Doherty/Getty Images)Ozzy, who would later rejoin Sabbath in 1997, described Dio as ‘the best thing that every happened’ to his bandamtes as they ‘had a good start again’.
Speaking to Kerrang! around the same time, guitarist Tony Iommi described Dio as ‘a different singer altogether’, and said: ‘We wanted somebody who was different; we didn’t want to bring somebody in who was gonna sound similar to Ozz.
‘So it was good to have somebody totally different, and Ronnie’s voice and the way he approached the songs allowed us to be able to try different things in a different way than what we’d done before.
‘It opened up a lot more variety for us, really.’
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