Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne (1948–2025) was a British singer and television personality whose career helped define heavy metal and then, decades later, made its most notorious frontman a fixture of mainstream family television. As the voice of Black Sabbath, he helped give early heavy metal its weight, dread and theatrical darkness through songs including “Black Sabbath,” “War Pigs” and “Paranoid.”

After leaving the band in 1979, Osbourne rebuilt himself as a solo artist with albums including Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, turning his high, cutting voice and macabre stage persona into a second major career. His influence extended through Ozzfest and, unexpectedly, MTV’s The Osbournes, which exposed the domestic life behind the “Prince of Darkness” persona to a mass television audience.