Ozzy Osbourne has revealed why he believes he only has 10 years ‘at best’ left to live.
The lead vocalist of heavy metal band Black Sabbath may have been dubbed a ‘genetic mutant’ by a geneticist in 2010, but Osbourne – aka the Prince of Darkness – thinks his time may be coming and within the next decade.
The 74-year-old revealed he had open back surgery earlier this year and he’s since opened up about his health predictions for the future.
As a result of a fall in 2019 – which dislodged metal rods placed in his spine following a quad bike crash in 2003 – Osbourne underwent multiple surgeries on his back.
The ‘second surgery’ which took place earlier this year went ‘drastically wrong’ and ‘virtually left [him] crippled,’ Osbourne tells Rolling Stone.
The singer explains: “It’s really knocked me about. I thought I’d be up and running after the second and third, but with the last one they put a f**king rod in my spine. They found a tumour in one of the vertebrae, so they had to dig all that out too.
“It’s pretty rough, man, and my balance is all f**ked up.”
The tumour is another health concern on top of Osbourne’s Parkinson’s – the singer first diagnosed with the progressive disorder in 2003, but only speaking out about it publicly in 2020.
“Every time I scratch my a**e, they put it down to Parkinson’s!” he says. “I’m getting pi**ed off reading the papers, and they’re saying things like ‘Ozzy is fighting his last battle’. He’s sung his last ‘Paranoid’. You know, I don’t even think about Parkinson’s that much.”
While he doesn’t think about his Parkinson’s that much, Osbourne has thought about dying, noting he doesn’t ‘fear’ it but doesn’t ‘want to have a painful and miserable existence’.
He jokes he told wife, Sharon, he smoked a joint ‘recently’ and she got angry, telling him it would ‘kill’ him.
“I said, ‘How long do you want me to f**king live for?!” Osbourne adds.
Osbourne is already in disbelief he made it to his 41st wedding anniversary, joking he stands in the mirror and questions how he’s still here.
“I’m not boasting about any of it because I should have been dead a thousand times. I’ve had my stomach pumped God knows how many times.”
Reflecting how time ‘picks up speed’ as you age, Osbourne predicts ‘at best’ he has ‘ten years left’.
And within those 10 years he wants to make sure he is ‘well enough to do one show’ where he can say: “Hi guys, thanks so much for my life.”
Osbourne resolves: “That’s what I’m working towards, and if I drop down dead at the end of it, I’ll die a happy man.”
