The Osbourne family was shocked by Ozzy Osbourne’s death at 76.
“It was a surprise, for sure,” Ozzy’s son Jack Osbourne said on the Wednesday, March 4, episode of the “Hate to Break It to Ya” podcast. “Obviously, everyone knew he was sick … but we weren’t expecting it to be as quick as it was, you know?”
Ozzy, who confirmed his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 2020, died in July 2025 weeks after headlining a farewell concert in London with his Black Sabbath bandmates.
“I just think he was done,” Jack, 40, speculated on Wednesday’s episode. “I’d just left England to come home after the show. I went to the ‘Back to the Beginning’ gig with the family and we all hung around England for a few weeks. [Then,] I had to come back with [my] kids.”
Jack continued, “Right before I left, I was putting [my dad] to bed and he was brushing his teeth or whatever. He was looking at himself in the mirror, and he goes, ‘I think I’m going to cut my hair off.’ He’s, like, ‘I’ve retired. I’m not a rockstar anymore.’”
According to Jack, Ozzy’s comments about chopping off his signature mane potentially insinuated that “he was done” and “OK with his journey.” (Ozzy only once shaved off his hair in the 1980s, which Jack claimed was meant to “piss” his mom, Sharon Osbourne, off.)
“I do think we as people do have a choice to a degree,” Jack acknowledged of his dad’s death. “I think if you’re sick and your body’s primed and in a place where it’s, like, ‘Hey, you got a choice here.’ On a deep, spiritual level, I do think either consciously or subconsciously you’re, like, ‘OK, I’m ready to move on.’”
He added, “You see it all the time with elderly couples where one will pass and then, two days later, the perfectly healthy partner will pass just ‘cause they are, like, ‘No, I don’t want to be here.’”
Ozzy died 17 days after the final Black Sabbath gig.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning,” his family told Us Weekly in a July 2025 statement. “He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”
Ozzy is survived by wife Sharon, 73, his six children and multiple grandchildren. (Ozzy and Sharon were parents of three, and the rocker also shared three older kids with Thelma Riley.)
“I woke up in Los Angeles to a knock at my house door, at around 3:45 in the morning,” Jack recalled in a September 2025 video uploaded via YouTube. “Someone who’s worked for my family for probably 30 years now was knocking on my door. When I looked through my window and saw it was him, I just knew something bad had happened.”
He concluded, “I was informed that my father had passed. Immediately, I don’t know … just pain. Sadness and pain. So many thoughts. You go through this feeling [of] sadness and frustration and anger, but there was a level of like, OK, he’s not suffering anymore, he’s not struggling, and that is something.”
