The metal band Sharon Osbourne tried her best to ruin: “I got 200 Hispanic kids”
Back in 2005, Sharon Osbourne rolled her sleeves up and set to work on orchestrating as much grief as possible for one of the biggest names in heavy metal.
It all began on Ozzfest. Enjoying its tenth anniversary, the touring metal festival had corralled some of the day’s biggest heavy bands, the likes of Rob Zombie, Killswitch Engage, Mudvayne, and the classic Black Sabbath line-up, all played mammoth shows across 26 dates dotted around the States. Joining Sabbath as co-headliner was the leading force of the new wave of British heavy metal, one Iron Maiden.
Sharon had managed to curate an impressive bill, and to the delight of Maiden fans, the co-headliners had promised a set comprised solely of their first four classic LPs. Yet, whispers and rumours began to spread concerning frontman Bruce Dickinson’s waning enthusiasm for the whole Ozzfest gig. Before long, such grievances were expressed openly backstage, reportedly lambasting the festival’s commercialism, ticket pricing, and the quality of the venues’ PA systems.
Then he got personal. Supposedly, Dickinson started taking swipes at reality TV, which took potshots far too close to MTV’s The Osbournes, mocked Ozzy’s need for a lyrical teleprompter, and bellowed infrequently, “This is not Ozzfest, this is Maidenfest!”
Don Arden’s daughter was never going to let such alleged slights slide, no matter how spurious and unverified. Whatever the substance of such claims, and on the back of very real gripes Dickinson had let slip to the press, Sharon had planned her revenge on Iron Maiden’s final show of Ozzfest on August 20th in Los Angeles.
Taking the stage at San Bernardino’s Hyundai Pavilion, Iron Maiden were met with jeering chants of “Ozzy! Ozzy!” over the PA, sound issues, and a volley of eggs lobbed from the audience. By the end of ‘The Trooper’ and decked in British Army cavalry gear with the Union Jack flag in hand, Dickinson spits a narked message to the egg throwers at the front.
“You might have noticed that a few wise-asses decided they would go down the supermarket and buy a few fucking eggs and start throwing them at us down the front,” Dickinson seethed. “I guess they thought they’d be funny, but this is an English fucking flag, and these colours do not run from US whites!”
It wasn’t an English flag, but still, the Maiden camp had every right to be angry. After urging fans to break any further egg throwers’ arms “in two fucking pieces,” the sound would drop from their set entirely, returning and failing several times through their ten-song set. After leaving the stage following ‘Sanctuary’, Sharon came to the mic and stated, “Bruce Dickinson is a prick”, angering Maiden fans to such a degree that supposedly much of the audience left the venue before Black Sabbath’s set out of protest.
Was Sharon responsible? Of course she was. As well as help from her daughter, Kelly, and the faithful road crew, Ozzy’s wife and longtime manager admitted as such in 2005, revealing she’d cut Iron Maiden’s sound due to Dickinson’s mud-slinging. The next year on The Howard Stern Show, she was even more candid: “I got 200 Hispanic kids, loaded them with eggs, they had peanut butter, they fucking pelted the shit out of them. Then I went on stage, and I said, ‘Look, don’t fuck with us. Don’t be disrespectful; this is what you get.’”
Ozzy never seemed to be the kind of bloke to hold a grudge, and supposedly both Dickinson and Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris had downplayed the incident in later years, which the old Black Sabbath singer seemed to accept. Less can be said for his wife, however, who, as recently as 2022, blasted to Consequence, “Bruce Dickinson is a fucking prick. Well, no, he’s not a prick because a prick’s nice. He’s a fucking asshole.”
