Ozzy Osbourne was once convinced that Eric Clapton was stalking him
Ozzy Osbourne‘s drug and alcohol use was well documented. It largely contributed to Ozzy being kicked out of Black Sabbath in 1979 and being replaced by Ronnie James Dio. Sabbath were pretty much always high, and this led to many tensions in the band.
Osbourne would continue to use drugs for much of his adult life. In fact, he said he can hardly remember filming The Osbournes as he was constantly stoned. Ozzy’s use of illicit substances would play an effect on his mental well-being, and he once recalled an instance of paranoia surrounding meeting Eric Clapton.
“Many, many years ago, me and Sharon were in New York, and we were dressed to go to an award show,” Ozzy said. “Everybody was there. I was still doing drugs and alcohol; I was freaked out. So we go to this award show, and afterwards, there’s me, Grace Jones – the chick I did the award show with – and they wanted a picture of Eric Clapton, me, and Grace Jones.”
He added, “He’d just come out of someplace, so he was freaked out too, which I didn’t know right. I’d convinced myself that he was going to stop this photograph from being taken. I never saw him [then] for the longest time, and I went to an AA meeting in the valley many years later, ten years later. I turned around in this AA meeting, and there at the back was Eric Clapton, and I was like ‘fucking hell’.”
Like Ozzy, Clapton had suffered from his own addiction problem. He used heroin, cocaine and alcohol as a coping mechanism for the pressures that come with being one of the most famous guitarists of all time. So it’s unsurprising, really, that he would join Ozzy in the AA meeting in Los Angeles.
Ozzy continued, “I’m thinking ‘he still remembers how much he hates me’. So I’m going along thinking, ‘at the end of the meeting, I’m going out that door, I’m fucking legging it’. I’m thinking, ‘he hates me; he’s gonna call me the biggest cunt he’s ever met’.”
He added, “So I cross the road and get in the car and drive off. [Then] a couple of weeks later, I go again and there he is again. I’m paranoid as fuck. So I’m just about to get in my car and drive off, and he goes, ‘Ozzy’. I think, ‘Here we go’. He goes, ‘Good to see you in the room’. We had a chat, and I thought, ‘what a nice guy’. The following week I picked up a music magazine, and that photo is in the first magazine I picked up. I’m thinking, ‘he likes me now’.
