Ozzy Osbourne opens up about living with Parkinson’s disease
Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne has opened up about the difficulties of living with Parkinson’s disease. He discussed the condition at length in a new interview with The Observer, promoting his upcming album. Osbourne had first been diagnosed with the disease back in 2003.
Osbourne said of the illness, “You think you’re lifting your feet, but your foot doesn’t move. I feel like I’m walking around in lead boots. I reached a plateau that was lower than I wanted it to be. Nothing really felt great. Nothing.”
He added, “So I went on these antidepressants, and they work OK. You learn to live in the moment, because you don’t know [what’s going to happen]. You don’t know when you’re gonna wake up and you ain’t gonna be able to get out of bed. But you just don’t think about it.”
Osbourne was sure to thank his family, particularly his wife Sharon and daughter Kelly, for helping him during his battle with the illness, particularly during the lockdowns. He said: “Without my Sharon, I’d be fucking gone. We have a little row now and then, but otherwise we just get on with it.”
Ozzy had kept the severity of his condition away from the public for over 15 years, and only went public with the news of the disease in January 2020. He said that now that he has “owned up” to his fans, he “feels better”.
The Black Sabbath singer also underwent surgery in June to fix a previous surgery that had some ensuing complications. Sharon Osbourne said, “The screws had come loose, and were chipping away at the bone. And the debris had lodged under his spine. So his spine, instead of being like this, was like this [hunching over].”
Ozzy added, “With the pressing on the spinal column, I got nerve pain. I’d never fucking heard of nerve pain! You know when you’re a kid, and you’re playing with snow and your hands get really cold? Then you go in and you pour on hot water, and they start getting warm? And you get those chills? And it fucking hurts? It’s like that.”
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