Rod Stewart celebrates Ozzy Osbourne with strange AI video featuring other dead musicians
Rod Stewart has been honouring the late Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne in a strange fashion with the help of artificial intelligence on his current North American tour.
Following the death of the rock icon on July 22nd, Stewart initially took to Instagram to share a tribute to the late musical pioneer, writing, “Bye, bye Ozzy. Sleep well, my friend. I’ll see you up there — later rather than sooner.”
Then, at his next show, Stewart showed an image of Osbourne on stage before dedicating ‘Forever Young’ to the Black Sabbath frontman. However, since then, the photo has morphed into a strange AI video montage, which sees Osbourne taking selfies in heaven with a number of dead musicians.
In the clip, Osbourne is seen, with the aid of a selfie stick, posing for photos with late stars such as Janis Joplin, Prince, Tina Turner, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Aaliyah, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, George Michael, Kurt Cobain, XXXTentacion, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse.
After showing the video to fans at his show at the PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte, North Carolina, Stewart said, per the Charlotte Observer, to those in attendance: “Very sad, a lot of those people died ’cause of drugs. I’m still here, though.”
Osbourne’s funeral took place on July 31st at his family home near Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire, which was attended by a number of musicians, including his Black Sabbath bandmates. The singer was buried, as he requested, near a lake at their sprawling 250-acre property in rural England.
On July 30th, the public paid farewell to Osbourne and came out in their thousands to support his family in Birmingham for his funeral procession at Black Sabbath Bridge. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Zafar Iqbal, said of the procession: “It was incredibly emotional for me to see her and the family. They are such a loving family and you can see how loving they are.”
Many musical acts have paid tasteful tributes to Osbourne since his death. Cage the Elephant covered ‘Changes’ at Lollapalooza, and Oasis dedicated ‘Rock N Roll Star’ to Osbourne at Wembley Stadium after unfurling an LED banner of the vocalist while performing ‘Live Forever’.
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