“The final straw”: The horrific and tragic day Ozzy Osbourne shot 17 cats
You don’t earn the nickname ‘The Prince of Darkness’ without stooping to lows unimaginable for most of the world’s normal populace. Yet, Ozzy Osbourne did just that for an extensive period. His list of notorious and often gross capers is the stuff of legend, consolidating his longstanding status as one of the metal genre’s founding fathers.
Osbourne might have infused rock music with ample darkness during his time with Black Sabbath, his wailing vocals amplifying Geezer Butler’s ominous lyrics, captivated audiences with their themes of the occult and science fiction. However, Osbourne didn’t leave that darkness behind when the music stopped. His life outside the band was equally shadowed by his infamous encounters with the darker sides of fame, solidifying his image as a figure perpetually dancing with the macabre.
While Sabbath might have recorded Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in a creepy castle in the Forest of Dean, and Butler claims to have been visited by a spectral figure one night after Osbourne gifted him a 16th-century book about magic that he’d stolen, their frontman continued to flirt with the darkness more dangerously than any of his bandmates or other metal pioneers, even Jimmy Page.
Although Page freaked out David Bowie so much with his occultism that the ‘Starman’ singer would spend the rest of his life avoiding him at all costs, this eerie moment is nothing in comparison to what Osbourne has experienced. Sure, he’s had his own moments of occult strangeness, but he’s also had many more of a much more palpable form of darkness.
Yes, Ozzy Osbourne infamously bit the head off a live bat, a moment that cemented his status as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ with its vampiric undertones, but that was just one of many macabre incidents in his career. His penchant for shocking behaviour didn’t stop there. Osbourne has been known to push the boundaries of iniquity to the max, whether it was allegedly lapping up Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx’s urine or reportedly biting the head off a live dove in front of horrified label executives. The latter incident was particularly infamous, as it was claimed he was escorted out of the building with blood dripping from his lips, only to double down on the horror by crunching the head off another dove.
There was a time when Osbourne’s drinking and drug taking was so bad that it had a disastrous effect on his home life. After being arrested for urinating on The Alamo in the 1980s – when his hellraising was at its very worst – Osbourne was asked why he was wearing one of his wife, Sharon’s, dresses. He allegedly told the police that to try to stop him from taking off for a week of debauchery, she’d confiscate all his clothes. But that wouldn’t stop him. Instead, he’d wear her stuff to go out in and would regularly be delivered back home in a heap, with vomit stains down the front of her garments, ruined forever.
It wasn’t just Sharon’s wardrobe that would feel the sting of Ozzy’s hellraising during this period; their cats did too, and they suffered a terrible fate, which is undoubtedly one of the darkest and most shocking moments in his life—that we know about. When speaking to The Scotsman in 2007, the former Black Sabbath frontman revealed that he massacred the family’s 17 cats when at the peak of his addictions. Unsurprisingly, this was the final indignity for his family.
He recalled plainly: “I was taking drugs so much I was a f*****. The final straw came when I shot all our cats. We had about 17, and I went crazy and shot them all. My wife found me under the piano in a white suit, a shotgun in one hand and a knife in the other.”
Ozzy Osbourne might have brought all forms of horror to life, but slaughtering 17 innocent cats in a drunken and drug-influenced stupor is frankly beyond the pale. Not only is the anecdote incredibly horrifying regarding the pure violence ‘The Prince of Darkness’ enacted, but the insouciance with which he retold the incident is bewildering. Killing just one sentient creature by accident is enough for most people to feel bad for the rest of their lives, but 17 in such a wanton way is enough to change the dimension of the rocker forever in many fans’ eyes, drugs or not.
