Ozzy Osbourne's "Last Rites" was in the works for several years before his July 2025 death.
Ozzy Osbourne in the hospital when he first got a staph infection in his thumb.
Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne (center) with daughter Kelly (left), son Jack (right) and their respective partners and children.

It’s tempting to flip to the end of “Last Rites” to read some of Ozzy Osbourne’s final thoughts written down mere weeks before his death.

But that would deny the pleasure of reading 345 pages of Osbourne’s plainspoken, expletive-peppered wit and negate the point of him sharing blunt descriptions of the physical agony he experienced his last several years.

Osbourne wrote “Last Rites” (Hachette Book Group, out now) with Chris Ayres, an author and contributing editor at British GQ who also cowrote Osbourne’s 2010 bestselling memoir, “I Am Ozzy.”

That book delved into Osbourne’s childhood in Birmingham, England; his evolution as the frontman for Black Sabbath and as a solo star; meeting Sharon, his manager and wife of 43 years at the time of his July death; and frightening substance indulgences.

While there are still callbacks to some of the most famous myths and realities that followed his career – yes, he did bite the head off a dove in a record label meeting while “36 hours into a 72-hour bender,” and yes, he did nip the neck of a bat thrown onstage at an Iowa concert and “realized very quickly it wasn’t made of rubber” – this book focuses on the heartbreaking physical deterioration of the Prince of Darkness.

It’s terrain also covered in the heartfelt new Paramount+ documentary, “Ozzy: No Escape From Now.” But in written form, Osbourne’s recollections about his numerous spinal surgeries that started after he misjudged the location of the bed after getting up for a nighttime bathroom visit and cracking his head on the floor rivet with conversational detail.

Much sadness is reported as Osbourne navigated not only surgeries, but staph infections, bouts of pneumonia, sepsis and blood clots, which all led to the end of a still-flourishing touring career. But there is also much love.

Osbourne frequently cites his adoration of Sharon (they agreed to be buried together years before his death), his children and the music that he says kept him alive.

At the end of the book, which son Jack says Osbourne finished days before his death at age 76, the rock icon is almost eerily contemplative.

“I used to worry more about my mortality when I was younger,” Osbourne writes. “It’s weird. You get closer to the end – the very thing you were scared of your whole life – and suddenly the weight’s lifted off you. Not that I’m ready to go. But I’ve had a good run. I think I made a mark on the world. And I’m glad I didn’t check out early, like so many others.”

Here are some other revelations in “Last Rites.”

Why Ozzy Osbourne thought Van Halen ‘finished off’ Black Sabbath

After being upstaged years earlier by a nascent KISS as Black Sabbath’s opening act, Osbourne and the band wanted a solid supporting act “but you didn’t want to upstage yourselves.”

For Sabbath’s 1978 Never Say Die! tour, a young “little bar band in L.A.” unknown at the time was tapped as openers. At the first date, Osbourne and his Sabbath mates watched from behind the stage as a 23-year-old Eddie Van Halen sank to his knees to play the revolutionary instrumental, “Eruption.”

“Eddie is under the spotlight, his hands in places on the fretboard that shouldn’t be possible, his fingers seeming to move faster than the speed of light,” Osbourne recalls.

At that moment, Osbourne knew Sabbath was plodding where Van Halen was soaring. “Metal was evolving and it felt like we weren’t keeping up,” he says.

Ozzy Osbourne was unimpressed with Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary

After learning in 2021 that he needed another round of corrective surgeries to fix his disintegrating vertebrae – and again postpone a European tour – Osbourne says his hope of performing again “was fading by the day.”

But in the midst of his depression, he clung to the anticipation of watching Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” released that holiday season, eager to see the “unfiltered, behind-the-scenes footage” of the band.

The documentary ended up being another disappointment in Osbourne’s life at the time, especially watching the dynamic among the band with Yoko Ono sitting in the studio.

“You’re not seriously telling me that in the 60 hours of footage the director had, they were all happy and friendly? If we’d had someone in Sabbath say, ‘OK, my girlfriend’s gonna be here from now on,’ there’d have been blood on the studio floor,” Osbourne says. “I thought it was gonna be one of those fly-on-the-wall things. But the fly on the wall must have been deaf and blind, ‘cos it didn’t see or hear anything interesting at all.”

Ozzy Osbourne’s final show overwhelmed him with emotion

Two months before July's Back to the Beginning, the final concert Sharon had orchestrated in England for Osbourne to say goodbye to fans with a Black Sabbath reunion and a parade of hard rockers (Metallica, Steven Tyler, Tom Morello) paying tribute, Osbourne’s health nosedived. More vertebrae issues arose, followed by another bout with pneumonia and then, after another surgery to “fill the cracks in my dodgy vertebra with human cement stuff,” sepsis.

In late May, the Osbournes departed Los Angeles International Airport with most of their valuable possessions packed because Sharon was worried their home might get robbed since it was public knowledge that the family would be in England.

The day of the show, July 5, Osbourne became understandably nostalgic, thinking how his childhood home was a quarter of a mile away from Villa Park stadium now holding 42,000 fans chanting his name.

Apprehension set in as he was positioned on a throne that would rise from under the stage, but “as soon as the curtain went up, I forgot about my nerves.” Osbourne recalls choking up when he started “Mama, I’m Coming Home” (“It’s Sharon’s song, y’know?”) and then becoming overwhelmed by the emotion of the event.

“Someone said in the papers it was like I was attending my own wake, which would be a very metal thing to do,” Ozzy says. “But it didn’t feel like a funeral. It felt like a celebration.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ozzy Osbourne finished 'Last Rites' days before he died. Here's what he wrote.

Reporting by Melissa Ruggieri, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect