Jack Osbourne revealed how he learned of Ozzy’s death and recounted his final week with his father in the first episode of his podcast since the heavy metal legend died on July 22.
“My head’s really been at taking care of the family and my kids and trying to find a way to digest what just happened,” Jack said following a six-week hiatus from his podcast.
Jack first reflected on his last week with his father, following Ozzy’s “Back to the Beginning” farewell concert in England. “After my dad’s show in Birmingham, I stuck around, hung out for a week with the family at the house with my kids, it was a really amazing week,” Jack said, adding that his family was originally supposed to vacation in Portugal after the gig, but his children came down with stomach flu, forcing them to cancel the trip and hunker down at Ozzy and Sharon’s home.
“My dad was in an amazing mood. Every day, he was opening up the newspaper and seeing different reviews and different stories from the Back to the Beginning show, and it was great. It was a lot of fun, I kind of look back at that now, and I’ve never been so grateful for my kids having the stomach flu as I am today.”
After that week in Birmingham, Jack returned to Los Angeles, where — after a week back — he learned of his father’s death. “I woke up in Los Angeles to a knock on my house door at around 3:45 in the morning, somebody who works for my family for 30 years now is knocking on my door,” Jack said. “When I looked through my window and saw it was him, I knew something bad had happened. And I was informed that my father had passed.”
An emotional Jack added of his immediate reaction, “Just sadness and pain… so many thoughts.” After the initial surge of emotions, Jack found some solace in the situation: “He’s not suffering anymore. He’s not struggling. And that is something. I wish he was still here, I wish he was still with us all, but he was having a rough go. I think people saw that at the show. But no one expected it to happen as quickly as it did, and when it did. It was not anything that was on our radar.”
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However, Jack later said he was thankful for the timing of Ozzy’s death so soon after the Back to the Beginning show: “There is almost a perfection to it. He got to say goodbye in such a profound way.”
Jack also dismissed the “categorically untrue” rumors that Ozzy planned to “euthanize” himself following the farewell show. “He was so happy he did the show, and he was happy to move into the next phase of his life,” Jack said. “He wanted to spend more time in England, he wanted to spend more time with my kids, he wanted to spend more time just exploring different things as much as he could.”
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Jack added, “My dad was a special guy. He meant a lot to a lot of people… the common thread is that he was loved. He was loved so much. A lot of people are going to miss him.”
Jack then paraphrased a Keanu Reeves quote about the afterlife from a Stephen Colbert interview, one that especially resonated with Jack and that he shared at Ozzy’s funeral: “I don’t know what happens when you die, but I do know the people that love you miss you the most.”
