Rock and roll singer Ozzy Osbourne recently gave an update about his health status, saying he’d like to perform in concert at least one more time.
The 74-year-old British musician was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder which affects the nervous system, in 2003. He discussed his feelings about his public image during an interview with Rolling Stone UK.
“I’m getting pissed off reading the papers, and they’re saying things like ‘Ozzy is fighting his last battle. He’s sung his last ‘Paranoid.’ You know, I don’t even think about Parkinson’s that much,” Osbourne said.
The interviewer noted how Osbourne demonstrated how his tremors were barely noticeable, even after all this time.
“I said to [my wife] Sharon that I’d smoked a joint recently and she said, ‘What are you doing that for! It’ll f***-ing kill you!’” he continued. “I said, ‘How long do you want me to f***ing live for?!’ At best, I’ve got 10 years left and when you’re older, time picks up speed.”
The “Crazy Train” singer also discussed the aftermath of his fourth back surgery, which he had in 2019.
“It’s really knocked me about,” he said. “The second surgery went drastically wrong and virtually left me crippled. I thought I’d be up and running after the second and third, but with the last one they put a f***ing rod in my spine. They found a tumor in one of the vertebrae, so they had to dig all that out too. It’s pretty rough, man, and my balance is all f***ed up.”
Osbourne said despite his many health setbacks, his goal is to take the stage at least one more time.
“I’m taking it one day at a time, and if I can perform again, I will,” he said. “But it’s been like saying farewell to the best relationship of my life. At the start of my illness, when I stopped touring, I was really pissed off with myself, the doctors, and the world. But as time has gone on, I’ve just gone, ‘Well, maybe I’ve just got to accept that fact.'”
“I’m not going to get up there and do a half-hearted Ozzy looking for sympathy,” he added. What’s the f***ing point in that? I’m not going up there in a f***ing wheelchair. I’ve seen Phil Collins perform recently, and he’s got virtually the same problems as me. He gets up there in a wheelchair! But I couldn’t do that.”
The former lead vocalist of Black Sabbath said he wishes he could have said goodbye and thank you to his fans, calling that fact, “one of the things I’ve been the most f***ing pissed off at.”
“If I can’t continue doing shows on a regular basis, I just want to be well enough to do one show where I can say, ‘Hi guys, thanks so much for my life.’ That’s what I’m working towards, and if I drop down dead at the end of it, I’ll die a happy man,” Osbourne told the outlet.