I Am Ozzy

‘Is he in trouble again?’ asked Sharon.

Greta laughed. ‘Not that I know of, no.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘Will you come?’

‘Of course we will. It would be an honour.’

When Sharon told me, I couldn’t believe it. I always thought I’d be on a ‘Wanted’ poster on the Oval Office wall, not invited over for tea. ‘What does President Bush want to talk about, anyway?’ I said. ‘Black Sabbath?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Sharon, ‘it won’t be just the four of us. It’s the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Fox News has a table, so there’ll be plenty of other people there.’

‘George Bush used to be the Governor of Texas, didn’t he?’ I said.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I pissed on that Alamo thing once. He’s gonna be cool with that, is he?’

‘I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it, Ozzy. He used to like a drink or two himself, y’know.’

‘He did?’

‘Oooh yeah.’

So off we went to Washington. The dinner was at the Hilton, where Ronald Reagan had been shot. It wasn’t long after 9/11, so I was feeling really paranoid about the security situation. Then, when we got there, it was pandemonium. They had about five thousand TV cameras outside, and just one little metal detector with a couple of guys manning it. I had to cling on to Greta’s jacket just to get through the crowd.

Meanwhile, my assistant Tony—who’s only a little fella—skipped over the rope and walked behind the metal detector without anyone even noticing. It was a joke, man. I could have smuggled a ballistic fucking missile into that place, and no one would have said a word.

Then the dinner started, and I started to have this horrendous panic attack. There I was, this half-baked rock star, in a room with all these Great Brains and the Leader of the Free World. What the fuck was I doing there? What did all these people want from me? The Osbournes had only been on air for about two months, and my brain was already struggling to process it all.

In the end, I just snapped. I couldn’t survive one more second in that place without being pissed out of my mind. So I grabbed a bottle of vino from one of the waiters, filled my wine glass, downed it, refilled it, downed it, refilled it, and carried on until the bottle was empty.

Then I got another. Meanwhile, Sharon was glaring at me from the other end of the table. I ignored her. Not tonight, darling, I thought.

Then the First Lady walked into the room, with George W. Bush following her. And the first thing he said when he reached the podium was: ‘Laura and I are honoured to be here tonight.

Thanks for the invitation. What a fantastic audience we have tonight: Washington power-brokers, celebrities, Hollywood stars… and Ossie Ozz-Burn!’

By that time I was well and truly blasted, so as soon as I heard my name, I jumped up on the table like a drunken arsehole and screamed, ‘Yeeeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!’ It brought the fucking house down. But I was fucked, so I didn’t know when to stop. I just stayed up there, going,

‘Yeeeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!’ until the whole room of eighteen hundred people went silent.

Bush looked at me.

‘Yeeeeeeeehhaaaaaa!!’ I screamed again.

Silence.

‘Yeeeeee—’

‘OK, Ozzy,’ snapped Bush. On the tape, you can even hear him say, ‘This might have been a mistake.’

I finally climbed down from the table—actually, I think Greta might have pulled me down.

Then Bush started to tell this joke about me: ‘The thing about Ozzy is he’s made a lot of big hit recordings: “Party with the Animals”, “Face in Hell”, “Bloodbath in Paradise”…’

I was about to get back up on the table and tell him that none of those were big hits, but then he delivered the punchline.

‘Ozzy,’ he said, ‘Mom loves your stuff.’

The whole room went crazy.

I don’t remember much after that.

Y’know, ever since I went to that dinner, people ask me what I think of Bush. But I can’t say I have an opinion, because I don’t know enough about all that political stuff. I mean, somebody must have voted for him, right? In 2000 and 2004. And I think a lot of that crazy terrorist shit had been going on for a long time before he got into power. I don’t think they were sitting around in their cave and suddenly said, ‘Oh, look, Bush is in the White House.

Let’s fly some planes into the World Trade Center.’

The thing is, I’m living in America as a guest, so it’s not up to me to say anything, y’know?

I keep trying to explain that to Jack: ‘Don’t talk about politics here, because you’re not an American. They’ll just say to you, “Get the fuck out of our country, if you don’t like it”.’ We’ve made a good living from America. We should be grateful.

A month later, I met the Queen.

She came up to me and shook my hand after I’d done a song at the Party at the Palace concert, during the Golden Jubilee weekend. Magnificent woman, I’ve always thought. I have so much respect for her. Then I met her again, not long after, at the Royal Variety Performance. I was standing next to Cliff Richard. She took one look at the two of us, said, ‘Oh, so this is what they call variety, is it?’ then cracked up laughing.

I honestly thought that Sharon must have slipped some acid into my cornflakes that morning.

Seriously, though, I get on very well with the royals. I’m even an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust now, so I’ve met Charles a few times. Very nice guy. The press keep giving him stick, but if you get rid of the monarchy, what do you replace it with? President Gordon ‘Wet Fart’ Brown? Personally, I think the royal family do a hell of a lot of good. People think they live in that palace and spend their whole lives just holding up sceptres and watching the telly, but they work their arses off. They have to be on all the time. And the dough they make for Britain adds up to a ridiculous fortune every year.

I’m not so comfortable with politicians. Meeting them always just feels weird and a bit creepy, no matter who it is. For example, I met Tony Blair during The Osbournes period at this thing called the Pride of Britain Awards. He was all right, I suppose; very charming. But I couldn’t get over the fact that our young soldiers were dying out in the Middle East and he could still find the time to hang around with pop stars.

Then he came over to me and said, ‘I was in a rock ’n’ roll band once, y’know?’

I said, ‘So I believe, Prime Minister.’

‘But I could never work out the chords to “Iron Man”.’

I wanted to say, ‘Fuck me, Tony, that’s a staggering piece of information, that is. I mean, you’re at war with Afghanistan, people are getting blown up all over the place, so who honestly gives a fuck that you could never work out the chords to “Iron Man”?’

But they’re all the same, so there’s no point getting wound up about it.

For a while after The Osbournes went on air, it seemed like everyone in the world wanted to be around me. Then we had a party at our house, and Elizabeth Taylor showed up. For me, that was the most surreal moment of all, ’cos when I was a kid, my dad had said to me, ‘I want you to see the most beautiful woman in the world.’ Then he’d let me stay up late to watch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. So that’s what Elizabeth Taylor has always been to me—the most beautiful woman in the world. But, of course, I can’t even remember what I said to her, ’cos I was fucking wasted again.

Of all the people I got to meet, though, the most special was probably Paul McCartney. I mean, I’d looked up to that man since I was fourteen. But what the fuck are you supposed to talk to him about, eh? It’s like trying to strike up a conversation with God. Where d’you start?

‘Oh, I see you made the Earth in seven days. What was that like?’ We were at Elton John’s birthday party: Paul on one side of me, Sting on the other, and Elton opposite. It was like I’d died and gone to rock star heaven. But I’m useless when it comes to making conversation with people I admire. I’m a big believer in just leaving them alone, generally. In that way, I’m very shy. There were some rumours going around in the press for a while that me and Paul were gonna do a duet, but I can honestly say I never heard a word about it from the man himself. And I’m