“I guarantee you've licked mum’s arsehole!” “I guarantee you I fucking have not!” Metal’s most lovably dysfunctional family are back and as hilariously filthy as ever, as the Osbournes – that’s Sharon, Jack, Kelly and Ozzy himself – have revived their podcast series after a five-year hiatus. Effectively a continuation of their reality TV show, which reinvented Ozzy from The Prince Of Darkness to a cuddly family man, the podcast sees the titular family discuss everything from the antics of their dogs (“Pepsi gobbles shit like it’s going out of fashion”, bemoans Jack), to updates on Ozzy’s health. But while the original The Osbournes series attracted millions of viewers at its peak, Ozzy admits he wasn’t one.
“I never watched an episode!” he hoots, speaking to Hammer over the phone from his LA home. Earlier this year, Ozzy was forced to cancel his long- delayed No More Tours 2 run in the UK, and subsequently announced his retirement from touring overall. In the first episode of the new season of The Osbournes Podcast, Ozzy goes into some details about his health struggles, stating that a fall earlier this year exacerbated a long-standing injury stemming from his quad bike crash in 2003, leaving him feeling like he’d “broken [his] fucking neck”.
“You know what, it’s been pretty grim around the Osbourne house for the past few years,” he admits. “I’ve got no fear of going to Hell – I’ve been going there and back for the past five years. But when you’re sick, all you can think about is you, so when they said about doing the podcast again, it was like, ‘Sure, it’ll get me out of myself again!’”
The second season of the podcast is set to run for 20 episodes, available in both audio and video formats. In the first episode, they also outline plans for spin-off podcasts under The Osbournes brand, each of its stars having their own specially focused shows, including one that will see Ozzy team up with guitarist Billy Morrison to discuss music. Every episode of The Osbournes Podcast is essentially just a conversation between the family members, Ozzy describing the process of scripting as having an idea of a topic, then “seeing where things go”. In turn, it opens the floor to banter and jokes aplenty.
“It’s just us!” Ozzy says proudly. “We have a real laugh with it you know, but it seems a lot of people are listening and liking it. It’s good because family always comes first for me.”
The Osbournes TV series, which saw the family inviting the world into their home, began in 2002 on MTV. It ran for three years and was watched by around 5.3 million viewers every week. While the podcast continues their exploits, Ozzy admits he’s not rushing to invite TV cameras into the house again.
“It all started off as a spin-off of that MTV show, Cribs,” he recalls of its origins. “Our episode of Cribs was the most watched on replay, so some producers approached us with the idea of doing it as a full show set in the house. It all went from there. We’d never really planned on being the next big TV family, but it grew on its own steam and went crazy. I’m not particularly planning on doing a re-run of it, but if something happens, it happens!”
While Ozzy is unsure about the idea of reviving The Osbournes TV show wholesale, plans have been announced for a TV show titled Home To Roost, which will follow his journey moving back to the UK. A week after what he has described as his “final” surgery, Ozzy sounds in good spirits.
"I've had all the surgery now, thank God," he says. "It was just dragging on. I thought I’d be back on my feet months ago; I just couldn’t get used to this mode of living, constantly having something wrong. I can’t walk properly yet, but I’m not in any pain anymore and the surgery on my spine went great.”
As for what that means for his ‘retirement’, well, the singer has a history of surprise comebacks.
“I’m getting myself fit, and I am going to go on the road!” he says defiantly. “I want to do one more album and then go back on the road. I want to take my time with this one, do a good rock album!”
The Osbournes Podcast is out now via all your usual Podcast platforms. This interview was originally published in Metal Hammer #381
