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Jack Osbourne has broken his silence on the death of his father, legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne.
Two weeks after “The Prince of Darkness” died from a heart attack on July 22, Jack Osbourne, 39, shared a heartfelt montage of photos and videos on Instagram on Wednesday.
The tribute starts with a clip from Ozzy’s 1997 interview with Howard Stern.
“How cool is it having Ozzy as a dad?” the shock jocked asked a then 12-year-old Jack.
“Very cool,” the timid preteen replied.
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In his Instagram caption on Wednesday, Jack wrote, “I haven’t really wanted to post anything since the passing of my father. My heart has hurt too much. I’m gonna keep this short because he certainly hated long rambling speeches.”
“He was so many things to so many people, but I was so lucky and blessed to be a part of a very small group that got to call him Dad.’ My heart is full of so much sadness and sorrow, but also so much love and gratitude. I got 14,501 days with that man and I know that is such a blessing. I think this quote best describes my father,” the dad of four daughters said.
Jack concluded, “Hunter S. Thompson once said: ‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body…but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming,‘Wow! What a ride!’ That was my dad. He lived and he lived his life fully. I love you dad.”
Ozzy Osbourne had six children from two relationships. With his first wife, Thelma Riley, he had three children: Jessica and Louis, as well as adopted Thelma’s son, Elliot.
From his marriage to Sharon Osbourne, he has three more children: Aimee, Kelly, and Jack. While Aimee has largely stayed out of the public eye, Kelly and Jack became well known through the early 2000s MTV reality series The Osbournes, which gave viewers an unfiltered look into the family’s chaotic home life.
Two weeks before Ozzy’s death, Jack appeared on the Disrespectfully podcast, revealing that he and Aimee, who moved out of the family’s home at 16 to avoid being part of the reality show, do not have a good relationship.
“Back then she really wanted to be a musician and the kind of musician she wanted to be was like a Fiona Apple, Mazzy Star. And she deemed doing a show on MTV as low-hanging fruit,” he explained about the first-of-its-kind programming that aired from 2002 to 2005.
“She was like, ‘I’m not going to be seen riding coat-tails,’ kind of thing – that’s how she perceived it.”
Jack said that, “once the show became hugely successful, I think she was kind of like, ‘Well I can’t come on now because I don’t want to be seen as jumping on the bandwagon’.”
“And she dug her heels in and wanted to be relatively private and obscure,” he said.
However, Jack revealed that he’s never actually asked his sister whether she regrets her decision.
“I’ve never asked her outright, ‘Do you regret it?’ I think there must be a level of like, ‘Hey, my life would have probably been different than what it is if I’d done that,’ so I don’t know. I think I would feel like I would have regretted it.”
“I’ve never had the conversation with her. We’re not close at all. We don’t have a great relationship – she’ll be the first to tell you that, so it’s no secret,” he said.
Jack and Ozzy Osbourne also appeared together in other reality shows, including Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour, which aired from 2016 to 2018. The show followed the duo as they traveled across the US and abroad, visiting historical landmarks, quirky roadside attractions, and cultural hotspots.
They also appeared together in The Osbournes Want to Believe from 2020 to 2021. The paranormal-themed show saw Jack attempting to convince his skeptical parents of the existence of supernatural phenomena by showing them bizarre and unexplained footage.
The family, sans Aimee, also launched The Osbournes Podcast in 2018. Following a five-year hiatus, it returned in 2023. The most recent episode of the podcast was released on May 29, 2024.
