Ozzy Osbourne fears catching Covid-19 due to his lung condition emphysema
Ozzy opens up about his health
Last updated 6th Aug 2021
Ozzy Osbourne has expressed his fears about catching Covid-19 due to his battle with the lung condition emphysema.
The heavy metal legend spoke to GQ as he was virtually presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the magazine’s Men of the Year Awards on Thursday (26th November) and gave an update about his health.
Ozzy, of course, has suffered a number of setbacks over the past two years including a potentially deadly staph infection in his hand, flu and pneumonia, a serious fall in his bedroom aggravating old injuries, and his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
Describing 2020 as “the worst year of my life”, Ozzy explained to GQ he’s terrified of contracting coronavirus: “I’ve got emphysema, so if I get this virus I’m f---ed.”
Alongside chronic bronchitis, emphysema is a type of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) that causes breathing difficulties due to damage to the air sacs in the lungs. Having a COPD increases the risk of severe illness from coronavirus.
Asked if he’s currently shielding, Ozzy said: “I try my hardest. If I go out I wear a mask, but I don’t like wearing a mask, so I don’t go out much.
“The producer on my album (‘Ordinary Man’ producer Andrew Watt) got the virus. I’d phone him up every day and he said he couldn’t sleep, because as soon as he went to sleep he’d stop breathing. He’s not the same person now... It’s like anyone who’s had a near-death experience: he’s become a bit careful with life.
“But my two granddaughters caught it and you wouldn’t think they had anything wrong with them. It just bounced off them.”
Ozzy also revealed that Sir Elton John, who collaborated with him on the ‘Ordinary Man’ album title track has been regularly checking in on him.
“Every single week Elton John calls my wife (Sharon Osbourne). I’m not one to hang out with this one and that one but he’s become a family friend,” Ozzy explained.
Last month, Ozzy Osbourne announced his UK tour with special guests Judas Priest is taking place three years later than planned in February and March 2022.
Explaining the back story of the tour, Ozzy told GQ: “The thing about (the tour) is there had been something wrong with my gait and they told Sharon they thought I had a little bit of MS. What the hell is ‘a little bit of MS’? It’s like telling me I was a little bit pregnant. I either am or I ain’t! But we’d already announced the tour, so she thought, ‘Well, he’s got MS and he’s going to be a cripple, so this is the farewell tour.’
Anyway, turned out I didn’t have MS, but we’d announced the tour already, so I thought, ‘What the f--- am I gonna do now? I don’t feel like I wanna retire!’ But if I’m at home I want to be on the road and if I’m on the road I want to be at home. That’s me: never satisfied.”
Ozzy’s scheduled UK tour dates are as follows:
FEBRUARY 2022
Nottingham Motorpoint Arena – Sun 27th
MARCH 2022
Dublin 3Arena – Tue 1st
Birmingham Resorts World Arena – Fri 4th
London The O2 – Mon 7th
Manchester AO Arena – Wed 9th
Newcastle Utilita Arena – Sat 12th
Glasgow The SSE Hydro – Mon 14th
24 rock stars' jobs before they were famous:
Bon Scott – Postman
The AC/DC legend was a postman in Fremantle, Western Australia in his late teens. Tenuously linked, postmen now deliver mail to Bon Scott Crescent in Moncrieff, which was named in the late singer's honour earlier this year. Other notable people who were postmen include Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney and Steve Carell. (© Getty/iStock)
Mick Jagger - Porter in psychiatric hospital
While he was a student at the London School of Economics in his teens, Sir Mick worked part time as a porter at the Bexley Mental Hospital. Brought up in the nearby Wilmington, Mick (who is worth an estimated £260million) was paid a reported four pounds and ten shillings a week.
Malcolm Young – Sewing machine mechanic in bra factory
After leaving school aged 15, late AC/DC founder Malcolm Young worked as a sewing machine mechanic at a Hestia bra factory in Sydney, Australia. Malcolm was in a band called the Velvet Underground at the time (not to be confused with the Lou Reed band) but went on to form AC/DC with his younger brother Angus in 1973. Incidentally, Malcolm and Angus came up with the AC/DC band name when they saw the letters – literally meaning alternating current/direct current - on their sister Margaret's sewing machine.
Josh Homme - Farm worker
While still a member of pioneering and highly influential desert rockers Kyuss, Josh Homme still worked on his grandad's farm and only quit when he launched Queens of the Stone Age in 1996 aged 25. "I didn't want to lose my grip on reality," Homme told Red Bull. "I knew the world of rock music is one that it's all too easy to get lost in, and one where you can turn into an arrogant, decadent a--hole if you're not careful." Asked if he'd recommend working the fields to fellow rock stars, Homme replied: "Hard work and a bit of humility never hurt anyone. In that sense, I think it would definitely do a lot of musicians some good!"
Ozzy Osbourne - Slaughterhouse worker
Before Black Sabbath, Ozzy was a jack-of-all-trades working as a construction site labourer, trainee plumber, apprentice toolmaker and car factory horn-tuner. However, it was his job in an abattoir that left a lasting impression on Ozzy. "I had to slice open the cow carcasses and get all the gunk out of their stomachs," he said. "I used to vomit every day; the smell was something else."
Steve Harris – Architectural draughtsman
After studying architectural drawing at Leyton Sixth Form College, the 19-year-old Steve Harris founded Iron Maiden in 1975 but earnt a wage working as an architectural draughtsman in the East End of London. Steve told Nights with Alice Cooper in 2020: "Straight after school, went straight into that job. I did my college stuff and on the weekends, two nights a week, and I made sure I got qualified to a certain degree because I thought, if the band don't work, then I'll have something to fall back on." Steve briefly became a street sweeper after losing his job, but fortunately Iron Maiden's career took off at the turn of the 1980s.
Gene Simmons – Assistant to Vogue magazine editor
The young Chaim Witz (who later renamed himself Gene Klein) was a self-certified "excellent typist" and in the mid-sixties landed himself a job as an assistant to an editor at fashion bible Vogue Magazine. Fortunately he downed the typewriter and a few years later started KISS with Paul Stanley. The rest, they say, is history.
Kurt Cobain – Janitor
During Nirvana's embryonic stages, the teenage Kurt worked as a janitor to help fund the band. Bassist Krist Novoselic said: "Here was a man who would never clean his kitchen or take out the garbage, or do those kind of chores, but Kurt Cobain was not a lazy person. Basically he cleaned toilets – that's how he paid for (our first) demo."
Chris Cornell – Fish handler
Long before his Soundgarden days, the late-great Chris Cornell earned a crust working for his seafood wholesaler. A far cry from his eventual lifestyle as a rock star, Chris told Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2010: "My job was to wipe up the slime and throw away the fish guts. I met pretty much every sous-chef in town because they would come in and look around at what we had. I think we had the best wholesale seafood in town. The owner was impeccable about it."
Eddie Vedder – Security guard
In the early nineties, Eddie worked a variety of jobs including as a contracted security guard at La Valencia Hotel in San Diego. After the demise of his first band Bad Radio in 1990, Eddie worked as a night attendant at a petrol station. Fortunately his fortunes changed when friend and ex-Red Hot Chilli Peppers member Jack Irons handed him a demo from a band looking for a new frontman…
David Bowie – Butcher’s delivery boy
After discovering the life-changing music of Little Richard, the 10-year-old David Jones quickly decided he wanted to be a saxophone player for his musical idol. Determined, David got a job as a butcher's delivery boy to fund the purchase of his first instrument and took his first tentative step on his glittering music career.
Freddie Mercury – Market stall trader
Freddie and Roger Taylor both had separate stalls on the top floor of the now demolished Kensington Market in London in the early seventies. Alongside clothing items, Freddie sold many of his own paintings and drawings on the stall and even continued to work there when Queen released their self-titled debut album in 1973.
Patti Smith – Toy factory worker
Although it sounds like a harmless enough job on paper, Patti's job in a toy factory testing toys and packing boxes was a traumatic experience for her. Speaking about her colleagues, Patti said: "The stuff those women did to me in that factory was horrible. They'd gang up on me and stick my head in a toilet full of p***."
Joe Strummer – Gravedigger
In his early 20s Joe decamped from London to Newport, South Wales, where, alongside being the part-time frontman of band The Vultures, he worked as a gravedigger at St Woolos Cemetery. When the band split in 1974, Joe packed in his job and moved back to London and formed new rockabilly outfit The 101ers.
Keith Richards – Tennis ball boy
The legendary Rolling Stones axeman worked as a ball boy at a tennis club as a young lad – predominately for his mum and dad Doris and Herbert! He says: "My parents played tennis and I was dragged every weekend to the court as their ball boy, so I got to know the ins and outs of the game!"
Jonathan Davis – Embalmer
After studying at the San Francisco School of Mortuary Science, Jonathan became a professional embalmer. Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, Jonathan said mortuary college was an intriguing experience: "I've pulled so many dead bodies out of cars. It's like a puzzle. Trying to figure out how someone died. It gave me attention too. It was f***ing weird. I got into it for attention and ended up liking it."
Lemmy – Jimi Hendrix’s roadie
A far cry from some of the humdrum jobs on this list, the late Motörhead legend became a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in his early twenties when he was sharing a flat with Noel Redding and the band's manager Neville Chesters. He was paid £10 a week to go on tour with Jimi plus the extra incentive of "handfuls of acid."
Lars Ulrich – Tennis player
The Metallica drummer has tennis in his blood; both his dad Torben Ulrich and granddad Einer Ulrich were professional tennis players for Denmark. Instilled with a love of the game and ranked in Denmark's top 10 for his age, at 16 Lars attended the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida but realised it wasn't for him: "At the academy, I realized that my ability wasn't enough to be a successful professional, far from it, and the discipline necessary was not in me."
Tony Iommi – Sheet metal worker
The heavy metal pioneer aptly worked with heavy metal pre-fame. The much-fabled story goes that aged 17, Tony lost the tips of his middle and ring finger on his right hand in an accident at the metal factory, however, inspired by jazz musician Django Reinhardt (whose fourth and fifth fingers were paralysed from burns) it did little to thwart his enthusiasm for guitar playing. With the aid of thimbles, over the ensuing years Tony honed his inimitable and influential metal sound.
Tom Araya – Respiratory therapist
The bassist/vocalist used his job as a certified respiratory therapist (dealing with air mixture ratios, drawing blood, asthma and more) at the Brotman Medical Centre in California to partially fund Slayer's debut album 'Show No Mercy'. Pleased he escaped the humdrum life, Tom told KNAC: "I'd get up in the morning and deal with traffic; and then leave at three and deal with traffic." He was at the hospital when Michael Jackson was treated for burns in 1984.
Eric Clapton – Bricklayer’s assistant
Kicked out of art school in 1961, Clapton was told he had to work for his granddad Jack Clapp if he was to carry on living under the same roof as him and wife Rose. Making £15 a week, Eric said working with a master bricklayer "was no laughing matter" due to the hard work but "I really did love it. (My grandfather's) legacy to me was that I should always do my best, and always finish what I started."
Jon Bon Jovi – Janitor
Aged 17 in 1979, the young John Francis Bongiovi Jr. landed a job as a janitor at his cousin Tony Bongiovi's Manhattan recording studio, Power Station. It was while sweeping the floors here that John made his first professional music recording by singing lead vocals on the festive Star Wars song 'R2D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas' from Meco's 1980 holiday album 'Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album'. Balancing his day job with his fledgling rock career, John laid down a number of songs at the studios. In 2001 the unearthed tracks were released as the album 'The Power Station Years: The Unreleased Recordings'.
Maynard James Keenan – Army soldier
The Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifier singer and esteemed winemaker joined the United States Army in 1982 after being partially inspired by the Bill Murray movie Stripes. Distinguished in basic and advanced training, Keenan spent two years in the army but turned down a four-year appointment to West Point (United States Military Academy) and opted to pursue a career in music insteam. The rest, they say, is history.
Tool's Adam Jones - Visual effects on movies
Prior to achieving global fame as the guitarist with Tool, 57-year-old Adam Jones worked in make-up, special effects and set design on a number of blockbuster Hollywood movies. Famous films Jones worked on included Batman Returns, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Dances with Wolves, Ghostbusters II and Jurassic Park. Jones also created the fearsome 'Freddy Krueger in the womb' make-up for 1989 horror movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, and he worked on its predecessor A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Due to his work in the special effects industry, Adam Jones has used his stop motion camera techniques on a number of Tool videos including 'Sober', 'Prison Sex', 'Stinkfist',' Ænema', 'Schism', 'Parabola', and 'Vicarious'. His warped visual creations are a mainstay of Tool's live concerts with the videos often played alongside the live music.