Despite facing several health setbacks, including a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, 71-year-old Ozzy Osbourne has once again said that despite these hurdles, he will not be retiring any time in the near future – if ever.
Speaking in a new interview with The Mirror, the Black Sabbath frontman said: “You know the time when I will retire? When I can hear them nail a lid on my box. And then I’ll fucking do an encore. I’m the Prince Of Darkness.”
He added: “When you feel that audience jumping, it’s a better feeling than orgasm. It is the best love affair of my life. The party is on, man. I feel honoured people still want to see me.”
He added, “To be Ozzy Osbourne it could be worse… I could be Sting.”
Speaking of his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, which he revealed publically at the beginning of the year, Ozzy said: “Well the one questions from me was, ‘Is it a terminal illness?’, and the guy says, ‘No, but life is’.
“It’s just another thing on my plate I have got to deal with. I’m not in the slightest worried about it. I’ve not got any secrets. The initial shock is I’ve got Parkinson’s,” he said, adding, “Nobody knows what the fuck it is. I didn’t know anything about it apart from the name.”
Wife Sharon Osbourne added, “Why should it be a dirty little secret? He’s always had a funny walk so fuck it, you know? Let’s make nothing different. No pity, he doesn’t need pity. He just needs a stage.”
She continued, “He may not be able to run up and down like he used to on stage, but it’s still about the voice and he’s still a funny fucker. His voice is his legacy. You hear one note, you know that’s Ozzy. Everything you want to say is right there in the music.”
In an LA Times interview in February, Ozzy Osbourne revealed he has been battling Parkinson’s disease since 2003, claiming he has “cheated death so many times”.
“If tomorrow you read ‘Ozzy Osbourne never woke up this morning,’ you wouldn’t go, ‘Oh, my God!’ You’d go, ‘Well, it finally caught up with him.'”
