Sharon Osbourne says 6 doctors warned that Ozzy’s farewell concert, Back to the Beginning, would kill him. He insisted on performing, she recalled in an interview published October 13, 2026.
“They advised us not to do the show. They said it would kill him,” Sharon said.
She recalled Ozzy answering: “It’s not an option. It’s what I want.”
He also told the doctors, she said: “I know I’m dying. If I miss a few months of my life, I want to go this way. This is what I want.”
Sharon said Ozzy had already been hospitalized in America before the couple returned to England. He then spent a week in an English hospital so the team taking over his care could assess him.
The meeting followed at their home, she said. Alongside someone coordinating his care were 6 doctors, including specialists treating his heart, lungs and Parkinson’s.
She recalled a separate remark he made to her: “Another six months, what’s it going to do for me?” Their children and his Black Sabbath bandmates didn’t know that Ozzy understood the concert would be his goodbye, Sharon said.
Back to the Beginning took place on July 5, 2025, in Birmingham, England, at Villa Park. Ozzy spent the performance seated, singing from a black throne.
His solo set ran for 5 songs. Guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward then took the stage with him, bringing Black Sabbath’s original lineup together for 4 songs.
The previous year, Ozzy had spoken onstage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on October 19, 2024. That appearance was at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland.
The concert carried a pledge that its entire proceeds would go to 3 charities in equal shares: Cure Parkinson’s, Acorns Children’s Hospice and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
Ozzy died 17 days after the concert. His death certificate records an acute myocardial infarction and a cardiac arrest that happened outside a hospital.
The document also lists Parkinson’s disease with autonomic dysfunction and coronary artery disease as joint causes.
Sharon described the concert as a chance for friends and musicians to reunite. “He was very, very emotional,” she said of Ozzy.
“It was beautiful too. It was amazing. How lucky was he to go out that way?” Sharon said.
