Stooped but defiant, frail rocker Ozzy Osbourne ditches his wheelchair and takes a bracing walk near his Los Angeles home.
Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show the former Black Sabbath front man – diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease 20 years ago – heading out with purpose from the house he shares with TV star wife Sharon in the genteel enclave of Hancock Park.
Ozzy, 74, leaned on his black cane as he made his way along the street while talking animatedly with two women helpers who accompanied him for the brief outing on Monday.
The heavy metal legend appeared in significantly better health than last week when he was photographed being pushed in a wheelchair and wearing a mask while leaving an office building in Santa Monica.
DailyMail.com spotted frail Ozzy Osbourne, 74, on a walk near his Los Angeles home with the help of two aides and a black cane this week
The former Black Sabbath front man was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease 20 years ago and has death with several health issues
‘He looked determined and in better health than I’ve seen him for some time,’ an onlooker told DailyMail.com
Ozzy, 74, leaned on his black cane as he made his way along the street while talking animatedly with two women helpers who accompanied him for the brief outing
Ozzy, wearing a black T shirt, dark shorts and black sneakers, covered roughly 100 yards in the five-minute jaunt before disappearing back to his house
‘I haven’t seen him walking in a while,’ a local onlooker who spotted him on Monday told DailyMail.com. ‘He was getting along with the help of his cane, for sure.
‘But he looked determined and in better health than I’ve seen him for some time.
‘He started to walk around the block, but halfway along the pathway was blocked by tree debris blown down the night before in heavy winds.
‘So he had to turn around and you could see he got kind of grumpy at that.’
Ozzy, wearing a black T shirt, dark shorts and black sneakers, doggedly covered roughly 100 yards in the five-minute jaunt before disappearing back to his house.
His latest and more encouraging outing comes as he and former America’s Got Talent judge Sharon, 71, prepare to head to their magnificent estate in Buckinghamshire, England, by the end of the year. The couple reportedly hope it will be a final move back after 25 years in the United States.
The rocker only revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis three years ago. His heartbreaking disclosure followed two significant accidents that have led to him to have life-altering surgeries – and revolutionary treatment involving wearing a robotic external skeleton to help him move better.
He was seriously injured in a quad bike accident in the grounds of the couple’s British country home in 2003 which left him with a broken collar bone and eight broken ribs. Surgeons also had to stem bleeding into his lungs.
Additionally, the Paranoid singer also had metal rods put in his back because of spine injuries when the bike flipped on top of him.
And in 2019 he fell after getting up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom, seriously aggravating the same back injury.
The heavy metal legend appeared in significantly better health than last week when he was photographed being pushed in a wheelchair and wearing a mask while leaving an office building in Santa Monica
Ozzy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2003, before publicly revealing his diagnosis in January 2020, and suffering an accident. He’s pictured performing in 2022
Ozzy had to cancel his planned performance at the Power Trip Festival in California in October because of his health
‘I went to the bathroom in the night, lost my balance and landed flat on my face. I saw this big white flash when I hit the floor and I thought ‘you’ve finally done it now’,’ he said shortly afterwards.
‘I knew it was bad. I thought I was paralyzed, so very calmly I said ‘Sharon, I can’t move. I think I’ve done my neck. Phone an ambulance’.’
Just last year he had ‘life-altering’ surgery to remove and realign the metal pins in his neck and back from the 2003 accident.
And in September he revealed on his family’s The Osbournes Podcast that he had another surgery coming up, making at least four since fall 2019.
‘Below the neck, there’s two vertebrae where the bike hit me and disintegrated, there’s nothing left of ’em,’ he revealed.
Speaking with son Jack, 38, the rocker dubbed The Prince of Darkness added: ‘All I know is right now, I’m in a lot of pain, I’m in a lot of discomfort.
Talking on his Ozzy Speaks Sirius XM Channel, he said: ‘I’m battling through… the only thing that keeps me going is making records. But I can’t do that forever.
‘I gotta get out there. I’m still in constant pain. I do the best I can to stay away from the pain medication.’
Ozzy had to cancel his planned performance at the Power Trip Festival in California in October because of his health.
Announcing the decision, he said in a statement to fans: ‘Unfortunately, my body is telling me that I’m just not ready yet and I am much too proud to have the first show in nearly five years be half-a**ed.’
In February, he announced his health was forcing him to give up touring, posting online: ‘This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to share with my loyal fans. As you may all know, four years ago this month I had a major accident where I damaged my spine.
‘My one and only purpose during this time has been to get back on stage. My singing voice is fine.
‘However, after three operations, stem cell treatments, endless physical therapy sessions, and most recently groundbreaking Cybernics (HAL) treatment, my body is physically weak.’
Ozzy’s revolutionary HAL sessions refer to Hybrid Assistive Limbs, an external robotic skeleton worn by patients.
They work by detecting small electrical signals transmitted to the surface of the skin when someone wants to move a limb, then translate the signal to help that movement.
According to the WebMD website, the HAL technology is described by its makers Cyberdyne as a ‘wearable cyborg’.
‘Cyberdyne’s HAL is able to detect faint or disorganized signals in the nerves and help perform the intended movement, whether it’s as simple as flexing an elbow or as complex as walking,’ says the site.
‘Put plainly: HAL sense what move your brain is trying to tell your muscles to do, and then helps you do it.’
Ozzy and wife Sharon, 71, prepare to head to their magnificent estate in Buckinghamshire, England, by the end of the year. The couple reportedly hope it will be a final move back after 25 years in the United States
The technology was developed in Japan and first available in the United States five years ago.
All of which is a far cry for John Michael ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne who was a founding member of Black Sabbath in Birmingham, England, in 1968, but fired from the band 11 years later due to alcohol and drug problems.
With a dominating stage presence, the strutting heavy metal showman achieved rock god immortality when he accidentally bit the head off a live bat thrown to him at a 1982 concert in Des Moines, Iowa.
‘I thought it was a rubber bat,’ he said. ‘I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am.’
Blood filled his mouth, the crowd looked on in horror – and he realized his mistake. ‘Bats are the biggest carriers of rabies in the world,’ he said. ‘And I had to go to hospital afterwards and they started giving me rabies shots.’
As Ozzy now battles to recover his mobility, Sharon has attracted comments about her own appearance after being spotted looking super-thin as she arrived at son Jack’s LA home last week.
The TV star, who was controversially fired from CBS show The Talk in 2021, admitted she was ‘too skinny’ following a 42lb weight loss through using diabetes drug Ozempic. In a DailyMail.com interview she said: ‘I’m too gaunt and I can’t put any weight on.
‘I want to because I feel I’m too skinny. I’m under 100lbs and I don’t want to be.’ And she added the warning: ‘Be careful what you wish for.’