The ‘home of heavy metal’ mourns Ozzy Osbourne

Fans visit a memorial at the Black Sabbath Bridge to remember Ozzy Osbourne in Birmingham, England, July 23, 2025. In the hours after the news broke on Tuesday that Osbourne had died at 76, fans were gathering in Birmingham, his hometown. (Ellie Smith/The New York Times)

By Alex Marshall

It was a shrine to the Prince of Darkness.

In the hours after the news broke Tuesday that Ozzy Osbourne, the singer and reality TV star, had died at 76, fans were gathering in Birmingham, England, his hometown. They came to decorate the Black Sabbath Bench, a tourist attraction close to the Black Sabbath Bridge, two of many city landmarks dedicated to Osbourne and his bandmates.

Some had laid bouquets at the bench’s base. Some had left homemade signs with tributes (“Gracias Ozzy!”). And others had placed bottles of beer along the sidewalk as if toasting Osbourne, whose alcohol and drug intake were notorious.

At 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, july 23, an eclectic gaggle of fans reflecting Osbourne’s broad appeal was still milling about the shrine. A teary heavy metal lover who said she had listened to Osbourne’s songs since childhood. A Mexican tourist who had interrupted a vacation and driven four hours to snap selfies by the bench. And Drake, the Canadian rapper, who was in Birmingham on tour.

Drake got out of a car with blacked-out windows, stood by the bench and then poured some tequila on the ground. “I just came out to pay respects to someone who lived it to the fullest,” Drake said in a brief interview, adding that Osbourne was a cultural touchstone, even for people who didn’t know his music.

There aren’t many in Birmingham who don’t know the singer’s back catalog. Born into a working-class family here in 1948, Osbourne is one of the city’s most famous sons and put it on the map as the home of heavy metal.

He grew up in small row house in a Birmingham suburb and once worked in a city slaughterhouse. After forming Black Sabbath in 1968 with fellow Birmingham musicians Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, he was soon touring internationally, pioneering heavy metal with songs mixing hard rock riffs and his distinctive doomy yowl. By the time he became a reality television star on the MTV show “The Osbournes,” he was living with his family in Beverly Hills, California.

On Wednesday, fans also gathered at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which is hosting an exhibition on Osbourne, and waited in line to write tributes in a condolence book. One thanked Osbourne for “bringing a community of misfits together.” Another decorated their tribute with drawings of bats.

Many fans, at the bench and at Black Sabbath murals around the city, said his Birmingham connection partly explained the depth of their feelings about his death.

Sam Marlow-Kent, 35, a comedian, said that although the singer had moved away from the city after achieving fame, “he never really left us.”

“He always donated to local causes,” she said, adding, “There aren’t many celebrities from here you can sit back and be proud of — but he was.”

Sunny Randhawa, 42, a bar manager, said Osbourne symbolized Birmingham just as the Beatles represented Liverpool. “He was such a Brummie,” he said, using an affectionate term for a Birmingham native, which he said meant that Osbourne was both wild and down to Earth.

Steve Hoderin, 64, a truck driver who was visiting Osbourne-related sites with his two daughters, said the singer had brought “a happiness” to rock music and helped him through his own dark emotions. Hoderin, whose arms were covered in tattoos, said he now wanted to get one of Osbourne, too. “It’s about time,” he said.

For much of Osbourne’s life, the idea that Birmingham might celebrate him or his bandmates seemed far-fetched. When Black Sabbath emerged in the 1970s, some British music critics were bemused by the band’s style and satanic imagery, and tabloid newspapers condemned the musicians’ hard-living ways.

Yet in recent years, the city’s museums have hosted exhibitions on the band. The Birmingham Royal Ballet has performed to Black Sabbath tracks. Artists have painted murals of Osbourne across the city. And just a few weeks ago, Birmingham’s lord mayor awarded Osbourne and his bandmates the freedom of the city.

Osbourne recently paid that love back. Earlier this month, he gave a final performance at a soccer stadium near his childhood home, an appearance that was the climax of a 10-hour festival called “Back to the Beginning.” The festival raised a reported $190 million for a Birmingham hospice as well as nonprofits working to cure Parkinson’s disease, a condition that the singer revealed he had in 2019.

Many fans said Osbourne had actually been paying them back all along as a source of pride and inspiration.

Olly Overton, 31, a record label owner who was paying his respects at the museum, recalled first hearing Black Sabbath as a child. “I cranked up the record player and played it over and over again,” he said.

Later, as teenager in a local band, he met Osbourne while rehearsing in a local studio. He was “the humblest person ever,” Overton said of Osbourne. “People say he’s the prince of darkness, but for us, he’ll always be the prince of Birmingham.”