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Ozzy Osbourne said on Tuesday’s episode of The Osbournes Podcast that his next surgery, correcting spinal damage he incurred during a 2019 late-night tumble, will be his last one. “Tomorrow, I have my final surgery on my neck,” he said, according to People, though it was unclear what date the episode was recorded. “Which it is gonna be the final surgery, because I can’t do it anymore. Regardless of the way it ends up after tomorrow, I’m not doing it anymore. I can’t.”
Despite the hardship he’s endured with the multiple surgeries, the singer says he feels his health has improved. But he’s feeling far from perfect. “My feet feel like I’ve got bricks tied to them when I’m walking.” he said. “I walked upstairs today and downstairs for the first time in a while, and my feet feel like I’ve got diving boots on when I’m walking. I think it’s the nerves… Then I was thinking, maybe I just need to get up off my ass and walk around the block a few times.”
Armchair prognosticators should hold off on judging Osbourne’s health, though. “I’m far from being on my last leg,” he said.
In early 2019, Osbourne slipped and fell in the middle of the night. The fall aggravated a spinal injury he sustained in 2003 when he was in a near fatal ATV accident. Doctors put metal plates in his neck after the tumble but they ended up causing him more trouble. Last June, his wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, said he’d be undergoing corrective surgery that would “determine the rest of his life.” A surgeon removed the plates, and he improved enough to make a couple of onstage performances by the end of the summer.
Osbourne revealed that he’d need additional surgery earlier this month on another episode of The Osbournes Podcast. “I’m going for an epidural soon because what they’ve discovered is the neck has been fixed,” he said. “Below the neck there’s two vertebrae where the bike hit me and disintegrated, there’s nothing left of ’em.”
He also explained that the injury had affected how he walked. “In my back, the two discs and the muscles on my shoulders have separated from my skeleton, and that’s why I lean forward as it’s like gravity is bringing my head forward,” he said. “I was thinking when [the doctor] was saying it, ‘I’ve walked like that all my life.’”
Earlier this year, Osbourne had planned on performing a headlining set at Power Trip, a festival on the Coachella grounds next month with Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, and AC/DC as fellow performers. In July, however, he pulled out of the lineup and was replaced with Judas Priest.
“We can’t talk about [Power Trip] in the house because it is just so heartbreaking to see that all he wants is just one more show,” his daughter, Kelly Osbourne, told Rolling Stone earlier this month.
“And Ozzy wants to be on that show with all his friends,” Sharon said in the same interview. “It’s heartbreaking for him to see everybody going on, and he’s just left behind.”
