Ozzy Osbourne sat down with co-host Billy Morrison for another episode of “Ozzy Speaks” on SiriusXM‘s Ozzy’s Boneyard. During the episode, Ozzy and Billy played some of their favorite hard rock and heavy metal songs, discussed 2021, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, their love for AC/DC and more.
Ozzy, who turned 72 in December, confirmed that he is planning to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as he is able to.
“I look at it like this: if I don’t get the shot and I get the virus, there’s a good chance I ain’t going to be here,” he said (hear audio below).
The “Ozzy Speaks” episode, which premiered on Ozzy’s Boneyard on Monday, February 8, is available on the SiriusXM app and will rebroadcast on Ozzy’s Boneyard throughout the week.
Last November, Ozzy told GQ magazine that he suffers from a respiratory disease which puts him at an increased risk of severe pneumonia and poor outcomes if he was to develop COVID-19.
“I’ve got emphysema, so if I get this virus, I’m fucked,” he said, referring to the type of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) lung disease that makes it hard to breathe and gets worse over time.
Asked how his health is at the moment, Ozzy said: “The surgery I had knocked the crap out of me. But I broke my neck in a quad bike accident [in 2003] and when that healed it squeezed my spinal column, so I was getting all kinds of weird things happening to me. I’d be on stage and I’d suddenly get a sharp shock down one side of my body. Then one night 18 months ago I went to the bathroom in the dark and just hit the ground. I said [to my wife], ‘Sharon, I’m on the floor,’ and she said, ‘Well, get up then!’ But I couldn’t. Once you’re 70, the floodgates open and everything goes downhill. Mind you, I’ve got away with it for a long time.”
Ozzy went on to say that he is trying his “hardest” to stay shielded at the moment. “If I go out, I wear a mask, but I don’t like wearing a mask, so I don’t go out much,” he said. “The producer on my album [Andrew Watt] got the virus. I’d phone him up every day and he said he couldn’t sleep, because as soon as he went to sleep, he’d stop breathing. He’s not the same person now… It’s like anyone who’s had a near-death experience: he’s become a bit careful with life. But my two granddaughters caught it and you wouldn’t think they had anything wrong with them. It just bounced off them.”
Last July, Ozzy said that he was still “not back to 100 percent” after suffering from several medical issues in 2019, including a fall, neck surgery and hospitalization for the flu. Ozzy also said that he was looking forward to performing again once he has regained his health and the coronavirus pandemic has subsided.
In August, Ozzy blasted Donald Trump‘s coronavirus response, saying that America’s 45th president was “acting like a fool.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ozzy said: “In my lifetime, I’ve never known anything like this. It’s getting worse, not better. And this guy’s acting like a fool. I don’t really like to talk politics that much, but I’ve got to say what I feel with this guy. There’s not much hope left. Maybe he’s got a trick up his sleeve and he’s going to surprise us all, and I hope he has. [Recently], over a thousand more people died in one day [in America]. That’s fucking crazy. People got to get with this social distancing and mask-wearing or else it’s never gonna go away.”
When the pandemic struck, Ozzy had just released his first solo album in a decade, “Ordinary Man”, which he recorded in late 2019 while recovering from surgery and related illnesses. The BLACK SABBATH singer had previously canceled all his 2019 tour plans, and the rescheduled 2020 shows were also scrapped.
