The approach gave Sharon Osbourne and the couple’s children, Aimee Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne and Jack Osbourne, time away from the public attention that had surrounded Ozzy for decades. He also had three older children connected to his first marriage to Thelma Riley: Elliot Kingsley, Jessica Osbourne and Louis Osbourne.
For a family whose domestic life once became international television, privacy after death was apparently still possible, at least briefly.
What caused Ozzy Osbourne's death
Ozzy died on July 22, 2025, at the age of 76. According to his death certificate, the causes included out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, acute myocardial infarction and coronary artery disease. Parkinson’s disease with autonomic dysfunction was also listed.
His death came just 17 days after his final performance in Birmingham. On July 5, approximately 42,000 people attended the farewell concert, where Ozzy reunited with the original members of Black Sabbath.
“You have no idea how I feel,” he told the audience. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
The concert closed the public chapter of a career that began in working-class Aston and helped establish heavy metal as a global genre. Black Sabbath sold more than 75 million albums, according to the Associated Press. Shortly before Ozzy’s death, Birmingham awarded the band’s original members the Freedom of the City.
Ozzy’s family then moved from a private vigil at home to a farewell involving an entire city, a considerable change in scale.
How Birmingham said goodbye
Eight days after Ozzy died, thousands of mourners lined the streets of Birmingham for his funeral cortege. The Osbourne family arranged and privately funded the public procession.
Katie Brazier, Birmingham’s director of festivals and events, told the Associated Press that Ozzy meant “everything” to the city and “never forgot where he came from.” Kelly expressed much the same feeling, saying she was proud that half of her came from Birmingham.
“They’re salt-of-the-earth, working-class heroes who say it as it is,” she said. “They’re incredible people, and I don’t think Birmingham gets enough credit.”
Her father’s connection to Aston remained central to the family’s view of him, even after decades of stadium tours, reality television and the sort of fame that makes ordinary errands largely theoretical.
“[Ozzy] will always be that little boy from Aston,” Kelly said. “He never realized the icon that he truly will be forever. There was no one like him, and there never will be again.”
How grief affected Kelly Osbourne
Kelly, who shares 3-year-old son Sidney with former fiancé Sid Wilson, said the year after her father’s death was “the hardest year of my life.” She also acknowledged that she became physically and mentally unwell while grieving.
“I didn’t navigate it. I wasn’t well,” she said. “How can you navigate something so cruel when you’re so sick? I’m getting a lot better. I’ve got all the help I need and I’m grateful for the support I have in my life.”
Speaking separately about treatment, she said therapy would be “a lifetime of work.” Her description was less a polished recovery story than an admission that grief does not follow a convenient production schedule.
Fan support helped the family through the first stages. Kelly said every note, flower and gift was received, read and acknowledged, with replies sent whenever possible.
“It saved us,” she said. “It showed us that they loved him as much as we loved them.”
The attention did not remove the loss, and Kelly made no attempt to suggest otherwise. “I’ll never be the person I was before my father died,” she said. “A part of me died, too.” For now, she is taking life one day at a time while trying to preserve the legacy of the father Birmingham knew long before the rest of the world did.
