He was the spawn of evil, the “Prince of Darkness”: Anyone who only knows Ozzy Osbourne as the slightly senile father from his reality series probably doesn’t even suspect how much he pushed the boundaries of taste and morality in his early days. But even the man who once bit off the head of a live bat on stage has limits: the fun stops for him with Kanye West.
Osbourne just made this clear in an emotional post on the short message service X, formerly known as Twitter. “I don’t want anything to do with this man,” Osbourne complained. The style of the message shows how serious he is: Although Osbourne usually tweets rather reservedly, this post was capitalized throughout – the Internet equivalent of a scream aria.
The occasion was an action by the usually not very reserved rapper West. Osbourne reports that he asked if he could use an excerpt from the hit “Iron Man” by Osbourne’s former band Black Sabbath. The singer made it clear that he immediately rejected it “because he is an anti-Semite and causes untold heartache to countless people.” But then West still used the requested excerpt from a live concert from 1983 at a pre-show for his upcoming album – and thus provoked Osbourne’s anger.
The fact that Osbourne is so annoyed about this may also have something to do with the concert itself. West, who has caused a stir in recent years with his right-wing extremist conspiracy theories and deeply anti-Semitic statements, didn’t hold back at the pre-party for his album “Vulture” in Chicago. “I’m still crazy, bipolar, anti-Semitic,” he rapped on stage and then added “And I’m still the king” at the end.
Kanye also takes up the topic again and again in other songs on the album, as was reported from other pre-events. He is said to rap in a song: “I always have a few Jews with me. Management? No, I just let them make my jewelry.” In another he makes fun of the allegations. “How am I anti-semtic? I just f***ed a Jewish bitch.”
Incidentally, West received permission to use a sample from “Iron Man” on his 2010 album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. At the time, the rapper was already considered eccentric, but he had only come to attention as a political extremist in recent years.
Osbourne receives a lot of applause online for his statement. “Thank you Ozzy for taking a stand against this Jew-hater,” posted one user. “At least a few of the rockers I listened to in the ’80s are still sane,” another said. However, there were certainly critical voices – especially because of Osbourne’s older statements. When he was younger, he also praised Adolf Hitler’s charisma, as a video excerpt that has been posted more frequently since yesterday shows. However, Osbourne had already clearly distanced himself from Hitler’s “horrible crimes and murders” in the interview recorded in 1982. He only cared about the effect on crowds. “Imagine if someone who had this power would use it for good,” he enthused at the time.
It was clear by last fall at the latest that Osbourne doesn’t think much of West. On Halloween, he and his wife Sharon even made fun of him by dressing up as West and his wife Bianca Censori and imitating the couple’s bizarre outfits.
Sources: Twitter, Page Six, People
