Posted on 06/18/2002 11:42:37 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
LONDON (Reuters) - Rock rebel Ozzy Osbourne tried to hang himself from a clothes-line during a wild childhood, but was stopped in the nick of time by his angry father, according to a book excerpt released Monday.
"The 14-year-old made a noose out of his mother's clothes-line, put it over his head, fixed the other end securely to a high gate and jumped from a chair," said the excerpt from the new book "Ozzy Unauthorized" by Sue Crawford.
"The teen-ager who was to become one of rock's most outrageous men may have died right there except that he was caught in the act by his father -- who then gave him a sound beating," added the excerpt, published in Britain's The Sun newspaper.
Crawford's book paints a picture of chaos and poverty during Osbourne's upbringing in the central English city of Birmingham.
The British heavy metal rocker, famed for biting off a bat's head on stage, has lately acquired a new cult following due a hit U.S. docu-soap, "At Home With The Osbournes," charting daily life at his Beverly Hills mansion.
Rich and famous at 58 -- he recently sang for Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in London -- Osbourne was so poor as a child he only owned one pair of shoes and socks at a time.
"My mother was an amateur singer, my father was an amateur drunk," he was quoted as saying of his parents.
Having witnessed his father beating his mother, he became violent, at age seven organizing "hanging squads" that terrified other children by stringing them up in the toilets.
He later joined in gang fights with dustbin lids, iron pokers and even once a set of meat cleavers. "I can remember one pitched battle where I deliberately tried to drown some kid. Where I came from it was kill or be killed," he said.
Not surprisingly, Osbourne drank hard. At 17 he ended up in jail for six weeks for breaking into a shop. In prison, to escape a murderer's unwelcome attention, he smashed him over the head with a metal chamber pot, the excerpt said.
Osbourne's love of music came from his mother, who encouraged him to take part in school musicals. But it was the Beatles who were his first direct inspiration.
"If he did not have the money he would simply hide the records under his coat and do a runner," Crawford's book said of Osbourne's desperation to acquire the band's material.
The rocker left school early and worked as a slaughterman, killing 250 cattle a day and cutting the guts out of sheep, the book added. "It fostered his weird reputation for a fascination with animals and death," it said.
The show was pretty lame except for one part where one of Ozzy's roadies is walking with him, showing him how to operate various pieces of equipment backstage before a concert. The roadie then showed Ozzy one device which blew little soap bubbles. Ozzy sat down, looked significantly at the roadie, then exclaimed "Wait a minute! The bleeping Prince of Darkness does NOT have bleeping SOAP BUBBLES during his show!!!"
Guess you had to be there, but I almost died.
He IS however, a great singer.
A: With a crowbar.
Too bad it didn't work. This idiot makes his living from the devaluation of civilization. He is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I thought hearing Nancy Sinatra a few years ago was torture, but your daughter's one song was enough to empty the stomach of all watching and listening in the Rose Bowl.
The talk all over the place after was of how she must have had another singer cut her song, because she could not sing a note.
Maybe Ozzy had a dream about Kelly and the future and tried to hang himself. Lord knows the crowd listening to her on stage the other day were also brought to the same frame of mind.
Kelly was a total loss for the crowd.
At first glance, I thought this was gonna be a thread about Ozzy trying to "enhance" himself. ;o)
Since that's all one can wear at a time, doesn't sound like a horrible deprivation to me.
ROTFLMAO!!! Thanks man, I needed that!
FWIW, RA jumps on every Ozzy thread only to wail and gnash his teeth about a twenty-year old occurance at the Alamo. It has gotten old.
That and it's loud. Loud is fun.
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