'Prince of Darkness' Ozzy Osbourne found stardom in music and reality TV

English rocker Ozzy Osbourne, who achieved enormous success as a pioneer of two wildly popular entertainment genres - heavy metal music and reality television - died on July 22. He was 76.

- Gavin Edwards

His family announced the death in a statement, which did not say where he died or specify a cause.

He had been treated in recent years for a variant of Parkinson's disease that he identified as Parkinsonism or Parkin 2, with symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease, exacerbated by his chronic drug abuse.

Although Osbourne repeatedly announced his retirement over the years - he called a series of live dates in 1992 the No More Tours tour and a 2018 series No More Tours II - he gave his final concert earlier in July at a festival in his Birmingham home town held in his honour.

Seated on a black throne and visibly moved by the enthusiasm of the crowd, he closed out his career by reuniting the original line-up of his heavy metal group Black Sabbath.

As Black Sabbath's lead singer, Osbourne was one of the inventors of heavy metal. As a solo artiste, he became a remarkably durable star, with 13 platinum albums and the nickname "Prince of Darkness".

But he achieved even wider fame for his rock 'n' roll excess, including an onstage incident in which he bit the head off a bat.

The hit MTV reality show The Osbournes (2002 to 2005) presented a comedic counterpoint to his infamy and his taste for satanic imagery; revealing himself as the befuddled patriarch of a chaotic but loving family, he became a TV star.

"All the stuff onstage, the craziness - it's all just a role that I play, my work," Osbourne insisted in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. "I am not the Antichrist. I am a family man."

Born John Michael Osbourne on Dec 3, 1948, he was the fourth of six children of John Thomas Osbourne, a toolmaker who worked the night shift at a power plant, and Lillian (Levy) Osbourne, who worked the day shift at an auto-parts factory.

The Osbournes were crammed into a small working-class home.