Headless bats, vicars and hash

by Josh Williams

Metal has forever had its iconic madmen, from Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx, to Motor Head’s Lemmy but none of them even start to scratch the surface of insanity and craziness when compared to the iconic ‘Heavy Metal Dinosaur’, Ozzy Osbourne.

On many of his drunken escapades, Osbourne got into the habit of tying mannequins to trees at Belrush Cottage, where he lived with his previous wife Thelma.

At dawn he would wake, select his weapon of choice and proceed to execute the mannequin.

An interesting pastime, to say the least.

Bat-gate

When considering the extremities of his rock and roll lifestyle, ‘Bat-gate’ cannot go unmentioned.

Many claim that the bat whose head Osbourne infamously removed with his teeth was in fact false.

However, he states in his book, I am Ozzy, that his doctor suggested the bat ‘appeared’ to be dead because it was ‘stunned by the lights’ and it was in fact a real bat.

This is further proven by the "couple of weeks worth of rabies shots" Osbourne had to undertake following his nibble.

Dodgy cake

Around 1972, a local vicar was doing his rounds.

Upon knocking on the Osbourne household, Thelma welcomed him in only to find she had nothing to offer him apart from some cake sitting on top of a kitchen cupboard.

Little did she know that her busband’s cannabis dealer had given him some "dodgy hash" which had been baked into said cake making for an interesting snack.

Osbourne returned from the pub to greet the vicar who had "turned a funny colour" and shortly thereafter collapsed.

In blind panic, the couple carried him to his car and drove him home.

The vicar wasn’t seen around the vicarage for over a week when Osbourne went into his local and he was there "sat at the bar in his frock and sipping a cranberry juice."

He asked nervously how the vicar was doing, to which the vicar replied: “Never had flu like it, hallucinations and everything. I must have put on at least three stone this week, I’ve been so incredibly hungry.”