If there are limits, few artists have exceeded as much as the John Michael Osbourne, known as ozzy osbourne, or otherwise the Prince of darknesswho passed away at the age of 76.

Such a nickname is not given by accident.

The fans of Black Sabbath They attributed it to him because of his dark stage presence and the lyrics that revolved around occultism.

However, the events of January 20, 1982, when a bat head was thrown out of the crowd on stage, exceeded every previous one.

The night with the bat

At this time, Ozzy was on a tour to promote his second staff, Diary of A Madman. Then he used to throw out raw pieces of meat into the public, a habit that perfectly matched his previous job … in a slaughterhouse.

On January 20, 1982, during a concert at Des Moines, Iowa, someone threw a bat on stage.

Ozzy, thinking she was a rubber game, lifted her up and bit her.

Then he said that “I immediately realized that something was not going well … My mouth was filled with a warm, sticky liquid … and then the head in my mouth was shaking.”

For any possibility Ozzy was taken to the hospital to make injections against rabiesfor any possibility.

In his autobiographical book I am Ozzy, he writes:

It was actually a bat

He later argued that the animal was already dead and that he just considered it part of the show. Testimonies from attendees seem to confirm it. One of them, Mark Neal, said his brother had found the bat dead days before, and was taken to the concert with them.

The interview he had given about the bat in question and explains why she did:

Pigeons and … ironic message of peace

A few months ago, a similar incident in Los Angeles had preceded it. Ozzy went to a meeting with CBS executives, carrying three living pigeons with him as a symbolic peace gesture.

The original plan was to let them free after speaking a short reason. Instead, after drinking a lot of cognac, he bit his head from two pigeons in front of the surprised company executives, who threw him out immediately.

He later gave a second version:

“Peristeri was already dead. We thought, instead of throwing it off, let’s do it … spectacle“

Myth or reality?

Whatever the case, whether they were just as they said or not, they built Ozzy’s reputation as the most extreme and dark character of the rock scene.

They made him more than a singer: they turned him into a living legend with exaggeration and challenge. And whether anyone loved him or not, no one could ignore him.