Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne created Ozzfest after Lollapalooza diss

Ozzy Osbourne, the world-renowned heavy music and cultural icon who died Tuesday a few weeks following his final live performance, led myriad lives: The lovable if bumbling patriarch of hit reality show The Osbournes; metal progenitor as Black Sabbath’s frontman; and a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who released 13 solo albums to multi-platinum success with radio staples like “Crazy Train,” “No More Tears” and “Changes.”

But one of his most lasting legacies came thanks to Ozzfest, the annual multi-band touring juggernaut spearheaded by manager/wife Sharon Osbourne. It began in 1996 and ran until 2018, with top-tier bands including Slayer, Tool, Motorhead and System of a Down often returning for multiple years.

And we have the Perry Farrell-founded Lollapalooza Festival to thank for Ozzfest.

“In 1996 I said to my agents for Ozzy, ’Ozzy should be on Lollapalooza.’ They went and asked, and the response was, ‘Ozzy’s not relevant,’” Sharon Osbourne told writer Richard Bienstock in Billboard.

”Sharon got pissed off about that. … ‘You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna do the Ozzfest.’ I thought she’d f—king gone nuts,” Ozzy told Bienstock, co-author of “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival.”

Sharon, a powerhouse who learned music business tactics from father Don Arden, a heavyweight and feared music manager and agent, was on fire, furious at the disrespect leveled at her husband.

The first Ozzfest was a mere two dates — one in Arizona, one in California — but like subsequent touring Ozzfest’s, it featured the crème de la crème of metal, both chart-toppers and newcomers divided between two stages. Ozzy headlined the first fest and Black Sabbath the second, along with Marilyn Manson, Pantera, Type O Negative, Fear Factory and Machine Head.

In a Halloween 2023 episode of the Osbournes Podcast, Ozzy asked Sharon about bringing back the tour, which ended in 2018 with a single show in Los Angeles. Prior to that, in 2016, for two years, it had become Ozzfest Meets Knotfest when the second fest, created by Slipknot manager Cory Brennan in 2012, teamed up with Ozzfest.

On the podcast episode, Ozzy asked Sharon: “Not just one [at] the f—ing [Kia] Forum, but a whole Ozzfest?”

His wife replied in the affirmative but gave context to the Ozzfest dynamic that ultimately halted the festival. “It was a very weird beast, because all the bands were our mates, but the managers were greedy, and for some reason, they thought that we were making billions on it, and we weren’t,” Sharon said. “We made a profit, but it was not like we could retire on it. Managers and agents wanted more and more and more, and it just wasn’t cost-effective anymore.”

With Ozzy’s declining health and the voluminous work and hoopla leading up to the “Back to the Beginning” show on July 5, 2025, discussion about future Ozzfests or Ozzfest Meets Knotfest have been quiet.

But with increasingly few high-profile outlets for new heavy music, Sharon’s goal of “breaking new bands” via Ozzfest’s second stage would be welcome. She’s still helping careers; by putting British singer Yungblud on the “Back to the Beginning” show singing Ozzy’s “Changes,” the young singer reached a massive worldwide audience — especially in America, where he has yet to break through in a notable way.

Twenty-five years ago, Disturbed were a young Chicago lineup when offered a spot on the prestigious touring fest in 2000. “They gave us this platform to really help catapult our career,” Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan said in 2024. “It seemed like every time we would play these major markets on Ozzfest, we would [then] see SoundScan numbers and big spikes in album sales, so that told us that we were at least connecting live, because people were running out to buy the album, and it was a significant amount of albums being sold at that time.”

“The album came out in March of 2000 and by the end of the summer, we finished Ozzfest, and the album had gone Gold,” Donegan recalls. “We sold over 500,000 records in that short period of time. A lot of credit goes to the exposure that we got on Ozzfest, because we were playing amphitheaters five days a week, and it was the size [of] crowds we needed to be in front of.”

DevilDriver performs at Ozzfest 2016 at San Manuel Amphitheater on Sept. 24, 2016 in San Bernardino, Calif.

(Amy Harris / Invision / Associated Press)

Sharon has a deserved reputation as a savvy and fierce businesswoman, but nearly every band who played Ozzfest has nothing but praise for their tenure on the festival. As Donegan recalls, “Sharon and Ozzy and the whole family were just very accommodating to us. She’s one of the toughest women in the business. She won’t take s— from anyone, and she makes that very clear, and, to us, as a band, she was very loving and motherly and accepting. It was amazing.”

Tom Beaujour, who worked with Sharon and Ozzfest during his tenure as editor of metal magazine Revolver, recalls, “She was always incredibly straightforward and fair to deal with. You didn’t get the run-around. When she said that something would be done, it got done.”

Bands and businesspeople alike respected Mrs. O’s status. “You also knew never to mess with Sharon,” continues Beaujour, who is also co-author of “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival.” “And you didn’t tell Sharon you were going to do something and not do it, because you would get blacklisted. You just knew not to mess with Sharon, ever. I always thought that that was a great thing, because it’s really nice to actually know where you stand with people. And know that if you get out of line, the hammer is going to drop.”

Sharon illustrated that point on the Osbournes Podcast, recounting the story of an early Ozzfest when one band refused to go on stage until she agreed to give them an additional $10,000. Showing the mettle that took her own and Ozzy’s career to great heights, Sharon recalls, “They were holding everything up. And I said, ‘Of course, of course, I’ll give it to you!” They went on, played and [afterwards] I went, ‘F— you. You signed a contract. Your agent agreed to it, and now you’re just gouging.’”

Her commitment to nurturing talent extended to a label she started, Divine Recordings, which in 2000 signed a promising (very) young band, Pure Rubbish. As singer Derek Dunivan recalled, “My first show ever singing lead was a showcase for Sharon Osbourne in Houston. She called Ozzy on the phone, and thinking about that tripped us out! We went to Ozzfest that week, and they eventually decided to sign us a month or so later. All the majors were after us at the time.” Pure Rubbish played the second stage on the U.K. run of Ozzfest in 2001.

Ozzy Osbourne, left, joins his wife Sharon onstage during the Ozzfest Meets Knotfest news conference at the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday, May 12, 2016, in Los Angeles. The multi-stage camping festival was announced at the news conference.

(Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)

Dez Fafara of Coal Chamber told writer Bienstock in Billboard that “Sharon knew it was a smart idea to put on a heavy metal, that’s-all-that-we’re-playing-today festival. And that if she made sure that that genre had its comeuppance and had its day in court, everybody would come. And surely everybody did.”

The band Kittie, who released their debut album “Spit” in 2000, became the first female band booked in the tour’s history with their time on Ozzfest the same year. Drummer Mercedes Lander says, “I can’t believe the impact that we had,” with singer Morgan Lander concurring, “It’s really difficult to admit to myself that yes, what we did really mattered. But people are coming out and saying, ‘When I was in high school, you changed my life.’ ‘You influenced me as an artist.’ And a lot of them are women.”

Drawing a parallel to the early days of Lollapalooza, Beaujour notes that both fests drew “curious kids who were looking for a subculture and operating outside of what was maybe on the radio. I think for all of its existence, in a weird way, Ozzfest had that. The bands on there were huge, but metal has always been a subculture and somewhat reviled and outside of what the mainstream press covers. I think that Ozzfest always catered to a subculture, and to a kid who feels a little bit like an outsider doesn’t fit in. In a way,” Beaujour said, “Ozzfest had a much more lasting relationship the outer reaches of popular culture than Lollapalooza, which very quickly had incredibly popular bands on it.”

From the Datsuns to the Dwarves to Dimmu Borgir, many underground bands were represented on Ozzfest, while cool collabs abounded among bigger names: Late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington joined Disturbed in 2001 to perform a cover of Pantera’s “Walk,” and relationships among varied bands developed, leading to on- and off-stage collaborations … and shenanigans.

A well-organized Ozzfest tour would be a welcome addition to the current festival landscape. However, as Beaujour notes, “the first year of Lollapalooza, which was basically started as a Jane’s Addiction farewell tour,” didn’t have Jane’s Addiction on subsequent Lollapaloozas. “But Sharon always had Ozzy, and people never get tired of Ozzy,” Beaujour says.

With the passing of the Prince of Darkness, and without his powerful presence to anchor an Ozzfest, any future configurations of the tour would need to be reimagined. Many musicians were excited and honored to be part of Ozzfest in large part because they were huge fans of Ozzy and Sabbath, their own music hugely influenced by them. And, as The Times noted in a 1997 review of Ozzfest, “Since Black Sabbath’s ‘70s heyday, its progeny have upped the ante considerably when it comes to rock’s shock value. But in the end Black Sabbath still packed the most potent musical charge.”