Ozzy Osbourne Reveals He Has Parkinson’s
The 71-year-old sat down with Good Morning America to reveal he could no longer hide his health struggles and that he is on a ‘whole host’ of medication to treat his nerve pain.
It began, he said, when he suffered a fall last year and had to undergo surgery for it.
Insisting he was ‘far from’ his deathbed – as had been misreported – he said he wanted to ‘own up’ to his condition for the sake of his fans.
‘It has been terribly challenging for us,’ he said of the last year. ‘I had to have surgery on my neck which screwed all my nerves. I found out that I have a mild form of….’ he said before looking to his wife to finish his sentence.
Sharon chimed in: ‘It’s Parkin 2 which is a form of Parkinson’s. There are so many different types of Parkinson’s.
‘It’s not a death sentence by any stretch of the imagination but it does effect the nerves in your body. It’s like you’ll have a good day, then a good day and then a really bad day.’
Ozzy continued: ‘A year ago I was in a terrible state. I’m on a host of medication, mainly for the surgery.
‘I’ve got numbness down this arm and my legs are going cold. I don’t know if it’s the Parkinson’s or what. That’s the problem.’
The couple revealed they have exhausted the medical options in the US and will travel to Switzerland in April to seek advice from a professor who specializes in the condition.
Ozzy was previously diagnosed with Parkin Syndrome in 2005. It has similar symptoms to Parkinson’s.
We’re going to go wherever we can go to find answers,’ Sharon said. Ozzy added: ‘We’re lucky we can afford to do that.’
He said he’d felt ‘guilty’ hiding the diagnosis for months and now is relieved to be able to share it.
‘To hide something is hard – you never feel proper. You feel guilty. I’m no good with secrets. I cannot walk around with it anymore. It’s like I’m running out of excuses.
‘I feel better now that I have owned up to the fact that I have a case of Parkinson’s,’ he said.
He added that he missed contributing to the family.
‘Coming from a working class background, I hate to let people down.
‘I hate to not do my job. When I see my wife going to work, my kids going to work – that gets me down because I can’t contribute to my family.
‘I’m a lot better now than I was last February. I was in a shocking state,’ he said.
The Black Sabbath singer said he is now determined to get himself healthy and start touring again.
Of course, there are many options that Osbourne can pursue in order to achieve this goal. From checking out something like the Proplant Complete Shake ingredients to see what types of benefits it has, to taking part in regular exercise, he has to find something that can help him to become healthy once again.
‘This is the longest he’s ever been home. He really needs to get back out now,’ Sharon said.
Ozzy added: ‘I just can’t wait to get well and get on the road again that’s whats killing me. I need it you know- that’s my drug.
‘I ain’t going anywhere yet.’
His famous daughter Kelly was also interviewed, along with her brother Jack.
She said the disease was confusing because her father would appear healthy and able some days and totally immobile on other days.
‘Jack saw it first and then I saw it. It’s really strange how this works because there are some days where I will walk int he house and I’m like: “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.”
‘And then you come back the next day and nothing has happened but it’s like he can’t feel his arm and he can’t get off the couch. The hardest thing is watching someone you love suffer.
‘It’s become a bit of a role reversal for us. We have to all admit whats happening here so we can get over this. It took a while for everyone to be on the same page,’ she said.
‘I mean, I understand when you have something you don’t wanna have… I don’t push it. If he wants to talk about it, we talk about it,’ he said.
Kelly said that the thing that has brought her father joy is returning to the studio to record new music. In the last year, he has made his first solo album in 10 years. It is called Ordinary Man.
‘The only thing I know when it comes to my dad is, what can I do to make him smile? And I know that going to the studio makes him happy.
‘I got him up and got him to the studio but that’s all I did. The rest was him,’ she said.
Ozzy said he plans to take the new album on tour when he is well enough to.
‘I want to see my people. It’s like – I miss them so much,’ he said of his fans.
Sharon, wiping away tears, added: ‘He’s going to get back out there and he’s going to do what he loves to do. I know it.’
Earlier this week, the rockstar was spotted walking with a cane.
The fall happened in the couple’s home last April and it prompted him to cancel his world tour.
Recalling it, he said in a sneak-peek from the interview that was teased on Monday: ”When I had the fall it was pitch black, I went to the bathroom and I fell. I just fell and landed like a slam on the floor and I remember lying there thinking, “Well, you’ve done it now,” really calm.’
He added that, ‘Sharon called an ambulance. After that it was all downhill,’ but when asked why he waited so long to share details about his health problems, he said it wasn’t a problem.
‘It wasn’t really a problem for a while. I never noticed any different. Sharon was saying, “Are you okay? You seem different.”
‘The pain is constant. The first six months I was in agony. I’d say, “Sharon – you’re not telling me the truth. I’m dying, aren’t I?” I thought I’d got some terminal illness because the improvement was so slow,’ he added.
