Ozzy Osbourne is reflecting on one of the darkest moments of his life, and the second chance his wife, Sharon, gave him.
In his posthumous memoir Last Rites, released on October 7 (over two months after his death), the late Prince of Darkness looks back on the night he was arrested for attempting to kill Sharon in 1989 while in a drug and alcohol-fuelled haze.
“It was too much. I’d gone too far. I was out of control,” Ozzy wrote. “Me and Sharon had been arguing for a while over little things… those were the days when I took touring for granted.”
The Black Sabbath frontman recalled waking up in a jail cell with “the worst hangover of my life,” only to be told he’d been charged with attempted murder. “Maybe I really am insane,” he remembered thinking.
Ozzy entered rehab for six months following his arrest, during which Sharon didn’t contact him for five months before eventually dropping the charges.
“She said she didn’t believe the sober-world version of me was capable of murder,” Ozzy wrote. “Sharon, I’m sorry. And thank you for giving me another chance when almost anyone else would have walked away.”
Last Rites details Ozzy’s health battles and his determination to perform one last time before his death on July 22 at age 76.