Rock Flashback: Ozzy Osbourne Bites a Bat

In November 2011, Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath mates announced a new album and tour for 2012. (L to R: Bill Ward, Tony Iommi, Osborne, and Geezer Butler) (Getty Images/Kevin Winter)

It’s shorthand for Ozzy Osbourne‘s rock-star craziness: “He bit the head off of a live bat onstage.” And he really did. It happened 30 years ago this week. You might find the details disturbing, so click only if you dare.

During the Bark at the Moon tour, Ozzy apparently threw raw meat into the audience now and then. On January 20, 1982, at Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines, a fan decided to throw something back. Ozzy thought it was a rubber bat.

It was not. As he wrote in his memoir, I Am Ozzy: “Something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched.” Osbourne received rabies shots after the incident. A week later, he collapsed onstage due to the effects of the shots, but he survived without getting rabies, and the incident became the single most famous moment of his career.

It wasn’t his first head-bite, believe it or not. Months earlier, he’d bitten the head off of a live dove while meeting with record company executives. If it was a negotiating ploy, and if it worked, maybe Verity and I should try it with the suits here at CBS (Editor’s Note: Let me know if it works … you go first).

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