I wake up early at my house in Hidden Hills, California, and go downstairs to make myself some toast and a pot of my special atomic coffee (you double brew the beans, add a double shot of espresso, and stay awake for days). And there on the table as I walked into the kitchen was a bottle of champagne that my wife Sharon had left open from the night before. Now, a few years ago, this would have been a disaster for me: I would have polished off that champagne for breakfast, disappeared for a month, then tried to come home by driving my Ferrari through the front door. But I didn’t. I just put a cork in the bottle, and put the bottle back in the fridge. The only thought that popped into my head was, ‘I hope it ain’t gone flat, because that would be a terrible waste.’ I’m not saying that all those years in rehab have finally worked — because you never recover from what I’ve got… but I must be making some progress. Or maybe the economy cured me. I gave up heroin during the last recession: it made me throw up so much, I thought it was a terrible waste of beer.
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Speaking of my Ferrari — I just got a new one: a 458 Italia. I wanted it to look like one of those stealth fighter aircraft: completely black, with no shine on the paint. But the guys at the dealership said it would scratch too easily, so I ended up getting it in silver, and they put these matt-black stickers over every panel, which you can wash regularly, then peel off and replace whenever they get too messed up. Now all I need to do is persuade somebody to get in the car with me. Whenever I reach for the keys, people run for the hills, screaming. What’s so scary about me driving a 600-horsepower supercar around LA? So far, the only time the car’s been driven is when my assistant pops down the shops for milk.
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A familiar-looking visitor came round the house the other day. She works for the Today show on NBC and wanted to ask me about my new book — which is based on my health advice columns in the Sunday Times and Rolling Stone. When I was done telling her about the side-effects of psychedelic toads and the odds of being killed by falling coconuts, I became convinced that we’d met somewhere before. And then, as she was leaving, Sharon whispered in my ear, ‘That’s President Bush’s youngest daughter — Jenna!’ My jaw hit the floor like a sack of f***ing potatoes. A lovely girl, actually. And I’m always impressed when kids of the rich and famous go off and make careers on their own. It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, they can get anything they want, they’re the daughter of so-and-so,’ but actually, people can hold that stuff against you, and it must be very tempting just to sit at home living off your parents’ dough. I bumped into Jenna’s old man once, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2002, when The Osbournes show was still on the air. I told him to grow his hair like mine, and he replied, ‘Second term, Ozzy. Second term.’
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If there’s one thing more unlikely than me swapping health tips with the Bush family, it’s me giving the best man’s speech at a wedding. But that’s what I had to do last Sunday when my personal assistant, Tony Dennis, got married on a yacht in Los Angeles. I’ve never been so nervous. It’s one thing singing ‘Paranoid’ in front of half a million headbangers, but it’s something else to entertain a roomful of people in frocks and bow ties with your witty anecdotes. Anyway, I got through it, sort of — mainly because Tony’s been the best friend I’ve ever had, so I didn’t have to bullshit. Tony’s first job with me was as a bag-carrier, which he got because he was such a huge fan. He used to follow us everywhere — even sleeping in telephone boxes when we went on tour. Eventually, he was promoted to bringing me refreshments on stage, in a full suit of armour. After that, he became my assistant, the job he still has today. I think the main reason we get along so well is his Geordie accent. It means I haven’t got a clue what he’s on about half the time — and he says the same thing about me.
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Now it looks like my son Jack might also be about to tie the knot. Already, people are coming up to me and asking, ‘What advice are you gonna give him, since you and Sharon have been together so long?’ All I can say is that I’m still very much in love with Sharon. It’s no more complicated than that — I just am. Having said that, when you’ve been on a 40-year-long bender, your memory tends to suffer, so cheating isn’t a practical option. It’s all very well when a natural-born con man decides to play a few away-games. If I tried it, I’d forever be in the wrong house at the wrong time, calling some poor woman by the wrong name.
Trust Me, I’m Dr Ozzy, by Ozzy Osbourne and Chris Ayres, is published this week by Sphere, priced £9.99.
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