I don’t want to write this.

I don’t want to write this for a myriad of reasons. I don’t want to write this as I don’t want anyone to think I’m just doing it for clicks and views as that’s not who I am. I don’t want to write this as I am in mourning and the cut is still fresh and deep. I don’t want to write this because I’m not sure I even know what I’m going to say.

But mainly, I don’t want to write this because when I’m done and it’s out in the world, I’m going to have to face the fact that it’s true.

Ozzy Osbourne has left the stage.

I cannot explain how much that hurts to write.

What Ozzy was, is, and will forever be to us, the fans, is undebatable. Along with Iommi, Butler, and Ward, Black Sabbath gave the world Heavy Metal. Four guys. Four working class guys changed the fucking face of music as we know it and created a genre so fucking important that over 50 years later, kids are still picking up guitars and laying down riffs in the hope of being able to reach people.

And when it all went to shit, when the craziest motherfucker in a band of crazy motherfuckers was too damn fucking crazy and they kicked him to the kerb, Sharon came into his life and helped reinvent him into The Prince Of Fucking Darkness. In a career that would see him eclipse the band that started it all and catapult him to the front of a scene that he created – a position he would never relinquish, no matter how out of control his life got – Ozzy Osbourne would influence so many of the greats that would follow in his and Sabbath’s wake.

But I don’t need to tell you that. If you’re reading this, you know.

Everyone knows the stories. Everyone knows the madness and the genius that followed Ozzy Osbourne in equal measures. I don’t need to talk about them here.

What I need to do is vent.

I’m heart broken.

I cried when the news first broke yesterday. I cried this morning when I was doing the washing up and Spotify decides to play No More Tears at me. And I broke down like a child when I left YouTube running and Yungblud’s cover of Changes found its way into my playlist while I was cooking my kids dinner about an hour before I started writing this.

I am heart broken and I don’t know how too make it stop.

I’ve seen people online question why we feel this way and I’ve seen people trying to be funny about us being sad that a 76-year-old man has passed away. These people don’t get it.

It isn’t about that. It doesn’t matter how old he was. It was about what he stood for. Who he was. He was one of the forefounders of Heavy Metal. He helped give us the genre we all love, a genre that the outcasts, losers, and unwanted could call home. And he loved us and we loved him. He didn’t care who you were, you were one of his people and that made us feel like we belonged.

And if you can’t see that, then fuck off. Let us mourn in peace.

My heart goes out to his family and his friends. We are with you and here for you. We always will be.

Ozzy Osbourne. Thank you for everything. We will miss you until the sun goes out. Sleep well, father.

The Prince of Darkness has taken his final bow. The stage has fallen silent.