Sharon Osbourne has promised that an official announcement about Ozzfest 2027 is coming “soon”, while once again defending the upcoming AI avatar of Ozzy.
The widow and manager of the late soloist and Black Sabbath frontman first shared plans to revive the legendary Ozzfest earlier this year. She said the legendary annual event – which hosted its first edition in 1996 – would “absolutely” return with Ozzy’s blessing.
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Shortly afterwards, Sharon revealed that next year’s Ozzfest would take place at Birmingham’s Villa Park – the stadium that staged Ozzy and Sabbath’s final-ever live performances last summer, just weeks before his death aged 76.
“We’ve got to find a lot of young, new talent, because that’s what your dad would want,” she told son Jack, also teasing an upcoming US leg of the event.
Now, Sharon has given an update on Ozzfest ’27 in a new interview with Metal Hammer. “It’s going to be at Villa Park again,” she told the publication. “Whether it’ll be two nights [in Birmingham], that’s up for the fans to tell me.”
As for who could be on the line-up, and when official news would be coming, she added: “Of course we’re speaking to people. I can’t let that out yet, but it’ll be soon.”
Ozzfest’s final instalment was held in Inglewood, California on New Year’s Eve 2018, and boasted performances from Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, DevilDriver and Ozzy himself, among others.
Elsewhere in the new interview, Sharon reiterated that the planned AI-powered avatar of her late husband was not about cashing in on his legacy.
“I’ve seen such shit online about it being a ‘money grab’,” she explained. “Why would I need to do that? It’s not as if I’m using Ozzy to sell fucking weedkiller or beer. Ozzy loved the idea. We’ve been talking about it for 10 years.
“Ozzy has this great body of work that took a lifetime to do – why shouldn’t he still be seen? Why should we have to watch the same videos over and over again, when there’s technology available that means we don’t have to?”
Sharon went on: “If you don’t like it, don’t go see it. I’m not at people’s houses with a fucking gun, going, ‘Give me your money!’”
She previously said fans would be able to “ask [the digital] Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice – and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said”. Sharon continued: “People can talk to him and he will talk back.”
Earlier this summer, she defended the plans for the project, insisting that she “doesn’t need your fucking money”.
Adding that her late husband would have been supportive of the avatar, Sharon said: “For somebody to turn around to me and say I’m doing a cash grab? No, you don’t know my husband, OK? I know my husband.
“My husband would say to me over and over, ‘After I go, how long do you think I’ll be remembered?’”
Her son Jack agreed, reasoning: “Either we do it or someone else is gonna do it. And for me, it’s not about pretending he’s still alive. It’s making sure he’s never forgotten.”
Earlier, Jack responded to the backlash by claiming that his father “would be into this”. He shared: “It’s gonna be so tasteful what we’re doing. It’s not gonna be fucking lame.”
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is launching two Ozzy-inspired haunted houses, saying it will help “grow his licensing program around the world”.
In other news, Sharon revealed the advice Ozzy had given her to remember him on the first anniversary of his death last month, as his former Black Sabbath bandmates paid tribute.
That same day, the first-ever official ‘Ozzy Day’ was held in his hometown of Birmingham. Jack urged fans to share stories about his dad, saying he wanted to “fill the entire day of July 22 with just awesome Ozzy stories”. His daughter Kelly also spoke about how she was coping one year on, saying that she doesn’t “just mourn the father I lost. I mourn the soul I was before [his] death”.
