Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp performed a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ in tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. See the moment below.
- READ MORE: Ozzy Osbourne, 1948-2025: culture-smashing revolutionary that redefined rock and reality TV
The death of the heavy metal pioneer and iconic Black Sabbath frontman was announced on Tuesday (July 22). He was aged 76, and his family said in a statement that he was “surrounded by love” at the time of his passing.
Cooper honoured the late singer during his performance at London’s O2 Arena on Friday night (July 25), after also paying tribute to him earlier in the week during his Cardiff show.
The musician, who was wearing an Osbourne t-shirt, played the beginning of ‘Paranoid’ with his band, before being joined by Depp, who walked onstage with his guitar and played the song’s famous riff alongside the other guitarists.
Later, they played Cooper’s own track ‘School’s Out’ together, before ending with a rendition of Osbourne’s ‘Crazy Train’.
Watch the moment below.
Upon the announcement of Osbourne’s death, Cooper touched on the “immense respect” he has for the musician.
“The whole world is mourning Ozzy tonight,” he said. “Over his long career, he earned immense respect among his peers and from fans around the world as an unmatched showman and cultural icon.”
The performance sees Cooper and Depp join the likes of Oasis, Judas Priest, Metallica, Yungblud, Elton John, Ronnie Wood, Tom Morello and many more in paying tribute to the heavy metal revolutionary, whose death came shortly after he took to the stage for his final-ever live shows at Sabbath’s huge ‘Back To The Beginning’ event in Birmingham on July 5.
The historic gig saw Osbourne reunite with former bandmates Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler, with the latter taking to social media to write that he was “so glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston”.
The show was live-streamed globally, and now has a cinema release scheduled for next year. Proceeds from the concert were split equally among Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acom Children’s Hospice, and made the event the highest-grossing charity concert of all time, bringing in just under £200million for good causes.
The likes of Coldplay, Alice Cooper, Ghost, Gojira and Drake have also dedicated performances to Osbourne, as fans shared footage and memories from the artist’s final live appearances.
Jake E. Lee, who played guitar with Ozzy in the ‘80s and appeared at ‘Back to the Beginning’, has shared the final message he received from the late singer.
Elsewhere, social media users have been flooding platforms with humorous clips of the Prince Of Darkness in The Osbournes. Meanwhile, gamers have been remembering his iconic advert for PlayStation’s virtual reality headset, the PSVR2.
In other news, Osbourne’s final memoir, Last Rites, is set to be published this autumn. The book will tell the “shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Ozzy’s descent into hell”, with the Prince Of Darkness detailing the health issues he’d faced in recent years.
Taking to Instagram Stories, Kelly Osbourne recently paid tribute to her father, saying that she had “lost the best friend [she] ever had”.
