Ozzy Osbourne achieved infamy overnight after an incident on Jan. 20, 1982, in Des Moines, Iowa. During the height of his drug problem, Osbourne was performing when an audience member threw a bat onstage. The singer, believing it was rubber, bit its head off as a stunt -- only to find out the bat was real and alive. Not only that, as he would disclose in the liner notes to the 2002 reissue of Diary of a Madman, the bat wound up biting him as well, which forced him to be treated for rabies. The incident not only fed his "rock madman" legend, it comes in at the top of our Top 10 Gruesome Classic Rock Legends -- though we should give honorable mentions to the time Osbourne bit the head off a dove, his arrest for urinating on or near the Alamo and the time he snorted a line of live ants. Viva Ozzy!

VERDICT: True

 

 

Ozzy Osbourne Albums Ranked 

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