The Prince of Darkness, the Preachers, and the Truth We Missed

by McClure Magazine

Ozzy Osbourne passed away today (July 22, 2025)

The self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness is finally at rest.

He was 76 years old—the average American life expectancy. But let’s be honest: for someone who lived the way Ozzy did, that number should’ve been impossible. Decades of addiction, the wildest edges of rock-and-roll, a body tested beyond reason—he still made it. And not just survived. He lived.

For those of us who grew up in the South in the 1980s, Ozzy wasn’t just a rock star—he was a villain.
Evangelical preachers thundered against him from pulpits. He was called a Satanist. A corrupter of youth. A sign of the end times.

And, to be fair, if all you saw were the album covers and headlines—if you only viewed him through the lens of a culture afraid of everything—it was easy to believe.

But as we got older, something became clear:
Ozzy Osbourne wasn’t evil.
He was theatrical. He was reckless.
But he wasn’t malevolent.

He never bombed clinics.
He never turned away refugees.
He never passed laws to take rights from people he didn’t understand.

He struggled with addiction, yes. But he loved his family.
One wife. Forty-plus years. No scandals. No mistresses. No cover-ups.
For a man drenched in excess, he somehow kept his vows better than many men who claimed to be morally upright.

And that’s the irony worth sitting with:
The man who once bit the head off a bat had a more stable marriage than half the politicians and preachers who railed against him.

Today’s “family values” crowd would rather obsess over drag queens than ask why so many of their leaders can’t stay faithful. They scream about “decency” while excusing adultery, abuse, and fraud—if the man wears a flag pin and quotes a Bible verse on camera.

But Ozzy? He never pretended to be a saint. He just wasn’t a hypocrite.

And maybe that’s what scared people most.

He made no apologies for being different. He didn’t conform to church standards, but he didn’t claim to be holy either. He lived honestly—flawed, loud, and loyal.

So today, we don’t just mourn a legend.
We remember how wrong society often gets it.

The villains aren’t always the ones in leather and eyeliner.
And the saints?
Well, sometimes they’re just better at hiding the skeletons in their closets.

Rest easy, Ozzy.
You were many things—but never fake.
And in a world full of masks, that’s something worth honoring.

Mama, you’re finally coming home.