What Really Happened When Ozzy Osbourne Bit Off the Head of a Bat—’Something Felt Wrong…’
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Ozzy Osbourne’s passing on July 22, 2025, has left people not just mourning the legendary Black Sabbath singer but reminiscing on his long career. And considering his status as a rock star, it’s not surprising that there are some very wild stories about Osbourne. In the world of rock, shocking behavior is pretty much mandatory, after all. But perhaps one of his most shocking stunts came when Osbourne, who was nicknamed the Prince of Darkness, bit the head off a bat.
Yes, that’s right, in what is considered one of the most notorious moments in heavy metal history, Osbourne literally bit the head off a bat on 20 January 1982, during a show at Des Moines’ Veterans Memorial Auditorium. But why did he? And was it all staged?
Related: Who are Ozzy Osbourne’s kids?
The answer is actually no. Though Osbourne’s recollections of the matter changed frequently, this fact remains unambiguous. But how we got there actually makes sense. In January 1982, Osbourne was promoting his second solo album, Diary of a Madman. And part of his interaction with the public had become a rather gruesome tradition: Osbourne would throw pieces of raw meat and animal parts, including intestines and liver. into the audience. Audiences would sometimes retaliate.
So, when something small and black landed on stage during that show, Osbourne thought it was a rubber toy. In his 2010 autobiography, I Am Ozzy, the singer recalled picking it up, stuffing it in his mouth, and biting hard.
“Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid,” he wrote. “Then the head in my mouth twitched.”
It gets more disgusting. “Somebody threw a bat. I just thought it was a rubber bat. And I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I bit into it,” he said. But he quickly realized, “Oh no, it’s real. It was a real live bat.”
However, Osbourne’s story changed a few times. In a 2006 BBC interview, he said: “This bat comes on. I thought it was one of them Hallowe’en joke bats ‘cos it had some string around its neck.” Which is why he bit into it. “I bite into it, and I look to my left, and Sharon [Osbourne, his wife and manager] was going [gesturing no]. And I’m like, what you talking about? She [says], ‘it’s a dead real bat’. And I’m… I know now!”
But was the bat dead or alive? According to the Des Moines Register, the man who brought it to the concert was named Mark Neal, and when he brought the animal into the concert, it had already been dead for days. One thing is for sure: Osbourne did bite into it, whether it was alive or not at the time.
And it wasn’t even the only time he bit into an animal. During a meeting with a group of CBS record label executives in Los Angeles, Osbourne bit the head off a dove. That story also changes a little. He told rock biographer Mick Wall that a PR woman at the meeting was annoying him. According to Wall’s book, Black Sabbath: Symptoms of the Universe, he “pulled out one of these doves and bit its [expletive] head off just to shut her up.” Not just that, “Then I did it again with the next dove,” he added, “spitting the head out on the table.”
Osbourne himself told a different story. “The scam is the bird was dead. We were planning to release it there, but it died beforehand. So rather than waste it, I bit its head off.”
But one thing remains true in both stories, whether the animal was alive or dead, Osbourne really did bite its head off.
