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Ozzy Osbourne and his first wife, Thelma Riley, were together during his early years of success in Black Sabbath. Just over a decade into their marriage, they divorced, and Osbourne went on to have a long and fruitful relationship with Sharon Osbourne. While he was with Riley, though, his bandmates noted how completely devoted he was to her.
Ozzy Osbourne was deeply in love with his first wife, Thelma Riley
Shortly after Osbourne married Riley, he set out on a tour with Black Sabbath. He said he missed her so badly that he sought out antidepressants.
“They’re crazy mad in love,” drummer Bill Ward told Rolling Stone in 1971. “He really can’t stand being away from her. The problem they’re having is something too complicated and personal to talk about now. It has to do with something that happened some time ago.”
Osbourne struggled with his long-distance relationship. He worried that it would lead to the end of his marriage, with Riley finally having enough of him away on tour.
“I’ll be OK as long as there’s me and my wife, and my kids and my group,” he said. “But sometimes I start to wonder if my family’s going to wait for me. I wonder if she’ll get pissed off while I’m running around, recording and all. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
Ozzy Osbourne and Thelma Riley divorced in 1982
Though Osbourne said he was deeply in love with Riley, even in the first year of his marriage, he hinted at problems. When he didn’t have music as an outlet, he admitted they fought viciously.
“We get people’s aggressions out,” he said. “Then they won’t go out and beat some old lady over the head. It works for me too. Like when I’m at home for a while, not working, with no outlet for me energy, my wife and I are hammer and tongs at each other cause I’m all pent up. But our music gets it out, for me as well as the audience.”
Osbourne’s drug and alcohol use, coupled with his extended periods away from home ultimately led to the end of his marriage to Riley. They divorced in 1982, and he has since described their marriage as a “mistake.”
He later married Sharon Osbourne
Shortly after his divorce from Riley, he married Sharon Arden, his manager. He credits her for his long life. In the early years of Black Sabbath, he assumed he would die before he turned 40.
“It’s true to say that if it wasn’t for Sharon, I wouldn’t be here. Yeah, I’d be dead,” he told GQ. “She has helped make me the man I am today. Through tough love and pushing me. In the Seventies I was so scared I wouldn’t go on stage. I’d sing on the side of the stage. And she said, ‘Here’s a cordless mic, f***ing work that stage!’ She just bulldozed me into becoming what I am now.”
While the couple had their ups and downs, Osbourne said they always made a point to say “I love you” every day.
“With time, people forget to say, ‘Darling, I love you,’” he said. “Just that word … Because since I met Sharon, there has never been a day ever that we haven’t spoken or haven’t said to each other, ‘I love you, I miss you.’”
They remained together until his death in 2025.
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