Fact Check: Ozzy Osbourne’s death revives COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theory

Claim:

Ozzy Osbourne died from years of illness caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.

Rating:

On July 22, 2025, famed heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne died at age 76. Although his family did not release a cause of death, he had been battling a range of health issues over the years, including a variant of Parkinson’s disease. However, soon after his death, rumors spread that the COVID-19 vaccine caused his illness.

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones shared an old article in which Osbourne said he was “relieved” after getting his COVID-19 vaccine. Jones wrote on X in response to the article:

The iconic Ozzy Osbourne has died suddenly after years of illness which mysteriously started after getting vaccinated.

The Black Sabbath lead singer cancelled concerts after experiencing blood clots in his legs, and had a filter placed in his artery to protect spread to his heart and brain. 

Ozzy was excited when he first got his shot. He’s now dead…

Rest in peace Ozzy Osbourne. 

(X user @RealAlexJones)

Osbourne’s various health concerns had been widely documented long before he ever received the COVID-19 vaccine and before the pandemic took place. He publicly spoke about his decades of health challenges and attributed many of them to years of drug and alcohol abuse. As such, we rate the above claim as false.

In January 2020, Osbourne publicly announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In an interview, he said the diagnosis came after he had a fall in 2019 that led to neck surgery. Around that time he also had pneumonia and had to go into the ICU. Osborne also had a near-fatal quad bike accident in 2003. 

Jones’ claim that blood clots in Osbourne’s leg were connected to the vaccine also is false. Osbourne described having blood clots in his legs in an August 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, saying he developed them while he recovered from his neck surgery. 

In a May 2025 interview with The Guardian, Osbourne described his difficulties training for his final concert because of blood clots and other issues:  

I do weights, bike riding, I’ve got a guy living at my house who’s working with me. It’s tough — I’ve been laid up for such a long time. I’ve been lying on my back doing nothing and the first thing to go is your strength. It’s like starting all over again. I’ve got a vocal coach coming round four days a week to keep my voice going. I have problems walking. I also get blood pressure issues, from blood clots on my legs. I’m used to doing two hours on stage, jumping and running around. I don’t think I’ll be doing much jumping or running around this time. I may be sitting down, but the point is I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.

Again, he first spoke about having blood clots in 2019, and there is no evidence tying them to his getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The musician has had a long history of poor health in the years before he took the COVID-19 vaccine and even before the pandemic took place. 

In his 2011 memoir “I Am Ozzy,” Osbourne described his addiction to a range of intoxicants and how it affected his health. In one passage described experiencing a tremor in his hand in the early 1990s:

I started to notice a tremor in my hand. My speech was slurred. I was always exhausted. I tried to escape from it all by getting loaded, but I’d developed such a tolerance to all the drugs I was taking, I had to overdose to get high. It reached the point where I was getting my stomach pumped every other week. I had a few very close calls. One time, I scammed a bottle of codeine off a doctor in New York and downed the whole f***ing lot. I nearly went into respiratory arrest. All I remember is lying in this hotel bed, sweating and feeling like I was suffocating, and the doc telling me over the phone that if you take too much codeine, your brain stops telling your lungs to work. I was very lucky to survive. Although, the way I was feeling, I would have been happy never to wake up again.

He also described being diagnosed in 2003 with “Parkinson-ian syndrome”:

Finally, me and Sharon went back to [Dr. Ropper’s] office to find out what the f*** was wrong with me, once and for all.

“I think I’ve got to the bottom of this,” he said. “Basically, Mr Osbourne, you have a very, very rare condition, which is caused by your mother and your father both having the same damaged chromosome in their DNA. And when I say it’s very rare, think one-in-a-billion rare. The good news is that it’s not MS or Parkinson’s disease. The bad news is that we don’t really have a name for it. The best description is probably Parkinson -ian syndrome.”

“Is that what’s been giving me the tremor?”

“Absolutely.”

“And it’s hereditary? It has nothing to do with the booze or the drugs?”

“The alcohol and some of the drugs you were taking were definitely making it worse. But they weren’t the primary cause.”

“Can you treat it?”

“Yes. But first I have to tell you something, Mr Osbourne. If you keep drinking, and if you keep abusing drugs, you’ll have to find another doctor, because I won’t have you as a patient. I’m a busy man, I have a very long waiting list and I can’t afford to have my time wasted.”

I’d never been spoken to like that by a doctor before. And the way he looked at me, I knew he was serious.

“OK, doc,” I said. “I’ll try my hardest.”

Because of all his health issues, Osbourne described being “relieved” that he got the COVID-19 vaccine in February 2021. In an interview he gave before getting the shot, he said he wanted the two-dose vaccine: “I want to get the shot. … I look at it like this — if I don’t get the shot and I get the virus, there’s a good chance I ain’t going to be here.”

Osbourne performed his final live show a few weeks before his death. His wife, Sharon Osbourne, told the media that this performance was his goodbye to his fans. 

The claim about his health and the COVID-19 vaccine is consistent with a common conspiracy theory that spread online during the pandemic, falsely attributing numerous famous peoples’ deaths to the vaccine. We have previously fact-checked such claims about Betty White, Lisa Loring and even Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. 

We also reported in 2021 that there was very little evidence tying blood clot cases to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. An investigation by the European Medicine Agency found that the vaccine was “safe and effective.” While the EMA said that it would add a warning label to the vaccine to alert doctors and patients to the extremely rare possibility of blood clots, the agency said that “benefits of the vaccine clearly outweigh the risks.”

Sources:

Emery, David. “Did Betty White Say She Got COVID Booster 3 Days Before She Died?” Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/betty-white-covid-vaccine-booster/. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Evon, Dan. “Does AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Cause Blood Clots?” Snopes, 16 Mar. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/astrazeneca-vaccine-blood-clots/. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Grow, Kory. “Ozzy Osbourne on His Road Back From Hell: ‘I Was Absolutely in Agony.'” Rolling Stone, 20 Aug. 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ozzy-osbourne-recovery-interview-871983/. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Liles, Jordan. “No Evidence Lisa Loring’s Cause of Death Was COVID-19 Vaccine.” Snopes, 31 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com//news/2023/01/31/lisa-loring-cause-of-death/. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Osbourne, Ozzy. I Am Ozzy. Grand Central Publishing, 2010. Accessed July 25, 2025.

“Ozzy Osbourne Dies at 76: What He Shared About His Health Over the Years.” TODAY.Com, 23 July 2025, https://www.today.com/health/health/ozzy-osbourne-health-rcna191385. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Peters, Mitchell. “Ozzy Osbourne Says He’s Feeling ‘Relieved’ After Getting His First COVID-19 Shot: Watch.” Billboard, 15 Feb. 2021, https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/ozzy-osbourne-coronavirus-covid-vaccine-shot-9526267/. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Petridis, Alexis. “‘I Don’t Want to Die in a Hotel Room Somewhere’: Black Sabbath on Reconciling for Their Final Gig – and How Ozzy Is Living through Hell.” The Guardian, 2 May 2025. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/may/02/i-dont-want-to-die-in-a-hotel-room-somewhere-black-sabbath-on-reconciling-for-their-final-gig-and-how-ozzy-is-living-through-hell. Accessed July 25, 2025.

“Rocker Ozzy Osbourne Announces Parkinson’s Diagnosis.” AP News, 21 Jan. 2020, https://apnews.com/article/3225d3202dadb846cbae0a21fe62ba04. Accessed July 25, 2025.

Wrona, Aleksandra. “Did Alexei Navalny Die from COVID-19 Vaccine?” Snopes, 21 Feb. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/navalny-death-covid-vaccine/. Accessed July 25, 2025.