It’s hard to think of a more unforgettable rock ‘n’ roll couple than the Osbournes, but considering Sharon Osbourne’s comical first encounter with Black Sabbath, their love story seems even more unexpected.
Was it love at first sight? Not really.
It was more like a connection sparked by music.
Sharon Osbourne’s Initial Encounter with Black Sabbath
When Sharon Osbourne first met Ozzy Osbourne, she was still Sharon Levy, and Ozzy was already a husband and father of two. Sharon was working with her father, Don Arden, who managed some of the biggest names in music, like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. When Black Sabbath visited Arden’s office, they weren’t there for romance—they needed a manager.
“They were all odd and hairy,” Sharon humorously recalled during an AXS TV interview. “I was used to dealing with American artists. They were polished, well-dressed, and smelled nice. Then, these guys show up—they’re from the north of England, they’re hairy, and they looked nothing like anyone I had ever encountered. It made me a bit uneasy.”
Despite her initial reservations, she and her father attended a Black Sabbath concert at a London club that night. Sharon told AXS host Dan Rather that the band’s performance was beyond anything she had ever witnessed—it was raw, powerful, and unlike any act on her father’s roster.
The Rocky Beginning of Their Relationship
In 1976, Black Sabbath hired Sharon’s father, Don Arden, as their manager. At that time, Sharon, still known as Sharon Levy, worked alongside her father, though Arden used her name for official documents like contracts and taxes. Around the same time, Sharon and her father had a falling out, Ozzy was let go from Black Sabbath, intertwining their paths in the late 1970s.
By 1979, Sharon had taken on the role of Ozzy’s manager, and as she recounted to Dan Rather, “We were working together, and things just evolved. He was incredibly funny, sharp, and also very vulnerable. I thought he was the most charming and endearing guy I had ever met because of how open he was, and that drew me to him.”
However, just because there was a connection didn’t mean the relationship was easy.
Ozzy’s first marriage to Thelma Riley ended in 1982, largely due to his struggles with substance abuse and the demands of his career. At the same time, Sharon had distanced herself from her family. “It felt like it was just the two of us against the world,” Sharon reflected. “And that’s exactly what we did—we took on the world, and we came out on top.”
It’s almost amusing to imagine what Sharon Levy might have thought if someone had told her that one of those “odd and hairy” men would eventually become her husband, business partner, and father of her three children—Aimee, Kelly, and Jack.
