Sharon Osbourne took hold of the mic in the latest episode of her family’s podcast The Osbournes, as she bashed Coachella for losing its roots and shared some keen insights on the future of Ozzfest.
The 71-year-old and her husband Ozzy Osbourne co-founded the music festival in 1996 with the lineup focusing on hard rock and metal music, making it a rare find and quick favorite for fans.
The last standalone Ozzfest took place in 2018 with Body Count, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie headlining but after Ozzy was forced to cancel all of his shows last year due to his declining health his wife seems keen to restart the festival.
On the podcast, Sharon and her son Jack got into a heated conversation about Coachella as the former The Talk star slammed: “It’s not about the music, it’s a lifestyle festival now.”
Easing the familial tension, Ozzy chimed in and asked if the family would be keen to put on another Ozzfest and Sharon eagerly responded “Yeah! Sure, of course!”
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However, their daughter Kelly highlighted: “It always comes down to if the managers are going to be realistic,” as the music manager previously revealed the festival ended due to the financial strain it put on the family.
Riled up by the insight, Sharon ranted: “Why is it when they come to us everyone thinks we’re trillionaires?
“Every manager who wants their bands in the festival wants one of the trillions we’ve got.”
Her husband of 41 years suggested only putting smaller bands on the lineup but Sharon insisted there would need to be some big players among the “baby bands”.
Jack agreed, highlighting that they likely wouldn’t be able to “sell 30,000 tickets for not so many not so known bands”.
Sharon candidly revealed that the reason they started Ozzfest in the first place was to “break new bands” into the scene but admitted: “It’s very hard for acts who are not known to suddenly go and be in front of 50,000 people on a main stage at a festival and understand what they’re meant to do. It’s very intimidating.”
While Jack seemed frustrated that many of the new metal festivals are “basically just Ozzfest”, his mom said they encouraged that as “it’s still great for the genre” as a whole.
The former Black Sabbath star has seen his health decline over recent years after getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and then having to undergo multiple surgeries on his spine following a fall in 2019.
He revealed to Rolling Stone UK after his last operation in September: “The second surgery went drastically wrong and virtually left me crippled.
“They found a tumor in one of the vertebrae, so they had to dig all that out too.”
