On ‘The Osbournes,’ Ozzy Osbourne Became the Most Unlikely Relatable Reality TV Dad

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“The Osbournes” turned the heavy metal innovator into a reality TV star. Here are some moments that defined the show’s run.

The Osbourne family sits on a couch. Ozzy, an older man with long black hair and purple sunglasses sits on the left; Kelly, a young woman with spiky red hair wearing an olive jacket, sits on the right; Jack, a young man with a black T-shirt and glasses sits on the floor; Sharon, a woman wearing all black stands just behind them.

July 23, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET

You didn’t have to be a metalhead to be an Ozzy Osbourne fan in the aughts. You didn’t have to know that he was once the lead singer of Black Sabbath, that he was known as the “Prince of Darkness,” that he once bit the head off a dead bat or even that he was a musician at all.

Years before the Kardashians, the Osbournes reigned over the reality TV family realm. And Ozzy Osbourne, who died on Tuesday at the age of 76, was America’s brilliantly befuddled, profanity-slinging, improbably lovable and relatable TV dad.

The show, titled “The Osbournes,” debuted in March 2002 on MTV and was an immediate smash, setting the template for a slew of reality shows to come.

It followed the domestic life of his family in its Beverly Hills home. The other main characters, so to speak, were his wife, Sharon, and two of their teenage children, Kelly and Jack.

For more than 50 episodes over four seasons, the Osbournes appealed to viewers by being both a spectacle — the out-of-touch Hollywood household — and a familiarly flawed family, loving and tight-knit.

“All the stuff onstage, the craziness, it’s all just a role that I play, my work,” Osbourne said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “I am not the Antichrist. I am a family man.”