Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness, the biter of bats, has professed his allegiance to… vegetarianism.
As the story goes, in 1982 Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat onstage. There have been misunderstandings about the incidence over the years (Ozzy says he thought it was a fake bat, which was tossed up on the stage), but he still felt the wrath of animal lovers and, well, anyone who thought it wasn’t a good idea to lay your teeth into a potentially rabid animal.
Speaking about his famous bat-biting incident, in context with all of the things that he has survived over the years, Ozzy said “then there was the rabies treatment I had to go through after eating a bat… All I want to say is that I thought it was a rubber toy, swear on my 17 dogs’ lives.”
The devilishly wild rocker now says he has given up meat (even the more conventional kind).
“I’ve pretty much become a vegetarian. Seriously. It’s my new phase: brown rice and vegetables. I don’t even drink milk, apart from a splash in my tea,” says Ozzy. “I also saw that Food, Inc. film the other day, which gives you a new perspective – not just on meat-eating, but on the whole animal-product industry.”
But don’t think he’s ready to join ranks of PETA just yet:
“It ain’t because of the animals. I mean, I used to work in a slaughterhouse. You won’t see me marching over the frozen tundra, hunting down people who club seals. I just can’t digest meat anymore.”
Ozzy, like Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, is a bit of a medical miracle. Both have survived horrendous bouts with drug and alcohol abuse.
In a bit of twisted irony, The UK’s Sunday Times Magazine has asked Ozzy to pen a health advice column for the paper.
(Photo via realbollywood.com)