MAY 16, 1984 – Ozzy Osbourne was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee for staggering drunk down Beale Street after a show at the city’s Mid-South Coliseum. He was incarcerated at 12:30AM on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication, and released from the Memphis jail five hours later after drying out, but was not required to return for a court appearance. He continued on with a tour in support of 1983’s “Bark at the Moon” that also visited Nashville.
“See, I can’t have a casual line of coke — that doesn’t equate in my head,” Osbourne later admitted. “I never went to the bar for a drink, I never smoked a joint. I used to go into a bar to get absolutely s—faced. It didn’t really occur to me that other people were going there for a drink.”He also, unfortunately, continued ingesting a prodigious amount of intoxicants into the new millennium.
His wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, said Ozzy was stoned through the entire early-’00s run of their reality television series, The Osbournes. He then relapsed during a Black Sabbath reunion.
“Alcoholism and drug dependency is a killer disease,” Ozzy admitted. “I went to two rehab places and then I still went out again. And then I stopped again and then I started. I have accepted I have a problem with drugs and alcohol. That’s a big stepping stone, you know. I’m very lucky that I’m still alive and I’m also very lucky I can still put two words together.”
