Ozzy Osbourne Was ‘Paranoid as F—‘ About Eric Clapton
Ozzy Osbourne revealed he was once “paranoid as fuck” about Eric Clapton, and believed the famed guitarist held a grudge against him.
The Prince of Darkness recalled the story during the latest episode of his Sirius XM show Ozzy Speaks.
“Many, many years ago, me and Sharon were in New York and we had to go to an award show,” Osbourne explained. “Everybody was there. And I was still doing drugs and alcohol and I was all freaked out by it. So, we go to this award show and afterwards there's me, Grace Jones, that chick I did the award show with. Me, Grace Jones, and I wanted a picture of Eric Clapton, me and Grace Jones together.”
“And he'd just come out of some place. So, he was freaked out, which I didn't know,” Osbourne continued, alluding to Clapton’s rehab stints throughout the ‘80s. “And I'd convinced myself that he was gonna stop this photograph from being [released].”
Flash forward and the two legendary rockers crossed paths once again.
“I went to an AA meeting in the [San Fernando] Valley many years later, it was like 10 years later. I turn around in this AA meeting and there at the back was Eric Clapton sitting there. And I'm, like, ‘Fucking hell.’ … I'm thinking, ‘He still remembers.’ Not thinking of what he's done in the last 10 years. I'm thinking, ‘All he's done, he's still thinking how much he hates me.’”
Convinced Clapton was still mad at him over the photo, Osbourne plotted his escape.
“I'm thinking, 'At the end of the meeting, I'm gonna go out that door. I'm fucking legging this,’" the rocker recalled. “I'm thinking, ‘He hates me. He's gonna call me the biggest cunt he ever met.’ So, I'm just going back to cross the road, on a mission. I'll get in the car and drive off.”
While Ozzy successfully eluded Slowhand on this instance, the two men were soon in the same room once more.
“A couple weeks later, I go [to the AA meeting] again. There he is again,” Osbourne noted, admitting he was “paranoid as fuck” that Clapton was following him. “So, I'm just about to cross the road and get in my car and drive off. He goes, ‘Ozzy.’ I go, ‘Here we go.’ And he goes, ‘Good to see you in the room.’ We had a chat and I thought, ‘Wow, what a nice guy.’”
Things came full circle when the award show picture, which Osbourne hadn’t seen in years, suddenly emerged.
“The fucking next week, I go to a music stand and that photograph [from the award show] was in the magazine, the first magazine I picked up," he remembered.
Osbourne's new album, Patient Number 9, arrives in September, with Clapton among the many vaunted guest musicians featured on the release.
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