BBC confirms Ozzy Osbourne documentary postponed due to ‘family’s wishes’

The BBC said it has ‘moved in the schedules’ with new details to be confirmed ‘in due course’

A documentary about the life of Ozzy Osbourne, who died last month aged 76, was dropped from the BBC’s TV schedule ahead of its planned debut on Monday (18 August) at his family’s request.

The one-hour special, titled Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home, was recorded over three years and is described as “an inspirational account of the last chapter of Ozzy’s life”.

It featured candid access to his wife Sharon and children Kelly and Jack as the musician prepared to perform his farewell show in his home city of Birmingham, which took place just two weeks before his death.

However, it was replaced by arts show Fake or Fortune at 9pm on the network’s listings for the same time and date, just hours before it was due to air.

A BBC spokesperson told The Independent: “The film has moved in the schedules and we’ll confirm new transmission details in due course.”

A follow-up statement shared on Tuesday 19 August said: “Our sympathies are with the Osbourne family at this difficult time. We are respecting the family's wishes to wait a bit longer before airing this very special film. The new [transmission] date will be confirmed shortly.”

Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne in new documentary filmed in the three years before Ozzy;s death (Expectation/BBC)

Originally pitched as a series designed to imitate the eccentricity of the family’s famed MTV reality TV show The Osbournes, the project was shortened to a one-off film after the Black Sabbath frontman suffered from ill health after his Parkinson’s diagnosis.

In one scene, shared ahead of the show’s release, Kelly mused that the seemingly unstoppable Prince of Darkness behind “Iron Man”, the classic Sabbath song, “wasn’t really made of iron”.

Ozzy Osbourne died aged 76 last month (Getty Images)

The documentary’s executive producers Ben Wicks and Colin Barr said “it was an incredible privilege to spend the last few years with Ozzy, as well as Sharon, Jack and Kelly”.

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They said they witnessed “his sense of mischief and his honesty in the final years of his life”, but added that his “intense love for his exceptional family who were by his side through it all” is what struck them most about the experience.

The rocker suffered a string of health issues over the years, initially related to of neck injuries sustained in a 2003 quad-biking accident. Those issues were then exacerbated by a fall in 2019, the same year he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He suffered from a bout of Covid shortly after.

His cause of death was confirmed as “acute myocardial infarction”, meaning the death of tissue resulting from a failure of blood supply to an organ, and an “out of hospital cardiac arrest”, or heart attack.

The certificate also listed coronary artery disease and Parkinson’s disease with autonomic dysfunction as “joint causes” of death.