Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson and Ozzy Osbourne’s wife and manager Sharon have a checkered past to say the least. In 2005 when Iron Maiden performed as part of Ozzfest, Sharon took exception to comments allegedly made by Dickinson about “The Osbournes” MTV reality TV series. Sharon arranged for eggs to be thrown at the band as they performed and she delayed the entrance of Maiden’s mascot, Eddie. Dickinson still doesn’t appear to be much of a Sharon fan as he took a jab her during a recent Q&A session at his San Francisco spoken word show. A fan asked if Black Sabbath could exist without founding drummer Bill Ward.
“I’m a massive lover of Bill Ward’s drumming style; I think it’s inspired,” Dickinson said. “’Cause he’s not really a rock drummer; he’s more like a jazz drummer playing rock. And I love that kind of style; it’s kind of like drums that kind of wander around the rhythm and everything else. But he’s on it; he’s brilliant. And I met him. He’s a lovely bloke as well. Slightly mad, but very nice. But then aren’t we all? All of us are on the madness spectrum a little bit. Does Black Sabbath exist without Bill Ward? Well, it’s not a matter of… I don’t think Black Sabbath exist at all now. I think Sharon’s made sure of that.” In a 2016 interview with NME, Dickinson downplayed the feud. He said it was “a complete storm in a teacup. I grew up listening to early Sabbath with Ozzy. Ozzy and Sabbath are icons, so that’s that, end of story. The fact that I don’t like reality TV shows. Well, I’m not gonna offer an olive branch to the Kardashians either.”
Ozzy talked about the feud in a 2010 interview with The Quietus. “Unbeknown to me, every night [Bruce] was going on stage slagging me off,” Ozzy said. “And that wasn’t fair. If he didn’t like the f*ckin’ tour, he should have said ‘I’m jumping [off] the f*ckin’ tour,’ but to go on stage and f*ckin’ slag me off for no reason… I’d never said a f*ckin’ bad thing to him. The bass player [Steve Harris] came round at the last gig and said, ‘I’m sorry about Bruce,’ and I’m, like, ‘What the f*ck are you talking about?’ Nobody had told me, you know. I said, ‘You know what? I don’t understand what the f*ck you’re talking about here.’”
“And so, I mean, Sharon got pissed off… it was nothing to do with me. I suppose Sharon got pissed off. I’ll back my wife up to the hilt, but I didn’t know what was going down. But you know what? They were getting a few f*ckin’ quid out of that Ozzfest. If you’ve got something to talk to me about, be a man. Come to my face and say, ‘I think you’re a f*ckin’ asshole.’ Don’t be a f*ckin’ idiot. It’s so pathetically childish. To this day, I don’t understand what the f*ckin’ beef was. I just don’t get it. To go on the Ozzfest and slag [people] off, that’s crazy. I really think he needs a f*ckin’ psychiatrist if he does that, he’s f*cking nuts. It’s an irresponsible f*ckin’ thing to do. Sharon must have got pissed off with this c*nt, you know.”
