As fans around the world mourn the passing of Ozzy Osbourne at age 76, one of the most undeniably iconic moments in rock history is again grabbing headlines: the night he bit the head off a bat onstage.

The legendary frontman of Black Sabbath and self-proclaimed "Prince of Darkness" died Tuesday, July 22, just weeks after the band's triumphant final performance. His legacy is sure to live on, as is the infamous moment in 1982 where a crowd watched Osbourne clamp his teeth down on the neck of a live bat.

Ozzy Ozbourne's Most Iconic Rock Moment Resurfaces After 'Prince of
A clip from the Jan. 22, 1982 Register, two days after rock star Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat during a concert at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines. Des Moines Register Archive

The grisly incident occurred in Des Moines, Iowa, during Osbourne's Diary of a Madman tour. According to Osbourne, he thought the bat—thrown onstage by a fan—was a rubber toy.

"I picked it up and it was a real bat, you know?" he recalled in a Night Flight interview.

Asked if it was living when he picked it up, Osbourne replied: "'Til I bit the head off it."

A rather unhinged Ozzy appeared on Night Flight in 1982, where he went into detail about the infamous bat moment.

Whether the bat was dead or alive has long been debated. Mark Neal, the fan who hurled the bat, later claimed it had been dead for weeks. Regardless, the moment became the stuff of rock legend—and landed Osbourne in the hospital for emergency rabies shots.

It wasn't the only time Osbourne brought chaos to a stage (or boardroom or television set). A year earlier, in an unplanned drunken protest at a meeting with CBS Records executives, he bit the heads off two live doves. "That's when they threw me out," Osbourne reportedly told the band's former publicist, Mick Wall, who went on to write about the incident in his book, Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe.

While Osbourne clearly didn't shy away from shocking audiences, rumors that he ended an Omaha, Nebraska, show by biting the head off a chicken were false.

Osbourne discusses "the bat incident" on Late Night with David Letterman on March 25, 1982.

Though his antics inspired outrage and controversy, they also cemented Osbourne's reputation as one of the wildest and most unpredictable figures in music. Over time, he evolved—thanks in no small part to his wife, Sharon—but never fully abandoned the outrageous persona that made him famous.

In 2019, Osbourne even embraced his bat-biting infamy with a plush toy of a bat with a detachable head, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a moment that has come to symbolize the chaotic spirit of rock and roll.

Ozzy recreated the moment for a VH1 episode of Behind the Music. No footage of the live event exists.
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Ozzy Osbourne, Performance, Animal Cruelty