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Ozzy: Don’t Blame Me for Wacky 9/11 Statements

  • Anso DF
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"Of course I didn't mean it like that!"
“People, come on! Of course I didn’t mean it like that!”

On Tuesday, an interview with Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath) emerged bearing this exchange about the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York:

We were in New York when that happened!

Interviewer: That must have been frightening…

I wasn’t scared, I was excited! It was my kind of craziness, y’know. The day after that happened, there was fucking nobody in New York. I remember standing on the steps of the hotel, and … You know when you see an old cowboy film and that tumbleweed rolls past on the ground? There was newspapers just floating around on the streets. It was so fucking weird. Everybody just backed off Manhattan because they didn’t know if it was an all-out thing or what.

Um, okay. I guess the aftermath of the attacks was exhilarating in a way — in a “unsure of your safety forever” way — but naturally it probably wasn’t anybody’s “kind of craziness.” Ozzy’s “kind of craziness” is harmless self-abuse and gibbering. So basically this is Ozzy’s version of the Holocaust selfie: nice person experiences baffling lapse in judgement in public. And likewise, Ozzy hastened to contextualize. Same interview:

But I hope this Isis lot don’t get going. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s in mankind to try to kill each other for one thing or another. And I think sooner or later one of these crazy fuckers is going to get a nuclear weapon or some fucking thing, and fuck a lot of people up. That’s in our nature. I hope it won’t happen, but it looks like it could happen if they get it.

Ozzy being Ozzy, he escaped scrutiny for this facepalm until Thursday when a UK news outlet, the Mail Online, reprinted his statements. Now Ozzy has responded to that thusly:

Several quotes were pulled from another interview that [had been] posted earlier in the day and were taken out of context to create the story. I apologize to anyone who may see these quotes and believe this is actually how I feel … You would think that at my age I would finally realize that any conversation with a journalist can be twisted, reprinted and made into another story. It’s another life lesson learned.

My representatives have asked the Mail Online to pull the piece, but of course, they’ve refused and now it has been subsequently picked up worldwide because of the sensational slant the Mail Online put on the story.

Having just read Ozzy’s quotes as they first appeared, we may not register the way that the Mail Online report might have “twisted” them or presented them “out of context.” There’s no need to; shit doesn’t need to be smeared with additional shit to be shitty. And anyway, the report presents his words accurately and unaccompanied by interpretation, so Sharon’s Ozzy’s denial might vibe you as buck-passing, like a dare to side with vile reporters against a doddering old frog. But that might be the correct move this time. Hey Ozzy, practice this for next time: “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry. Thanks for understanding.”

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