Ozzy Osbourne’s bandmate Tony Iommi reveals he spoke to rock star hours before his death

Ozzy Osbourne’s bandmate Tony Iommi has revealed the pair spoke just hours before the rocker died last year.

The Black Sabbath legend died aged 76 on July 22, 2025, just weeks after he had reunited with his bandmates for his final concert, Back to the Beginning.

Osbourne died of a heart attack and had coronary artery disease in addition to suffering from Parkinson’s disease for years, his death certificate said.

A year on, Iommi said he and Osbourne exchanged messages the night before his death.

“I didn’t expect him to go overnight. It was a hell of a shock,” he told The Sun.

Last week, on the first anniversary of his friend’s death, Iommi shared an emotional tribute to social media.

“Well, it’s now a year since Ozzy’s passing and I still can’t believe that he’s not with us,” he said.

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“I watch him on YouTube and it feels like he’s still here with us. We always stayed in touch, almost every week or so and we’d usually talk about our ailments and then about what we’d been doing that particular week.”

Iommi said fans had been “absolutely brilliant” in the wake of his death, and he was grateful to have been able to play one last show in their hometown of Birmingham.

“There will never be another Ozzy. I miss you my dear friend,” he said.

Earlier this month, his widow Sharon Osbourne said doctors told Ozzy not to do his farewell concert just weeks before his death, but he didn’t listen.

“Ozzy knew that he was dying,” she revealed to Forging Metal podcast host Ed James and a live audience in a local pub.

“He was told two weeks before the show that he was dying, and they said, ‘Don’t do the show.’ He said, ‘Yeah, right. Get out of here.’ ”

The widow called it “a gift” for her husband to be able to do the concert and witness the love from fans, rather than it be a memorial sort of show after he died.

“His greatest love affair was with the audience and that’s the way he wanted to go out,” she said.

“Just one more time and he got to do that – and he smashed it.”