Ozzy Osbourne has an emotional message for his fans, whom he says he misses dearly, amid his newly revealed battle with Parkinson’s disease. The 71-year-old rocker appeared on Good Morning America alongside his wife Sharon Osbourne on Tuesday to announce that he has been diagnosed with PRKN 2, which is a form of Parkinson’s. In the video package, he revealed that one of the most difficult parts of the health battle has been the time he’s forced to spend away from his fans.
Despite the fact that Osbourne has spent the past few months denying rumors about his failing health — even denying a Parkinson’s diagnosis at one point — he said he feels better now after coming clean about his health, and that fans have actually been a source of support for him.
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“They’re my air, you know,” said Osbourne of his fans. “I feel better. I’ve owned up to the fact that I have — a case of Parkinson’s. And I just hope they hang on and they’re there for me because I need them.”
“I wanna see my people, you know. It’s like I’m — I miss them so much,” he said.
Through tears, Sharon gushed over how much performing for his fans means to Osbourne.
“It just means so much to him, what he does. He loves to perform. It is the air that he breathes,” an emotional Sharon said. “This is the longest he’s ever been home and it’s time for him to get back on the road ’cause he’s driving me mad. So he really needs to get back out there. He really does.”
Osbourne has slowly been regaining his strength to do what he loves most: perform. He’s even released his first new music in a decade, his recent single called “Ordinary Man.”
“He’s gonna get back out there,” Sharon said. “And he’s gonna do what he loves to do; I know it.”
Sharon told GMA‘s Robin Roberts that Osbourne’s PRKN 2 diagnosis is “a form of Parkinson’s,” but that it’s “not a death sentence by any stretch of the imagination.”
Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disorder that progresses slowly in most people and for which there is currently no cure.
Osbourne has been suffering from nerve pain, with Sharon saying that he has good days and “really bad days.”
“It’s been terribly challenging for us all,” Osbourne said. “I did my last show New Year’s Eve at The Forum. Then I had a bad fall. I had to have surgery on my neck, which screwed all my nerves.”
He’s now on the mend and on Parkinson’s medication and taking nerve pills amid his largely secluded recovery at home.
“I got a numbness down this arm for the surgery, my legs keep going cold,” he told Roberts. “I don’t know if that’s the Parkinson’s or what, you know, but that’s — see, that’s the problem. Because they cut nerves when they did the surgery. I’d never heard of nerve pain, and it’s a weird feeling.”
Next, the family will seek answers with a “professional in Switzerland” who will help with Osbourne’s immune system, as Sharon says they have “kind of reached a point here in this country where we can’t go any further because we’ve got all the answers we can get.”
Photo credit: Kevin Winter / Staff / Getty
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