LOS ANGELES — Growing up in Texas, Ozzy Osbourne and his lore loomed large for me.

Did you know he was arrested in 1982 for urinating on the Alamo, one of Texas’ most sacred historic sites, leading to his decade-long ban from San Antonio (appropriately nicknamed “The Alamo City”)? If you grew up where I did, about 90 miles south of San Antonio, this odd connection between him and the city was well known, and made him either a nuisance or a bit of a folk hero. He’d done something reckless to a cultural landmark, but as an angsty teenager who loved rock and longed to rebel, it didn’t make much of a dent on my impression of him or his music.

Thankfully, I had an older sister who also loved Ozzy and would allow me to tag along to concerts, including Ozzfest, which made stops nearly every summer in — you guessed it — San Antonio. So when we heard that the Prince of Darkness and his clan would be getting their own reality television show on MTV, a channel that had been added to the basic cable lineup in our hometown only a few years prior, we knew we had to tune in. And so it went for us and millions of other viewers, who in 2002 got an inside look at a rock legend’s home life with his family, which included wife Sharon, daughter Kelly, son Jack and a menagerie of pets, with “The Osbournes.”

What made the show different was that it didn’t hide who the family really was: They were loud, they cursed, they screamed, they were different — but it was evident that they cared for each other very much. And it allowed us to see a new kind of TV dad, one who didn’t fit the mold. When the show ended in 2005, it marked the conclusion of a pop culture phenomenon that launched the TV careers of Sharon, Kelly and Jack Osbourne, making them household names in their own right. Other rock stars followed in Ozzy’s footsteps by launching their own reality shows, but none came close to attaining the same attention.

Now with the news of Ozzy’s death Tuesday, senior television writer Yvonne Villarreal and I remember his television legacy and why he became such an endearing figure.

Maira Garcia: It’s been many years since I’ve gone back to watch “The Osbournes,” but pieces of it still remain lodged in my memory, probably because it was one of the first reality TV shows I remember watching religiously and it was something that my sister and I would bond over. As someone who came from a very loud family, the Osbournes felt familiar to me. When there’s a group of us together, the decibel readings go through the roof — that family dynamic was very relatable in watching the show. Yvonne, do you remember when you first watched “The Osbournes”? How familiar were you with Ozzy as a musician before the show?

Yvonne Villarrreal: My brother had people over recently to watch the telecast of the concert marking the end of both Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s solo career, and seeing Osbourne, fragile but alert, taking in the emotional goodbye to his fans from the throne where he sat on stage, left me with the overwhelming urge to revisit the MTV series. Heavy metal, I may not know, but reality TV ... reality TV I know. I found it on Prime Video and burned through the first season that same night, rapt by the rock star family being unapologetically bonkers and undeniably watchable like it was 2002 again. Like you, Maira, I was part of the viewership that made the show a mega hit during its original run — sorry, not sorry? I’m still not sure. But, all these years later, I was reminded that Ozzy, despite his well-crafted Prince of Darkness persona, was the sun that brought brightness and warmth to the familial chaos that orbited around him.

There he was, just a dad with red-streaked hair, trying to unwind by coloring with some markers, as his daughter, Kelly, moaned about her brother Jack taking credit for the band she introduced him to — “If you can’t work it out, ignore it. What can you do about it? What do you want me to do about it?” There he was, just a dad shuffling through the kitchen, telling an irate Kelly to just ignore the unsolicited OB-GYN appointment her older sister made on her behalf — “Tell her to book me a gynecologist appointment; I wouldn’t mind.” There he was, just a dad throwing f-bombs about one of the family’s many pets pooping or peeing on the floor for the hundredth time — “Who pissed on my f—ing carpet? That bastard f—ing dog! Where is he? Get the f— outta my house! ... He’s f—ing part of Bin Laden’s gang.”

He was often shirtless, often exasperated by everything (which, now as an adult, I find very relatable), and the many bleeped obscenities in tandem with his stammering sometimes made him incomprehensible. And, for me — the child of an alcoholic who was all too familiar with the tangled emotions of loving my dad and hating his vices and the frustration of how quickly that pent up anger could dissipate the second he made me genuinely laugh, which was all too often — watching Ozzy felt like I was watching a version of my dad. He had his faults and he had his past, but he was lovable and he loved back. More than Danny Tanner or Cliff Huxtable or Dan Conner, in my chaotic reality, Ozzy weirdly felt like the most authentic TV dad.

Garcia: My dad, like any human, is imperfect, but he has always been very reserved and calm — a total contrast from Ozzy. Perhaps that’s what made “The Osbournes” so appealing to me. He was a dad who was different than mine, certainly a lot wilder, and he was someone who wasn’t afraid to show warts and all, including his addiction issues. It was also fascinating to see how he and Sharon raised Kelly and Jack — who fought constantly on the show — which may have seemed different from my upbringing, but was actually quite universal. He worried about what Kelly and Jack wore (I still remember him screaming at Jack for wearing a shirt that said “Cocaine” across the front), what they did, who they hung out with and how they spent their time. They traveled with him on tour, hanging out with rock stars backstage, but they still seemed grounded.

Some people criticized Ozzy for showing this side of himself because as a rock star, there was a certain kind of persona or mysteriousness people thought he should hold on to. But he frankly didn’t care. This is who he was and I could respect that, and I think it made me more aware that all families are different and there isn’t a strict way to be a parent. We’re all just trying our best, damn it.

Yvonne, as you look back, was there a favorite moment or episode that stands out to you?

Villarreal: I still haven’t completed my rewatch, so my memory mostly consists of the small moments that take up valuable space in my memory — like when he struggled getting the cloche back on the pastry stand after snatching a muffin or the marvel in his eyes as he watched his burrito getting made at Chipotle — you’d think he was witnessing a surgeon perform a triple bypass surgery — or the time, in his futile attempt to figure out the super-advanced home remote, he grew frustrated by his inability to get the TV to scroll past the Weather Channel, only to become completely bewildered by the ringing telephone in that same moment. He made it a family sitcom all on his own. The family’s relevancy beyond the show’s run (2002-2005) waned, of course, and they weren’t immune to controversy and questionable moments in the years that followed. But for millennials, it was appointment viewing. And as the first celeb-family-based reality show of its kind, it became a blueprint.

Is there a moment that stands out to you? How do you feel about the family’s mark on the reality TV genre and what they unleashed, for better or worse?

Garcia: Much like you, it’s those small moments like Ozzy screaming, “SHAROOOONNNN!” for the millionth time when he needs a hand or can’t figure something out. But it’s also sweet moments like when he’s helping guide Kelly’s music career or their duet of Black Sabbath’s “Changes” (there are strong opinions about that song, but I liked it), moments of him spending time with Jack and his oldest son, Louis. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with an ultra-famous parent; I’m sure it isn’t easy. They seemed to make the best of it, despite a lot of turmoil.

I started following Jack and Kelly on social media probably about a year ago because the algorithm fed me one of their videos, and it’s been like getting reacquainted with these people I grew up watching. The siblings have matured, have their own families and live lives separate from their parents. Sharon, who had her own talk show at one point and later joined “The Talk,” from which she unceremoniously departed after after an exchange with fellow panelist Sheryl Underwood related to comments about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has said things or shared opinions that I don’t agree with. Kelly was roundly criticized for her comments about Latino immigrants when trying to make a point about Trump’s immigration policies on “The View,” though she did apologize and said “I will take responsibility for my poor choice of words.”

But I think “The Osbournes” showed us that there’s an appetite for people and families who don’t conform to a cookie-cutter mold, and that was pretty revolutionary at the time. A lot of that had to do with Ozzy Osbourne, whose name recognition paved the way, and whose antics made him seem almost ... normal. That was the appeal.

And now we’ve lost not only music legend, but a reality TV star — and dad — who broke the mold.

Villarreal: Maybe we should order a burrito or chuck a hunk of boneless ham through some bushes in his honor?

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.