Given Ozzy Osbourne‘s well-known penchant for silly behavior, it’s not surprising to hear that the private family funeral for the heavy metal icon had moments of darkness and quite a few of levity. Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, who performed in Ozzy’s solo band from 1996-2003, dropped by SiriusXm’s Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk on Friday (Aug. 8) to describe the laugher and the tears during the July 30 private funeral for his musical hero and friend.
“It was a small group of people, but it was very, very beautiful. And in the end, the speeches were actually… I mean, it was very sad, but at the same time some of the speeches were – as you could imagine – pretty funny. And there were a lot of tears,” said Trujillo of the final tribute to Osbourne, who died at age 76 of a heart attack on July 22, just weeks after performing his final show at the all-star Back to the Beginning gig in Birmingham, England.
The other members of Black Sabbath spoke and Trujillo said bassist Geezer Butler in particular struggled to keep it together and “broke down into tears. He had a hard time, obviously, speaking and then he came back up and he delivered an amazing eulogy.” Trujillo described how it was raining at the beginning of the service and then the weather changed a few times during the memorial and then again when daughter Kelly Osbourne was singing a tribute to her dad.
“Her lyrics flew, like the wind blew her lyrics away, it was almost like Ozzy was having fun with her,” he said. And then, when Butler got up to speak, Trujillo said the sun suddenly popped out. “I’m not kidding. The sun actually came out and then it was beautiful from that moment on, a very magical moment.”
And though it was sad to say goodbye, Trujillo described the joy attendees took in sharing their Ozzy stories. “And all of a sudden, there was laughter, and ‘I remember this’, ‘I remember that’. There were so many stories,” he said. “So it felt like there was a closure from this. And I’m glad that we went — my wife Chloe and I went — and shared that and were able to have that moment with the family and everything. So it was very beautiful. And again, heartfelt words from so many people and kind of reconnecting with different musicians and bandmates, crew members, all that.”
Metallica performed at Back to the Beginning, performing covers of Black Sabbath’s “Hole in the Sky” and “Johnny Blade” along with their own “Creeping Death,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Battery” and “Master of Puppets.” They joined a roster of bands paying tribute to Ozzy and Sabbath that included Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Mastodon and many more.
Trujillo said after their set, Ozzy’s wife/manager Sharon Osbourne grabbed him in the hallway backstage and asked him to come visit with Osbourne. “I went in there and he was sitting in the wheelchair and I said, ‘Ozzy, incredible, I am so proud of you. You were amazing and this means to much to all of us, this means so much to the world,’” Trujillo told him. Ozzy thanked Trujillo and asked if he could see Metallica singer/guitarist James Hetfield for a moment.
So Trujillo brought Hetfield over and described how the band leader, “got on one knee and basically held Ozzy’s hand and it was so heavy. It was the moment… it was almost like he was saying goodbye to Ozzy in some ways and it was from the heart. It was heartfelt. It was a powerful moment.”
Tearing up as he recounted the scene, Trujillo said he had to leave the room as he was overcome with emotion during a moment he described as a “passing of the torch.” The private funeral at Ozzy and wife/manager Sharon’s private estate in Buckinghamshire came after a public funeral procession through Ozzy’s hometown of Birmingham.
Listen to Trujillo describe Osbourne’s funeral below.
