Longstanding rumours of a beef between Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio – the man who replaced him in Black Sabbath – have been shot down by former Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice.
When Sabbath fired Ozzy in 1979 and replaced him with Dio, Osbourne would have been forgiven for holding a grudge against the new man in the band that he loved.
But according to Vinny Appice – who played drums with Sabbath when Dio was in the lineup and also joined Dio’s solo band – there is no truth whatsoever to any such rumours.
In a new interview with Trunk Nation with Eddie Trunk just days after Ozzy’s death at the age of 76 this week, Appice says: “Ozzy would always tell me how he loved Ronnie. Everybody created this thing that they hate each other, but Ozzy used to talk about it all the time.
“Things get blown up on the internet and you don’t know the truth really, what’s going on.
“He used to sit down and tell me about Ronnie too. You know, he really liked Ronnie and this and that. And there’s some pictures on the internet where they’re hanging out, actually a festival it looks like, and there’s a picture of Ronnie and Ozzy and they were just hanging out.”
Osbourne of course admitted he was hurt by the situation, but the worst thing he would says is that he couldn’t bring himself to listen to the three Dio-fronted Sabbath albums.
In 2022, he told SiriusXM: “Ronnie did a good job. At the time I was fucking sad because…they were the only thing that ever really happened to me.
“It’s like my ex-wife. You leave a band like that, it’s just like getting divorced. You don’t go, ‘How’s your new bloke? Is he better than me?'”
Appice’s relationship with Ozzy came about through his brother Carmine Appice’s links with the late singer. Carmine was in Ozzy’s band briefly on the Bark At The Moon touring cycle.
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