Before Ozzy Osbourne stepped on stage for the final Black Sabbath show of all time, Yungblud handed him a custom-made gold cross.
And in doing so, he actually delivered one of the night’s most unexpectedly emotional moments.
Captured backstage at Birmingham’s Villa Park on July 5, the moment shows the Doncaster punk personally returning the favour after Ozzy gifted him his own cross during the filming of Yungblud’s 2022 music video, The Funeral. “You gave me your cross, and I wanted to return the favour,” Yungblud said, handing over a wooden box. “I never took mine off.”
Inside was a diamond-encrusted gold cross made by a jeweller mate, presented not just as a thank-you, but as a symbol of what Ozzy’s music meant to a kid growing up too weird for his postcode. “Everyone thought I was too fucking mad,” Yungblud said. “And I was like, ‘No. I’m like Ozzy.’”
The Prince of Darkness was visibly moved, telling Yungblud he could always reach out for anything. “The fucking music was enough,” Yungblud replied. “You gave me an outlet.”
It’s a moment that underlined everything Back To The Beginning was about. It was not just a goodbye, but a torch-passing really. Ozzy told him, “Conquer America next. Then the world,” nodding to Yungblud’s recent chart-topping LP Idols. “Just keep going. Never give in.”
Yungblud later hit the stage as part of ‘Supergroup A’, alongside Nuno Bettencourt, Sleep Token’s II, and Adam Wakeman, performing a haunting cover of Sabbath’s Changes, dedicated to late footballer Diogo Jota.
The final Sabbath gig was a who’s who of rock royalty, but somehow this quiet moment backstage. one punk handing a cross to another. It somehow cut a whole lote deeper than all the pyro, and the noise.
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