He also spent years strung out on drugs and alcohol. Never mind the groupies and the near-fatal overdoses. This man set fire to his house, passed out on a freeway median, and once tried to strangle his wife.
Ms. Osbourne, for her part, tried to run him over with a car, smashing his gold records with a hammer and taking out a restraining order. "We became like a soap opera," says Ms. Osbourne, 57, who is her husband's manager.
And yet she stuck by her man. Why? Because she felt he was a good person when sober and that he would kick his addictions one day. And she still believes he is her soul mate. ("Twice recently we've had the same dream on the same night," she says.)
"I went into marriage thinking it was forever. So I was stubborn," says Ms. Osbourne who has three children with her husband.
Mr. Osbourne, who had been married once before, finally did sober up 'six or seven years' ago, he says. He says he is very glad his wife stuck it out. "You don't throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble," he says.
And so Mr. Osbourne says he has made a point of telling his wife he loved her every single day -- no matter where he was in the world, no matter how drunk or high. "She sometimes said 'Drop dead' or 'F -- off,'" he says. "But at least if you are arguing, you are talking. If you stop talking, it's time to call it a day."
-- Stay alive. My sister, a doctor, told me about one of her patients, a 92-year-old woman who showed up for her appointment with her husband, who is 94. They said they have been married for almost 70 years.
My sister, highly impressed, asked the couple the secret to their union's longevity. And they looked at each other for a long moment. Then the wife spoke: "Eh, neither of us died."