Ozzy Osbourne and the notorious bat incident - what you didn't know

Ozzy Osbourne will be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Image: Getty)

Ozzy Osbourne, the notorious Prince of Darkness who will be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today, is as famous for his wild behaviour as he is for his music. His antics have included biting the head off a dove during his first US record deal celebration, an act that left onlookers in shock as he spat out the remains as blood dripped from his mouth.

The rock legend's 1981 tour promoting Diary of a Madman was aptly named the Night of the Living Dead, where audiences were pelted with 25lbs of pig intestines, calves' livers, raw chickens, sheep testicles, live snakes, and even dead rats each night.

In a bizarre twist, fans began to participate by bringing their own meat to hurl at the stage, leading to what Ozzy described as a grotesque “custard-pie fight”.

However, one concert in Des Moines took a dark turn when a fan brought a bat to the event.

The fan has always insisted the bat was already dead, but Ozzy tells a more gruesome tale.

Ozzy Osbourne notoriously bit the head off a bat in 1981. (Image: Getty)

According to the Black Sabbath legend, the creature appeared lifeless on stage, likely disoriented by the dazzling lights.

Ozzy, mistaking the bat for synthetic, grabbed the animal and bit into it only to find blood gushing down his throat.

"I thought it was a rubber bat," he previously confessed. "I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am."

A swift reaction saw him dragged from the stage and immediately taken to hospital for urgent rabies shots.

"Bats are the biggest carriers of rabies in the world," Ozzy pointed out. "And I had to go to the hospital afterwards and they started giving me rabies shots. I had one on each rear and I had to have that every night."

Ozzy Osbourne credits wife Sharon for saving his life. (Image: Getty)

40 years after the notorious incident, Ozzy now pursues bat preservation, proposing to set up bat boxes at his UK estate.

Reflecting on his infamous bat-biting incident, he's expressed frustration with the notoriety it's garnered him, even believing it might overshadow his other achievements.

Speaking to The Mirror, he lamented: "It's going to be on my f***ing gravestone. You'd think it was all I'd ever done, but I've done a lot more f***ing things than that."

He has since turned his life around, overcoming his notorious partying habits and working on his sobriety.

He credits his wife Sharon for saving him from his destructive path, admitting that without her, he would not be alive today.

"Falling in love with Sharon was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was patient, she stuck by me.

“Someone asked me, 'Imagine if it was the other way around, you were the sober one and she was the one on the floor covered in p*** and puke every day. How long do you think you would last?'

"And I was like, 'F***, that's a good question.' I really don't know the answer. She stuck it out. Her being sober saved me.”