Sharon Osbourne has long taken issue with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson dating back to when Maiden took part in Ozzfest in 2005. It seems as though time has not healed any of those wounds.
For context: Dickinson made some negative comments about Ozzy Osbourne during Maiden’s Ozzfest sets. Among them were saying how Maiden would never appear on a reality television show. At that time, Ozzy’s profile was receiving a major boost thanks to the popularity of the MTV reality show The Osbournes. To retaliate in a very “Stand By Your Man” moment, Sharon organized a group of people to pelt Dickinson with eggs during Maiden’s set at the final Ozzfest stop that year.
All of this drama came up during Ozzy and Sharon’s recent interview with Consequence. Ozzy was very reserved saying of Dickinson, in part, “Bruce Dickinson is a great singer, but as a person, I’ve worked with him, and he’s not very nice.”
As expected, Sharon had a lot more to say and didn’t hold anything back.
“Bruce Dickinson is a f—ing prick. Well, no, he’s not a prick because a prick’s nice. He’s a f—ing a–hole,” said Sharon. “Because the situation is he was on a tour called Ozzfest. And Ozzy Osbourne was paying him every night to perform. He accepted the gig. He knew what he was doing. He accepted the gig. And every night he would go onstage and say bad things about Ozzy. And the crew and everybody in all the other bands would be like, ‘Are you letting him get away with it?’ And I’m like, ‘I sure am.’ But the last gig was [just outside of] L.A. And I thought, ‘You motherf—er, now you’re gonna get it.’”
Sharon continued, “And so I had about 20 people in the audience and a lot of them were nurses from Cedars Sinai, because I had cancer at that time. And they were all my chemo nurses. And they all came down, and they f—ing pelted the shit out of him. And my thing is, you play, you pay!”
The shrewd manager (in more ways than one) added, “And the thing is, if you’re being paid to do a gig, but you don’t like the person, then f— off. But don’t stay, take the money, take all the good that’s coming to your band through being on a festival, doing 24 shows and still slagging the person that’s paying you. It’s like, ‘No, that makes you a f—ing a–hole.’ And he is. And he’s never apologized, he never even went up and said hello to Ozzy. The thing about him is that he is just so jealous. And always has been of Ozzy. And that’s his problem.”
Sharon further added, “Because the thing is about Bruce Dickinson, he’s hugely successful. He’s got a great fan base, a great fan base that have been loyal. The band are great guys. All the band are great. And they do great. You know, they’re a great band, you can’t take it away, and neither would I take that away from them. But the thing about Bruce is, he is unknown to the public. Bruce Dickinson could walk into anywhere and nobody would know who the f— he is. Do you know what I’m saying?”
She brought it all to a close with, “He’s a faceless singer to the general public. People aren’t scrambling to get him for an interview. And the thing is, he’s not interesting. But the thing is, Ozzy is original and Bruce isn’t and that’s what eats Bruce away.”
As if you needed a reminder: When it comes to Ozzy, don’t you dare mess with him, because then you’ll feel the wrath of Sharon. Very few people could handle that.