Sharon Osbourne’s “Slimy” Response to Feud Between Ozzy Osbourne and Iron Maiden

Sharon Osbourne does not take kindly to others crossing or criticizing her loved ones, and her slimy response to the largely one-sided feud between her husband, Ozzy Osbourne, and Iron Maiden is a perfect example of her protective nature. The conflict erupted during the 2005 Ozzfest tour, during which Iron Maiden’s frontman supposedly began expressing his disdain for the festival production and the Osbournes themselves.

Of course, badmouthing the namesake of the festival you’re currently playing is bound to have negative consequences. And while there is no written proof of Bruce Dickinson’s belittling comments, Sharon’s reaction certainly suggests that something was amiss between the British heavy metal acts.

Sharon Osbourne Explains Ozzy vs. Iron Maiden Feud

According to Sharon Osbourne, who helped organize and promote Ozzfest, “From day one, [Iron Maiden’s frontman] Bruce Dickinson started berating Ozzy and belittling the Ozzfest audience. He stated he ‘didn’t need a reality show to give him credibility,’ ‘We’re not just some f***ing reunion band,’ and continuously complained about the sound system, saying that when he comes back to America, he’ll have a better one.”

Osbourne clarified that she thought the rest of Iron Maiden were “gentlemen” with “great professional attitudes” but that the back-handed comments from Dickinson were too disrespectful to tolerate. Even years later, the situation still seemed to stick in Osbourne’s craw. In a 2022 cover story with Consequence of Sound, she commented on the feud yet again, and her response was as emotional as it was back in 2005.

“Bruce Dickinson is a f***ing p****,” she told Consequence. “Well, no, he’s not a p**** because a p****’s nice. He’s a f***ing a**hole. The situation is he was on a tour called Ozzfest. Ozzy Osbourne was paying him every night to perform. He accepted the gig, and every night, he would go onstage and say bad things about Ozzy. 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] LL.A. and I thought, ‘You motherf*****, now you’re gonna get it.’”

Her Slimy Response To The Metal Band’s Comments

On the last night of Ozzfest 2005, Sharon Osbourne decided to get some retribution for Iron Maiden’s derogatory comments about her husband and family. She equipped a large group of people in the audience with eggs and gave them one instruction: throw them at Iron Maiden when they got on stage. And if Bruce Dickinson wasn’t going to hold back his feelings about the Ozzfest logistics before, he certainly had no plans of doing the same while covered in slimy egg yolks.

“You might have noticed that a few wise-a***es decided they would go down the supermarket and buy a few f***ing eggs and start throwing them at us down the front,” Dickinson told the crowd (via Louder Sound). “I guess they thought they’d be funny, but this is an English f***ing flag, and these colors do not run from UU.S.whites. I would suggest that, if you see somebody throwing some s*** at this band and raise their arm, make sure when it comes back down, it’s in two f***ing pieces.”

Of course, the irony of Dickinson’s comments is that a fellow Brit instigated the egg attack in the first place. Luckily, the situation didn’t escalate into bone-breaking violence, but it certainly delivered a message that the Osbournes didn’t tolerate disrespect. As if Dickinson needed any more indication of who had planned the eggy ambush, Sharon pulled the sound at the end of Iron Maiden’s set. She admitted as much in 2005, saying, “Frankly, Dickinson got what he deserved. We had to listen to his bulls*** for five straight weeks. He only had to suffer a couple of eggs on the head.”

Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images