Sharon Osbourne Reveals That ‘Nobody Asked For a Penny’ to Play Ozzy Osbourne’s Back to the Beginning Final Show

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but none of the artists who performed at Ozzy Osbourne‘s all-star final Back to the Beginning gig this summer were paid to be there. They did it for the love of the game, and their love of the late metal icon.

Wife/manager Sharon Osbourne revealed the generosity of Ozzy’s peers in this week’s episode of The Osbournes podcast, the family’s first sit-down chat since Ozzy’s death on July 22 at 76 years old, just weeks after the historic gig. “We paid the cost of bringing everybody in, everybody out, accommodation, everything,” said Sharon about the all-day July 5 gig at Villa Park in Ozzy’s hometown of Birmingham, England that featured sets from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Pantera, Alice in Chains Anthrax as well solo and Black Sabbath sets featuring Ozzy. “[And] no one got paid. Nobody asked for a penny. They gave their time, their efforts, everything for free. People were just, oh God, so generous.”

Sharon also clarified reports about how much the show raised for charity based on what the family said were erroneously inflated figures provided by the show’s musical director, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, in an Instagram post in which he claimed it would donate around $190 million to charities including the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Acorn Children’s Hospital and Cure Parkinson’s.

Son Jack said there was an “awful lot of bulls–t that went out” about how much the concert raised for charity. Veteran manager Sharon added, “If one show could have raised… I mean, it was up to, like $190 million. It’s, like, any artist, just do one big show, film it and you can retire just on one show. No, it was nowhere near, and I wish that it was, but we are living in reality, in the real world.”

Sharon revealed that the show raised around $11 million for charity given the enormous cost of flying everyone in and out, putting them up and mounting the ambitious show that will be the subject of the upcoming 100-minute concert film Back to the Beginning: Ozzy’s Final Bow, which is slated for theatrical release early next year.

Watch the Osbournes discuss the generosity of the Back to the Beginning participants below.