LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) Ozzy Osbourne says that his recent hospital visit was more concerning than just a hand injury but rather a staph infection that could have killed him.
“I freaked out,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone, saying his right thumb had swollen to “the size of a fuckin’ lightbulb” and he could not put on a thumb ring he regularly wore. Wife/manager Sharon Osbourne drove him to the emergency room where he learned he had contracted a life-threatening staph infection. As he he told RS:
“I didn’t feel sick, so I was cracking jokes,” he says. “The doctor said, ‘I don’t know if you realize, Mr. Osbourne, this is a very serious problem you have.’ Sharon said, ‘Would you stop fucking making jokes?’” He laughs. “So I said, ‘Well, it’s my hand.’” The thing was, nobody was laughing. “They’re all extremely, deadly serious about it,” he says. “I judge it based on the expression and the body language of the doctor. If he comes in with a really solemn face, I go, ‘Oh, OK. My time to go is up.’” He laughs.
Osbourne had to cancel four shows in California and Las Vegas, which he says he will make up for next year, especially the Hollywood Bowl, which he was looking forward to. Meanwhile, Ozzfest just announced a New Year’s Eve show at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. – the place that was at the center of the Ozzy Osbourne / AEG legal kerfuffle.
Osbourne described his surgery in gruesome, painful detail and had asked a doctor how he contracted the staph infection.
“The doctor said to me, ‘Can you remember talking to someone and shaking hands?’” Osbourne recalls. “Well, I do that meet and greet at the gig and I must shake fucking 200 hands a day. He said, ‘That explains it.’”
