Ozzy Osbourne Addresses Alleged Ant Snorting Incident

10-17-2023

Video still of the scene from 'The Dirt' (YouTube)

Ozzy Osbourne addressed Motley Crue's claim that he snorted a line of ants like cocaine during his Bark At The Moon Tour, on the latest episode of the recently relaunched The Osbournes podcast.

In a famed scene in Motley Crue's Netflix biopic and autobiography, "The Dirt", a drunk Ozzy reportedly approached the band at the pool of a hotel they were staying at during the trek in support of Ozzy's 1983 album, where they were the opening act.

Motley claim that Ozzy walked up and declared "I need a bump", but no one had the illicit substance, so Osbourne allegedly got on his knees and proceeded to snort a line of ants that were on the ground.

In the new episode, Ozzy's son Jack asked his father if that scene was true and Ozzy's wife and manager Sharon replied, "I was not there, thank God. I used to try and stay away from Motley when they were with Ozzy. And I don't know. I honestly don't know.

She then said, "All I know is that I think it made their movie. And I wanna know why, now we're on the subject, of why, when they advertise their movie on Netflix, it's a picture of a guy imitating Ozzy. Why isn't the ad campaign a picture of Motley Crue? Why is it a picture of your father?"

Jack responded, "Well, I know, I know the answer to that. 'Cause Ozzy Osbourne's bigger than Motley Crue". Ozzy then broke in and said, "No. No. No. Stop. Stop. Stop. Let's move on." Followed by Sharon who said, " The thing is I just think it's an invasion."

As to the actual snorting of ants portrayed in the film and book, when Jack followed up and asked if it really did happen, Sharon responded, "I say no". However, Ozzy took ownership of the story and said, "Yes. Yes, I did. I was there. I did it."

Ozzy's lead guitarist at the time, Jake E. Lee had a different recollection of the incident. He told Tone-Talk in 2019, "I was there, and I never saw ants. I was right there. He snorted a little spider. There was a not a trail of f***ing ants there. Tommy [Lee] says it, Nikki says it, Ozzy says it, they were f***ed up. I was not. I was just trying to get a f***ing sun tan. That's all I was doing. They were getting f***ed up. Ozzy snorted a little tiny stupid spider that was crawling across. There was no ants, there was no f***ing ants. I don't care what the other guys say, there was no ants."

Stream the full podcast episode below: