Ozzy Osbourne Once Tried to Stab Ronnie James Dio With a Fork—Yes, Really
via BBC/ YouTube
Few bands can boast two singers who both defined eras of heavy metal, but Black Sabbath can. Ozzy Osbourne’s wailing madness laid the foundation of the genre, while Ronnie James Dio’s powerful, operatic delivery took the band in a different direction. Both eras shaped Sabbath’s legend in their own right.
When Ozzy was fired in 1979, the band seemed to be spiraling. But the arrival of Dio — fresh from his time with Rainbow — revitalized Sabbath, producing classic albums like Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules. It was a rebirth that proved the band could thrive even after losing its original voice.
But with two frontmen that iconic, rivalry was inevitable. For years, tension lingered between the two singers, and their paths rarely crossed. Yet when they did, chaos was only a drink or a bad decision away.
Fired, Replaced, and Resentful
By the time Ozzy left Black Sabbath, his drug and alcohol use had reached dangerous levels. Even he admitted later, “I was loaded all the time.” The rest of the band had grown frustrated with his lack of focus, leading to his firing in April 1979. Ozzy, however, never accepted that decision quietly.
He viewed the move as betrayal. “I was no more fucked up than the rest of them,” he told Classic Rock in 2012. The bitterness only deepened when Sabbath quickly rebounded with Dio — someone Ozzy saw as an outsider trying to fill his shoes. He couldn’t imagine anyone else fronting his band.
The feeling was mutual. Dio reportedly found Ozzy unprofessional and unpredictable, while Ozzy mocked Dio for his height. Their rivalry became part of rock folklore, the clash between two giants whose egos were as enormous as their voices.
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The Fork Incident at The Rainbow
The most infamous encounter between Ozzy and Dio didn’t happen onstage — it happened at Los Angeles’ legendary hangout, The Rainbow. In the new documentary Ozzy: No Escape From Now, Sharon Osbourne recounts the first time her husband met the man who replaced him.
According to Sharon, Ozzy was recovering from a hospital stay when he developed an unexpected obsession with watching Dio interviews on YouTube. When she asked why, Ozzy admitted he felt sorry for Dio — a strange sentiment considering what happened years earlier. Sharon then dropped the bombshell: “The first time he met him was when he tried to stab him at The Rainbow – with a fork.”
Nobody knows exactly what led to that bizarre moment or whether Ozzy truly meant harm. Both men kept quiet about it, and the story faded into rumor. But given Ozzy’s legendary drinking and unpredictable behavior at the time, it’s not hard to imagine the scene unfolding in chaotic, drunken absurdity.
From Rivalry to Respect
Time, as it often does, softened the edges of their feud. By the 2000s, Ozzy seemed to have made peace with Dio’s place in Sabbath’s history. Though he admitted he never really listened to the Dio-era records, he later expressed genuine respect for his one-time rival’s talent and contribution to heavy metal.
When Ronnie James Dio passed away in 2010, Ozzy paid tribute, saying, “Metal has lost one of its greatest voices.” Two years later, on his Ozzy Speaks radio show, he went even further, acknowledging that Dio “did a good job” with Sabbath — a rare public nod of approval.
In the end, what began as animosity turned into reluctant admiration. Sharon even revealed that Ozzy now watches Dio interviews out of fascination and guilt, reflecting on a man he once misunderstood. The fork incident may live on as rock legend, but so does the respect between two titans who helped define metal forever.
