SHARON OSBOURNE Clarifies Misleading Reports on Ozzy Osbourne Farewell Show Charity Earnings

Back To The Beginning served as both a tribute to Black Sabbath’s legacy and a farewell performance by Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away just over two weeks later on July 22. While the concert was widely hailed as a moving final chapter for the metal icon, recent headlines about the event’s charitable earnings have sparked confusion — and, according to Sharon Osbourne, outright misinformation.

In a Pollstar interview conducted on July 17, Sharon pushed back against the widely circulated claim that Back To The Beginning raised nearly $200 million (or £140 million), calling those reports exaggerated and misleading.

“One of the things that’s frightening me is all this false press about [how], we’ve made $140 million and all of this, and I’m like, God, I wish we could have, for one gig,” Sharon said. “It’s just ridiculous, the different stories. I went on the internet the next morning and it was like, $140 million, $160 million. And I’m like, Where does this stuff come from?”

The inflated figure reportedly originated from a now-deleted Instagram post by Tom Morello, the show’s musical director, who claimed the event had generated approximately $190 million for charity. Billboard and The Guardian echoed those numbers, citing sources that claimed nearly 6 million viewers tuned in to the pay-per-view livestream, generating around $150 million in revenue.

But according to Sharon, those figures are not only inaccurate — they’re premature. She explained:

“It takes a really long time [to arrive at the final number that will be donated to charity], because we’ve had all of the bands that we had come in and their expenses, and it’ll take a good six weeks to get the final number”

When Pollstar’s Ray Waddell pointed out that such inflated estimates could create false expectations — especially for charities like Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Acorn Children’s Hospice, and Cure Parkinson’s — Sharon agreed:

“Oh my God! It’s the Children’s Hospital, a children’s hospice, and Parkinson’s research. Everybody thinks that they’re going to cure everything with this much money, but it’s not the real world.”

Despite the financial confusion, Sharon stressed the emotional and symbolic impact of the event, which included a rare solo set from Ozzy and appearances by Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Tool, and more.

“It was a phenomenal event. It was the first time, I think, that anybody’s gone into retirement and done it, where the show is streamed and it goes to charity. So it’s the first time anybody has said goodnight like that, it’s the perfect way, when you’ve had such a long career, to end it. I never wanted Ozzy to just disappear without some big event.”

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