In her 2007 memoir, “Survivor: My Story – The Next Chapter,” Sharon Osbourne revealed that she and her husband Ozzy Osbourne had made a death pact, stating that they would go together to the Swiss assisted-dying organization Dignitas if either were to develop dementia.
Ozzy and Sharon reportedly made the pact after the death of her father Don Arden, who passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2007.
“[We] have drawn up plans to go to the assisted suicide flat in Switzerland if we ever have an illness that affects our brains,” Sharon told Daily Mirror at the time. “If Ozzy or I ever got Alzheimer’s, that’s it — we’d be off.”
On July 22, Ozzy passed away from a heart attack, just weeks after performing what was billed as his and Black Sabbath’s farewell concert. Prior to his death, the legendary musician had been in poor health, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and, as noted in his death certificate, coronary artery disease.
In her first interview since Ozzy’s death, Sharon explained why she ultimately decided not to go through with the pact, crediting her children as the reason she’s still alive.
“I would have just gone with Ozzy. Oh, yeah, definitely, I’ve done everything I wanted to do,” she said during a recent appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” “But they [our kids, Aimee, Kelly, and Jack] have been… unbelievably, just magnificent with me, all three of them.”
Sharon went on to share an experience that contributed to her changing her mind.
“Years ago, when I had one of my mental breakdowns, I went into a little facility to help with my head,” she said. “And I’d there were two girls over there – they didn’t know each other, but they were in there, each mother had committed suicide, and I saw the state that these two young women were in and what it had done to their lives, and I thought, I will never, ever, ever do that to my kids.”
On how she has been coping since the loss of her husband, Sharon added:
“Grief has now become my friend. It is very weird to me, you know, when you love someone that much and you’re grieving for them, it’s what I have to live with, and I’ll get used to it. I will, I have to, you know, things move on.”
