Sharon Osbourne says that some of the “false press” surrounding the amount of money raised for charity by Black Sabbath‘s farewell Back To The Beginning shown in Birmingham last month is “ridiculous”.
In the aftermath of the spectacular July 5 event at Villa Park, roundly acclaimed as the greatest heavy metal concert of all time, the show’s musical director Tom Morello posted a series of photos from the day on Instagram, one photo of Ozzy Osbourne overlaid with the line “More than 190 million will be donated to houses and hospitals for children.”
Billboard magazine reported that the event had raised $190 million, while The Guardian reported that the pay-per-view livestream of the event reached more than five million fans, generating an estimated $150 million in revenue. It had been promised that 100% of the proceeds from the livestream would go to Acorns Children’s Hospice, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Cure Parkinson’s.
Interviewed for live music industry bible Pollstar, however, Sharon Osbourne says that these claims are over-inflated.
“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,” Osbourne says. “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?”
“It takes a really long time [to work out the sums incvolved], 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,” she continued.
When Pollstar writer Ray Waddell notes, “These reports are not helpful for the Children’s Hospital to see, waiting for their $190 million”, Osbourne responds, “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.”
These concerns aside, Osbourne pronounced the event, which also featured her late husband’s final show as a solo artist, as well as performances from Metallica, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and many, many more, “a huge success.”
“It was a phenomenal event,” she says. “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.”
Ozzy Osbourne passed away on July 22, just a few weeks after his emotional farewell performances.