The BBC has announced a new broadcast date for an Ozzy Osbourne documentary that was pulled from the schedules at the last minute a month ago.
Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home was due to be broadcast on 18 August, but was postponed that same day with the BBC saying it was “respecting the family’s wishes to wait a bit longer before airing this very special film”.
The planned original transmission would have taken place less than a month after the former Black Sabbath frontman’s death at the age of 76.
The one-hour film, which follows the rock legend in the final few years of his life, will now be shown on BBC One and iPlayer at 21:00 BST on 2 October.
It will cover the last three years of the rock star’s life as he and wife Sharon moved back to the UK from Los Angeles, and his “heroic” battle to return to the stage at his farewell concert in Birmingham in July.
Soon after it was postponed, a BBC statement said: “Our sympathies are with the Osbourne family at this difficult time. We are respecting the family’s wishes to wait a bit longer before airing this very special film.”
The BBC’s updated description bills the “intimate” documentary as a “candid and moving portrait of one of Birmingham’s favourite sons, and the remarkable relationship with Sharon”.
It shows how the couple faced “a monumental battle, both on a professional and personal level” to defy his health problems to move home and to stage the final gig, the official synopsis said.
The film is “a moving portrait of a couple whose five-decade-long relationship has defied the odds, at a pivotal moment in their lives”, the billing said.
It continued: “Pulling off either the move or the gig will be a phenomenal achievement, and son Jack is worried about the toll of relocating to a country that his parents have barely spent time in over the last two decades, as well as the impact on such close-knit family dynamics.
“But Ozzy has never been a man to take no for an answer, and with Sharon’s support he sets about achieving his goals with the determination, blistering honesty and razor-sharp sense of humour that have endeared him to millions for over 50 years.
“He will stop at nothing to make his body work as well as it used to, with the film capturing remarkable levels of resolve.”
A separate documentary, announced on Wednesday, is billed as “an all-access, intimate view of the rock icon’s six-year health battle as he fights to get back on stage one last time”.
Ozzy: No Escape From Now will cover his life after being injured in a fall in 2019, with Sharon among the executive producers.
It will be available on Paramount+ from 7 October.
