Kelly Osbourne is speaking publicly about the grief she carries after losing her father, Ozzy Osbourne, who died on July 22, 2025, at the age of 76. In a series of emotional posts on Instagram, the 40-year-old described the loss as an "endless ache" and made clear that healing will not come quickly.
A Daughter's First Words
Two days after Ozzy's death, Kelly broke her silence with a lyric from the Black Sabbath song "Changes," which she and her father had recorded as a duet in 2003. "I feel unhappy. I am so sad. I lost the best friend I ever had," she wrote on her Instagram Stories on July 24, 2025. The post, punctuated by a broken-heart emoji, was the first time she addressed the public since her family announced the news.
The Osbourne family, including wife Sharon, children Kelly, Jack, Aimee, and Louis, released a joint statement the morning of Ozzy's passing. "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning," the statement read. "He was with his family and surrounded by love."
"I Will Not Be OK for a While"
In a longer message shared on August 4, Kelly expanded on the weight of her grief. "Grief is a strange thing; it sneaks up on you in waves," she wrote. "I will not be OK for a while, but knowing my family is not alone in our pain makes a difference."
She also thanked the public for an outpouring of support that she said had "truly helped carry me through the hardest moment of my life." She closed by saying she was "holding on tight to the love, the light, and the legacy left behind."
A Bond Forged On and Off Screen
Kelly and Ozzy's relationship was one of the most visible father-daughter bonds in pop culture. The two became household names together in 2002 when MTV premiered The Osbournes, the Emmy-winning reality series that turned the family's chaotic, expletive-laced home life into appointment television. The show ran for four seasons and is widely credited with helping define the reality TV genre.
Their musical bond was just as public. Their 2003 duet of "Changes" reached number one in the U.K., making them only the second father-daughter pair to top the charts, after Frank and Nancy Sinatra in 1967.
In recent months, Kelly had spoken openly about how close her own son, Sidney, was to his grandfather. In May 2025, she told PEOPLE that the two-year-old was "best friends" with Ozzy and that his favorite part of the day was crawling into bed with his grandparents for cartoon time.
A Final Family Moment
Just weeks before his death, Ozzy was present for what would become one of Kelly's last major milestones with him. During Black Sabbath's farewell concert at Villa Park in Birmingham, England, on July 5, Slipknot keyboardist Sid Wilson proposed to Kelly backstage with Ozzy and Sharon looking on. A video shared to Instagram captured Ozzy jokingly interjecting, "F--- off, you're not marrying my daughter," before the emotional moment played out.
The concert, a 10-hour event that also featured Metallica, Guns N' Roses, and Jack Black, would be Ozzy's final performance. He had spent his last years battling Parkinson's disease, which he revealed in 2020, along with lingering injuries from a 2003 ATV accident and a 2019 fall.
Kelly's raw, public grief stands in contrast to the often polished statements celebrities issue after a loss. Her willingness to say she is not okay, to call grief an "endless ache," and to lean on a song she once sang with her father offers a window into a pain that, for her, is still very new.