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Judas Priest<\/a> singer Rob Halford revealed in May that he was \u201cgutted<\/a>\u201d to miss Ozzy Osbourne<\/a>\u2018s final show with Black Sabbath<\/a> at July\u2019s Back to the Beginning concert. Halford, who, like Ozzy, is from Birmingham, England, was, unfortunately, double-booked on July 5, slated to play a 60th anniversary show with the Scorpions in Hanover, Germany that day.<\/p>\n Now, following Osbourne\u2019s death on July 22<\/a> at age 76 from a heart attack, Halford is opening up about his grief following the loss of the fellow metal icon who meant so much to him. In an interview with Talkin\u2019 Rock with Meltdown, Halford, 73, described getting a call on the day Osbourne passed and just losing it. \u201cI just put the phone down in my hotel room\u2026 and I just curled up in a ball and bawled my eyes out for hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe it. I still can\u2019t believe it now,\u201d Halford added. \u201cI\u2019m still grieving like so many people.\u201d Halford said Priest had a show the next day and he described struggling to process \u201call this tragedy, all this love, because I\u2019ve never seen such an outpouring of love.\u201d But just like other times when the band had to perform after losing one of their beloved musical compatriots, the show went on and Priest played a tune called \u201cGiants in the Sky\u201d from the band\u2019s 2024 Invincible Shield album about legends that have moved on from this world. The song features the now apropos refrain, \u201cHomage to the legends\/ Till the bitter end\/ Leaving such a legacy my friends\/ Giants in the sky\/ You won\u2019t ever die.\u201d<\/p>\n During that show, Halford said he referenced Motorhead\u2019s Lemmy Kilmister, Ronnie James Dio, Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury and, for that night, Ozzy. \u201cI said to everybody, this is so much to try and comprehend and so tough. But Ozzy would say \u2018Let\u2019s party. Let\u2019s rock and roll. Let\u2019s live it up, let\u2019s enjoy.\u2019 That was in his heart, his soul and his spirit. Whenever we did shows together he would always say to me, \u2018Did you have a good time?,’\u201d Halford explained.<\/p>\n Halford recalled Osbourne\u2019s generosity and caring nature, as well as his musical feats with Sabbath and as a solo act. \u201cHe was the embodiment of kindness in that respect,\u201d he said. The leather and studs rocker suggested that we should keep talking about and celebrating Ozzy and his legacy, to get through the grief by thinking about the joy and good times. And, in Priest\u2019s case, by continuing to perform Sabbath\u2019s \u201cWar Pigs\u201d at the top of their shows.<\/p>\n Osbourne died 17 days after playing his final show, where he played a solo set and a reunion gig with the original Sabbath lineup at Birmingham\u2019s Villa Park alongside fellow metal legends including Guns N\u2019 Roses, Tool, Metallica, Gojira and many more.<\/p>\n Watch Halford discuss his grief over Osbourne\u2019s death below.<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judas Priest singer Rob Halford revealed in May that he was \u201cgutted\u201d to miss Ozzy Osbourne\u2018s final show…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":161371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93527,171,29035,93526,975,16513,93525,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-161370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-anniversary-show","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-final-show","11":"tag-judas-priest","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-ozzy-osbourne","14":"tag-rob-halford","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115061706311713113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}