“I’m so sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you”: Jake E. Lee shares the last text he received from Ozzy Osbourne
As the world reels in the wake of Ozzy’s Osbourne’s death earlier this week, artists from the rock and metal world and far beyond have been sharing their own tributes to the Prince of Darkness, who shaped the music world as we know it today.
Jake E. Lee – who served as Ozzy’s guitarist between 1982 and 1987 – has shared the last text he ever received from Ozzy. Jake E. Lee performed at Black Sabbath’s huge farewell show just a couple of weeks ago, despite admitting he hadn’t spoken to Ozzy in decades.
READ MORE: “They say never meet your idols, but that’s just not true. Sometimes you get lucky”: M. Shadows reflects on interviewing Ozzy Osbourne in 2017
Sharing that the “finality” of Ozzy’s death is hitting him “in waves”, Lee notes that he didn’t properly catch up with Ozzy during the show. Ozzy’s text to him following the event was as follows:
“Hi Jake. I’m so sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you on the weekend but it was really chaotic. I would really like to see you when I eventually get back to LA just to shoot the shit, it’s been so long since we saw each other. Where are you living these days? Because last I heard you were living in Las Vegas. How did the gig go for you on Saturday? I really hope you had fun anyway. I will text you when I eventually get back to LA and we must hook up. Much love and respect, Ozzy.”
Still processing it. The finality of it hits me in waves. This was a text I got from him as I was sitting in an airport…
Posted by Jake E Lee’s Red Dragon Cartel on Wednesday, July 23, 2025
During his Back to the Beginning appearance, Lee covered tracks like The Ultimate Sin and Shot In The Dark, solo tracks by Ozzy that he featured on during the ’80s. He replaced Ozzy’s previous guitarist Randy Rhoads and played on the 1983 release Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin in 1986. In a 2022 Stereogum interview, Ozzy finally revealed why he fired Lee from the band back in the 80s: “Jake E. Lee was a fucking great guitar player, and the way it went was, Randy Castillo, my old drummer, had started to turn me against him. It was very sad because I had no qualms with the guy. He was a great guitar player.”
Following Ozzy Osbourne’s tragic death earlier this week, his Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi reflected on the band’s final show, noting that “he really just held out to do that show”.
“He’s built up for it for a while now,” Iommi said. “He’s been sort of training and trying to do what he can, so he could do this gig, so he could do it. And that’s really what he wanted to do. I think he must have had something in his head that said, ‘Well, this is gonna be it, the last thing I’m ever gonna do.’ Whether he thought he was gonna die or what, I don’t know. But he really wanted to do it and he was determined to do it. And fair dues, he’d done it.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
