Sharon Osbourne has strongly denied media reports claiming that Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne's farewell concert, Back To The Beginning, raised nearly $200 million for charity.
The highly publicized show, held on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, UK, was both a tribute to Sabbath's legacy and a farewell performance by Ozzy Osbourne, who died just over two weeks later on July 22. Though the concert was hailed as a moving final chapter for the metal legend, recent headlines about the event's charitable earnings have sparked confusion — and, according to Sharon Osbourne, outright misinformation.
In a Pollstar interview conducted on July 17, Sharon shot down the widely circulated claim that Back To The Beginning raised nearly $200 million (or 140 million pounds), calling the reports highly exaggerated and misleading.
"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," Sharon said. "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?"
The inflated figure originated from a now-deleted Instagram post by Tom Morello, the show's musical director, who claimed the event had generated approximately $190 million for charity. Billboard and The Guardian echoed those estimates, citing sources that claimed nearly 6 million viewers tuned in to the event's pay-per-view livestream, generating around $150 million in revenue.
Yet according to Sharon, these numbers are not just inaccurate — they're premature: "It takes a really long time [to arrive at the final number that will be donated to charity], 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 explained.
When Pollstar's Ray Waddell remarked that such exaggerated figures could be misleading — especially for charities like Birmingham Children's Hospital, Acorn Children's Hospice, and Cure Parkinson's who were reportedly set to benefit — Sharon agreed: "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."
Despite the financial confusion, Sharon emphasized the emotional and symbolic success of the concert. It featured a rare solo performance by Ozzy, along with appearances by Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Tool, and more.
"It was a phenomenal event. 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."
