Music legend Ozzy Osbourne listens to questions during a press conference to promote his new album "Scream" in Toronto on Wednesday, May 19, 2010NATHAN DENETTE/The Canadian Press
What does Ozzy Osbourne think about Justin Bieber's bad-boy behaviour? Been there, done that – and peed on the Alamo, thanks very much.
The 65-year-old rocker says the Canadian pop star's recent antics – including getting arrested for DUI and being charged with egging a neighbour's house – pale drastically in comparison to his own during his seventies heyday touring with Black Sabbath.
In a raucous interview with U.K. Esquire, Osbourne talks about several of his more infamous rock-and-roll-animal incidents, including biting off the head of a bat onstage and snorting a line of fire ants while on tour with Motley Crue in 1984.
"I've got no recollection of snorting those ants, but it beats throwing eggs like Mr. F–-g Bieber," says Osbourne in the interview. "We wouldn't have stopped at eggs in my day."
Bieber is currently under investigation by Los Angeles police for allegedly causing $20,000 of damage to his neighbour's house by throwing eggs.
Osbourne also addressed the matter of Bieber urinating into a New York restaurant mop bucket last year.
"I heard he p–-ed in a bucket in some restaurant. So what?" said Osbourne. "I p–-ed on the Alamo, which is a national shrine. In a woman's dress. At 7 a.m., with a bottle of Courvosier in one hand and my d–k in the other."
Osbourne originally came to fame as the frontman of heavy-metal band Black Sabbath back in the seventies. His celebrity profile was renewed in 2002 with the arrival of the MTV reality series The Osbournes, which focused on his chaotic family life with wife Sharon and their children, Kelly and Jack.
In the same interview, Osbourne concedes that money and fame aren't all they're cracked up to be.
"I always thought that having loads of money would mean a happy life," he says. "But once you've bought all the things you want, and you're still not content in the world, you have to do a bit of soul-searching and ask, 'Why am I feeling this emptiness inside?'"
By his own admission, Osbourne has battled drug and alcohol addictions for most of his adult life. Following several trips to rehab and subsequent relapses, he has been sober since March, 2013.
"My earliest feelings of emotion was fear," he says in the Esquire interview. "I was always so afraid as a kid. So when I discovered alcohol, it gave me that Dutch courage I think I needed."