The Real Story Behind Ozzy Osbourne Biting The Head Off A Bat

If Ozzy Osbourne ever performed in Gotham City, the Joker could truly put on a happy face. Not because he loves heavy metal but because of what Ozzy has been known to do to bats. Just imagine it. If the Adam West Batman (obviously the best Batman) made the mistake of doing the Batusi dance on stage, he might find himself in a meet-and-greet with Ozzy's teeth, which would greet him as meat. How the Prince of Darkness isn't the Dark Knight's worst enemy is beyond us, but we can at least shed light on the night he infamously bit the head off a bat on stage.

Per Rolling Stone, by 1982 Ozzy Osborne had cultivated a reputation for chucking animal parts at audiences, and audiences didn't mind throwing furry dead animals back at him. Ozzy had also mastered the art of dentally decapitating winged animals, which he demonstrated in 1981 by chomping the head off a live dove in front of "horrified" music executives, according to the Des Moines Register. Ozzy's shenanigans reached a batty crescendo on January 20, 1982, when a concertgoer hurled a bat at Ozzy. Evidently intent on putting the "crazy" in "Crazy Train," the singer responded in a way that would make normal mortals vomit.

Rolling Stone's report says the bat was still alive when Ozzy orally beheaded it. But Mark Neal, who had the dubious honor of throwing the animal, insisted it was already dead. Neal's younger brother had brought the poor critter home to keep as a pet, but the bat died. So Neal and his buddies decided to use the dead animal as ammo during Ozzy's concert. The rest is ... icky. Ozzy Osbourne recalls in his memoir that after sinking his teeth into the bat, that "something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched." Now regretting having turned his mouth into a miniature guillotine, he would have to receive rabies shots and confront an eternity of questions about the taste of bat cranium. Hopefully he tells them it tastes like dove heads.