The Truth About Ozzy Osbourne's Genetic Mutations

There's a lot one could say about the Godfather of Heavy Metal, Ozzy Osbourne. He's one of the most famous musicians in the world of rock. If it weren't for Ozzy and Black Sabbath, metal wouldn't be what it is today. From music to television to building an empire of fame that spread to his wife, Sharon Osbourne, and two of his children, Kelly and Jack, Ozzy has immortalized himself in more ways than one. That's not to say the legendary musician isn't approaching actual immortality. Lord knows he's lived through more near-death experiences than the rest of us, including numerous drug overdoses.

Osbourne's past substance abuse is no secret. The singer struggled for decades with a dependency on drugs and alcohol that led to a whole list of negative impacts on his life. He was kicked out of Black Sabbath, he nearly murdered his wife while blown out of his mind, he's been arrested more than once for public intoxication (but only once for urinating on an historical landmark), and so forth. Through it all, the Ozzman persisted, winning multiple awards and selling several platinum albums.

It wasn't until 2013 that the former Black Sabbath frontman finally went sober. By all reports, he's been clean ever since, but his previous addictive behavior was so powerful that it sparked curiosity within the scientific community, leading a group of researchers to take a DNA sample from Ozzy in 2010. There they found some astonishing revelations hidden in Ozzy's genetic code.

Ozzy has done enough drugs to kill most people. He's been known to eat upwards of 25 Vicodin a day. He's struggled with every substance from booze to cocaine, and he's undergone therapy for sex addiction. The damage the drugs did to his immune system, at one point, led to him being falsely diagnosed with HIV. Yeah, that bad. Between the addictive personality and Ozzy's ability to survive through death-defying amounts of intoxicants, researchers needed to know what special biology kept him ticking.

What they found was surprising. Ozzy is a verifiable mutant, but not of the Professor X sort that most of his fans were hoping for. What scientists discovered was that Ozzy was hiding several mutations in his genome related to drugs and alcohol, according to Discover.

Along with a handful of mutations linked to addictive tendencies, scientists found that Ozzy carries a mutation close to his ADH4 gene that's never been seen before. ADH4 is responsible for creating the protein that breaks down alcohol in the body, and though they don't know exactly what this mutation means for Ozzy, they believe it could make his body detoxify faster than most, which would explain why he's still alive.

The other gene anomalies proved less beneficial. It turns out that Osbourne is 31 percent more likely to become addicted to cocaine than the average person and 160 percent more likely to hallucinate from marijuana. Which, unfortunately, would also explain a few other things.