Roger Waters has claimed that he has no regrets regarding his controversial statements made in the wake of the passing of Ozzy Osbourne last July. The divisive co-founding member of Pink Floyd was quoted as saying last summer:
“Ozzy Osbourne, who just died, bless him in his whatever state that he was in his whole life. We’ll never know. Although he was all over the TV for hundreds of years with his idiocy and nonsense. The music, I have no idea. I couldn’t give a fuck.”
“I don’t care about Black Sabbath, I never did. Have no interest in biting the heads of chickens or whatever they do. I couldn’t care less, you know.”
His statements led to a vicious reply from Ozzy‘s son Jack, while also firmly igniting a war of words with the Osbourne family. Ozzy‘s widow Sharon later took to publicly slamming Waters during the return of the Osbourne family podcast, at one point stating:
“He has no charisma, okay? He looks like Frankenstein. The guy is sick in the head… Nobody likes him. This is not just us. Nobody likes this man unless you’re a fascist. He’s one of those… He’s just pathetic.”
Just under a month later, the Osbourne clan took things a step further, releasing this shirt, which depicted Ozzy urinating on a copy of Roger Waters‘ 1990 live Pink Floyd covers release “The Wall“. The phrase “another prick in the wall” adorned the front of that shirt.
Newly appearing on ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored now’, Waters was pressed about his above-mentioned comments on Osbourne. Morgan in particular cited Waters‘ frequent claims of having empathy in this latest chat, asking Waters if he felt his comments on Osbourne were not in part hypocritical, due to his apparent lack of empathy regarding his statements on Osbourne. Waters responded [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“Those comments, I’m not denying that I said them, came in the middle of a long interview… Do I have to like every rock group there ever was in the world or people who bite the heads off bats?’
When Morgan went on to ask Waters if he, “had to trash [Ozzy] in such a personal way so soon after he died?” Waters replied, “obviously I had no idea that Sharon Osbourne would be watching a podcast by a very well-known and respected cartoonist in-conversation.”
When asked if he would like to apologize for the hurt he caused to Sharon with his comments, Waters replied:
“Yeah of course I will, If I caused — not that I have any time for Sharon Osbourne. She’s a raging Zionist and in consequence… she’s constantly accused me of all kinds of things because she is part of the Israeli lobby.”
When then asked if he would like to apologize at least to the Osbourne family for his comments, Waters responded, “not really.” He continued:
“Well Jack. Jack Osbourne [laughs]. If he wants to have a chat, I’ll have a chat with him, I promise you, and I won’t be nasty to him. Well, I’m, you know, yeah, I’m sorry you lost your dad, Jack, but this is like, you have conversations about things and about people, ‘what do you think?’ Well, ‘not a lot.’ I was honest.
I said I didn’t like Black Sabbath… I’ve listened to some of it since. And the music is perfectly kind of acceptable. It was all the kind of histrionics of I don’t like people who bite the heads off bats. I just don’t. I think it’s disgusting, and I’ve said that again now. I know he’s dead, and he can’t come back and go, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry I bit the heads off bats,’ if he ever did. Who knows whether he did or not? I don’t want to talk about it.’”
When asked directly if he had any regrets for his commentary on Ozzy, Waters responded:
“I regret nothing in life, except that I haven’t been more successful in getting people to understand how important it is that we as a human race recognize and empathize with all of our brothers and sisters all over the world and make certain that they have equal human rights, one with another, under international law. The Osbourne family? No, I’m not that interested in them.”
