Friend 'sobbing in the kitchen' over Ozzy Osborne

[lronWoman]

I'm not generally a mean spirited person but I just can't take this seriously!

My friend has never been a Black Sabbath fan and I've never heard her mention Ozzy once in the 20 years I've known her. However, her and her sister are apparently 'beside themselves with grief' over his death.

I just don't understand this type of performative grief over A list celebrities that people have never met. It's sad and I get that it kind of marks the end of an era, but the guy lived to a ripe old age in the lap of luxury and was one of the most celebrated rock stars the world has ever known. It's not like a present day star has suddenly been cut down in their prime and will no longer be releasing new albums. They'd already released all their famous stuff before we were born.

She wasn't sobbing in the kitchen when an old mutual workmate died unexpectedly in his late 30s a fortnight ago. Guy wasn't a close friend of ours but we were friendly. Used to go to the pub as a group and he helped us move house, refusing to accept a penny for it. Really nice bloke! We hadn't seen him in close to a decade but both felt sad about it for a few days. But no sobbing in the kitchen!

Latest comment is "he's up there at the bar with gramps". I'm finding it hard not to make an inappropriate joke tbh!

I do find this strange, but if I am particularly hormonal I will cry at anything. If you are feeling shit you could just be using this for catharsis, it could be genuine upset, or it could just be jumping on a hysteria bandwagon. Either way it's none of my business.

My first reaction to hearing of Ozzy's death is he lasted a longer than I expected him to!

No we're not talking about a personal loved one, but the original post I was responding to said "It’s ok to think it’s sad, but the grief/sobbing and tributes were ridiculous."

So why are you asking her in your post at 09:31 whether she'd feel sad if HER loved one died? You introduced personal loved ones into the discussion.

And I find the suggestion that some people are less deserving of grief because they were speeding or because they took drugs quite distasteful.

Fair enough. I find the idea that someone who died through speeding and killed another person in the process being deserving of mass outpourings of public grief from total strangers difficult to understand. So different strokes for different folks.

Get over yourself and move on. Glad you managed to post on Mumsnet about how superior you are. They may have released their best stuff before her birth but she could still appreciate their music- not the first time it happened.
A few years ago a minor celebrity died of a heart attack and turns out a colleague went to school with her and had been very close friends, despite her never mentioning the celeb to anyone at work. She was very deeply affected.
Maybe your friend is doing it for show, or maybe this particular death touched a spot for her that she didnt even knew and affected her in some way you will not be able to fanthom because of your lack of empathy. Who knows.

Yes, I think Ozzy had an impressively good innings for his ertswhile lifestyle and behaviour.

Must have had good genes/luck.

When people overreact to celebrity deaths I always get the feeling it's really about something deeper/closer to home, not about the celebrity as such. I don't understand why they express it like this, though, and agree it can be embarrassing for others (and for them, presumably, once they've pulled themselves together!).

I don't agree. I was distraught when my favourite celebrity died but I had followed him for over 40 years and met him many times. It can be hard to digest when a favourite celeb dies. I don't think it's fair to judge your friend.

Phoney grief by proxy towards people they don’t know and have never met.🙄

Best ignore attention seekers.

Someone innocently killed by a drunk or speeding driver is far more deserving of grief than the drunk/speeding driver in my opinion.

Because I think policing grief is incorrect, and I was wondering how PP would feel if it was their loved one (and therefore if they saw people suggesting that they were less deserving of grief because of how they'd died).

But yes clearly we will not agree on this so have a lovely day!

I think other places had people with tributes and crying, just with our london centric media you wouldn’t have known 😀

but i take your point with interviews (the northerners would have been to embarrassed to be seen on telly that way perhaps 😀) but i tended to switch the tv on whenever it came on so probably missed a lot of it

This is nothing to do with ozzy it’s something to do with their past

Some people just have to turn everything into something which directly affects them. It's the same with any death, or any tragedy - that could have been me, I was in that spot 5 months before! It's totally performative, and totally self-absorbed.

It is not shocking that an older, unwell person has died.

So you DID introduce the topic of personal loved ones into the discussion and. you ARE talking about personal loved ones, despite saying you didn't.

Surely it should be obvious that most people will feel differently when their own relative dies (due to their recklessness and law-breaking) as to how they feel when a complete stranger dies from doing the same? That goes without saying. But if my relative died through their own stupidity and took other people with them, I certainly think they'd be less deserving of grief from total strangers. I'd probably need to avoid the press and social media for the unkind (but totally justified) commentary on the subject.

Anyway, I don't think OP IS 'policing' grief. It's not like she told her mate to stop crying or posting about it. She's discussing it on here.

I also think the sudden and violent death of a young person like Diogo Jota or Princess Diana is different. Unexpected, leaving small children behind, that sort of thing is undeniably tragic.

But the death of an aging, ill rock star? Nah. Sad for his nearest and dearest definitely. Not a tragedy.

Apologies if I've been unclear- yes obviously I am discussing personal loved ones and introduced that topic, but you said "But we're not talking about HER loved one. We're discussing the very public and sanitised public outpouring of grief for a complete stranger" which I am agreeing with, because that is what the thread in general is about. I was just trying to make an additional point.

And my policing grief comment was mainly directed at PP who were suggesting people who died because of so-called selfish reasons are less deserving of grief.

TW suicide- I lost a loved one last year because they jumped in front of a train. Every time I now get a train and it is delayed due to the same tragedy or someone on the tracks, I have to endure a train journey or a long wait a station listening to other passengers muttering about how selfish they are and how inconvenient it is and how it's not tragic at all- and it's honestly horrendous.

I appreciate my own experiences may be clouding my judgement here, but I just personally think you just don't know what other people are going through.

Every time an A lister passes, I play a little bingo of who is going to be the first of my FB "friends" to do a soppy post about it! Never fails. Especially one that always has to find a very spurious link to the celebrity.

I was all oh that’s sad yesterday, then read an article re his life and death and had to put it down. It took all of five minutes to go from sad to yuck what an awful man.

I can understand teenage girls being devastated when their favourite pop star dies, that sort of thing however I can't really understand grown adults who have experienced real life grief eg death of a parent, being so devastated over the loss of a person they didn't actually know. It just feels 'performative' / attention seeking somehow.

I remember being really sad when I heard George Michael had died, I so admired his talent, however I never actually felt tearful, the loss of someone so talented was a terrible loss but it wasn't my loss.

I'm really sorry about the loss of your relative, and I can see why it must be painful to listen to other passengers complaining about the latest victim's selfishness. That's something I would never do, btw. The passengers are venting out of frustration or worry, although they shouldn't be saying such things.

I don't think anyone here though has or would classify a sad, troubled person suiciding in that way with the actions of a person who recklessly and illegally sped in their car and killed not just themselves but other people.

In the latter case, it's natural that the family would grieve them, but them being sanitised and mass outpourings of grief from the wider public seems inappropriate to me. Especially when the same person would likely never receive such public sympathy were they not famous.

i was the exact same

I think in many cases (not all) this is probably it. It's not about Ozzy dying, it's about their own inconsolable grief about him dying.

Granted, it's always sort of about the grief of those left behind, but in the instance of a family member etc you're actually missing the time you would've spent with them etc. My friend isn't distraught that she'll never see another episode of The Osbornes or attend a Sabbath gig.

Me too, although when Camilla goes I will be crying with joy.

You should start your own thread.

This is well more 🤔 than OP's mate's waterworks in the kitchen.

I think grieving collectively is a healthy practice. Personally, I often feel sad when a famous person I like dies, for that person but also for all the loved ones I lost along the way - it's stirs that grief again.

Is the comment about her “gramps” a clue? Did he really like Black Sabbath or something? Or does Ozzy Osbourne remind her of her grandfather in some way?

It surely must have just triggered something else in her - like her grief for her grandfather or someone else. Or maybe she just has loads going on and it’s become the focal point for stress that has nothing to do with Ozzy?

I always like the Black Sabbath bridge in Birmingham but that’s about the level of my interest in them 😁