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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

It's morbid to film a hearse

34 replies

NotSmallButFunSize · 30/07/2025 17:53

So many FB posts of people in Birmingham, filming Ozzy's hearse go by.

It's grim. Go and pay your respects yes but filming?! When will you ever crack that video out again for entertainment??

Sorry - edited as forgot to say who's it was!!

OP posts:
LauraNorda · 30/07/2025 17:55

Whose hearse?

LemonLass · 30/07/2025 17:56

Ozzy osborne @LauraNorda ?

ExtraOnions · 30/07/2025 17:56

its grim … the media coverage is also grim … I don’t need to see a sobbing widow, to know death hurts

XenoBitch · 30/07/2025 17:57

The press are there and doing the same.

Paradoes · 30/07/2025 17:58

I think he got a great send of being so famous and it'd understandable the main media outlets were there buy not appropriate to take out phones- its a time of quiet reflection I think

MistressoftheDarkSide · 30/07/2025 17:58

Ozzy was considered rock royalty by many. And that's showbiz. It's the world we live in....

SleepyRedPanda · 30/07/2025 18:04

It’s not morbid to film it but it is disrespectful. However, I doubt that Ozzy would have cared or minded if asked when alive (as long as his family weren’t upset by it).

ApartFromAllThat · 30/07/2025 18:07

My aunt (not dead yet) recording the lowering the coffin of my aunt (dead) into the ground about 10 years ago...using her iPad.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Never quite looked at her the same way after she did that.

NancyJoan · 30/07/2025 18:08

I’m not sure I’d say morbid. More tasteless, inappropriate and disrespectful.

MatildaTheCat · 30/07/2025 18:10

ApartFromAllThat · 30/07/2025 18:07

My aunt (not dead yet) recording the lowering the coffin of my aunt (dead) into the ground about 10 years ago...using her iPad.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Never quite looked at her the same way after she did that.

That really is bad.

Betsy95 · 30/07/2025 18:10

It’s really odd and disrespectful. Although I’ve known people post pictures of funerals on Facebook.

super weird behaviour.

Knittedfairies2 · 30/07/2025 18:11

I just wondered how many people are going to watch whatever they've recorded; looking at the news footage of fans and their phones, all they'll see will be other phones held above heads.

UsingAMansNameInAWomensWorld · 30/07/2025 18:13

How is it different to the Queen? Or the Pope? Or Stephen Gatley? Or any other famous figure?

When someone famous dies, people are involved because they were a public figure

It's not new either. Pictures and drawings would have been in the papers in years gone by too

It would have been expected even. Modern sensibilities towards death are much more detached and distant

ComtesseDeSpair · 30/07/2025 18:24

It’s part and parcel of choosing to be a celebrity. You choose to live your life in the public sphere and make your money by having the general public interested in all the stuff about you they wouldn’t be interested in if you were a nobody, and that may ultimately include the bit immediately after you stop being alive. If you’d rather that wasn’t the case you can a) not be a professional celebrity and or / b) express your wishes to your family that you don’t have a very showy public last outing and that they do something quiet and private instead.

I’m not convinced that a family who commissioned an entire TV series about themselves and their often distasteful home life would think (or are entitled to think) of the same people who tuned in to that TV series and made them even more famous and wealthy as morbid for tuning in and showing up to the finale.

MistressoftheDarkSide · 30/07/2025 18:25

I've been in Sharon's position, albeit on a much smaller scale. My DP was well known in the local community, a flamboyant character, and i was told early on in proceedings by other people close to him that I had to remember he wasn't just mine. So, a spectacle was had, horse drawn hearse and all, and I essentially became the stage manager. I just had to accept it "wasn't all about me", and I was after all, only the widow. About a thousand attended his funeral apparently, though I started drinking neat vodka at breakfast time, so it's all a bit of a blur.

I think people underestimate how difficult it is to "take control" and keep things respectful in these sort of circumstances, due to external pressure. Public figures such as Ozzy and many who've gone before will attract an element of three ring circus because that's how they lived and they made their living as public property. Whether people like it or not, there are expectations.

Ozzys family might be cringing inside, or the process might be comforting, only they can know, and it's nobody else's business.

But if it's a public situation, people are going to film and photograph. It's inured now, whether we like it or not, and I'm sure the family won't give a flying fuck one way or the other.

I just hope Sharon gets some breathing space after. Being the widow of someone even slightly well known in a relatively small community is a most bizarre experience, so how it is for her I can't fully imagine. But, every grief is unique and I think while it could all be considered distasteful to film etc, in Ozzys case it is a reflection of how he lived.

MissMoneyFairy · 30/07/2025 18:27

LauraNorda · 30/07/2025 17:55

Whose hearse?

It's in the thread

HotCrossBunplease · 30/07/2025 18:28

His entire schtick was gothic prince of darkness stuff. I doubt he’d consider a video of a hearse particularly dark!

TranceNation · 30/07/2025 18:29

Of course they are not going to rewatch the video in their own time. They are purely doing it for social media clicks. It's a sad fony world we live in today.

Flinderskleepers · 30/07/2025 18:33

ExtraOnions · 30/07/2025 17:56

its grim … the media coverage is also grim … I don’t need to see a sobbing widow, to know death hurts

Yea I'm finding it incredibly uncomfortable at seeing so many pictures of Sharon and the children grieving. Even on BBC news (I would expect it from paparazzi rags but not the BBC). It's so disrespectful. I had my dad's funeral 18 months ago and I can't begin to imagine what it would have felt like to have people filming and snapping photos of me.

UsingAMansNameInAWomensWorld · 30/07/2025 18:37

His family arranged and suggested every part of today BTW

LauraNorda · 30/07/2025 18:44

MissMoneyFairy · 30/07/2025 18:27

It's in the thread

It wasn't when I asked.

ComfortFoodCafe · 30/07/2025 18:51

Its not for clicks, ozzy had a huge fan base he is the godfather of heavy metal music. the Osbournes also invented reality tv as we know it.
the queens funeral was on tv and nobody said that was grim? Really disrespectful comments on here.

RedNine · 30/07/2025 19:02

My mate went and sent some footage, it was most oddly touching to hear the chants and applause. We love you Oswald, we do, ooooh Oswald we love you; thank you Ozzy (clap clap clap clap).

So in this instance, YABU.

RigIt · 30/07/2025 19:52

I don’t feel strongly about the filming. But I did think the cheering, and shouts of “Sharon, Sharon, Sharon” to be in poor taste and not an appropriate or kind thing to be doing to a grieving widow and family. I’m surprised no one asked for a selfie 🙄 Show a modicum of respect at someone’s funeral.

Cacktus · 30/07/2025 20:03

People weren’t whooping and cheering at the Queens funeral as I recall?

I think fans and well wishers could have shown a bit more decorum to be honest. Yes he was a rock god to many, but his family were in pieces and perhaps would have appreciated it to be a little more subdued. It was a funeral after all, not a stadium gig.