“When you get pushed down, you pick yourself up and move on,” reads a famed quote from Sharon Osbourne. “I’ve never been a victim.” Fearless and feisty, the British manager and media personality has recently weathered an enormous loss: the death of her husband, Ozzy Osbourne, after more than four decades of marriage and five-and-a-half decades of professional collaboration. Ozzy’s passing came mere weeks after the final reunion concert by Black Sabbath.

We sat down with her to discuss her next moves, her career path and Ozzy’s extraordinary legacy—which is being celebrated with the documentary Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning. That film, which hits theaters as we go to press, captures Sabbath’s historic reunion concert at Villa Park, Birmingham, and features abundant on-camera testimony from artists whose own work was shaped by the band and its frontman.

How are you doing? It’s obviously been a challenging year.

It’s been a really, really challenging year. Hey, you carry on. What are you gonna do?

You look ahead. Which brings us to Ozzfest. It was exciting to see you’re carrying it forward. Can you tell us about it?

The fans have been unbelievable—supportive and happy that it’s coming back, which makes us happy. Ozzy’s no longer with us, but his legacy is still here. Why should it end?

How far along are you in planning it?

We’re going to do around three shows: England (July 10), L.A. (Sept. 11) and Mexico City (Sept. 18). We’ll get it started slowly.

Will it be the same lineup at all three?

I hope so. For me, it’d be a lot less work.

How much of that is nailed down?

Fifty percent.

It’s been years since you’ve done this. Since when?

Since ’95. Well—2018 was the last one, at the Forum.

You’ve achieved so much. Is this just for the fans? Do you really need to go back and do this?

I want to do it for my grandchildren. I want to do it for everyone who loves Ozzy. It’s his legacy, and I want it to go on and on. He’s dead, but he’s not forgotten, and he left a great body of work. There are so few real characters left in this industry—genuine ones, not made up for the cameras. Nothing about Ozzy was contrived. He was never one of those rock stars sitting front row at a fashion show trying to be the coolest guy in the room.

And the affection for him around the world is profound.

Because he was real. So many artists give you everything about their personal beliefs, and then they become boring—I’m here for your talent, not your opinions, so stop lecturing and sing. [laughs] No matter what you believe, half your audience will disagree with you and half will agree, so save it for something else. Ozzy told everybody, “Never ask me about religion or politics—I don’t want to know.” He had his beliefs. He just never made them public.

Tell us about the other projects you’ve got going.

There’s Ozzy’s movie with Sony Pictures. We’re on the fourth script now. [laughs] It’s hard for writers to get Ozzy’s voice—it’s perception versus reality. It’s been tough, but making movies is tough—hopefully the longer it takes, the better it’ll be.

What part of his life does it cover?

’78 to ’96—the end of his time in Black Sabbath, going solo, Ozzfest. Everybody knows what happened after that, but nobody knows what Ozzy and I went through with my father to stay together.

I imagine that was hard, telling someone, “Now you’re a solo act, you have to build this whole thing from scratch.”

Especially when you’ve been told for ten years that you’re useless and lucky to be there. By the end of Sabbath, that’s where they had him—at the side of the stage. Trying to get his confidence back, to say “I can front a band”—that was tough.

I always found it strange, watching old Black Sabbath footage, that he was stage right.

It’s like, know your place. It’s like a marriage, every band is—you love each other in the beginning, then it gets rocky, then you bust up, then you get back together. Every time I see a band split up, I think, give it ten years, the right offer will come along.

What else is happening with the Ozzy estate?

We’re doing the movie, we’re doing Ozzfest, and I’m working on a musical—it’s going to be edgy and different, built around Ozzy’s music. We had three offers to do an Ozzy jukebox musical on Broadway, and I said there’s no way that would ever work—it’d be horrendous. You need credible players, not Broadway actors doing rock.

Ozzy, top, with Dave Glew, left, Randy Castillo, Mike Inez, Michele Anthony, Sharon, Tony Martell, Zakk Wylde and Richard Griffith

Let’s get into some backstory. Can you tell us about growing up in a music household and how you first got into the business?

My mother was in the industry too, not music, but showbiz. My father was a singer in vaudeville; my mother was a dancer, and that’s how they met. My father used to say, “Anybody who’s not in the industry is a schmuck.” The industry was our whole life. He became an agent, then a promoter, then a manager, and started a record company. My brother and I grew up on the road, because my dad was always out covering a show somewhere. That’s all we knew.

Do you have an earliest music memory?

I got to see every legend you could think of growing up. My dad had bills with The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers… I had the best musical education anyone could ask for.

What was the first music you fell in love with?

Sam Cooke. I was 10, and I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen—and that voice. I remember him at soundcheck, just thinking, I can’t believe this. Phil Everly, Little Richard, Brenda Lee—we stayed friends for years. Little Richard did my first talk show, one of my first guests. Greatest education there is.

Do you remember a point where you thought, “I could do this”?

My father put me in stage school, to be a performer. I couldn’t sing in tune. I could dance, but he’d say, “What are you going to earn as a dancer? You’ve got to act or sing.” I said, “Well, I can’t do either, so we’re fucked.” I left school at 15 and went to work for him in the office. Back then you couldn’t make a transatlantic call without an operator, so when my father was dealing with the banks, I’d be the American operator putting through his calls. He’d tell the bank manager, “I’m at JFK, I’ve got the money, pay the wages this week, my bag’s loaded with cash, I’ll deposit it Monday.” He never went in on the Monday with the cash.

Aside from playing the American operator, what were your other duties?

I started as a receptionist—on the phones, taking messages, making tea and coffee. My father wasn’t the kind of man who came home and asked how school was. He never stopped talking about the industry. We had no personal life outside of it.

Did that give you insight, hearing all those calls?

Sure. I learned everybody’s name, where they were from, who they were with, before I’d even set foot in the office. He gave me more responsibility over time, and you just work your way up.

Kelly Osbourne, Sir Lucian Grainge, Sharon and Michele Anthony (Lester Cohen/Getty)

What was the first account you had on your own?

I went on the ’76 world tour with Electric Light Orchestra—I was my dad’s person on the road. Before that I’d worked a lot with The Move—Jeff Lynne came into that band, and he and Roy Wood started ELO, and then they split.

Where does Jet Records fit into that timeline?

Early ’70s. My dad built it up around a young European singer-songwriter he’d signed—a tiny, beautiful blonde named Lynsey de Paul—and some old tapes he’d been sitting on that we ended up releasing.

And where does Sabbath enter the picture?

Sabbath came to see my father in 1970. They’d been managed by a local guy in Birmingham and had outgrown him. Nobody in London knew the name, but they were climbing the charts, so every manager in town went to see them play at The Marquee in Soho. I was the receptionist, and I’d seen them the night before and thought, What the hell is this? There was nothing like it. I was sold by the end of the set. My father’s chauffeur-bodyguard, Wilf, picked them up from their B&B in the Rolls-Royce and brought them to our office. A week later, Wilf and another man, Patrick Meehan, left and took the band with them. From 1970 to ’79 there was war between them and my father. Late ’78, [Black Sabbath guitarist] Tony Iommi called me—he was running the band by then—and said, “Would your father take us back? We owe millions in tax.” My father said yes. We got them back, and by then the trouble with Ozzy had already started. Tony said, “He’s got to go.” I told him he was insane. They did it anyway. He asked who they could get, and I said, get Ronnie James Dio. Then Sabbath told my father he had to choose—them or Ozzy.

And you chose Ozzy, and your father stayed with them.

Yes. Ozzy and I wanted out badly. When Sabbath came back, he’d asked me to do the day-to-day just to get it started. It’s hard to get away from your father. So I went back, but things with Ozzy were moving—we were putting the band together. My father wanted Ritchie Blackmore instead of Randy Rhoads. I told him he was nuts—Ritchie’s a great player, but it wasn’t right for Ozzy, and Randy was a genius. We knew we had to run. So I started feeding my father less and less information about Ozzy. Ozzy’s agent at ICM, Bill Elson, lent us some money, and we went to North Carolina and hid, got ourselves a lawyer. Then I went to CBS and said we didn’t want to be on Jet anymore, we weren’t getting paid, we were afraid of him, and we got out. We had to give him a live album on top of the first two records, and a million and a half dollars we had to borrow from the record company to pay him off. In 1981, that was a fortune.

Once you were out on your own, what was that like?

It was a matter of survival. What else was I going to do, go get a job in a shop? I knew nothing but music. We lived in a bubble our whole lives. So it was survival, plain and simple.

Were you able to build a team right away?

Tony Martell was very good to me—immense. My agents, Bill Elson and Marsha Vlasic, took care of me. That’s who I relied on.

When Ozzy was working on new material, how did decisions get made creatively?

I managed Ozzy and Randy—I had contracts with both. Everybody else came and went. Tommy Aldridge was Ozzy’s favorite drummer—he’d wanted to work with him for a long time. Before Tommy and Rudy Sarzo settled in, we had two English session guys [Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley], but we knew from the start they weren’t going to stay—they had the old-school attitude of “How much am I getting paid?” and we had no money. Randy kept telling us about Rudy, who was still in Quiet Riot at the time, so we waited, and eventually got Rudy and Tommy—and it was the best. They loved each other. It was what a band should be.

Did you see the potential for real pop stardom, beyond rock stardom, at that point?

Ozzy had this amazing charisma and likability. Whether people knew who he was or not, nobody was ever in a room with him without thinking, “God, I like that guy. Who is that?” Ronnie Dio had a great voice, but he had the charisma of a shoe. Ozzy had this unbelievably soulful voice—listen to his vocals without the music, they’re haunting. He didn’t have Ronnie’s range, but there was an otherworldly quality to it. Sabbath went through seven singers after him—what band goes through seven singers? Everybody’s always asking who’s the fastest guitar player, but that’s not what it’s about. How many players are so soulful and instantly identifiable that you hear two notes and know exactly who it is? That’s what makes you unique, and Ozzy was unique.

Randy had that same kind of distinction, didn’t he?

He had the look and the sound both. His style on stage was totally unique. Only a handful of players really stand the test of time, same as Ozzy. Together, it was lightning.

And that ability to turn out those first two albums back-to-back…

We were trying to get away from my father, so we did two albums in one year, back-to-back. There was no filler; both are classics. Nobody wrote melody lines like Ozzy. I get people telling me all the time, “I wrote that line”—no, you didn’t write the melody, and you didn’t perform it. Frank Sinatra couldn’t write a song to save his life, and he didn’t need to—he’s one of the greatest interpreters who ever lived. If you’re that great a writer, go write for somebody else. I’ve had one guy on my back about this for nearly 50 years—sued us three times in the High Court, lost three times. People don’t understand how a song gets built—if your singer can’t come up with a melody and doesn’t have a great voice, you’ve got nothing.

Is there material in the vaults you’re thinking about putting out?

There are two songs Ozzy did for his movie project with Andrew Watt, and there are Sabbath tapes that went missing years ago—studio tapes, live tapes, unreleased tapes. We now know exactly who has them: the same man who’s been stealing our money. He said he never had them, but we’ve found people with sworn statements they went to his office. He’s a hoarder of memorabilia—two warehouses full of albums. We’re right in the middle of that nightmare.

Finally, did you get to see the Ozzy house-of-horror attraction at Universal?

We did—it opened last week. Only one of our grandchildren was old enough to go, and she loved it. It was wonderful to see all these fans standing in line chanting Ozzy’s name.