Ozzy Osbourne’s Public Funeral Procession Details Revealed

Ozzy Osbourne is coming home. The body of the metal icon who died on July 22 at age 76 will travel through his home city of Birmingham, England on Wednesday (July 30). According to the BBC, fans will get their chance to say goodbye to Osbourne when his cortege is paraded along Broad Street in the city center beginning at 1 p.m. BST tomorrow.

The hearse will then make its way to the Black Sabbath Bridge and bench, where fans have left thousands of tributes, messages and flower arrangements since Osbourne’s passing. The bench paying homage to the pioneering heavy metal band fronted by Ozzy was dedicated in 2019 and has since become a king of pilgrimage site for fans of the group and its beloved singer. It features images of all four original members of the group — guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward — along with the band’s logo on the right side and the slogan “Made in Birmingham” below.

“We’re going to pay our last respects and homage to one of the greatest living legends of Birmingham,” said Zafar Iqbal, Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a statement about the procession that will be accompanied by local group Bostin’ Brass. “He put Birmingham on the map. He put Aston on the map,” Iqbal said of the musician he dubbed a “son of Birmingham.”

The public event will take place before a private funeral, allowing Ozzy’s family to see the fan tributes, which include homages from diehards who traveled from as far away as Mexico, the U.S. and Poland. One touching message from a Greek fan read, “To our king of metal, you were a light in the darkness, the most beautiful, humble, glorious madman. We were all so lucky. Thank you for the music. Without it, I’m not sure who I’d be.”

In addition to the procession, fans and members of the public are invited to pay their respects by visiting the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where they can sign a condolence book and check out the Ozzy Osbourne Working Class Hero exhibit, which the singer’s wife/manager, Sharon Osbourne, opened last month.

Osbourne died two weeks after taking the stage for his final solo and Sabbath performance at the massive July 5 Back to the Beginning show in Birmingham, where he sang from a black, bat-bedecked throne due to a variety of health issues that prevented him from touring.

As fans mourn his passing, they can take heart that a number of upcoming posthumous projects will keep his spirit alive, including a Back to the Beginning concert documentary, Back to the Beginning: Ozzy’s Final Bow, due in theaters in early 2026. In addition, a feature-length doc chronicling Ozzy’s six-year fight to recuperate from a devastating 2019 fall and his battle with a Parkinson’s diagnosis, Ozzy Osbourne: No Escape From Now, is due out on Paramount+ later this year.

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.