The identity of the band that was uninvited from Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath‘s historic final concert, “Back To The Beginning,” remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in recent heavy metal history. Now, nearly a year after the legendary frontman’s passing, his son Jack Osbourne has offered new details regarding the bitter financial dispute that led to the unnamed group’s removal from the massive charity event.
Held in July 2025 in Birmingham, UK, “Back To The Beginning” served as an emotional sendoff for the heavy metal pioneer. The all-star concert successfully raised approximately $11 million for three charities personally selected by the late singer: Cure Parkinson’s, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorn Children’s Hospice. To maximize the charitable donations, all participating artists agreed to waive their standard performance fees.
However, just weeks before the event, and tragically, weeks before Ozzy‘s sudden death from a heart attack, his wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, publicly revealed that one major act had been booted from the bill following a heated disagreement over exorbitant expenses.
At the time, she told Metal Hammer: “I had a huge, huge to-do with a manager over this celebration for Ozzy and Sabbath. “And it was probably the worst way I’ve felt in years. And I don’t care what this person says about me, thinks about it, because he doesn’t know me. And he’s now going around making up bulls**t lies because I threw his band off the bill.”
She later promised to expose the offending artist after the concert, telling Billboard, “It’s not the time to make a profit. After the show I’ll let everybody know who it was. I think people will be shocked.”
The promised reveal never happened, as the family was thrust into mourning following Ozzy‘s sudden passing. But during a recent appearance on Jamie Kennedy‘s “Hate To Break It To Ya Podcast“, Jack Osbourne finally shed some light on the situation.
“Here’s what I will say, ’cause a lot of stuff online was about ‘Oh, it’s um…’ I cannot say the band. I cannot. I cannot. But what I will say is this. Everyone’s online speculating who it is, and I have not seen a single accurate [guess,] Not even close,” he clarified (as transcribed by theprp).
He specifically shot down rumors that Wolfgang Van Halen was the culprit, explaining that the guitarist simply had a legitimate scheduling conflict with his Creed tour.
He continued: “Like I saw something that it was Wolfgang Van Halen and it was absof**kingutely not. Like Wolf wanted to be there so badly and it was just a clash in schedule [Wolfgang Van Halen withdrew due to a scheduling conflict with his tour with Creed] and hey, he was getting a paid gig versus an unpaid gig. Go do the paid gig. You know?”
Jack then detailed the financial structure of the charity gig and the outrageous demands made by the removed band’s management.
“Here’s the caveat [about ‘Back To The Beginning‘,] it was like listen, we’ll pay for your crew, we’ll pay your hard costs, but no one is, no one’s getting paid, like individually, like the band. But what ended up happening was a lot of crew donated their time. So, they were like, ‘No, we’re not charging for this.’ Because you know, a lot of the crews we’d all worked with for years anyway,” he explained.
“And the one band, I will say at this point, it’s like it was in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars what they said their hard costs would be… For them just to show up without any talent fee. It was… It was very frustrating. But here’s the thing, it was like, ‘Are you f**king serious?’ And then you know and then you start… Here’s what, I will give the band the benefit of the doubt, and I will say it was probably the manager, but I don’t know, you know? I don’t know.”
When the podcast host asked if the family suspected the manager was attempting to pocket the inflated expenses, Jack quickly agreed, citing his mother’s extensive industry experience.
“Yeah, ’cause there’s no way… My mom has worked in touring since the 1960s. So like since the 60s she’s worked, you know, in some capacity in the music industry. She knows what hard costs are and what things… what the real is. And when you start saying… they were like, ‘well, all our crew flies business class’. And you’re like, ‘excuse me?’ And so this person was just like saying all this s**t and like I was just like, ‘You f**kin… like you motherf**ker.’
Despite persistent pressure from Jamie Kennedy to name names, Jack Osbourne remained tight-lipped, citing potential industry fallout.
“I can’t [reveal the band] because there’s like the fallout.” He later said similar thing regarding why he can not reveal the name of the band: “Because the fallout from it would like, I don’t think would be helpful to anyone.”
However, he did confirm that the mystery group had previously toured with his father and benefited from his support in the past. He also revealed that the band reached out after the fact to apologize and claim ignorance regarding their manager’s actions—a defense he struggled to believe.
“They were like, ‘Please tell us what happened, we want to know the whole story.”
Looking back on the concert and how everything unfolded, Jack added: “It was just, it was amazing. It was like the most perfect. And here’s the cool thing about it. Some people were like only playing for like 10 or 15 minutes. But at first I was like, ‘Are people going to be bummed at only seeing like three songs from a certain artist?’ But we had the spinning stage, so the longest you were waiting between music was like five minutes. So it was just like this epic playlist all day long.”
While the identity of the greedy band remains a secret, several major acts have been definitively ruled out over the past year. Mötley Crüe, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest (who were touring with the Scorpions) are confirmed to not be the offending group.
The final “Back To The Beginning” roster ultimately featured an incredible lineup of rock and metal royalty, including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Pantera, Tool, Alice In Chains, Slayer, Mastodon, Gojira, Anthrax, Lamb Of God, Rival Sons, Halestorm, Jack Black (Tenacious D), and Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit).
Additionally, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine directed all-star tribute covers featuring members of Ghost, Aerosmith, Disturbed, Living Colour, The Smashing Pumpkins, Extreme, Sleep Token, and Yungblud.
