Sharon Osbourne Explains Why She Backed Out of Assisted Dying Pact With Ozzy

Years before Ozzy Osbourne’s death, Sharon Osbourne had openly spoken about a pact the couple made to pursue assisted suicide under certain circumstances. Now, months after the rock icon died in July at age 76, Sharon is explaining why she ultimately chose to go on living—and why that decision became clear to her almost immediately.

A Pact Born of Fear and Loss

Sharon Osbourne, 73, first revealed the assisted suicide agreement in her 2007 memoir Survivor: My Story – The Next Chapter. The plan, she explained at the time, was rooted in the couple’s shared fear of degenerative brain illnesses, particularly dementia. That fear had been sharpened by the death of Sharon’s father, Don Arden, who died in 2007 after battling Alzheimer’s disease.

“We believe 100 percent in euthanasia,” Sharon told the Daily Mirror that same year. She said that if either she or Ozzy were diagnosed with a condition that robbed them of their mental faculties, they planned to travel to Switzerland to seek physician-assisted suicide through Dignitas. “If Ozzy or I ever got Alzheimer’s, that’s it — we’d be off,” she said, adding that they sat their children down and explained their wishes. According to Sharon, all three agreed to respect the decision.

Ozzy later expanded on that stance. In a 2014 interview with the Daily Mirror, the late “Crazy Train” singer said the pact now applied to any “life-threatening condition” that stripped him of independence. “If I can’t live my life the way I’m living it now — and I don’t mean financially — then that’s it… [Switzerland],” he said. “If I can’t get up and go to the bathroom myself… then I’ve said to Sharon, ‘Just turn the machine off.’”

Why Sharon Didn’t Follow Through

Following Ozzy’s death, Sharon admitted that she once believed she would follow him. Speaking with Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Dec. 10, she was candid about how close she felt to that edge.

“I would have just gone with Ozzy. Oh, yeah, definitely, I’ve done everything I wanted to do,” she said.

What stopped her, she explained, were their three children: Aimee, Kelly, and Jack. “But they’ve been… unbelievably, just magnificent with me, all three of them,” Sharon said, crediting their support with giving her a reason to remain.

She then shared a memory that permanently reshaped her view of suicide and its aftermath. Recalling a period years earlier when she sought treatment during a mental health crisis, Sharon described meeting two young women whose mothers had died by suicide. “I saw the state that these two young women were in and what it had done to their lives,” she said. “And I thought, I will never, ever, ever do that to my kids.”

That realization, Sharon suggested, outweighed even the grief of losing her husband of more than four decades.

Living With Grief, Not Escaping It

Elsewhere in the interview, Sharon spoke quietly and reflectively about what life looks like now without Ozzy. Rather than something to be conquered or escaped, she described grief as a constant presence.

“Grief has now become my friend,” she said. “Grief is very weird to me, you know, when you love someone that much and you’re grieving for them, it’s what I have to live with.”

She acknowledged that the pain remains, but so does the responsibility to keep going. “I’ll get used to it. I will, I have to, you know, things move on,” Sharon said.

For a woman who once spoke so openly about choosing death on her own terms, Sharon Osbourne’s decision to stay reflects a shift from control to connection. In the end, it wasn’t fear of illness or devotion to a pact that defined her choice—it was the enduring bond with her children, and the understanding that surviving can be its own act of love.