Did Ozzy Osbourne just die of pneumonia? No, that's not true: the story announcing his death on February 6, 2019 is definitely false even though it went massively viral ten days after publication.
The story originated from an article published on February 6, 2019 titled "Ozzy Osbourne lost battle against pneumonia. The touching words of Sharon Osbourne" (archived here) which opened:
As it was announced few minutes ago the famous singer of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne lost the battle against pneumonia.
His wife Sharon Osbourne wrote on her twitter account:
My best friend and the guy I was in love with. Oh god, I miss him.
I don't think I'll ever get over this awful, awful pain. I don't know if I'll ever breathe or think normally again. I don't know how to survive anymore. I need help.His real name is John Michael Osbourne. He was a working-class child and had five siblings. At the age of 16 he started working in a slaughterhouse. After a year he stopped working and started burglaries and petty bribes to make money to buy drugs.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail, which did not show when the story was published:
Ozzy Osbourne lost battle against pneumonia. The touching words of Sharon Osbourne
As it was announced few minutes ago the famous singer of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne lost the battle against pneumonia. His wife Sharon Osbourne wrote on her twitter account: My best friend and the guy I was in love with. Oh god, I miss him. I don't think I'll ever ...
Sharon Osborne did not post the message referenced in the story to her Twitter account, as you can check for yourself here. She did post a thank you note for all the get well messages Ozzy received while hospitalized with pneumonia recently:
Thank you to everyone for all your get well messages and support for Ozzy. We are overwhelmed and truly touched by everyone's thoughtfulness.
-- Sharon Osbourne (@MrsSOsbourne) February 12, 2019
Since then it has been reported that the singer is recovering at home:
Ozzy Osbourne Recovering at Home After Hospitalization
Ozzy Osbourne is recovering at home after being hospitalized for complications related to the flu.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes theweeklyobserver.com as:
A news site that has repeatedly published false or misleading information about celebrities.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about theweeklyobserver.com before when they prematurely announced Joe Jackson's death:
