Is the viral video of Ozzy Osbourne saying "This was my final performance" an authentic recording of the late rocker? No, that's not true: It's an AI concoction. AI detection software found evidence that faces were manufactured for the video. The voice-over does not match statements issued by Osbourne, nor any fact-based reporting of his comments about his final concert July 5, 2025, at Villa Park in Birmingham, England.
The July 9, 2025 TikTok video (archived here) was posted by the @fametalks.01 account over a caption that read "Ozzy Osbourne talks coping with 'devilish pain' at concerts and is grateful for fans and wife". The voice-over opened:
This was my final performance. Uh, I have to say goodbye to this stage I've loved all my life. I'm truly sorry. I could only do this show strapped into a custom chair 'cause my body just couldn't handle it anymore.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: Lead Stories screenshot of video posted at www.tiktok.com/@fametalks.01.)
Using key phrases from the purported audio of Osbourne, Lead Stories searched the Google News index (archived here) of thousands of news sites and Yahoo! News' index (archived here) of its partner news sites and news services. Neither search turned up audio, video or text-only items that match or corroborate the TikTok video that claims to document Osbourne's comments about his final show.
The video is a narrated PowerPoint-style slideshow with a series of clips and still images from the Villa Park show, including video of Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. No effort was made to match the narration to the mouth motions in clips of Osbourne, which suggests the producer had no access to video of Osbourne saying these things.
Lead Stories submitted the TikTok video to the VERA.ai detection system, which found evidence it's more likely than not that the video includes AI-generated faces, with 100% certainty that certain segments of the video included AI-generated faces:
(Source: Vera.ai.eu-generated chart from report of its assessment of AI content of the video at www.tiktok.com/@fametalks.01.)
The narration sounds like the sometimes halting AI-generated text-to-talk programs like Parrotai.com, which takes in a text script and mimics famous voices speaking. But, Lead Stories submitted the video to AI detectors, which did not definitively report on the authenticity of the audio.
The account that posted the TikTok video has also posted low-quality text-to-talk audio of celebrities. For example, the name of the ESPY Awards is pronounced incorrectly ("S P Is" when it's "Espees") in a video purporting to be a recording of comedian Shane Gillis talking about reactions to his performance at the 2025 ESPY Awards. Mispronunciations like that are a characteristic of automated text-to-speech audio, which sometimes reads phonetically without regard for common usage of words.
Here's a transcript of the voice-over:
This was my final performance. Uh, I have to say goodbye to this stage I've loved all my life. I'm truly sorry. I could only do this show strapped into a custom chair 'cause my body just couldn't handle it anymore. My Parkinson's has reached stage 5. Honestly, I'm not doing well. I spent a long time preparing for this concert, afraid I wouldn't be able to finish it. Afraid I'd let you down. To stay sharp, I stopped taking all painkillers. I chose pain over numbness just so I could sing one last time with a clear voice. Music has always been my best painkiller. I didn't keep a dime from this show. Every dollar went to Parkinson's research to help others like me. And I owe everything to my wife. When I was lost in the dark, she never left my side. She held my hand until I found my way back to the spotlight. To my fans, thank you. Your cheers and your love gave me the strength to keep coming back, even when it hurt more each time. rock 'n' roll will never die.
Lead Stories manually searched Osbourne's Facebook and X accounts and found no such post-concert statements by him.
