Was a viral video clip a real prediction from a 1998 episode of The Simpsons that predicted Ozzy Osbourne's death? No, that's not true: The video only appeared online after Osbourne passed away and appears to be AI generated. Osbourne did make a cameo on the show in 2020.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) uploaded to TikTok on July 22, 2025 at 21:45:46 GMT with a description that read: "The simpsons predicted the death of Ozzy Osbourne. RIP Legend #simpsons #homersimpson #ozzyosbourne #blacksabbath #rip". PBS reported his death (archived here) on the same day at 2:30pm EDT, which is 18:30 GMT, well before the video went up. At the time of writing the video was viewed over 2.4 million times.
A transcript of the voice-over in the video reads:
Simpsons predicted Ozzy Osbourne's death in an old 1998 episode. I'm warning you, I only protect followers who comment RIP Ozzy. Homer watches a Black Sabbath concert, then the TV glitches, a message appears. Final breath of the Prince of Darkness, July 2025. A few scenes later, Ozzy sings while sitting on a throne. Too weak to stand, he thanks the fans with a trembling voice. And on the wall, the date, July 22nd.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Jul 24 12:44:43 2025 UTC)
The prediction appeared on a TikTok account named @simpsonssaidthat (archived here) which publishes AI generated "predictions" by the Simpsons.
(Image source: screenshot of the @simpsonssaidthat account on TikTok)
Osbourne did make a cameo on the show in season 11, episode 22 "Behind The Laughter" (archived here) in which he is seen biting the head of a bat.
The video contained several glitches and artefacts typical of videos generated with artificial intelligence, such as Homer appearing twice in the same shot, an old CRT-style television magically floating in the air and distorted lettering like misspelling Ozzy's band "Black Sabbath" as "Black Beioh".
(Image source: collage of screenshots of video published by @simpsonssaidthat on TikTok)
Simpsons predicted genre
"Simpsons predicted" is a sub-genre of online misinformation that has become much more prominent and popular with the rise of AI tools in recent years. Lead Stories wrote about several other examples of it here.
