It's been roughly 40 years, and Ozzy Osbourne still hasn't gone back to listen to the Black Sabbath albums with Ronnie James Dio on the mic. As every metalhead knows, Osbourne was fired from Sabbath in 1979 due to his rampant substance abuse and lack of focus, so they drafted Rainbow's shrieker, Dio, to take over frontman duties. Sabbath made two classic albums with Dio, 1980's Heaven and Hell and 1981's Mob Rules, before he himself left the group, eventually rejoining for one more album, 1992's Dehumanizer.
Understandably, the Prince of Darkness has never felt super warm and fuzzy about the successful records Sabbath made without him, but in a new episode of his SiriusXM show, Ozzy Speaks (as transcribed by Ultimate Classic Rock), Osbourne praised Dio for his work with Sabbath, while also revealing that he's never gone back and listened to the Dio-era albums. In fact, he likens that period of the band without him to an "ex-wife."
"Ronnie did a good job,"Osbourne admitted of his replacement. "At the time I was fucking sad because ... they were the only thing that ever really happened to me."
That said, he still doesn't feel the need to ever go back and give a proper listen to any of the records that Dio performed on with his old band.
"It's like my ex-wife," Osbourne reasoned. "You leave a band like that, it's just like getting divorced. You don't go, 'How's your new bloke? Is he better than me?'"
