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Danny Baker condemned for joking that Ozzy Osbourne’s cocaine use caused his Parkinson’s

The former radio presenter Danny Baker, and rock star Ozzy Osbourne: Anthony Harvey/Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
The former radio presenter Danny Baker, and rock star Ozzy Osbourne: Anthony Harvey/Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Danny Baker has come under fire for joking that Ozzy Osbourne’s past cocaine use caused his Parkinson’s.

This week the rock veteran revealed that he had been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s known as Parkin’s II, after suffering health complications from a bathroom fall last year.

On Twitter, Baker joked: “Not to be unsympathetic to a genuine hero but when Ozzie Osbourne [sic] says his ‘mild Parkinson’s’ is down to a fall he once had I’m thinking it must have been when he fell into a vat full of cocaine in 72 and didn’t get out again for 35 years.”

Baker’s joke drew some laughs, but others argued that it was insensitive.

“Not funny, just nasty and ill-informed,” one tweet read.

Another Twitter user wrote: “So wrong. Parkinson’s is not a coke fuelled consequence. It’s an indiscriminate pig of a disease that can blight the lives of anyone.”

“FFS how much lower can you get?” asked another. “Watch someone you love dying of Parkinson’s then see how funny you find it.”

Speaking on Good Morning America this week, Osbourne said his diagnosis has been “terribly challenging,” adding that he had to have neck surgery as a result.

Sharon Osbourne, sat alongside her husband in the interview, added: “There’s so many different types of Parkinson’s. It’s not a death sentence by any stretch of the imagination, but it does affect certain nerves in your body.”

Osbourne has been open about his past cocaine use, but now lives a clean lifestyle. “I have come to think that if right now you had a gun, a bag of cocaine and a gallon of booze and you said ‘Take your pick’, I’d pick up the gun,” he said in 2018. “It’s not worth it.”

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