Ozzy Osbourne worried Birmingham 'under threat' as he admits he 'didn't recognise it'

Ozzy Osbourne has said he 'didn't recognise' Birmingham after returning to his home city for the first time in several years. The Aston-born musician made a surprise return to Brum in 2022 when he performed at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.

But the Black Sabbath frontman has now spoken out over fears Birmingham's heritage is under threat. In a video interview recorded for the Save Station Street campaign, Ozzy shared concerns for the future of historic buildings like The Crown Inn pub and the Electric Cinema, saying: "People who are not from Birmingham want to knock it all down."

The Crown is best-known for being the venue where Black Sabbath, known as 'Earth' at the time, performed their first-ever gig at Henry's Blueshouse upstairs. Last month, plans to reopen the iconic boozer after ten years of closure fell through, prompting fresh calls to protect the building and it was finally awarded Grade II listed status.

Read more: Photos inside The Crown pub show 1970s graffiti, gig posters and old decor

Don't miss out on updates about food and drink in Birmingham with our daily City Life newsletter

Ozzy recalled attended Blues nights at the pub every Tuesday and having 'jam sessions there for hours'. "That's where we all started," he said. "We used to drive the van up there, set up and people would just get up and jam."

In the video, Sharon Osbourne also recalled the first time she visited Birmingham and The Crown being one of the first local landmarks Ozzy showed her. But Ozzy shared his concerns for the future of such sites, saying: "What's happening these days is they go in with all the bulldozers and take the heritage down, take the guts out."

He added: "When I went up to Birmingham after a long way of being away from it, I didn't recognise it ... People who are not from Birmingham want to knock it all down." And Sharon agreed: "When I started to go back to the city, it's very cosmopolitan, it's cleaned up, but it's got so much heritage."

Touching on the recent closure of Birmingham's Electric Cinema, which marked the loss of the UK's oldest working cinema, Sharon said: "Another brilliant building with so much history. And my thing is that so much music came out of Birmingham ... Because you get these big developers, they want to know it down and build offices and apartments and the thing is, it's taking the soul of Birmingham away."