Sharon Osbourne insists AI version of late husband Ozzy is not a 'cash grab' and explains reason for doing it

Sharon Osbourne has addressed her AI ‘controversy’ in the latest The Osbournes Podcast episode.

In May, 10 months after the death of the Black Sabbath star, Sharon and her son Jack announced that they had partnered with Hyperreal and Proto Hologram to create an AI-powered Ozzy.

During the Licensing Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, mother and son due Sharon and Jack Osbourne announced that ‘digital Ozzy’ would be able to answer ‘anything’ in his own voice. They announced they’d be taking ‘digital Ozzy’ worldwide and that his answers would be ‘scarily accurate’.

"I've seen the tests that they've done of Ozzy and you can see every pore on his face, his beard's coming through, it's that detailed," Sharon said at the time.

Sharon and Jack addressed the critics during the latest episode of their podcast (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for EJAF)

However, the announcement wasn’t taken well by some fans, who said it was a ‘cash grab’.

Speaking on the recent The Osbournes Podcast episode, Sharon said: “I don’t need your money.

“For someone to turn around to me and say that I’m doing a cash grab, no. You don’t know my husband. I know my husband. And my husband would say to be over and over: ‘After I go, how long do you think I’ll be remembered?’"

Sharon then told Jack that she would respond to her late husband by saying: “I just don’t know, because I’ll probably be going with you.”

The family then announced that they had been exploring the concept for 10 years and ‘are moving with the times’.

Ozzy passed away last July (Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage)

“It’s either we do it, or someone else is going to do it,” Jack added. “And the most important thing for me is that when we create this digital imprint of dad, we create it, we own it, we control it.”

Sharon then said it would be something they ‘pass on through the family’ later saying she ‘doesn’t need to justify anything to any f****r out there.’

The heavy metal icon, had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2019, and died after suffering a heart attack in his home last July.

Since then, Sharon has revealed what her husband’s final words were to her. Speaking to Piers Morgan during Piers Morgan Uncensored, the former X Factor judge said that 20 minutes before his death, her husband told Sharon to ‘kiss him’ and ‘hug him tight’.

"If only I’d have held him tighter. And he went downstairs, worked out for 20 minutes and passed away,” she emotionally revealed.