Jack Osbourne has defended the creation of a Ozzy Osbourne digital avatar amid backlash from the late rocker’s fans.
Last week, Jack and his mother Sharon Osbourne revealed at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas that they had teamed up with tech company Hyperreal to create a realistic, interactive digital avatar of the musician using AI.
Addressing fan backlash over their plan on his YouTube channel, Jack insisted that he spoke to his father about it before he died in July 2025 at the age of 76.
“It’s really cool, and it’s something that I think my dad would be into,” he stated. “We actually talked about it before he passed, about doing something like this. So, yeah. I know he would be into this.”
The TV personality also defended the “awesome” technology itself, assuring fans that the avatar would be “so tasteful”.
“It’s not gonna be f**king lame,” he declared. “It’s really complex what we’re doing. This isn’t just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT. This is some high-level technology that we’re gonna be working with, and it’s gonna feel very real, and it’s kind of wild how it will be utilised.”
Announcing the avatar last week, Jack shared that the creation is “really very accurate” and contains “the digital DNA of Ozzy Osbourne, voice, image (and) movement”.
The Crazy Train singer’s widow added that fans will be able to talk to the Ozzy avatar, and it will talk back.
“You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice – and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said,” she noted.
The digital Ozzy will begin appearing on life-sized, interactive touchscreens around the U.S. and U.K. this summer, with plans to take it around the world in the future.
