Ozzy Osbourne Tribute Unites Rock Legends at 2025 MTV VMAs

Eight minutes, three anthems, four generations: MTV’s raw goodbye to Ozzy

The 2025 MTV Video Music Awards paused the spectacle for a stark, human moment: a stage full of rock lifers and one young firebrand saluting a giant who won’t be stepping back onstage again. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Yungblud, and Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt teamed up for an eight-minute medley honoring Ozzy Osbourne, who died in July at 76. It wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t meant to be. It was loud, reverent, and personal.

Yungblud kicked things off with Crazy Train, a jolt of adrenaline that has opened countless arenas and bar gigs for decades. He wore a cross necklace Osbourne had given him and, before the first riff rang out, kissed it and seemed to whisper, “For Ozzy!” The gesture set the tone: this wasn’t a museum piece. It was a living handoff.

From there, the energy shifted on a dime. The band downshifted into a moody, slower Changes. Yungblud had performed the same song at Osbourne’s Back to the Beginning farewell concert in July, and he leaned into its bruised tenderness again here. You could feel the room settle. The song has always been a confession set to melody, and on a night known for pyro and production, it landed because it felt unguarded.

Then came the catharsis. Mama, I’m Coming Home pulled in the veterans. Steven Tyler, 77 and publicly retired from touring with Aerosmith, stepped into the spotlight with Joe Perry. Seeing Tyler on a live awards stage again felt like a small shock, the kind that makes an arena go quiet for a beat. He didn’t grandstand. He served the song, trading lines and glances with Perry while Bettencourt stitched the parts together with lyrical leads.

Bettencourt’s role mattered. He’d been in the room for Ozzy’s final chapter, playing deep into that Birmingham farewell set. Bringing him in wasn’t about star power; it was connective tissue. His tone leaned more tribute than imitation—clean when it needed to sing, serrated when it needed to bite—giving the medley muscle and continuity.

The performance underscored how wide Osbourne’s influence runs. Tyler and Perry represent the hard-touring, radio-dominating era. Bettencourt is the virtuoso generation that learned to speak in solos because of players who backed Ozzy. And Yungblud is the modern disruptor taking a cue from Ozzy’s playbook: be yourself, loudly. He’s said it outright—“Ozzy was my northstar my whole life”—and he’s carried a piece of Ozzy’s advice like a banner: don’t worry if they don’t get it now; they will later.

The medley choice tracked Ozzy’s arc without turning into a lecture. Crazy Train isn’t just a riff; it’s Ozzy’s solo breakthrough and the template for punchy, melodic metal that still fills stadiums. Changes started as a Sabbath ballad and became a shorthand for the vulnerable side of a frontman who loved theater as much as thunder. And Mama, I’m Coming Home is the heart-on-sleeve power ballad that showed how Ozzy could be heavy without being loud.

It also mattered that this happened at the VMAs, a place where Ozzy bent pop culture more than once. His songs turned up on MTV when metal crossed into the mainstream. His family opened up their living room to the network with The Osbournes and helped invent a new kind of celebrity TV. Whether he was howling at the moon on a festival stage or shuffling through the kitchen on camera, he kept audiences watching.

From the first cymbal hit, the tribute felt less like a museum plaque and more like a conversation across eras. Tyler’s decision to appear after Aerosmith shut down touring last year gave the night gravity. Perry’s presence steadied the classic rock axis. Bettencourt tied the guitar lineage back to Ozzy’s last stand. And Yungblud played the role of the fan-turned-pro with something to prove—exactly the kind of kid Ozzy liked to bet on.

Broadcast live from New York City across MTV, CBS, and Paramount+, the moment landed everywhere at once. You could see it in the room—quiet stretches, phones up, faces tilted toward the stage—and you could feel it ripple online as fans posted clips, lyrics, and memories. That mix of grit and sentiment is part of why Ozzy endures. He made extreme music feel like a family reunion: loud, messy, and somehow deeply welcoming.

Why this tribute hit so hard

Ozzy didn’t just front a band; he redrew the map. With Black Sabbath, he helped build heavy metal from the ground up—downtuned guitars, creeping tempos, a voice that sounded like a warning and a dare. As a solo artist he widened the lane, mixing melody with menace and pulling in guitarists with distinct signatures. His showmanship—crosses, smoke, and a wink—made him impossible to copy and pointless to ignore.

He also built infrastructure for the next generation. Ozzfest wasn’t just a touring brand; it was a finishing school for metal and hard rock acts that needed a big stage and bigger crowds. He gave new artists visibility and veterans longevity. That mentoring spirit is what you saw reflected in Yungblud’s gestures and in the way the older players made space for him on the VMAs stage.

And he carried contradictions like badges. He could be macabre and funny, grandiose and self-mocking, menacing one minute and fatherly the next. That’s part of why so many musicians—across punk, metal, glam, grunge, and pop—claim him. You don’t have to sing like Ozzy to feel licensed by him. You just have to mean it.

The VMAs team understood the assignment. Keep the focus on the songs, let the players breathe, avoid turning the set into a museum diorama. The pacing did the heavy lifting: fire, hush, release. In a night designed for instant clips, this one felt like it was built to live longer than the broadcast.

For longtime fans, the sound of those riffs carries a stack of memories: first records, first shows, first time hearing a guitar sound like a chainsaw and a choir at once. For younger viewers, it was a crash course in why Ozzy matters to people who weren’t even born when Crazy Train first rattled speakers. And for the artists onstage, it looked like a mix of duty and joy—the right kind of goodbye.

Tributes can easily become tidy. This one wasn’t. It was too charged, too human, too full of edges. That’s fitting. Ozzy liked imperfect better than polished. He was an icon who moved like a fan, which is why a cross on a chain and a handful of songs could say more than a montage ever could.

When the last note faded, the audience stood not out of habit but because it felt necessary. The rock community didn’t just honor a catalog—they said thank you to a force who made danger feel like home and who taught generations to risk being themselves, loudly and without apology.

The multigenerational lineup made the point in real time: the bridge from Sabbath to now is still busy. Veterans can still spark. New blood can still surprise. And Ozzy’s shadow doesn’t dim the light—it sharpens it. That’s how legacies work when they’re alive in the players who carry them forward, one stage at a time.