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Metal Beef: Sharon Osbourne vs. Iron Maiden

Heavy metal remains, well heavy: Serious smack is being talked by Sharon Osbourne, the potty mouthed co-founder of the Ozzfest Tour, and Ron Smallwood, the manager of the band Iron Maiden. The verbal fracas stems from an incident that occurred during Ozzfest’s August 20 stop in Devore, California, when the sound was turned off during Maiden’s set and the audience proceeded to throw projectiles at the band. Yahoo! Music reports that, late last week, Sharon penned an open letter to Smallwood and the rest of Iron Maiden where she took the heat for cutting the band’s sound, but did not apologize for her behavior. In the missive, Osbourne slammed Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson: “For 20 shows we were forced to hear Dickinson’s nightly outbursts from the stage…Was Dickinson so naive to think that I was going to let him get away with talking shit about my family night after night? I don’t think he realizes who he’s dealing with.”

Shortly after the incident, Ron Smallwood made a post on the Iron Maiden website condemning Osbourne’s behavior: “Maiden are currently returning from America…and don’t wish to waste time giving Sharon Osbourne’s statement the dignity of a reply. Considering the disgraceful nature of the events that occurred they feel it’s a pretty dismal effort at self-justification and they don’t think [m]etal fans are at all gullible and that they will easily see through it.”

Links:
Iron Maiden official site
Ozzfest
Ozzy Osbourne official site

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