London, August 2025 — When Ozzy Osbourne passed away in July, tributes poured in from across the music world. Concerts paused for moments of silence. Fans lit candles outside venues. Social media feeds flooded with grainy clips of Black Sabbath’s glory days.
But one tribute stood out — not for its poignancy, but for the controversy it sparked. At several shows this month, Rod Stewart honored his late friend with a performance of Sailing while playing an AI-generated video on the screen behind him: a surreal, animated montage of Ozzy in a pastel-hued “heaven,” taking selfies with other deceased rock legends — David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, and Tina Turner among them.
For some, it was a cheeky, affectionate nod. For others, it was a violation — an uncomfortable use of artificial intelligence to depict the dead without their consent.
The Video That Started It All
The clip, just under two minutes long, opens with a stylized Ozzy — leather jacket, signature round glasses — stepping through golden gates into a cartoonish afterlife. He’s greeted by smiling versions of music icons who have passed on, each rendered in a semi-realistic AI style. At one point, “Ozzy” holds up a phone and snaps a group selfie as the crowd in the animation cheers.
Projected above Stewart as he sang, the video drew gasps, laughs, and — according to attendees at the London O2 Arena show — a few uneasy murmurs.
“It was like watching a weird dream,” said concertgoer Alicia Partridge. “Part of me smiled, but another part thought, ‘Wait, is this… okay?’”
A Friend’s Gesture
Stewart’s camp describes the video as “a love letter to a mate.”
“Ozzy had the wickedest sense of humor,” Stewart told BBC Radio 2. “He would have laughed his head off at that video. It was me saying, ‘I’ll see you up there one day, pal.’”
Close friends of Osbourne’s have offered mixed responses. Guitarist Zakk Wylde called it “different, but heartfelt,” while others in Ozzy’s inner circle reportedly found it “oddly impersonal” despite Stewart’s intentions.
Critics Push Back
Social media backlash was swift. Many fans — particularly those sensitive to depictions of the dead — accused Stewart of trivializing grief.
“This isn’t a tribute, it’s an AI puppet show,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The dead can’t consent to being portrayed this way.”
Grief counselors have also weighed in. Dr. Hannah Malik, a bereavement therapist, argues that such portrayals risk “flattening” the memory of a person into a meme-like caricature.
“When we use AI to fabricate an afterlife narrative — especially one involving lighthearted or comedic elements — we risk erasing the complexity of a person’s life and death,” Malik said.
The AI Ethics Question
The technology behind the video reportedly involved generative AI trained on archival footage and photographs of the musicians. While AI-generated likenesses are not illegal in many jurisdictions, they exist in a legal and ethical gray area — especially when used for the deceased.
“AI memorialization is the Wild West right now,” says tech ethicist Dr. Lionel Carter. “We have no universal standards for consent after death. Families are often not consulted, and creators rely on fair use or public domain arguments.”
Carter points out that for celebrities, whose images are widely available, the temptation to repurpose them in “creative” tributes is strong — but so are the risks of exploitation.
Fans Divided
The reaction among fans mirrors a larger cultural split.
Some saw the video as charmingly irreverent — a reflection of Ozzy’s own outrageous persona. “He bit the head off a bat,” one fan noted on Instagram. “I think he’d be fine with a selfie in heaven.”
Others, including lifelong Sabbath fans, called it tone-deaf. “Ozzy deserved a raw, honest tribute — not a digital cartoon,” wrote one commenter. “It felt like marketing, not mourning.”
The Stewart Defense
Stewart’s team insists the tribute was never meant to offend. In a follow-up statement, they emphasized that the video was created “with affection and humor, in the spirit of Ozzy’s own legacy of boundary-pushing showmanship.”
The statement also noted that Stewart has been privately in touch with the Osbourne family since Ozzy’s death, though it did not confirm whether the family had approved the AI video.
A Wider Trend in Music Tributes
The Stewart controversy comes amid a growing wave of AI in memorial performances — from holographic tours of late artists like Whitney Houston to “duets” between living singers and AI-generated voices of the deceased.
These projects often generate strong reactions, with some praising the innovation and others calling them exploitative.
The difference, says Dr. Carter, lies in collaboration: “If the estate or family is involved, and the representation is faithful, audiences tend to accept it more readily. Without that involvement, it can feel like taking liberties with someone’s memory.”
Grief in the Digital Age
As technology reshapes the way we remember the dead, grief itself is being reframed. Digital tributes can be instant, global, and highly shareable — but they also risk collapsing personal mourning into viral spectacle.
“Ozzy’s fans are global, and many will never attend a physical memorial,” says music historian Claire McAdams. “For them, these onstage moments are the only collective grieving space they have. That’s why the tone matters so much — it sets the emotional temperature for millions.”
What Happens Next
There’s no indication Stewart plans to remove the video from his shows. His next performance, in Glasgow, is expected to include the same Sailing tribute — though insiders say he’s considering prefacing it with a spoken introduction to explain his intentions.
Meanwhile, the Osbourne family has not publicly commented on the video.
The Larger Conversation
Whether you see Stewart’s AI “heaven selfie” as a cheeky nod or a step too far may depend on your comfort level with blending humor and grief — and with letting machines imagine the afterlife.
But the debate goes beyond one performance. It raises pressing questions: Who owns a person’s likeness after death? Can AI tributes ever truly honor their subjects? And how do we draw the line between creative celebration and exploitation?
As technology continues to evolve, so too will the way we mourn — and argue about mourning. For now, Stewart’s video sits in that uneasy space between tribute and controversy, forcing fans to decide for themselves where they stand.
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