Ozzy Osbourne’s wife has made a sad admission about the singer’s keenly anticipated return to the stage with Black Sabbath this year.

Sharon Osbourne said the band’s long-awaited reunion was emotional for her husband, who can no longer walk due to the worsening of his Parkinson’s disease.

“He’s very happy to be coming back and very emotional about this,” Osbourne told British media on Thursday (local time).

“Parkinson’s is a progressive disease. It’s not something you can stabilise. It affects different parts of the body and it’s affected his legs.

“But his voice is as good as it’s ever been.”

It follows the announcement this week that 76-year-old Ozzy will join the other original members of heavy metal band Black Sabbath for the first time in 20 years to play a one-off concert in Birmingham.

Billed as “the greatest heavy metal show ever”, the July 5 show at the band’s birthplace will also feature guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward – the group that pioneered heavy metal music in the early 1970s with hits such as War Pigs, Paranoid and Iron Man.

Black Sabbath has sold more than 75 million records since forming in 1968. Their last gig together was in 2005, with the band playing in partial reunions since but never in their original line-up.

Ozzy, the group’s charismatic frontman, left Black Sabbath in 1979 due to drug and alcohol problems. He had a highly successful solo career – including 13 solo albums – before revealing in 2020 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

The star, who will move back to Britain in March, also spoke about his condition on an American radio show this week.

“I have made it to 2025. I can’t walk, but you know what I was thinking over the holidays? For all my complaining, I’m still alive,” he said.

“I may be moaning that I can’t walk but I look down the road and there’s people that didn’t do half as much as me and didn’t make it.”

The July 5 concert is being billed as Black Sabbath’s final show. It will top a line-up that also includes Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Lamb Of God and Anthrax.

The show’s music director, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, said: “This will be the greatest heavy metal show ever.”

However, he has refused to say if the night will feature any new music.

“I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about that. In fact, we haven’t seen each other,” Morello said.

“We certainly haven’t seen all of us together for a long time. I mean, I stay in touch with Oz and occasionally Geezer, but never Bill. So I don’t even know what Bill does these days.”

Profits from the show, called Back to the Beginning, will be donated to charities including Cure Parkinson’s.

Tickets go on sale on February 14.