Rock Legends and Rising Stars Unite for Ozzy at the MTV Awards

Steven Tyler’s appearance at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards carried a weight beyond nostalgia—it was a moment of resilience and reinvention. Just a year prior, he had announced Aerosmith’s farewell tour would not continue due to serious vocal cord damage, seemingly closing the curtain on a storied career. Yet here he was, almost 80 years old, walking onto the VMAs stage not as a relic but as a defiant symbol of endurance, lending his voice to honor another rock legend, Ozzy Osbourne.

The tribute began in an unorthodox way. Before any music, Ozzy’s son Jack Osbourne appeared with four of Ozzy’s grandchildren, each wearing shirts emblazoned with his image. Their presence reminded viewers that Osbourne’s story was not only one of rock ’n’ roll excess but also of family continuity, grounding the spectacle in something deeply personal. It was rare for an MTV award show, often accused of surface-level glitz, to open with such a generational handoff.

When Yungblud stormed the stage shirtless, screaming the opening lines of “Crazy Train,” the energy instantly shifted. His style—part punk chaos, part theatrical intensity—contrasted sharply with the veteran composure of Tyler and Perry waiting in the wings. It was a deliberate collision: the raw defiance of youth colliding with the lived scars of rock survivors. His transition into “Changes,” after slipping on a jacket, softened the edges, showing a side of vulnerability that Ozzy himself often revealed beneath the darkness.

Nuno Bettencourt’s role in the medley was no less pivotal. While Yungblud captured the unfiltered fury and Tyler brought the seasoned grandeur, Bettencourt acted as the bridge between them. His guitar work on “Crazy Train” was note-perfect but never sterile; it was filled with playful bends and fiery improvisation that reminded the audience why he remains one of rock’s most respected technicians. Later, his switch to acoustic textures during “Changes” brought intimacy to a song that might otherwise be overshadowed by arena bombast.

Then came Tyler and Perry. The moment the pair entered, there was an audible shift in the room. Tyler’s raspy but powerful delivery of “Mama, I’m Coming Home” felt like both a eulogy and a survival anthem. Perry, often understated in demeanor, delivered riffs that rang with authority, as if channeling every smoky club and stadium stage he’d ever set foot on. Their presence wasn’t about vocal perfection or pyrotechnics—it was about credibility, a reminder that few remain who truly lived through rock’s most feral decades.

The interplay between Tyler and Yungblud on “Mama, I’m Coming Home” created one of the evening’s rare cross-generational dialogues. Yungblud leaned into the chorus with earnest passion, almost like a disciple paying homage, while Tyler embodied the weary preacher still capable of raising the rafters. The collision was imperfect, even messy, but that messiness felt authentic. It mirrored Ozzy’s career—chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgettable.

Visually, the staging reinforced the tribute’s multigenerational message. Ozzy’s iconic imagery—bats, crosses, shadowed silhouettes—was projected behind the performers, but there was no attempt to modernize or sanitize them. Instead, the imagery played like a living scrapbook, a reminder that Ozzy was both caricature and pioneer, both meme and myth. For a show that thrives on polish, this rawness was a refreshing divergence.

At the finale, the four musicians gathered center stage in a loose embrace. Yungblud, visibly emotional, shouted “Ozzy forever, man!”—a line that felt spontaneous rather than scripted. It underlined the tribute’s purpose: not to present a sanitized MTV moment, but to channel the chaotic heartbeat of Osbourne’s legacy. Tyler’s grin in that moment wasn’t showmanship; it was relief. He had returned to a stage many thought he’d never grace again.

Critics were divided. Some saw the tribute as uneven, even cynical—a corporate attempt to graft relevance onto fading stars. Darkness guitarist Dan Hawkins went as far as to call it “cynical and nauseating,” a sign that the rock community itself remained split on MTV’s handling of legacy acts. Yet such critiques inadvertently highlighted the tribute’s power: it provoked real debate, which most award show performances fail to do.

The instrumentation also rewarded careful listeners. Perry wielded a reverse-headstock Stratocaster during “Crazy Train,” a subtle nod to the late Randy Rhoads’ unconventional gear choices. Bettencourt’s closing turn on a 12-string acoustic was a deliberate choice as well, mirroring the melancholy undertones of “Changes” and closing the performance not with fire but with reflection. These details, likely missed by casual viewers, elevated the set beyond a mere medley.

Behind the spectacle was an unspoken narrative: Tyler himself had been close to Ozzy during the Birmingham farewell show just months earlier. He had seen firsthand the frailty of a fellow survivor, and this VMAs return doubled as his own reassertion of life after frailty. When Tyler sang lines like “Mama, I’m coming home,” the echo was unmistakable—it wasn’t only Ozzy’s voice he was channeling but his own longing for survival after near-silence.

For Yungblud, the performance offered a symbolic torch-passing. He didn’t attempt to replicate Ozzy’s tone or theatricality but instead embodied the raw spirit of rebellion. Holding up the gold cross necklace Ozzy once gifted him, kissing it before singing, was a subtle but powerful signal. This was not cosplay. This was respect, the kind that acknowledges inheritance without imitation.

The location—UBS Arena in New York—also mattered. This was no Hollywood spectacle but a performance rooted in one of rock’s most storied markets. Airing across MTV, CBS, and Paramount+, it had the kind of reach Ozzy himself once commanded in the pre-streaming era, proving that legacy moments can still be broadcast to mass audiences in the TikTok age.

What no one seems to have said is that this tribute wasn’t really about Ozzy alone. It was about rock itself refusing to go quietly. Tyler, Perry, Bettencourt, and Yungblud were four different eras embodied on one stage, and their unpolished, clashing energies spoke to rock’s refusal to be domesticated into smooth nostalgia. Ozzy would have wanted nothing less.