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Photo Credit: Ozzy Osbourne by John Mathew Smith / CC by 2.0
Entertainment Though he died last year, Ozzy Osbourne’s “digital DNA” will live on thanks to a partnership between the Osbournes and entertainment company Hyperreal.
Sharon and Jack Osbourne, the late Ozzy’s wife and son, detailed plans to create an interactive digital avatar of the Prince of Darkness during the second day of Licensing Expo 2026 in Las Vegas this week. The Osbourne family explained the thought behind their partnership with digital entertainment company Hyperreal—which previously de-aged Paul McCartney—during an interview on Wednesday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
“It’s kind of scary how it’s really very accurate,” said Jack. “He will exist digitally as himself for as long as we have computers. Technology has come such a long way to where it’s almost drag and drop. You could shoot a template for a commercial—literally prompt what you want Digital Ozzy to do in that commercial—and you just drop it in. It’s that simple now.”
“You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice,” Sharon added. “And the answers will be what Ozzy would have said. We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back.”
“I don’t want to pretend that Ozzy Osbourne was this refined poet—we know who he was,” Jack explained, emphasizing that the family wanted Ozzy’s digital likeness to remain true to his real-life persona. “Everything the family does with Ozzy’s name and likeness has to reflect who he really was. It’s crucial to ask, ‘What would Ozzy do?’”
Hyperreal, which describes itself as “the future of immersive avatar entertainment,” previously “pioneered the first ethical neural network-generated content in music videos to de-age Paul McCartney.” The company also debuted an interactive hologram of the late comic book legend Stan Lee at the 2025 Los Angeles Comic Con.
“Elvis died 50 years ago, and everybody knows Elvis,” Sharon said. “I just want that for Ozzy.”
Ozzy Osbourne became one of the most prolific hard rock musicians in history between his time with Black Sabbath, his solo career, and the reality show “The Osbournes,” which featured his family. Though he died just last year, it seems impossible to forget Ozzy—with or without a digital avatar.
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Margherita Klemp
