US band fire member over ‘disgusting’ meme about Ozzy Osbourne’s death

A band has fired one of its members over a ‘disgusting’ meme they posted following the death of Ozzy Osbourne.

The rocker died on 22 July ‘surrounded by love’, just weeks after he and his fellow Black Sabbath band members played a farewell gig in their home city of Birmingham.

His funeral took place last week, with fans flocking to pay tribute at the public procession to Black Sabbath bridge and bench before a private family service.

And as many musicians pay tribute to Ozzy, there have also been some slightly controversial gestures such as Rod Stewart showing a weird AI-generated video of the ‘Prince of Darkness’ in heaven with other late starts.

But a member of American comedy rock band Green Jellÿ posted something ‘extremely rude’.

Green Jelly released its first album (as Green Jello) in the late 80s (Lindsay Brice/Getty Images)

The group, formed in 1981, have five albums to their name and are best known for their 1992 track ‘Three Little Pigs’, adapted from the fairy tale. With ‘hundreds’ of members over its lifetime, Green Jellÿ are known for having ‘intentionally crude musicianship’ and for doing theatrical, humorous performance.

However, they still draw the line on things like this.

Making a tribute post to Ozzy on Instagram, the band shared a meme that seemed to make a joke of his alcoholism and drug abuse.

It’s reported that not long after the news of his death broke, Green Jellÿ shared a photoshopped image of the rock star holding up a sign that read: “One day sober.”

The band’s frontman Bill Manspeaker then later posted to say he had deleted the photo as soon as he saw it and blamed Michael ‘Fr33to F33t’ Snyder for sharing it.

Now also taken down, he reportedly wrote: “He [Snyder] posted an extremely rude video about Ozzy Dying that I found highly offensive & I immediately took it down.”

Fans paid tribute to Ozzy in Birmingham (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Manspeaker then went on to allege his former bandmate had then ‘lost his mind and instantly started to demonise’ him on Facebook.

He went on to bash Snyder as a bandmate before adding: “Everything was fine until the moment I take down his distasteful meme about Ozzy's death.”

But the booted-out musician then claimed he was made to leave Green Jellÿ because he ‘dared to question William Manspeaker’ and didn’t address the controversial Ozzy meme in his post.

“I’ve been requested to stop the fun and laughter,” he wrote. “It’s always been his band, which I respect. I’ll honour his request, and we’ll all have the fun without him, here.”

As his Facebook is now filled with posts about his departure from the band, he later posted asking for people to not argue or fight.

“I’ll be the bigger guy here, and apologize to everyone,” he wrote. “Don’t argue, I just wanted to roast a guy who passed blame onto me, not cause more misery.

"I want you to laugh, not fight! Go to the shows, if you choose. Support the band members. Buy their merch that they work hard to sell. The band is full of some great people. This isn’t your fight, it was mine.”