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Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne has discussed the 9/11 attacks on New York, describing the events around them as "my kind of craziness."
It's been just over 13 years since both World Trade Centre twin towers were hit by hijacked planes on 11 September 2001.
Speaking to Shortlist, Osbourne revealed that he was in New York when it happened. When the magazine suggested it must have been frightening, he replied: "I wasn't scared, I was excited! It was my kind of craziness, y'know. The day after that happened, there was fucking nobody in New York."
He continued: "I remember standing on the steps of the hotel, and – you know when you see an old cowboy film and that tumbleweed rolls past on the ground? There was newspapers just floating around on the streets. It was so fucking weird. Everybody just backed off Manhattan because they didn’t know if it was an all-out thing or what."
Ozzy added: "But I hope this Isis lot don’t get going. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s in mankind to try to kill each other for one thing or another. And I think sooner or later one of these crazy fuckers is going to get a nuclear weapon or some fucking thing, and fuck a lot of people up. That’s in our nature. I hope it won’t happen, but it looks like it could happen if they get it."
However, the heavy metal icon has since distanced himself from the context in which his comments were first reported by the Mail Online.
“Firstly, I never spoke to ‘The Mail Online'", he said. "Several quotes were pulled from another interview I did for The Shortlist that was posted earlier in the day and were taken out of context to create ‘The Mail Online’ story [about 9-11]. I apologise to anyone who may see these quotes and believe this is actually how I feel. Please know that I would never want to offend or hurt anyone - that was never or would ever be my intention. You would think that at my age I would finally realise that any conversation with a journalist can be twisted, reprinted and made into another story.
"It's another life lesson learned. My representatives have asked ‘The Mail Online’ to pull the piece, but of course, they’ve refused and now it has been subsequently picked up worldwide because of the sensational slant ‘The Mail Online’ put on the story."
Since the comments attracted controversy, the journalist from Shortlist who conducted the interview said: "As I understood it in the context of the interview, Ozzy was talking about his nervous anticipation of the days that followed 9/11 and the chaos that was unfolding, not about the attacks themselves, and certainly not that he was excited in a happy way.
"Earlier in the conversation, we'd discussed Black Sabbath's anti-war lyrics and I think Ozzy's comments about ISIS show that he thought the events of 9/11 were horrendous."
Osbourne has been no stranger to controversy throughout his career - from allegedly biting the head off a bat and a dove on stage to being accused of promoting suicide with his song 'Suicide Solution'.
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