Kelly Osbourne Fires Back at Dee Snider Over Claims About Ozzy's Songwriting
Kelly Osbourne has called Dee Snider "spectacularly classless" for suggesting her late father Ozzy Osbourne was less involved in writing his own songs than the credits indicate, opening a public rift that began on Wednesday, August 12 and carried through Thursday, August 13 — just over a year after Ozzy Osbourne's death on July 22, 2025.
According to a Billboard report, Snider posted comments on his verified X account claiming that Ozzy "always had bass players write his lyrics." He named Geezer Butler as the writer of all Black Sabbath lyrics, Bob Daisley as the lyricist for Ozzy's first two solo albums, and Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister as a key contributor to the 1991 album No More Tears. On that record, Lemmy is credited with co-writing four tracks: 'I Don't Want to Change the World,' 'Mama, I'm Coming Home,' the title track, and 'Hellraiser.'
Snider, the 71-year-old Twisted Sister frontman, also wrote of Lemmy's contributions: "I know too much about the truth behind the scenes. Let's just say that Sharon doesn't like to share." In a separate response to a fan, he acknowledged that "many singers don't write their own songs but make them their own." Snider's X account carried his posts on the dispute.
Kelly Osbourne responded first in a since-expired Instagram Story that did not name Snider, defending her father's legacy as a musician, songwriter, singer, and bandleader, according to Billboard. She then followed with a lengthier, more pointed post addressing Snider directly.
In that second post, Osbourne noted that Snider's last major chart hit was Twisted Sister's 1984 anti-authority anthem 'We're Not Gonna Take It,' which peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 — the weekly US singles chart that ranks the country's most consumed songs. She called it "spectacularly classless" to try to diminish Ozzy's abilities when he is no longer alive to challenge the allegations. Her father's legacy, she wrote, "speaks for itself."
The exchange has drawn coverage across entertainment outlets, including Yahoo Entertainment and Us Weekly. Snider himself acknowledged Osbourne's response on X, posting that she had issued a furious defence of her father and accused him of trying to diminish an extraordinary career.
The songwriting credits at the centre of the dispute are long-standing matters of public record. Bob Daisley is credited as a co-writer across Ozzy Osbourne's early solo work, and Geezer Butler's role as Black Sabbath's primary lyricist has been widely documented. Lemmy's contributions to No More Tears are listed on the album's official credits. What Snider's comments do is reframe those credits as evidence that Osbourne's own role was smaller than his reputation suggests — a claim Kelly Osbourne has met head-on.
For a family still in the first year of mourning a parent, that framing was always going to land hard.
