Sharon Osbourne has reached a settlement with the original Black Sabbath manager over the band’s earliest recordings, meaning their previously unreleased Earth demos may finally see the light of day.
Last June, the group’s first manager, Jim Simpson, announced plans to release Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes, a collection of nine demos from the band’s first musical formation, Earth.
Months after the release date, Simpson once again announced plans to release the tunes, but Sharon threatened the music mogul with legal action in an open letter.
The letter stated that the band didn’t want the demos released without first hearing them and without receiving royalties for their music.
Now, in a new episode of The Osbournes podcast, Sharon shared that all original members of Sabbath have gained ownership of the demos. This includes her late husband and legendary front man, Ozzy Osbourne, who died in July 2025.
Sharon began, “We settled with Jim Simpson and the band now have their demos back. And all four of them [the original members of Black Sabbath] own it, which is where it should be. All of that stuff should be theirs. So it all ended well. So, yeah, they own them. We’re gonna talk about what everybody wants to do with it, and we’ll go from there.”
“I just think it’s historically important for music lovers of that genre. And then we got [the rights to] the pictures that were taken at that time, too. So, that is all so important. I mean, listen, you [Jack] want those pictures. Everybody in the band’s kids and grandkids would love to see [them]… It’s special,” she further added.
Overjoyed, she continued, “And I’m just happy that it’s where it should be — with the band, and [they can decide] what they wanna do as a band, what they’re gonna do with it. So that’s great.”
Turning her attention to Simpson, she concluded, “He did the right thing at the end of the day. He did the right thing for the band.”
Originally, Jim Simpson had resisted Sharon Osbourne’s requests, sharing late last year, “I approached members of the band about this on 24 September 2024. The message I got back was that they didn’t want it released and wanted nothing to do with it. This included two very threatening e-mails from Sharon. But the band had every chance to be involved.”
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