Osbourne Gave Up Cocaine After Medical Drama

The Black Sabbath star was famed for his drug-taking and boozing throughout his early career, but admits dabbling with the white powder seriously affected his epiglottis - and it once swelled to the size of a "golf ball".

And Osbourne admits the incident scared him into giving up the drug for good.

In his health column for the Britain's Sunday Times magazine, he writes, "In the mid-1970s I was taking so much coke (cocaine), I tore my clack (epiglottis) in half. The b**ody thing swelled up to the size of a golf ball. I thought, 'Right, this is it - I'm gonna die now.'

"So I went to see my doc (doctor). 'Holy mother of Christ!' he screamed. 'How in God's name did you do that? Mr Osbourne your epiglottis is the size of a light bulb and glowing almost as brightly... Whatever you've been doing - stop doing it!'"