Sharon Osbourne says her kids and grandkids are 'the reason' she's still alive

Sharon Osbourne, the widow of "Black Sabbath" front man Ozzy Osbourne, said that she and her husband made a pact to die if either of them became ill or incapacitated — but ultimately, Sharon chose to keep living after Ozzy's death because of her children and grandchildren.

Key Takeaways:

• Ozzy Osbourne died on July 22nd after fighting a battle with Parkinson's disease; he had previously lost the ability to walk.

• He and his wife, Sharon, had been married for over 40 years. In 2007, she said that she and Ozzy had agreed to an assisted suicide pact, promising that if either of them got an illness like Alzheimer's, they would both choose to die.

• Though Ozzy died, Sharon said she decided not to end her life because she didn't want to put her children through that kind of pain.

The Backstory:

In her 2007 memoir, "Survivor: My Story - The Next Chapter," Sharon said she and Ozzy had agreed to an assisted suicide pact after watching her father die from Alzheimer's that same year.

She further reiterated that pact in an interview with The Mirror. According to Sharon, the two agreed they never wanted to have a similar experience, and decided they would rather go somewhere like the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to die should one of them become ill.

"We gathered the kids around the kitchen table, told them our wishes and they've all agreed to go with it," she said. "I saw my father suffer from the day he came back into my life in 2002 to the day he died in July. There's no way I could go through what he did, or put my kids through that. At least with something like cancer you can communicate, say how you feel and explain why your body hurts. But my father deteriorated at such a rapid speed he became a shell of himself... Some say the disease is hereditary so at the first sign I want to be put out of my misery."

She then portrayed assisted suicide as a "gift of love," saying, "Ozzy and I have asked our lawyers to make the appropriate arrangements. It's taken away some of the fear of our ending and is a final gift of love to our kids" (emphasis added).

In 2014, Ozzy expanded on the suicide pact, saying he wanted to die even if he became disabled:

“If I can’t live my life the way I’m living it now – and I don’t mean financially – then that’s it...[Switzerland]. If I can’t get up and go to the bathroom myself and I’ve got tubes up my ass and an enema in my throat, then I’ve said to Sharon, ‘Just turn the machine off.' If I had a stroke and was paralysed I don’t want to be here. I’ve made a will and it’s all going to Sharon if I die before her, so ultimately it will all go to the kids."

One of their children, Kelly Osbourne, denied the suicide pact existed shortly before Ozzy died, claiming it was just something her mother said to get attention.

The Details:

Sharon made a recent appearance on Piers Morgan Live, where she said it was her three children — Kelly, Jack, and Aimee — that kept her wanting to be alive.

"I wouldn't have gone through — I would have just gone with Ozzy," she said. "I've done everything I ever wanted to do, you know. But they've been unbelievably just magnificent with me, all three of them. They're the reason, and their kids are the reason, why you've got to hang in there.

Years ago, when I had one of my mental breakdowns, I went into a little facility to help with my head, and I — there were two girls in there who, they didn't know each other, but they were in there, [and] each mother had committed suicide, and I saw the state that these two young women were in, and what it had done to their lives, and I thought, 'I will never, ever, ever do that to my kids.'"

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Though assisted suicide is often promoted as a positive, empowering way to avoid a long, painful death, as the Osbournes' previous statements showed, it is often used to avoid disability. And the people left behind can often feel immense grief and regret over their loved ones' deaths.

The Bottom Line:

Even under less-than-ideal circumstances, life is always worth living. And as Sharon Osbourne exemplified, the support of a loving family can literally be the difference between life and death.