Rod Stewart pays tribute to Ozzy Osbourne with A.I. slop video

A clip shown during a recent set showed Ozzy taking selfies in heaven with Prince, Aaliyah, Kurt Cobain, XXXTentacion, and more.

When Ozzy Osbourne died last month Rod Stewart was one of the many musicians to pay tribute to the heavy metal pioneer. Stewart, a fellow Brit living in California, wrote “sleep well my friend” in a message shared online. That could, and perhaps, should have been it. But no. Fans who have attended Stewart’s most recent live shows have reported that the singer has added an AI-generated tribute to the Black Sabbath frontman and it’s genuinely staggering to behold.

Essentially taking the “that’s some supergroup in heaven” platitude that gets used when a famous musician dies, Stewart’s video features Ozzy taking selfies (with the aid of a selfie stick) in the afterlife with some of the most iconic musicians we have lost over the years. That includes everyone from Prince and Bob Marley to Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Freddie Mercury. It jumps from a Madame Tussauds fever dream into uncanny valley territory when XXXtentacion sidles up to Ozzy for his picture. This all plays out during the concert as Stewart sings “Forever Young,” naturally.

According to the Charlotte Observer, Stewart ended one recent Ozzy A.I. tribute by saying, “Very sad. A lot of those people died ’cause of drugs… I’m still here, though!”