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PETA Wishes Ozzy Osbourne Happy Birthday, Celebrates His ‘Heart of Gold’

PETA wished Ozzy Osbourne a happy 72nd birthday Wednesday on Twitter. The animal-rights organization said Osbourne was “the Prince of Darkness with a heart of gold for animals.”

Ozzy Osbourne, His Family Have a Long History With PETA

It seems like an odd pairing. Ozzy Osbourne famously bit the heads off of live bats and doves at his shows early in his career. PETA is known for throwing red paint on people who are wearing fur coats. But the two actually have a long history of working together.

Earlier this year, the metal icon worked on an anti-declawing campaign aimed at stopping cat owners from declawing their cats. In the graphic poster, Osbourne is missing the tips of his fingers as blood rings down the stumps.

“Amputating a cat’s toes is twisted and wrong,” the poster reads. “If your couch is more important to you than your cat’s health and happiness, you don’t deserve to have an animal! Get cats a scratching post—don’t mutilate them for life.”

PETA, along with the Humane Society and several other animal care groups, asks cat owners to not remove their claws. Without their claws as the first line of defense, cats can feel insecure and tend to bite more often as a means of self-protection, PETA said.

Along with Ozzy, his wife Sharon, who’s a co-host on The Talk, has worked with PETA to go after the fur industry. She narrated a documentary on the chinchilla fur trade for the group. She also donated her fur coats to PETA after learning about practices within the fur industry, PETA said. The couple’s daughter Kelly also takes part in PETA’s “Save the Seals ad series. The ads focus on the fur trade in Canada that begins with harvesters clubbing baby seals to death and skinning them, oftentimes while they’re still alive, to retrieve their fur.