‘American Idol’ judge once covered an Ozzy Osbourne song — now it feels like a hauntingly perfect tribute
It appears that 'American Idol' judge Carrie Underwood is a big fan of the late rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. In a resurfaced video of Underwood, which was posted on TikTok just a couple of weeks before Ozzy passed away, the former 'American Idol' winner can be heard singing a beautiful rendition of his 1991 track 'Mama, I’m Coming Home.' Ozzy wrote this song for his wife, Sharon Osbourne. Underwood originally sang the song during an episode of 'The Howard Stern Show' in 2023, and now, her performance feels like a heartwarming tribute to the 'Black Sabbath' frontman who died at the age of 76 on July 22, 2025.
During her appearance on Howard Stern's talk show, Underwood stated that she took permission from the Osbourne family before performing 'Mama, I'm Coming Home.' According to Entertainment Now, Underwood explained, "Any time I’m gonna cover somebody, I want their blessing. I would never want somebody to be like, ‘Man, I don’t like her.’ It’s worse if you sing the song and somebody asks them about that and they’re like, ‘What was that?!’ So I just want to be respectful. We asked permission, and Sharon was very sweet about it.”
In a YouTube clip from the episode, Stern was so taken aback by Underwood's performance that he asked her and the studio band to perform the song’s final harmony a cappella one more time. While gushing over her performance, Stern exclaimed, "Now, that's fantastic. I loved it." Then, many fans stopped by the comments section to praise Underwood's cover. One social media user wrote, "Loved that he asked them to sing the harmonies again at the end, he is a genuine music fan." A second commented, "Love Ozzy and Carrie, and she did a phenomenal job on this song as I knew she would. Loved this, hope she does more covers like this." Another netizen echoed the same sentiments, "There is no style she can’t sing!!! We are blessed to be able to hear such a beautiful voice from a beautiful person!! Nothing but appreciation and admiration for her talent!! Thank you, Howard!!!"
Underwood's 2023 performance may have caught the attention of the fans now, but she released her cover of 'Mama, I'm Coming Home' the year before. In July 2022, she took to her Instagram page and shared, "My Apple Music Sessions Live EP bundle is out now! Check out my live cover of one of my all-time favorite songs, @ozzyosbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home” and more, only on @applemusic: apple.co/carrieunderwoodams."
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Also in the interview, Underwood candidly spoke about how she discovered Ozzy during her teen years. She recalled, “I very much remember being a teenager kind of discovering my own musical tastes and my mom being very much against me listening to Ozzy," adding, "I feel like you need to listen to some of these lyrics, because it’s not all darkness … there’s a lot of like love songs and things that are a lot more melodic and sweet."