Ozzy Passes The Torch

Like father, like daughter?

First, millions of television viewers witnessed the daughter of heavy-metal rock icon and heavily tattooed Ozzy Osbourne display her first tattoo, a pink heart above her hip, on the MTV reality show "The Osbournes."

Now Kelly Osbourne, the 17-year-old with the fuchsia-colored hair whose clubbing and sibling rivalry with her 16-year-old brother Jack are seen on the hit television show has recorded a song.

She sings Madonna's 1986 hit "Papa Don't Preach" on the Osbourne Family Album, a collection of the family's favorite songs that will be released on June 11 by Epic Records, just a few days before Father's Day.

"I chose the song Papa Don't Preach because it's like I'm handing the torch on to my daughter," Ozzy Osbourne, the former Black Sabbath lead singer, told reporters at Sony's recording studio in Manhattan Wednesday via a video link from Britain.

Daughter Kelly, son Jack and wife and manager Sharon sat on velvet sofas at the Sony studios, with Ozzy's video image piped in via satellite.

The Osbournes appear in an MTV show shot in their mansion in Beverly Hills, California. The show, which debuted on March 5, is MTV's most heavily watched ever. Last week, more than 7 million viewers tuned in to the half-hour show.

The family's album also features previously recorded tunes such as their former neighbor Pat Boone's version of Ozzy Osbourne's hit "Crazy Train" and John Lennon's "Imagine."

Originally, Osbourne's 18-year-old daughter Aimee, who has decided not to appear on "The Osbournes," was slated to sing Madonna's song.

"It was never something that I thought I'd ever do and I guess I do owe it to my sister," said Kelly Osbourne. "She suggested, along with my brother, that I do it, and I really enjoyed doing it."

Viewers are divided on whether the show, with expletives frequented bleeped out, is a hilarious look at the real lives of a rock-star family or depicts the mutterings and excesses of a man made mentally shaky by his former chemical habits.

Fellow rocker, gun enthusiast and radio personality Ted Nugent recently said the show is "an indictment to the soulessness of modern man that we get a kick out of witnessing a magnificent creature reduced to a blithering hopeless idiot."

Osbourne's family, hearing Nugent's comments for the first time Wednesday, offered a stinging rebuke.

"Tell him to go back into the (expletive deleted) sausage factory," his wife said.

"I think a lot of it is jealousy," added Ozzy Osbourne, who once bit the head off of a live bat on stage. "My life has been full of sticks and stones. If Ted Nugent has an opinion, fine, I don't agree with the way he goes out and kills wildlife for no reason at all."

By Timothy Gardner