Jack Osbourne Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images
Jack Osbourne is recalling the time he nearly died after stepping in a puddle containing rat urine.
The Osbournes Want to Believe host, 38, shared his story on the Tuesday, April 23, episode of “The Osbournes Podcast” while he and sister Kelly Osbourne, along with parents Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, discussed their near-death experiences.
“I got leptospirosis, which is just like a crazy viral disease. Yeah, that sucked,” he said. “I’d gone and done some filming in a place called Bario in Malaysia, and we were doing a jungle track. I got really sick when I got out of the jungle but it took about two weeks.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, a person can contract leptospirosis after “getting water or soil contaminated by animal pee (urine) in your nose, your mouth, your eyes or a break in your skin.” The disease can cause “flu-like symptoms that can worsen into Weil’s syndrome, a life-threatening illness, in a small number of people.”
Jack went on to explain that after he left Malaysia, he started showing symptoms of an illness while on a trip to Finland, adding, “I literally was dying. This wasn’t, like, a fake thing.”
After getting medevaced to a university hospital in Helsinki, Jack said he then had to get “flown to London” because of the language barrier.
Kelly Osbourne, Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon Osbourne and Jack Osbourne Karwai Tang/WireImage
He continued, “At this point, I’m like five days into my body legitimately shutting down and I’m lying in this bed, I haven’t eaten, my kidneys and liver are, like, going into failure and I’m like, ‘Uh, I’m f—king losing it.’”
After six doctors initially couldn’t figure out a diagnosis, Jack explained that the head of tropical diseases for the NHS (National Health Service) was able to properly diagnose his illness.
“I had Weil’s disease, which is leptospirosis,” Jack continued. “I got it because I’ve got leech bites on the bottom of my feet. I was swimming and bathing in a river and we were climbing on rocks and jumping into this jungle river and I stepped in a puddle on this boulder and it had rat’s piss in it.”
John Salangsang/Invision/AP/Shutterstock Live, love — and laugh a lot! Sharon Osbourne shared the secret to her long and healthy marriage with husband Ozzy Osbourne while revealing little-known facts about herself exclusively to Us Weekly. “The person that makes me laugh the most is my husband,” Sharon, 70, told Us, noting that one of the “silliest” gifts […]
Jack wasn’t the only Osbourne family member to share a harrowing experience from their past. Kelly, 39, also recalled the time she “almost died” after her brother accidentally shot her with a pellet gun while their parents were in New York filming the 1995 movie, The Jerky Boys.
“It went straight through my leg and out the other side,” the former Fashion Police cohost recalled. “It felt like someone putting a hot poker through my leg really fast. It kinda burnt a bit, I remember.”
Overcoming the odds. Over the years, Kelly Osbourne has shared her struggles and successes surrounding her sobriety, weight loss and other personal moments. “I got sober,” the former Fashion Police host exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2021. “I replaced drugs and alcohol with food, my body metabolized differently. Once I got sober and I gained weight uncontrollably, it was […]
The Osbourne family skyrocketed to fame in 2002 after the debut of their MTV reality series, The Osbournes, which earned them an Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Program (Reality) that year.
They launched their podcast with a 20-episode first season in 2018; however, the project went on hiatus until September last year, when they announced they would return to the studio for the second installment of the show.
In their announcement, the family promised to “dive into the worlds of celebrity, true crime, rock and roll, culture, and whatever else we damn well please.”
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