The relatives of two of the dead pop stars featured in Rod Stewart’s AI-generated ‘tribute’ to Ozzy Osbourne have come forward and said that, actually, they don’t mind after all.
Talking to TMZ, Tupac Shakur’s stepbrother Mopreme Shakur said: “I’m pretty sure we all love Rod Stewart. I’m not sure about the legalities of it, but I have no problem with him memorialising the greats. Personally, I’m good with it.”
Meanwhile Cleopatra Barnard, the mother of murdered ‘cloud’ rapper XXXTentacion, has said that she was glad that her son had made enough of an impact to be included in the montage.
The AI-generated footage showed Ozzy taking selfies with various iconic musicians, all of whom are now dead; the implication being that they’re all ‘enjoying’ each others’ company and having a wonderful time up there in heaven.
The blogger who first alerted the world to Stewart’s ‘tribute’ has also backtracked and said that she now regrets making such an issue of it.
On her Substack, the brilliantly-named Sloane Steel has written: “I shouldn’t have posted this video making fun of an old man trying to pay tribute to some of his friends. I’m sure he had no ill intent behind this. But AI is an insidious beast. And this kind of soulless maudlin slop is the most offensive form of AI ‘art'.”
However, she added, wryly: “I can’t imagine why Ozzy would be visiting any of these people when a lot of his close friends like Randy Rhoads and Lemmy would presumably be waiting down below in the pits of hell ready to snap a quick selfie with him.”
She did point out that one of those featured icons, Prince, was bitterly opposed to virtual reality, holograms and the like, while he was still with us. “’That whole virtual reality thing… is demonic,’” he once said. “And I am not a demon.”
Steel concluded on an, er, happier note, though: “I’m sure Rod will recover from this debacle and he’ll go on to make millions of dollars with a sweaty summer crotch in amphitheaters all over the world.” Lovely.
