Rod Stewart Shows Bizarre AI Video of Ozzy Osbourne Holding a Selfie Stick With Michael Jackson

The singer Rod Stewart has been criticized for using AI images of dead musical icons posing for selfies together at his concert tour.

During his performance of Forever Young, the British rocker made a bizarre tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, who died two weeks ago, under the banner “Eternal Stars” which involved an AI version of the heavy metal singer holding a selfie stick smiling with fellow icons including Janis Joplin, Prince, Tina Turner, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Aaliyah, Michael Jackson Freddie Mercury, George Michael, Kurt Cobain, XXXTenacion, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse.

Writer Sloane Steel attended Stewart’s show in Alpharetta, Georgia, and shared a video of “Eternal Stars” on her Instagram page, where it quickly went viral.

Rolling Stone reports that Stewart also played the AI video at a show in Charlotte, North Carolina, a few days before the Alpharetta date and after singing Live Forever said, “Very sad. A lot of those people died ’cause of drugs… I’m still here, though!”

Online, people have called the video “disrespectful” and expressed their general unease with the technology. Osbourne died on July 22, and his funeral was held last week in his home city of Birmingham, UK.

Far Out reports that a number of musicians have paid tribute to Osbourne since his passing including Cage the Elephant at Lollapalooza and Oasis during the band’s reunion tour while playing at London’s Wembley Stadium.

The Stewart incident shows just how easy it is now to create AI videos. Netflix recently admitted to using generative AI in one of its original productions. The streaming giant turned to generative AI to create a video of a building collapsing in Buenos Aires during an episode of The Eternauts, an Argentinian sci-fi show.