If you’ve never heard a teenage boy in the 1970s belt out One Bad Apple while wearing a jumpsuit that could double as a parachute, you’re about to get an exclusive, behind-the-curtain look at the wild ride that was my life.
I was a singer, a brother and the unofficial family spokesman of a family who grew up in Ogden, Utah, the fourth-oldest of nine kids. Our house sounded like a choir rehearsal that had been left on repeat for 24/7.
The bathroom was our first studio. The tiles reflected my voice back at me with the enthusiasm of a supportive audience (or a cheap echo chamber, depending on how you look at it). I remember my first performance which was a rendition of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands that left my mother clutching the sink for dear life. She later told me that if a baby had been born that day with that voice, it would have been put up for adoption. I take that as a compliment.
Fast forward to eighth grade and I had discovered the power of a good hair flip and in 1970, I was 15, still figuring out how to tie a tie and me and three of my brothers (Alan, Merrill, and Jay) began singing as a barbershop quartet when our family signed with MGM Records as a white version of the Jackson 5. Suddenly, we were the answer to every parent’s prayer for wholesome entertainment. We were on TV, on tour, and on every family’s ‘70s mixtape.
It’s hard to separate family from business when you’re the Osmonds. We’re basically the musical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife where there’s a tool for everything, but you sometimes end up cutting yourself on the fork.
After the family’s massive commercial in the early 1970s performing a variety of pop genres as teen idols, we transitioned into rock music for several albums and then we split and while some of my brothers went into putting out country music but I decided it was time to step out of the shadow of the Osmond brand and into my own. I recorded Wayne Osmond in 2002, a collection of songs that ranged from heartfelt ballads to a surprisingly catchy disco-rock number called Disco Inferno.
The album didn’t top the Billboard charts but it gave me a chance to sing my own songs, and not have to coordinate choreography with eight other family members but in 1997 it all came to a screeching halt when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor which was successfully treated at the expense of my hearing, leaving me deaf.
I may not have been able to hear it properly but I still played the guitar until 2012 when stroke took away that away and then another fatal one in 2025 which took away everything.
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