Ozzy and kin pen memoirs

New York First, there was the music. Then, the ratings-grabbing television series, which spawned a flurry of magazine covers. Now, Ozzy Osbourne and his family have signed a book deal.

Simon & Schuster announced plans Thursday to publish two books about the heavy metal icon and his family. One will be a paperback in November tied to “The Osbournes,” the MTV series that chronicles Osbourne’s unorthodox, profanity-laced home life with his wife, Sharon, and two of their three children, Kelly and Jack.

A hardcover memoir is planned for spring 2003, told from the perspectives of each family member, including the couple’s oldest child, Aimee, who’s not involved in the TV show.

It’s been reported that the deal is worth $3 million, but publicity director Seale Ballenger said that number is off “by a significant amount.”

Deal puts Mariah back in action

New York Troubled diva Mariah Carey has scored a stunning comeback by sealing a new $20 million record deal with a top label just months after being dumped by a rival firm, reports Agence France-Press.

The contract between Carey, the biggest-selling female artist in history, and Universal Music unit Island Def Jam Records comes just four months after Virgin Records let her go with a record $28 million golden handshake.

It also follows the famously hard-working singer and songwriter’s reported nervous breakdown last year when she collapsed after more than a decade of almost nonstop recording and acting work.

Under the pact, signed Wednesday, Carey, 31, will make at least three albums for the company.

Autopsy: Staley died of overdose

Seattle Layne Staley, lead singer of the grunge rock band Alice in Chains, died of a heroin and cocaine overdose, an autopsy has established.

Laboratory test results released this week by the King County medical examiner’s office came as little surprise. Staley’s body was surrounded by drug paraphernalia when he was found dead on April 19 at 34, and several of his songs dealt with heroin addiction.

An earlier autopsy showed he died April 5, two weeks before a relative found the body at Staley’s home in the city’s University District.

Later tests established that the cause of death was acute intoxication from an injected mixture of heroin and cocaine.