From a hip-hop power couple to an iconic ’60s band of mop-tops, many musicians have been accused of worshiping Satan. But were they just trying to sell records? Or is there some truth buried within the fiction? Now that Lady Gaga is considered a veteran and darling of the 21st-century pop firmament, it is perhaps
Easy to forget that the clean-cut lead of “A Star is Born” was considered a particularly risque performer at the start of her career. Cultivating a freak-art image that culminated in Gaga donning a dress purportedly crafted from raw meat to the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010,
The “Poker Face” singer made a claim for being one of the strangest pop stars out there. So perhaps it was no surprise that in 2012, rumors spread that Gaga’s coordinated public eccentricities had roots in something darker: blood-thirsty satanism. As reported at the time by NME, it was rumored that while on
Tour in the U.K., the pop star had stayed at London’s Intercontinental Hotel and left behind evidence of satanic rituals — namely, a “bath full of blood.” The story was originally spread by a website called Truthquake, with a hotel worker reportedly stating:
“Lady Gaga left large amounts of blood in the suite during a stay this summer. The incident was reported to the concierge, who was told to put it out of her mind.” No evidence of Gaga’s occult leanings was ever presented, however, and her team quickly refuted the allegation, which went no further.
In recent years, it seems the biggest pop stars in the world have made the conscious choice to adopt satanic imagery in their live performances. British singer-songwriter Sam Smith, for example, drew plenty of attention in 2023 when they took to the stage at the Grammys to perform
Their new single “Unholy,” dressed as Satan with horns emerging from their red top hat. When described in such terms, such a performance doesn’t sound particularly shocking. But it seems that the combined effect of the sexualized performance from the queer singer, as well as cage dancing from their co-star, Kim Petras, a trans woman,
Saw Smith draw an angry response from many prominent online commentators. Conservative senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Ted Cruz tweeted: “This…is…evil.” Meanwhile, other Twitter users described the devilish show as “satanic” and “a tribute to Satan.” Such tweets generated thousands of likes and retweets from horrified viewers. The furor around
Sam Smith’s 2023 Grammys performance was reminiscent of that which emerged after the adoption of Devil imagery by another chart-topping queer performer: Lil Nas X. Lil Nas X has a skill when it comes to getting people talking, with his 2019 smash single,
“Old Town Road,” generating a huge amount of discourse from commentators across the political and cultural spectrum for its catchy merging of trap and country music. But in 2021, Lil Nas took things up a level with the release of “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” the video for
Which involves the viral rapper descending to hell on a stripper pole to give a lapdance to Satan. While the blending of erotic, queer, and satanic imagery drew condemnation from conservatives, the tension was ratcheted up when the accompanying merch was announced: 666 pairs of limited edition
Nike sneakers, each made with a single drop of human blood. But even those who sought to praise Lil Nas X for his incredible success in the first act of his stellar career were seemingly taken aback by the devil imagery he employed in this video. Per Rolling Stone, later that year Lil
Nas began a public feud with the BET Awards after his team was forced to confirm that the rapper was not, in fact, a “satanist or devil worshiper” before his performance at the awards ceremony. “You know I’m keeping the energy positive.” Even veteran pop superstars
Can sometimes be accused of having an unholy relationship with the devil himself. In the last two decades, there has been no bigger celebrity couple than Jay-Z and Beyoncé, whose dominance over the world of popular culture shows no sign of abating. Nevertheless,
This has not stopped fanciful theories emerging of a supposed Faustian pact between the ultimate pop power couple and Lucifer himself … or maybe it is their incredible success that attracts it? The Carters have long been fodder for Illuminati conspiracy theorists, with some claiming online
That the pair exhibit symbols on stage to show their allegiance to a shadowy cabal, and others accusing the pair of witchcraft and devil worship. One example given by music writer Peter Bebergal is the symbology featured in Jay-Z’s “On To The Next One” video, which Illuminati hunters have
Claimed shows the rapper has entered into a pact with the Masonic demon god Baphomet. The most bizarre piece of “evidence” circulating on the internet that supposedly confirms the couple’s links to hell came with the announcement in 2011 that they were to call their newborn baby girl “Blue Ivy,” after which rumors
Spread that the name spelled backward is Latin for “Lucifer’s Daughter.” The rumor persists on platforms such as Twitter, though Latin dictionaries show that this is not the case. It is no surprise that, over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years, Ozzy Osbourne,
As frontman of proto-heavy metal rockers Black Sabbath, has perpetually been associated with satanism and devil worship. The Birmingham, U.K. band caused controversy right from the start, with references to the devil, horror-inspired riffs, and dark cover art featuring ghostly figures — all of which earned the band an audience that included many real-life occultists.
Though he was the vocalist, it wasn’t Ozzy who had penned the lyrics recounting a devil encounter for their debut’s opening track, “Black Sabbath.” They were actually the work of bassist Geezer Butler, who had at one time been interested in the
Occult but had abandoned it after reportedly encountering a ghostly figure in his bedroom. Nevertheless, Ozzy became the poster boy for rock and roll devil worship during the decades that followed, an image that proved marketable for future classic albums such as 1970’s Paranoid.
He was interviewed during the so-called “satanic panic” of the 1980s, though his devilish image has become more ironic in recent years, with the metal legend jokingly claiming that his affiliation with Satan was responsible for his avoiding infection during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I don’t, I don’t want to make anybody to start
Doing all of this devil worship crap because that’s not my intention.” Heavy metal is a musical genre that has long been accused of devil worship, an association that many bands working in the style have sought to amplify and capitalize on. The classic London heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden has
Been plying their trade for almost half a century — and, as it turns out, their devilish imagery is still enough to cause an uproar. Another band that got caught up in the satanic panic of the 1980s, Iron Maiden drew much attention from concerned parents the world over with the release of
Their breakthrough album, the commercial smash-hit The Number of the Beast in 1982. “Back in the early 80s there was a bit of a problems, especially in the States, with, uh, devil worship.” As recounted in a recent interview with the Miami New Times, founder and
Bandleader Steve Harris found the accusations of satanism “absolutely hilarious,” adding: “It was so ridiculous we thought we’d do something ridiculous back.” In response, the band inserted a joke satanic message on their following record, Piece of Mind, which could only be heard when played backward.
The classic rock group Led Zeppelin is famous for its devoted and cult-like fanbase, who pore over the symbols on albums such as Led Zeppelin IV for added clues to the meaning of the music. As noted by The New Yorker writer James Wood, worried parents in the 1970s often considered the
Sound of Zeppelin’s music to be demonic, with the intensity of the guitar sounds and the frenzied, pained vocals being a far cry from much of the music that was heard on the radio at the time. Concern over the true meaning of the band’s music later mutated into rumors about hellish
Messages in their most famous songs, notably that their 1971 classic “Stairway to Heaven” contained secret satanic messages, such as “my sweet Satan,” that emerged when the song is played backward. Though the existence of such messages is a myth, the truth is that Zeppelin guitarist
Jimmy Page was certainly interested in the occult for many years, according to Wood, so much so that he purchased the home of Golden Dawn leader Aleister Crowley. Some saw this as evidence that Page would be attempting to include satanic utterances in his records,
But as Page himself argued in an appearance at the Oxford Union, “It’s hard enough writing the music one way round, [let alone] backward.” In 1966, a claim by The Beatles star John Lennon that the band was “more popular than Jesus” caused
An enormous rift between the Fab Four and millions of offended Christians. As a result, many people boycotted the band and publicly burned their records, forcing Lennon to apologize. “I just said what I said and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong.”
However, in 2010 news broke that the Liverpool rockers may finally have earned the forgiveness of at least one denomination of Christianity. Per The Guardian, it was announced in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper that the Catholic Church officially excused The
Beatles for anti-religious comments made by John Lennon at the height of the band’s fame. More recently, an image has circulated online that purportedly shows the Fab Four carrying inverted crosses, accompanied by a quote said to be from their press agent which describes the musicians as openly “Anti-Christ.” However,
The fact-checking website Snopes has decisively demonstrated this to be a forgery, doctored from a photo of the band proudly holding their Member of the Order of the British Empire medals. Fellow ’60s superstars The Rolling Stones were some of the earliest musicians to
Actively encourage their association with Satan. As described in Far Out magazine, Stones frontman and lyricist Mick Jagger reportedly became infatuated with the devil after reading the satirical Soviet novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, in which
A rather charming version of Satan returns to a corrupt Moscow and plays havoc with the locals. Jagger incorporated Bulgakov’s version of Satan into his lyrics for the Stones’ hit “Sympathy For The Devil,” which, though a timeless classic now, drew some criticism for the band, not least from prominent Christian musicians such as
Carlos Santana. Santana reacted to the song by telling NME in an interview: “I don’t have no sympathy for the Devil … The Devil is not Santa Claus. He’s for real.” Some have even suggested that the song is cursed, and have blamed it for technical
Failures encountered by the band and their entourage at the time of composition, as well as for the fatal disaster at the Altamont Festival in 1969. While Jagger has since dropped the satanist imagery that he continued to turn to during the decade for
Titles such as 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request, Stones guitarist Keith Richards has continued to playfully invoke his links to the underworld, telling Rolling Stone in 2002: “I’ve had very close contact with Lucifer — I’ve met him several times.” It is perhaps unsurprising that the much-missed starman David Bowie,
Who plunged into all kinds of esoteric subjects to furnish his songwriting, had several brushes with the occult over the course of his career. Like many musicians of his generation, Bowie was keenly interested in mysticism, with the Kabbalah and the work of Alistair Crowley featuring in his album artwork, videos, and lyricism for years,
As noted by his biographer Peter Doggett in The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s. Unfortunately, Bowie’s long-term interest in the occult coincided with his growing use of cocaine, which developed into an obsession. According to the memoirs of his first wife, Angie,
At one point Bowie was becoming so paranoid that he had grown certain that Satan himself was living in his swimming pool. The addled rock star demanded an exorcism, which Angie helped to organize. Strangely, Angie claims that during the ritual, the pool did indeed
Bubble with no explanation, and a shadow in the shape of a demon was left on the bottom of the pool thereafter. She admits, however, that she too was taking cocaine at the time.
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