Doomed concerts, bound presidents, and a spell for every occasion.
If you think Hollywood’s magic rituals end when the cameras stop rolling, you haven’t
seen these witchy celebs.
"Watch out for those weirdos."
"We are the weirdos, mister."
Megan Fox caused quite a stir in 2022 when she told Glamour UK that she and her "twin
flame," Machine Gun Kelly, drink each other's blood.
"It's just a few drops, but yes, we do consume each other's blood on occasion for ritual
purposes."
Like many modern witches, Fox is also into meditation, astrology, and tarot card readings,
revealing:
"I do rituals on new moons and full moons, and all these things."
She's even shared an Instagram photo of some of her witchy reading material, "Moon Spells"
by Diane Ahlquist.
But what made Fox forcefully declare her witchhood to the world was a tweet from Republican politician
Robby Starbuck, who concocted a story about witnessing her sons have a breakdown because
Fox forced them "to wear girls clothes."
Fox fired back on Instagram:
"Exploiting my child's gender identity to gain attention in your political campaign
has put you on the wrong side of the universe.
I have been burned at the stake by insecure, narcissistic, impotent, little men like you
many times, and yet I'm still here.
You f---ed with the wrong witch."
"High School Musical" star Vanessa Hudgens told Nylon that her belief in the paranormal
served as a stepping stone on her journey to becoming a practitioner of The Craft.
She said:
"I've always been drawn towards the darkness and the unknown, as well as herbalism ever
since I was a kid.
And nature."
But someone else saw Hudgens' magical potential before she did.
Hudgens recalled to InStyle:
"The makeup artist I was working with comes from a long lineage of witches and she had
brought something up about being a witch and about me being a witch."
Hudgens embraced this revelation wholeheartedly, and she invited her fans to join her as she
learned more about witchcraft and the supernatural.
In Tubi's "Dead Hot: Season of the Witch," Hudgens and her friend GG Magree visit Salem,
Massachusetts, to meet with other witches, learn about their history, and see if they
can connect to the spirit realm.
Hudgens told Nylon that she's seen ghosts, quote, "for as long as I can remember."
Now, she embraces this mystical ability as part of her identity as a witch.
While explaining why she filmed "Dead Hot," Hudgens told Today that being a witch isn't
just about trying to commune with spirits or cast successful spells:
"I want to take away the (stigma) of witchcraft being something evil.
It's beautiful, it's empowering.
It's about sisterhood and lifting other women up."
"It's about like, exploring your spirituality, and like, what does it mean to be a woman
in these days?"
Does quarterback Tom Brady have his ex Gisele Bündchen to thank for his long, successful
NFL career?
At a 2019 charity event, Brady shared his belief that some of the superstitious supermodel's
rituals and talismans contributed to his big wins on the field, saying:
"She always makes a little altar for me at the game because she just wills it so much."
"I have these little special stones and healing stones and protection stones and she has me
wear a necklace and take these drops she makes."
He also said that Bündchen is a big believer in manifestation, and this spiritual method
of achieving a desired goal using intention, energy, focus, and devotion is popular among
witchcraft practitioners.
According to Brady, listening to Bündchen's guidance helped him win the Super Bowl that
year.
"She said, 'You're lucky you married a witch — I'm just a good witch.'"
Brady lost his spiritual guide in 2022 when he and Bündchen got divorced.
Ahead of their split announcement, Bündchen's embrace of popular New Age wellness practices
garnered attention again when she was photographed having a holistic healer cleanse her car with
burning sage.
Bündchen told Vanity Fair in 2023:
"If you want to call me a witch because I love astrology, I love crystals, I pray, I
believe in the power of nature, then go ahead."
The 1996 movie "The Craft" served as the goth awakening for many teens.
It also inspired an urban legend that one of its actors, Fairuza Balk, was pagan and
a real-life practitioner of the occult arts depicted in the film.
She set the record straight in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly, but her co-star
Rachel True has confessed to possessing some witchy beliefs and abilities.
"Blessed be."
Long before she was cast as a teen witch who gets some righteous revenge, True felt called
to study the tarot.
She told Dazed Beauty in 2019:
"The first time I saw a tarot deck, a Rider Waite-Smith deck, it seemed the pictures were
speaking, asking me to reveal their story.
I was eight years old."
She dedicated herself to mastering that particular craft, and her natural affinity for it would
later help her land a job doing readings at the House of Intuition in Los Angeles.
She's actually evolved beyond needing card decks for her readings but hasn't stopped
using them.
She revealed:
"They've been a tremendous tool in helping me open up my intuition."
True is also a believer in the power of crystals, telling Lenny that she's pretty certain that
she had some in her pocket when she auditioned for "The Craft."
But for her, manifestation is one of the most powerful forms of magic.
She said:
"When the script came up, I definitely put a lot of mental energy into it."
In 2017, "Season of the Witch" singer Lana Del Rey confirmed that she tried to perform
some hocus pocus on a former POTUS.
She tweeted a short list of dates that are significant to witches who understand moon
magic and perform rituals during the different lunar phases.
She also wrote:
"Ingredients can b found online."
A rep for the singer later told Pitchfork that the cryptic tweet was about the monthly
efforts of a large group of witches from all around the globe to "bind" then-president
Donald Trump by performing the same spell at the same time.
One crucial component of the spell, per Medium, was a stubby orange candle.
While speaking to NME about her involvement in the mass spell casting, Del Rey shared
her views on witchcraft:
"Your thoughts are very powerful things and they become words, and words become actions,
and actions lead to physical charges.
I really do believe that words are one of the last forms of magic and I'm a bit of a
mystic at heart."
Barack Obama can boast that he bagged the magical backing of "Boogie Nights" star Heather
Graham.
During Obama's first White House bid, Graham and some gal pals gathered together to influence
the presidential race.
She told MSN in 2009:
"We sent Barack Obama positive energies, so that he would become the next president.
I always liked magic.
Now when I see Obama's picture in the paper, I feel good."
Graham told Well + Good that she and her close-knit "goddess circle" met in a female empowerment
class, and they devised their own mystical methods of uplifting each other.
She explained:
"A few of them read witchcraft books, so we came up with some fun rituals."
Graham said the group would light candles and work together to manifest things they
wanted in their lives:
"We wished for things like love, money, hot sex, meaningful work, better self-esteem,
and more gratitude."
"I am going to, I don't know, I'm going to call on the earth and… is that really dorky?"
When Graham wrote, directed, and starred in the 2018 rom-com "Half Magic," she used her
goddess circle experiences for inspiration, even recreating a storm she believes they
conjured for one scene.
For all of Donald Trump's crying "witch hunt," it was the woman who played a role in the
ex-president's first indictment, his hush payment payee Stormy Daniels, who was actually
attacked in court for being a witch.
In 2021, Daniels' former attorney, Michael Avenatti, went on trial for embezzling almost
$300,000 from her.
He attempted to prevent Daniels from testifying against him by bringing up her belief in the
supernatural, specifically listing instances where she claimed that ghosts made her cut
herself and caused her boyfriend to attack her.
In a legal filing, Avenatti also argued that her paranormal professions damaged her credibility.
It read, in part:
"She is a 'witch' who practices witchcraft and can rid people of spirits (a 'service'
for which she charges), and she possesses supernatural powers that allow her to serve
as a 'medium' to the dead and conduct 'paranormal investigations.'"
In response to the move, Daniels wrote on Facebook:
"This is LITERALLY a modern-day witch hunt."
Avenatti later grilled Daniels over her beliefs in court for five hours, but his ploy didn't
work and he was found guilty of defrauding his former client.
Daniels also does oracle card readings, and when New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi
asked her to do one about Trump in April 2023, what Daniels saw was ominous.
She said:
"It's not good.
To me, this is the perfect combination for a riot or civil war."
Puerto Rican rapper Princess Nokia comes from a long line of witches who practice Regla
de Ocha, or Santería.
It's an Afro-Cuban religion that originated in West Africa, and it has a rich history
steeped in ancestral connections.
Devotees possess a feeling of kinship with divine, saint-like spirits known as orishas
— and believers can have some witchy talents as well.
Nokia told Fader in 2016:
"A lot of practices of Regla de Ocha come with mediumship, clairvoyance, and healing
abilities."
Nokia said her mother, who died from AIDS when she was 10, was "a gifted witch."
According to the singer, deceased loved ones are worshiped like deities:
"In our culture, we learn that the eggun — our ancestor spirit — is always around us.
[...] My mother and grandmother both died when I was a child, but because they were
proprietors, their egguns were so strong, and they've always been able to guide me."
But Nokia's mother also shaped her beliefs in a big way while she was still alive.
Nokia revealed that her mother would leave mermaid tokens in her room.
She explained their significance by saying:
"She wanted me to know that I was a child of the ocean.
[...] She left the mermaid tokens so I could understand who I was, who my mother was, who
her mother was, and therefore never be lost in this world."
Nokia told Vogue in 2017 that she, too, is a witch who possesses her own gift of clairvoyance.
While we'd love to see what would happen if Bravo ever discovered a real housewife with
"Bewitched"-level witchy powers, we had to settle for Carlton Gebbia, who joined "The
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" cast in 2013.
Gebbia didn't use telekinesis to flip any tables, but she was a real-life witch.
In a 2013 interview with Bravo, she said:
"If you're going to put a word on it, I would be considered a Celtic pagan witch."
Gebbia revealed that she performs her own individualized form of witchcraft, saying
that her influences include her grandmother's teachings.
She shared:
"I use crystals, candles, some herbs and I recognize holy days.
I use the moon a lot."
While she insisted that she only practices good magic, some of her castmates were convinced
that she was using her powers against them.
Kyle Richards suggested that Gebbia possibly cursed her computer screensaver by replacing
a family photo with words such as "travesty" and "bigot."
"You know what?
You're a phony and you're full of s---."
"No, you're a phony, and you're full of s---."
And after an argument over the efficacy of spells, Joyce Giraud reminded her Twitter
followers that she was concerned about Gebbia being around her children.
Gebbia fired back, calling Giraud an "ignorant dimwit" and "the reason there was the Salem
Witch [Trials]."
In 2020, "Somebody I F---ed Once" singer Zolita, who is Wiccan and queer, spoke to Gay Times
about her inclusive religion, and said:
"I feel like queer people are so drawn to Wicca and witchcraft because it's always been
the alternative religion.
It puts the power in yourself, and it's not historically been a religion that doesn't
like queer people."
Zolita often references witchcraft in her songs, and the music video for "Fight Like
a Girl" features a coven of fierce witches.
She also makes sure that the LGBTQ+ community is well-represented in her work.
She told Out in 2017:
"Goldie Luxe for example, the first woman in the video, is an incredible trans pop artist
who I became friends with in my female cultural rebels class.
[...] Iman, the woman in the long red dress, is this incredible Egyptian witch and trans
icon."
Zolita's music and her religion have something in common besides being welcoming to all.
She told Gay Times:
"I practice magic in my daily life as a form of self-empowerment.
I definitely incorporate my experience with that into my music."
We'll just pretend that her songs are spells that bestow some of that magic on us each
time we listen to them.
Soap opera fans are used to far-fetched plots, but "Emmerdale" star Samantha Giles' real-life
love story probably wouldn't make it out of a writers' room.
Giles is Wiccan, and in a 2023 interview with the Mirror, the British actor revealed that
she believes a love spell helped her find her husband, Sean Pritchard.
Of course, it probably didn't hurt that he also works in the entertainment industry as
a production manager.
According to Giles:
"I wrote down exactly what I was after.
Then I met Sean and he was exactly what I had written.
It's as if he appeared by magic!"
"The ritual is part of cementing kind of what you are asking for, what you are hoping to
achieve, or to manifest in life."
Giles kindly spreads the witchy wealth, using her magic to play matchmaker for others in
need of love.
She even bragged to Woman's Own in 2016 about helping four women in "Emmerdale's" makeup
department with her spells.
Giles says she only practices "white magic," so if one of her love spells were to wear
off, she's not going to hex anyone's ex.
During a 2017 "Lorraine" interview, she explained:
"You can't do anything bad, because it comes back on yourself threefold."
If love spells worked the same way, that would make for a rather entertaining soap opera
storyline.
Those who purchased pricey tickets for the doomed Fyre Festival in 2017 thought that
they were going to party in paradise alongside their favorite celebrities and influencers
while getting the VIP treatment.
But when they jetted out to the Bahamas for the event, they found themselves hungry, miserable,
and in a hurry to go home.
Blink-182 was one of the acts that canceled their performance at the Fyre Festival, and
guitarist Matt Skiba told NME that his witch's intuition warned him that the event was going
to be a disaster, saying:
"I consider myself a pagan and a witch.
With every inch of my energy I wanted Fyre not to happen.
I put all the electricity and energy in my body against that thing happening."
Skiba also shared that it didn't sit right with him that the event's elite attendees
were going to be living it up on the island while its many impoverished residents got
no benefit from the rowdy revelers' presence.
He said of the festival's failure to deliver what it promised:
"I used my witchy ways and it seemed to work.
I'll take responsibility and everyone can blame me.
Shazam."
Indie folk phenom Phoebe Bridgers told NPR that she's had more than one interesting conversation
with the holistic nutritionist who inspired the "Garden Song" lyric, "She told me my resentment's
getting smaller."
The singer recalled:
"She also told me I can't be a witch because I was a witch in a past life."
This didn't stop Bridgers from dabbling in witchcraft.
She said on the "Your Magic" podcast that her first attempt at forming a coven in grade
school was bizarre.
She recalled:
"My friends and I [...] would pour out all our milk at school into like a big bowl and
then get like weird plants.
And then we'd all have to drink it like some weird cult."
Bridgers eventually gave up on trying to practice milk magic and grew out of her dream of being
a Hogwarts Express passenger.
But when she got older, all it took was one pal expressing a passion for tarot readings
and astrology to draw Bridgers right back in.
She said:
"I'll get the coven together and light a bunch of candles and have like snacks like a suburban
mother and then we sit around and talk about our feelings.
It's great."
The singer kind of does her own thing when it comes to practicing witchcraft, whether
it's burning candles at an altar or catching leaves outside.
But she knows what type of witch she is:
"I would probably pick hedge witch because it's the most solitary, right?"
Some who heed the calling of The Craft prefer to completely throw out the spell book.
Take "The White Lotus" star Aubrey Plaza, for example.
She told Marie Claire in 2013:
"I'm not a Wiccan.
I'm just into dealing with the universe in a different way.
I call them spells, but they're not spells in the way people think.
I love smoking out negative energy."
While she does possess sage and crystals, she mixes her magic potions inside a chalice
instead of a cauldron, adding:
"I have a dagger — but I don't need it that much."
Plaza did not elaborate on what the weapon is for, but she did say that she tries to
avoid losing her temper and accidentally cursing someone.
"Oh!
Oh my gosh!"
"I didn't even do anything, the voodoo doll is reading my thoughts."
Plaza's DIY magic was put to the test when her "Parks and Recreation" co-star Megan Mullally
invited her and a group of women that also included Amy Poehler and Kathy Griffin over
for a gals-only gathering.
Plaza was asked to perform a spell, so she came up with one on the fly.
She recalled to Cosmopolitan:
"I told everyone to stand in a circle and hold hands in her backyard and then I went
up on her balcony.
[...] I did a Moon spell — I think it was a Full Moon — to empower us and harness
our energy."