Celebrities Who've Practiced Witchcraft

It must be the season of the witch in Hollywood. A growing number of celebrities have become open books when it comes to their interest in spell books, candle magic, astrology, hexes, holistic medicine, and other practices associated with witchcraft. Esoteric beliefs have also taken over social media; on "WitchTok," videos abound of witches expounding on the properties of various crystals and herbs, demonstrating how to perform cleansing rituals, and chronicling their Samhain prep. Many budding witches are also finding kinship with fellow believers and forming covens.

Hocus pocus might be hip now, but before Stevie Nicks played a witchy version of herself on "American Horror Story: Coven," the celebrated Fleetwood Mac singer found herself having to respond to criticism from Christian leaders who believed that she was an actual witch. "I can't believe people are still telling me I'm a witch because I wear black," she said in 1998, per AP. (Or perhaps listeners were just that spellbound by her mystical music.) She was responding to a report that a Presbyterian Church had banned students from playing "Landslide" because church officials believed her to be one of the devil's devotees.

But for many celebs, witchcraft isn't satanic; it's a divine sisterhood, a way to commune with nature, and/or a spiritual method of manifestation. So burn some soothing incense, brew up a cup of your favorite herbal tea, and read on to learn about the stars who might feel a special affinity with the moon and stars.

Grimes seems like she's more into sci-fi and futuristic tech than the arcane, archaic ways of the witch; she did have children with Elon Musk that the now-exes named X Æ A-Xii and Exa Dark Sideræl Musk. But some of her songs have witchy titles like "Flesh without Blood," "Dream Fortress," and "Crystal Ball." The synth-pop artist also told Fader that she experimented with witchcraft when she was in seventh grade and had an experience straight out of a horror movie. "I was casting a spell, but the rosary crumbled in my hands, and it was really scary," she recalled. However, this didn't make her swear off spell-casting forever. "I have performed many spells," She told Dazed in 2019. "Most recently I performed a spell to save the life of someone important to me and it dramatically worked." 

"Which Witch" singer Florence Welch also dabbled in witchcraft when she was a middle-schooler, telling Vice that she and some friends formed their own coven. "One time, I tried to make one of my classmates fall in love with me so me and my coven put his name in a bottle, and the rule was that there had to be a drop of blood and ... well, I don't know if it ever worked," she recalled. The Florence + the Machine frontwoman said songs are like spells to her, and her success became obvious when she decided to start making musical magick instead. 

Does quarterback Tom Brady have his ex Gisele Bündchen to thank for his long, successful NFL career? In a 2019 interview with CBS News Boston, Brady shared his belief that some of the superstitious supermodel's rituals and talismans contributed to his big wins on the field. "[She] always makes a little altar for me at the game because she just wills it so much," he said. "And 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,'" he recalled.

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. "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 former Victoria's Secret model told Vanity Fair in 2023.

In a 2016 video, Azealia Banks explained what her Instagram followers were seeing with some words that would've made a pretty fire song title: "Real witches do real things." However, the video's setting alarmed many viewers. She was in a room with what appeared to be the remains of sacrificed chickens on the floor, and the walls were splattered with a dark substance that was presumably blood. Before cleaning the room, Banks revealed that she'd been performing witchcraft there for years. "People are rightly horrified to learn that Azealia Banks reportedly has been slaughtering chickens in her closet," PETA later said in a statement to People.

Banks practices the Afro-Cuban religion Palo Mayombe. Its adherents are big believers in using rituals and spells to influence their lives, per The Bronx Journal. But in 2023, Banks told Dazed that this wasn't the religion's main draw for her. "This is where I've found identity. This is where I've found comfort. This is who has been watching over me my entire life," she said.

According to Banks, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was convinced that she knew what she was doing when it came to her witchcraft. In 2018, she told Business Insider that he asked her to create a protective amulet for him using hair from his beard after ISIS threatened his life. Banks said Dorsey was supposed to promote her music in exchange for her services but did not. "He will pay for that," she warned. 

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 and used a totally legal method to influence the presidential race. "We sent Barack Obama positive energies, so that he would become the next president. I always liked magic," she told MSN (via Digital Spy) in 2009. "Now when I see Obama's picture in the paper, I feel good."

Graham told Well + Good that she and her close-knit coven members met in a female empowerment class, and they devised their own mystical methods of uplifting each other. "A few of them read witchcraft books, so we came up with some fun rituals," she said. Per NewsHub, she believes that their rituals are responsible for starting a storm and helping a pal get an apartment. Their considerable power even helped Graham manifest herself a boyfriend. "We burn things ... We did this thing where we were honoring the elements of earth, wind, air, and fire," she said. The women called themselves "The Goddesses."

When Graham wrote, directed, and starred in the 2018 rom-com "Half Magic," she used her goddess group experiences for inspiration, even recreating that storm that they conjured for one scene. She had shared her aspiration to be a filmmaker during their gatherings, so clearly girls really could run the world if they just pooled all their positive energy together.

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. "A lot of practices of Regla de Ocha come with mediumship, clairvoyance, and healing abilities," Nokia told Fader.

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," she said. "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." Nokia's mother also shaped her daughter's beliefs in a big way while she was still alive. "She left me tokens of mermaids everywhere in my room," Nokia revealed. She explained the significance of these mementos, saying, "My orisha is Yemaya, the depiction of a motherly mermaid."

Of her mother, who died from AIDS when Nokia was 10, the rapper also said, "She was a very special woman, and a gifted witch." Nokia told Vogue that she, too, is a witch who possesses her own gift of clairvoyance. She celebrated her beliefs in the 2016 song "Brujas," which is Spanish for "Witchcraft."

Those who didn't get a Hogwarts invitation don't need to rely on J.K. Rowling's imagination if they're looking to immerse themselves in the world of witchcraft. And who needs the division that a sorting hat creates, anyway? In 2020, "Somebody I F***ed Once" singer Zolita, who is Wiccan and queer, spoke to Gay Times about her inclusive religion. "I feel like queer people are so drawn to Wicca and witchcraft because it's always been the alternative religion," she said. "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. "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," she told Out. "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. "I practice magic in my daily life as a form of self-empowerment. I definitely incorporate my experience with that into my music," she told Gay Times. So, we'll just pretend that her songs are spells that bestow some of that magic on us each time we listen to them.

Double, double the toil and trouble is all anyone got who attended the doomed Fyre Festival in 2017. Those who purchased pricey tickets for the music festival 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. "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," he said. (We like to imagine him working the words, "Say it ain't so, I will not go. Turn the lights off," into his spoiling spell.)

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. "I used my witchy ways and it seemed to work," Skiba said of the festival's failure to deliver what it promised. "I'll take responsibility and everyone can blame me. Shazam."

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. "I'm not a Wiccan. I'm just into dealing with the universe in a different way," she told Marie Claire. "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. "I have a dagger — but I don't need it that much," she added. 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. (April Ludgate would be so disappointed with her for not giving in to her inner Slytherin.)

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. "I told everyone to stand in a circle and hold hands in her backyard and then I went up on her balcony," she recalled to Cosmopolitan. "I did a Moon spell — I think it was a Full Moon — to empower us and harness our energy." Can we please join this coven?