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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Peony Hirwani

What the Church of Satan made of Sam Smith’s ‘Unholy’ Grammys performance

Getty Images for The Recording A

The Church of Satan is not particularly impressed with Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s 2023 Grammys performance.

On Sunday (5 February), Smith and Petras, both 30, performed a live rendition of their award-winning single “Unholy”.

During the performance, the stage was lit up with red lighting and pyrotechnics while dancers performed in metal cages. Smith was seen wearing a hat with horns.

David Harris, a magister of the Church of Satan, told TMZ that Smith and Petras’s performance was “all right” and “nothing particularly special”.

Earlier this week, other conspiracy theorists and conservatives expressed fears that Smith and Petras’s performance at the Grammy Awards was a part of a “satanic ritual”.

Republican senator Ted Cruz retweeted quote tweets branding Smith’s performance as “satanic”.

“This is... evil,” he commented on his retweet of a post by conservative commentator Liz Wheeler, in which she wrote: “Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.”

Right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh said: “It’s not surprising to see a satanic ritual at the Grammys.

(Getty Images for The Recording A)

“Satanism is the worship of the self. Much of modern pop music is satanic in this sense. Leftism is satanism. The only change is that now they’re being more explicit about it.”

Elon Musk also commented on Smith and Petras’s performance, calling it “end of days vibes”.

“If that’s satan, we have nothing to worry about,” he wrote in a tweet.

Host Trevor Noah preempted the uproar over Smith and Petras’s performance when he pretended to take a call from his mother.

“No mum, it wasn’t the actual devil... Yeah, you did warn me about Hollywood,” he said while sitting next to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.

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