Reality TV star Katherine von Drachenberg, known as Kat Von D, has announced her baptism as a Christian and denounced her previous reverence for the occult. The tattoo artist shared video clips of her baptism on Instagram, showing her in white robes and receiving a blessing from a Christian pastor. “I baptize you, my sister, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” said the pastor before briefly immersing von Drachenberg underwater.
Some of her Instagram followers, however, were not impressed with her new religious calling. One follower said, “Fine, but I’m not your fan anymore. Have a good life,” while another suggested she had made the wrong choice between God and Satan because God “gives kids cancer.”
Last July, von Drachenberg renounced witchcraft and the occult and began covering up some of the tattoos that cover her body and which she had drawn when she was drinking heavily and using drugs. The tattoos are now covered in black ink which covers most of one of her legs. She also began discarding books and occult paraphernalia such as tarot cards last year and urged her fans not to react negatively because she was in the midst of a “spiritual battle.”
The star wrote on Instagram that she had questioned her fascination with the macabre and wondered “What is my relationship with this?” She posted that she had gone through her library and “threw out books that just don’t align with who I am and who I want to be.”
Von Drachenberg is a Mexican immigrant who grew up in California with parents who were committed missionaries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She first discovered punk rock bands at the age of 12 and had her first tattoo at 14. She left school at 16 to be a tattoo artist and by 2007, had her own reality show on TLC that chronicled her work in a Los Angeles tattoo parlor.
