Kat Von D is breaking her silence on how she became a Christian and her journey of leaving behind alcoholism, throwing away occult books and her baptism that left the entire world in awestruck.
On the Relatable podcast with Allie Beth Stuckey, Von D explained that she grew up learning about God, but that the concepts of Christianity didn’t stick with her.
“I ended up straying,” Von D says. “I ended up like being a pretty wild teenager and leaving home at the age of 14 running away and putting my parents through a literal hell that I have made amends for now…I had a lot of questions as a kid and I don’t think my parents were equipped with the answers.”
Von D shares how as she strayed away from God, she found herself deep into alcoholism while simultaneously discovering that she wasn’t just a good tattoo artist, but that she was good enough to end up on reality TV.
“I started drinking not for fun. [It was] to cope with some of the trauma, and I didn’t understand that was like kind of the beginning of my addiction. I came back home and tried to work it out, it didn’t really work out. At that point my parents and I agreed this isn’t good for any of us, you should probably go on your own…then I fell in love with tattooing, you know I really saw that as a calling,” Von D says. “From there I just got on TV.”
As Von D reached for sobriety, she may have found her battle with alcoholism waning, however, she was still on a path of self-help and new age discovery.
“That’s when I started getting into a lot of the new age stuff, like a lot of self-help books you, that’s kind of that was kind of like the gateway into like law of attraction type stuff…into meditation, a lot of meditation.”
Eventually, Von D threw out her occult books because of the clutches it kept her in and turned her eyes toward God.
“I don’t want these crutches in my life anymore,” Von D explains. “I just want Jesus and it’s a very narrow road…all these things it’s like they’re crutches; they’re not really like my answer, and so for me I would rather eliminate any distractions.”
Von D shared that it was during the 2020 lockdowns that she really started to question what she believed about an array of topics. It started off with her husband pointing out that some of their political views may not have matched up with the reality of what was going on. This led Von D to reflect on her political and eventually her spiritual beliefs.
“I started just kind of like re-evaluating, kind of going down the list of what I’m doing with my life and like what my perspectives are, and then it got to the part of like my spirituality and that’s where I started really re-thinking a lot of things.” Von D shares.
Von D says that she and her family watched online sermons and her hunger for Scripture grew more and more.
“I just desired more and more and more, and so I just started studying the Bible,” Von D says. For her, learning about Jesus as an adult has been exceptionally meaningful for her relationship with Jesus.
Her newfound faith led Von D to desire a public display of her faith by getting baptized and having it recorded. However, she’s received backlash from anything from being accused of not being genuine to her hand not being fully submerged in the water. Yet, Von D expected the criticism and is still continually seeking to grow her faith.
“When you start looking at like, there’ so much evidence that it’s so undeniable, I mean it’s so cool…this isn’t just about blind faith…no there’s like actual evidence and information that’s like so exciting and inspiring.”
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator for Charisma Media.
