For years, a rumor has circulated online that the last words of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, were: "Oh my, oh my, what have I done! There's something very wrong, there's something very wrong, there's something very wrong!"
For example, one X post (archived) making the claim, dated May 16, 2024, had received around 1,300 reposts and 4,800 likes at the time of this writing. That post, which featured a black-and-white photo of LaVey holding a chalice, began:
Founder of the Church Of Satan, the famous satanist, Anton Szandor LaVey's last death bed words were, "Oh my, oh my, what have I done! There's something very wrong, there's something very wrong, there's something very wrong!"
(X account @OrthoMemeSquad)
However, there is no convincing evidence that LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan in 1966, ever said those words. For this reason, we have rated the claim as unfounded, meaning we found no credible evidence to support it.
Peter H. Gilmore, the current high priest of the Church of Satan, told us over email that the alleged quote was "utterly fictional" and did not emerge until "quite a while after" LaVey died from pulmonary edema in 1997.
Blanche Barton, LaVey's romantic partner at the time of his death and the mother of his son Xerxes, also confirmed that, to her knowledge, LaVey never said the alleged final words.
In an email to Snopes, Barton explained that she was with LaVey for much of the last day of his life. According to Barton, on the night leading up to his death LaVey, who had suffered from cardiac problems for years, complained of chest tightness before losing consciousness at the Black House, his home in San Francisco, around or shortly after midnight on Oct. 29, 1997.
Barton and Karla LaVey, LaVey's eldest daughter, then called an ambulance, which transported LaVey to San Francisco's St. Mary's Hospital. Barton said she agreed to have LaVey taken to that specific hospital, despite its Catholic affiliation, because of its reputation for treating coronary problems. At the hospital, Barton stayed in the hospital's waiting room while physicians attempted, and ultimately failed, to save LaVey's life.
Barton said that although she was not allowed at LaVey's bedside at the hospital, to her knowledge LaVey did not speak at all during his time there because he was unconscious:
As far as I know and I was told, Anton LaVey never regained consciousness after he collapsed in the Black House ... There were no last words, and no deathbed conversions.
History of the Claim
The claim about LaVey's final words has circulated in social media posts since at least 2011, when it appeared in an X post (archived). Over the following years, the alleged quote was repeated (archived) in numerous (archived) other posts on X (archived) and on Facebook (archived). The quote has also been the subject of multiple videos posted on YouTube and on TikTok.
@auntie_coolette Oh no! Oh no! What have i done!? There is something VERY WRONG! There is something VERY WRONG! There is something VERY WRONG! Famous last words of church of satan founder Anton LaVey moments before he passed. Hell is VERY REAL & its forever. I want to hang with you in Heaven SO BAD! Repent! Turn from sin! & give your life to yahweh and yeshua before it is too late #foryou #viral #tiktok #foryoupage #fypシ゚viral #goviral #trending #god #yahweh #jesus #yeshua #heaven #hell #antonlavey #satanist #satan #storytime #story #truestory #wow #share #friends #relatable #real #life #live #repent #sin #help #love #like #likes #follow #howto #tips #lifehacks #video #videoviral #evil #viraltiktok #scary #spooky #horror #demon #pain #hurt ♬ original sound — Colette Reynolds
To support the claim, some of the videos included excerpts of a video clip that has circulated online in various forms since at least 2008, the year it appeared to have been first uploaded (archived) to YouTube. The clip, which is embedded below, depicted a blond woman saying:
I heard that, and I won't mention his name, but it was a big leader and founder of a huge Satanic organization, and he was on his deathbed. For a Satanist, at the time of death, it's a great victory for them because death is a huge thing that they celebrate, and he was getting ready to die and pass on his powers, and on his deathbed he must have got some revelation or an angelic appearance or something, and he went into shock and he said: "Oh my, oh my, what have I done?" He said, "There's something very wrong, there's something very wrong, there's something very wrong."
The woman in the clip was the nondenominational Christian minister Patricia King,
Hotchkin also reported that King told him she "does remember hearing from someone back in the day about Anton LaVey's last words, but all these years (and hundreds of programs, guests, topics, facts, etc.) later she does not remember who told her that story."
The Church of Satan has previously addressed similar claims about LaVey's final moments. For example, in response to a 2019 X post (archived) claiming LaVey's last words were "I was wrong with what I did in this life," the Church of Satan's official X account posted (archived):
This is a rumor started almost a decade after his death by a Christian on YouTube. The fact is that he died in a hospital of pulmonary edema, which means his lungs were full of fluid, rendering him unable to speak.
Hilariously, this makes morons spreading nonsense obvious.
Similarly, in a section of the Church of Satan's website devoted to debunking widespread misinformation about LaVey, an entry addressed claims that "Anton LaVey had a deathbed conversion to Christianity." That entry stated:
While Anton Szandor LaVey died in a Roman Catholic hospital, to which he had been taken as it was near his Black House, he passed away without in any way denying his philosophy as a Satanist. Jesus was always a repulsive myth to him. This falsehood was begun and is currently spread by evangelical Christians, none of whom knew him nor were they present for his passing. As per his wishes, he was given a Satanic funeral and his remains were then cremated. Anton LaVey died as he lived, as a Satanist.
In summary, Gilmore, the current high priest of the Church of Satan, described the alleged quote as "utterly fictional," which Barton, LaVey's romantic partner, confirmed based on her experience of the hours leading up to LaVey's death. A representative for King, the Christian minister who popularized the quote in a clip from one of her television shows, told us she was unable to identify a credible source for the quote.
Therefore, we have rated the claim that LaVey's final words were "Oh my, oh my, what have I done! There's something very wrong, there's something very wrong, there's something very wrong!" as unfounded, meaning we investigated the claim and found no credible evidence to support it.
Previously, Snopes investigated the alleged final words of Leonardo da Vinci and Abraham Lincoln.