10 Celebrities You Never Realized Had A Goth Phase
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Mar 31, 2025
From Mad Men's Christina Hendricks to the world's most famous country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift, these celebrities didn't always look the way they do now.
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What do Taylor Swift, Ivanka Trump, and Skrillex have in common
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They all went through major, awkward, cringe-inducing goth phases during their younger years
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And that's not even scratching the surface of celebrities who once donned black lipstick, spiky hair, and zippers
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So many zippers. Get ready to feel some major second-hand embarrassment as Rankworthy counts down the top 10 celebrities who went through goth phases
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as voted on by you, the viewer. Christina Hendricks is so synonymous with her role as everyone's favorite badass office manager
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Joan Harris, and AMC's Mad Men, that you basically can't imagine her in anything other than a 1960s style pencil skirt and blouse
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Which is why the image of her deep into her goth face is one of the most shocking on this list
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She revealed her high school proclivities for the goth aesthetic in a 2017 interview with Stephen Colbert
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complete with these embarrassing, but honestly, she's kind of pulling it off photos
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You might know her best as Dolores Abernathy, one of the rebellious host robots from HBO's hit science fiction series Westworld
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But long before that show was blowing your mind and making you question reality, Evan Rachel Wood was making us question her romantic choices when she dated the 36-year-old Marilyn Manson while she was only 18
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The romance only lasted a few months, but that was long enough for Wood to go through all the classic stages of a questionable goth phase
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Dark clothing? Check. Baby doll Lolita-inspired dresses? Double check. Deep sense of profound sadness present on her face in every photo taken of her during this period Check time a million Taylor Swift has reinvented herself many times throughout the years From storybook country up with some major twang in her vocals
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to larger-than-life pop megastar diva tropes from the likes of Katy Perry and Beyonce
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to outcast pop rebel borrowing sounds from EDM and hip-hop. But way back in 2006, she was just another average Joe with a MySpace full of 100 variations
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of the same exact selfie, complete with scene girl haircut and duck face lip pound
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We're just glad she wasn't actually making music during this time, because we're sure it probably wouldn't hold up as well as her existing catalog
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Long before she became known as the daughter of the President of the United States
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Ivanka Trump was raging against the machine with the best of us by going full goth and
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dyeing her hair blue. As she says in her mother's tell-all book, Raising Trump
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one day after school, I dyed my hair blue. Mom wasn't a fan of this decision
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she took one look at me and immediately went out to the nearest drugstore to buy a $10 box of Nice
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and Easy. That night, she forced me to dye my hair back to blonde. The color she picked out was
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actually three shades lighter than my natural color, and I have never looked back. Melissa
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McCarthy has made a career out of playing everyone's vision of exactly what it would be
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like if a Midwestern housewife fused with a foul-mouthed carnival worker. No matter what role
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she's playing, it's very hard to imagine her hanging out behind the bleachers at school wearing
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a leather jacket and listening to punk rock. But according to her, that's exactly what she did in her younger years
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As she told Kelly Ripa in a 2016 interview Somewhere around junior year I got really punk rock gothic and I dropped out of everything Much to my parents throw Leave these women alone Marilyn Manson
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Before Manson's 2007 relationship with Evan Rachel Wood, he was engaged to actress and model Rose McGowan in 1999
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The couple broke up two years later, but not before McGowan went full goth
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Yes, complete with a vacant, miserable, thousand-yard stare in every photo she took
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from 1997 to 2001. Taylor Momsen has had perhaps one of the most transformative careers out of any of these actresses, image-wise
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She first became known playing the adorable Cindy Lou Who in the 2000 Jim Carrey-led live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas remake
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Then she became a household name everywhere while playing Jenny Humphrey in the smash hit high school drama Gossip Girl
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After that, she basically dropped off the acting map, threw on approximately 300 pounds of eyeliner, and started a band called The Pretty Reckless in 2009
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And after a full decade, the goth phase is still going strong. Some younger viewers might only know Kelly Osbourne as a frequent host or judge on such shows as Fashion Police and Project Runway or as a somewhat successful pop singer
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But if you're over 25, you know that she started out as a star of the mother of all reality TV shows, The Osbournes
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Oh, and she's the daughter of heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne. While she morphed into a fashion authority with a unique and stylish quality to every outfit and look she adopts you could see her back in 2002 to 2005 in every episode of The Osbournes looking like the absolute picture of an angsty acne teenager knee in one of the most televised goth phases of all time
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You might not recognize Winona Ryder when she's not running across the expanses of the Upside
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Down, screaming for her son Will Byers. But before she played Joyce in the amazing Netflix
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nostalgia fest Stranger Things, she was a bit of a goth icon in the 80s and 90s. From Heathers
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to Beetlejuice to Edward Scissorhands, she basically starred in any movie that goths cared about during that time
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But in a stroke of art imitating life, or perhaps the other way around
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she also went through a pretty intense goth phase during those years as well. While you don't typically see Michael Keaton
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spotted in public wearing a black and white striped suit and face makeup, or Johnny Depp eating
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at a fancy restaurant with scissors strapped to his fingers, Ryder was typically spotted out on the town
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looking like one of the characters she played. Unofficially dubbed, pun 100% intended
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the godfather of dubstep, Skrillex has one of the most iconic looks of any celebrity ever
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His flaccid mohawk and Buddy Holly glasses combo could be spotted from a mile away
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and immediately draws to mind the whoobs and squawks that he summons with his keyboard and mouse
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We don't know how dubstep is made. But once upon a time, the sides of Skrillex's head weren't shaved
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and his computer-generated shrieks were replaced by angsty cries of loneliness. Before becoming DJ and producer Skrillex
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Sonny Moore was the lead singer for emo band from first to last. And, according to his MySpace selfies from the time period
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was also the poster child for the mid-2000s emo goth look
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