Doja Cat’s ‘Demons’ Video Starring Christina Ricci is a Stunning Macabre Flex
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Doja Cat has been unleashing her demons all summer.
The Grammy-winning artist released the third single from her forthcoming Scarlet album on Friday, and brought in Nineties scream queen Christina Ricci to help usher in the accompanying music video.
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Like Doja’s recent work, the visual for “Demons” is a stunning flex of macabre with homages to 1982’s Poltergeist and that one unforgettable, truly terrifying bathtub scene from The Shining. Ricci — who’s played Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, Katrina van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow, and more recently, Samantha Hanratty in Yellowjackets and Wednesday‘s Marilyn Thornhill — resumes the role of the hapless new homeowner that finds out her new digs are haunted by a demonic and bejeweled Doja.
“I’m a puppet, I’m a sheep, I’m a cash cow/I’m the fastest-growing bitch on all your apps now,” raps Doja on the heavy-hitting verse. “You are tired of me ’cause I’m on your ass now/You are mad at me ’cause I am all they slap now.”
The rapper teased the track on Wednesday with a trailer narrated by a voice rivaling Donald LeRoi LaFontaine’s that promised “a haunting tale from the twisted minds of Doja Cat and Christian Breslauer.”
Earlier this week, Doja Cat confirmed the release date for her highly-anticipated new record Scarlet, arriving Sept. 22. The follow-up to her blockbuster 2021 project Planet Her also debuted new cover art featuring a dangling spider staring down a drop of blood. The image was soon taken down, however, after similarities were made to another cover by German metal band Chaver, which also pictured a spider, was designed by the Portland artist Dusty Ray, and shared the same released date. The following day, Doja unveiled a second cover — this time of a gouache watercolor painting of two arachnids.
“Demon” follows scorching single “Attention” and “Paint the Town Red,” whose video literally follows Doja to hell. Both tracks have hit the Billboard Hot 100.
In July, large swaths of fans unfollowed Doja on her various social media after the artist refused to express a devotion to them that didn’t feel true to her. While her previous followers thought the mass exodus would register as a big enough threat for her to have a change of heart, instead, she expressed relief.
“Seeing all these people unfollow me makes me feel like I’ve defeated a large beast that’s been holding me down for so long,” she wrote on her Instagram Story the following month. “It feels like I can reconnect with the people who really matter and love me for who I am and not for who I was. I feel free.”
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