Perhaps the most controversial metal shirt of all time is Cradle of Filth's classic "Jesus Is A Cunt" t-shirt. In case you never saw it:
The iconic design has landed many metalheads in trouble for wearing it in public, as recently as February of this year, but how did it all start? Rolling Stone just posted a surprisingly thorough report on the origin of the shirt idea. As frontman Dani Filth stated, it all started as a goof:
As with so many iconic rock & roll creations, the Cradle T-shirt essentially began as a lark. "It was all very silly, I suppose," Filth recalls. "It was 1993, and we were about to go on tour with [Norwegian black-metal band] Emperor. We had a different T-shirt at the time – it had a picture of my wife, who was all done up in black metal regalia, and it said 'The Black Goddess Rises' on it. We needed to get a new shirt done quickly for the tour; we'd already come up with the 'Vestal masturbation' image and phrase, but we still needed a back print for it."
During the brainstorming session for the shirt, someone – Filth says he doesn't remember who – uttered the immortal phrase, triggering howls of mirth from the band. "We all were laughing about it, like, 'Oh my god, that's so anarchic – can you imagine that on a T-shirt?' We looked at each other conspiratorially, like, 'Shall we?' And yeah, we did it. Even at the time, we thought, 'Well, this is pushing the boundaries a little bit.'"
Dani went on to say the band had trouble finding any shirt printers willing to go through with printing the design. Eventually, they did and the rest is history. The article goes through all the legal troubles fans have gotten into and then asks Filth if he thinks people should be wearing the shirt in public. His answer may surprise you:
"I'd have to be an idiot to think that the shirt wasn't offensive," he says. "It's a dangerous T-shirt to wear, full-stop. Personally, I wouldn't walk around in it now – I mean, I'm 41 years old! I did walk around in it back in the day, but people don't understand that there's a time and a place for this sort of thing. Going to a gig? No problem. But some of these people are all like, 'I don't understand, I was in a mall and got arrested for wearing it!' It's just poor judgment on their part, really."
Lesson here: Don't wear Cradle shirts in public!
