Emily Brown
Tattoo artist Kat Von D is asking people to pray for herself and her husband amid a surge of backlash over her decision to become a Christian.
The LA Ink star, whose real name is Katherine von Drachenberg, stunned fans when she announced her decision to align herself with God and get baptized after renouncing witchcraft.
She has since been candid about her faith, though she's been targeted by trolls criticizing her choice to embrace religion, or arguing that she doesn't 'look' Christian due to her fashion and style choices.
Kat opened up about the impact of such comments during an appearance on the Relatable podcast with Allie Beth Stuckey, where she explained that while her husband, musician Rafael Reyes, has supported her on her journey, he's not chosen to become a Christian himself.
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Kat shares her five-year-old son, Leafar Von Drachenberg Reyes, with Reyes.
"When we got together we were both not Christian," she said. "We got married and he's really helped me, without knowing, find my way. And he's not necessarily on the same page.
"In some ways he is - he's very supportive, we go to church together every Sunday; he always supports me, and we pray together."
She continued: "But there's part of [Reyes] that's still questioning, and after getting so much grief from people that spilled over into my husband. I remember the next morning, he was like, 'Babe, I don't want to be a part of that'."
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Kat described trying to 'lead by example' for her husband with the hope that 'one day, he can come to [her] and say, 'Hey, guess what? I've given my heart to Jesus''.
"That hasn't happened yet," Kat said.
However, the artist is conscious of the impact that trolls may have on her husband's faith, as she continued: "When you have an entire community of people attacking you - not to say that my husband's going to do something based on a comment on Instagram - but when it's getting amplified so much it turns people off."
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With that in mind, Kat asked people instead to share kind thoughts for the couple.
"If these people genuinely cared about me or my husband, instead of picking us apart or picking him apart, I would hope that you would just pray for us instead," she said.
"It's already hard enough in real life to live through a lot of this stuff."