How This Rock Star Found Freedom in Christ
By Movieguide® Contributor
Shock rocker Alice Cooper explained how God transformed his life and has kept him in the music industry to impact millions of fans in an unexpected way.
Though he grew up in a Christian home, Vincent Damon Furnier — whose stage name is Alice Cooper — fell away from the faith when he began chasing fame. Though he was able to achieve his wildest dreams — a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, multiple rock music awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Furnier’s life remained empty.
He chased fulfillment through drugs and alcohol but was still left feeling empty. It wasn’t until Furnier returned to his Christian roots that he was able to fill that void in his chest and find peace in the Lord.
“[Jesus] is the core of everything,” Furnier told Greg Laurie, per Church Leaders. “He’s life itself. He’s the light. If we don’t all revolve around Christ, we’re way out in space somewhere.”
“It’s nothing you can explain in words. It’s something that happens to your heart, where all of a sudden you realize who this is, and you realize, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not worthy of this,’” he continued. “And yet, still being hung on the cross. He knew your name, He knew my name, and that made me go, ‘How can I not believe in this?’ It changes your heart.”
“If you don’t have the Lord in your life, you’re always going to be trying to fill that hole with something,” Furnier added. “It’s either gonna be drugs, or it’s gonna be Ferraris, or it’s gonna be houses or wives or this or that or fame.”
As Furnier found out for himself, those things are never enough. However, God can use those things — particularly fame — for His glory. Rather than bowing out of the music scene once he regained his faith, Furnier felt the Lord calling him to continue to make music, now infusing the Gospel with his iconic rock style.
“When I started proclaiming Christ, everybody thought, well, that’s the end of Alice Cooper. [But] we have never done better. I mean, on every level, since I have proclaimed Christ. It should have gone the other way. It should have absolutely ruined my career,” he said.
“I think God used my alcoholism and my drug addiction,” Furnier added. “I sit here and I go, I have no idea why you let me live, except for this fact that I can talk about it now, and I can give Him all the credit.”
When talking about giving his life to Christ in the past, Furnier explained why he believes it takes people so long to look to Christ to fill their emptiness, even when they grew up in the church and they already have a baseline knowledge of the Gospel.
“I think it’s because they don’t want to give up their godship,” he told Laurie in 2021. “They believe the Hollywood version of ‘Oh, I do more good than bad,’ that kind of thing. And I go, ‘Boy, Satan has you right where he wants you: To believe that.’”
“Because ‘I’m the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father but by Me,’ those are the truest words ever spoken,” Furnier added, quoting John 14:6. “How can you deny that? So far as I’m concerned, my life is based on that now. It’s not based on my rock and roll.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Although Rock star Alice Cooper is eccentric on stage, he credits his faith in God and the power of prayer for helping him stay sober.
Cooper, who married Sheryl Goddard in 1976, is also loyal to his family. The couple shares daughters Sonora and Calico and son Dashiell.
“My grandparents were married 76 years, my parents were married over 50 years, my wife’s parents were married over 50 years,” Cooper told Page Six. “To me when you got married, that was it. I always tell people don’t marry the person you love, marry the person you’re in love with, that means you would never do anything to hurt that person.”
However, Cooper struggled with addiction to alcohol and threatened to destroy their marriage. In November 1983, Goddard filed for divorce, but the couple reconciled about a year later.
Although Cooper’s alcoholism did not manifest itself with him getting angry or unable to complete his shows, it was killing him on the inside.
