Kenneth Anger - Personal Life

Personal Life

"If you are a member of the media, you belong to the public. You've made that Faustian bargain with your public. Take me – all of me – I'm yours."

Anger has always been an "extremely private individual," although has given various interviews over the years, with one interviewer, David Wingrove, describing him in 2008 as "a joy. Gentle, soft-spoken, immaculately tanned, he looks a good two decades younger than his 78 years". In such interviews, he refuses to disclose information on his name change from Anglemeyer to Anger, telling an interviewer who brought the topic up in 2004 that "You're being impertinent. It says Anger on my passport, that's all you need to know. I would stay away from that subject if I was you." In a 2010 interview however he stated that "I just condensed my name. I knew it would be like a label, a logo. It's easy to remember." Anger is openly gay, with one of his friends describing how he "was attracted to people who were either well endowed or the Arnold Schwarzenegger type." He once joked that he was "somewhat to the right of the KKK" in his views about black people, opening him up to criticism for racism. He is a passionate supporter of the Tibetan independence movement.

Anger is a Thelemite and after many years joined the main Thelemic organisation, the Ordo Templi Orientis. He viewed many of the men he associated with as living embodiments of Lucifer, a symbol of the Aeon of Horus in Thelemic philosophy. Anger has the name of Lucifer tattooed onto his chest, which he identifies as being his own. Despite being a Thelemite, Anger has shown an interest in various other religious movements, particularly those that are in some way occult. For instance, he was a lifelong friend of Anton LaVey, both before and after the founding of the Church of Satan in the 1960s, and lived with LaVey and his family during the 1980s. LaVey also made an appearance in one of Anger's films, Invocation to My Demon Brother (1969) as a devilish priest. Anger describes himself as a "pagan" and refuses to consider himself to be a Satanist. He also claims Wicca to be a "lunar", feminine religion, contrasted with the "solar" masculinity of Thelema.