Sid Wilson has reportedly been permanently removed from Slipknot after 28 years.
Wilson — turntablist, keyboardist, the member designated #0 — joined in 1998 and was reportedly informed late on Friday afternoon that the decision is final. No reason has been given. Neither Wilson nor the band has commented.
Update, August 4: a reported reason, and Kelly Osbourne
Two things have happened since, and neither has been confirmed by Slipknot or by Wilson, who have both said nothing throughout.
A reported reason. TMZ, citing sources close to Wilson, reports that the removal was "a long time coming — not some abrupt decision made in the heat of the moment," and that it followed the band having "had enough of Sid's behaviour, namely, the way he treated his bandmates."
That is an anonymous characterisation of a private dispute, sourced to people around one party. It is not a finding, and no specific conduct has been described. Wilson has not responded to it.
Kelly Osbourne. Wilson's ex-fiancée — they became engaged in July 2025 backstage at her father Ozzy's retirement show in Birmingham, separated in March, and share a three-year-old son, Sidney — has posted a series of accusations to her Instagram stories.
"Strange how the loudest defense of the guilty is rarely innocence… It's distraction. When the mask slips, they don't face the mirror, they throw it at someone else."
She continues: "Wake the fuck up, take some responsibility. I will not take your shit anymore! I'm done. I want to be happy and I have a beautiful son to raise. Leave me alone. Let me heal. I can't protect you from yourself anymore."
She also asks for the return of her dogs and possessions, and adds: "Oh yeah and maybe some child support?"
These are allegations made publicly by a former partner. Wilson has not answered them, and nothing in them has been established anywhere. We are reporting that they were made, and what they said, because a very large number of people have now seen them — not because anyone has demonstrated they are true.
What this does to Jim Root's post
The most useful thing in the TMZ follow-up is not the accusation. It is this claim: Slipknot had intended to announce Wilson's exit themselves, and when the story broke first, the band "lost control of the rollout," with members frustrated they could no longer do it on their own terms.
If that is right, it reframes Root's message entirely.
"Don't believe everything you read. Stop. Think." reads, in that light, less like a denial of the facts and more like a musician watching a decision his band had made get announced by somebody else, in somebody else's frame, before they were ready — and asking people to wait for the version that was supposed to come.
Which is roughly what this piece guessed at the time, and still short of anything anyone has confirmed.
Update: Jim Root has responded, sort of
Guitarist Jim Root — one of the four remaining members of the original nine — posted this to his Instagram story, over a shot of a pool at night:
"Don't believe everything you read. Stop. Think. Take a breath. Sit with it for awhile. Maybe. Just maybe even wait until there's more information."
Root's story, posted to @jamesroot. Note the track attached to it.
It is worth reading carefully, because it is being written up in both directions.
Root does not deny that Wilson is out. He does not say Wilson is still in the band. What he objects to is the certainty — the speed, the framing, the volume of coverage built on a single source.
Which is a fair complaint, and also the least informative thing a band member could have said. "Wait for more information" is compatible with the report being true, being wrong, or being true but incomplete. The most reasonable reading is that something has happened and the band is not ready to characterise it.
Two details from the story itself that the write-ups have missed.
The song. Root attached Slipknot's "'Til We Die" to it — the closing track from All Hope Is Gone, and the most explicitly brotherhood-minded song in the band's catalogue. Choosing that particular track to soundtrack a message about not believing what you read is not accidental. Whether it reads as reassurance or as something more rueful depends entirely on facts nobody outside the band has.
The sign-off. The story ends "Have a great weekend!" — which is not the register of a man managing a crisis, and may be the most genuinely ambiguous thing in it.
No formal statement has followed. Wilson still has not commented.
Read this part before the rest
Every version of this story currently in circulation traces back to one report, from TMZ, aggregated outward. Blabbermouth, Loudwire, Metal Injection, Lambgoat and the rest are all downstream of it, which is why nearly every headline carries "reportedly" or "REPORT."
That does not mean it is wrong. TMZ's record on this kind of story is strong, and the volume of outlets running it reflects that. But there is a real difference between a credible outlet reports and the band announced, and right now this is firmly the former. No statement, no reason, no confirmation from anyone inside Slipknot.
The arithmetic
This is the part that is not in dispute, and it is the actual story.
Slipknot's identity was built on being nine people — nine masks, nine numbers, a collective large enough that it read as a gang rather than a band. That lineup is now down to four:
- Corey Taylor — vocals (#8)
- Shawn "Clown" Crahan — percussion (#6)
- Mick Thomson — guitar (#7)
- Jim Root — guitar (#4)
Everyone else who defined the band's sound in its imperial period is gone — through death, firing, quiet departure, or in one case a lawsuit. Paul Gray, the bassist and a principal songwriter, died in 2010. Joey Jordison, the drummer, was dismissed in 2013 and died in 2021.
A band whose whole visual and conceptual premise is the number nine has spent two decades losing the people attached to those numbers.
Update, August 10: Wilson has posted. He said nothing.
Wilson broke his silence — to launch a merchandise store.
His first Instagram post since the reports began was a video of the homepage of a new shop, soundtracked to a single by Slay Squad, his other band, with the caption: "NEW sidthe3rdshop.com LIVE NOW!"
No mention of Slipknot. No mention of the firing. His only other activity since has been an Instagram Story of himself with the composer Danny Elfman, playing the theme from Beetlejuice.
There is a reading of that as insouciance and a reading of it as a man with bills who has been advised by lawyers to say nothing. Both are guesses.
More telling is what he has not changed. Eleven days after being reported permanently out of the band, Wilson's Instagram profile still lists him as "SID / DJ Starscream / Slipknot," and his bio still tags the band.
That is not proof of anything. People do not always rush to edit their bios, and a profile line is not a contract. But it is the kind of small, unglamorous detail that tends to be more honest than a statement, because nobody writes it for an audience.
And a second family member has weighed in. Stacy Thomson, wife of Slipknot guitarist Mick Thomson, has publicly dismissed the TMZ-sourced reports. That makes two people inside the band's orbit — Jim Root and now a bandmate's spouse — pushing back on the coverage, while nobody inside the band has actually denied the substance.
Update, August 16: it is over, and the bio is how we know
It ended the way it ran — sideways.
Friday, August 14. Slipknot finally said something. Two sentences:
"Effective immediately, Slipknot will no longer be associated with Sid Wilson.
We wish him the best in his future endeavors."
Then they deleted it.
The statement reappeared on the Instagram account for Knotfest, the band's own festival, where it has stayed. A band that spent two weeks saying nothing published a confirmation and pulled it down within hours, then let it stand somewhere adjacent. Nobody has explained the deletion.
Two days before that, Wilson introduced himself on stage as a member of Slipknot. At The World Scratch Invitational on August 12, that is how he described himself. Either he did not know, or he knew and was not conceding it. Both readings are available and neither is flattering to how this was handled.
The bio changed
On August 16, Wilson confirmed his own firing without writing a word about it.
The Instagram bio that read "Slipknot gang since 1997" — the line this site flagged on August 10 as the most honest thing on his profile, precisely because nobody writes a bio for an audience — now reads "@slipknot 1997-2026."
He did not put out a statement. He put in a date range. That is the whole confirmation, and it is more final than the post the band deleted.
Jim Root's post, sixteen days later
The first thing anyone in Slipknot said about this was Root's, on July 31: "Don't believe everything you read. Stop. Think. Take a breath."
We wrote at the time that it was a caution about the coverage, not a denial of the report — he never said Wilson was still in the band. That reading now has his own gloss on it. A comment attributed to Root, circulating widely in the band's fan communities after Friday's announcement, reads:
"You couldn't even believe what I wrote. At the time I wrote it… I didn't know what to believe. I stand by it though. I still don't think anyone should believe everything that they read. Time will tell. As it did for my post that didn't age well."
A caveat that matters: this quote has not been published on Root's own verified accounts as far as we can establish. It is being reported from fan-community circulation, and we are flagging it as such rather than treating it as a statement.
What is directly confirmed is Stacy Thomson's. Mick Thomson's wife had mocked the reporting with a Ferris Bueller quote in early August. Called out for it after Friday's confirmation, she replied:
"oh stop it wasn't true when TMZ posted it. And I assure you the guys ALL always give chances."
That is a real defence and worth taking seriously: her claim is not that the firing never happened but that it was not true on July 31, when TMZ ran it. If the decision hardened between July 31 and August 14, then Root and Thomson were not lying, TMZ was early rather than wrong, and everyone spent a fortnight arguing past each other.
It is also unfalsifiable from outside. Nobody has produced a date.
What this was, in the end
TMZ was right about the outcome. The people who told fans to wait were right that nothing had been confirmed. Both of those held for sixteen days, and the gap between them got filled with a merch launch, a child-support argument conducted on Instagram stories, a Ferris Bueller quote, and an on-stage self-introduction that was two days out of date.
Wilson is 49. He joined in 1998 and played on every Slipknot studio album from the 1999 debut through The End, So Far in 2022. Four of the original nine remain: Corey Taylor, Shawn Crahan, Mick Thomson and Jim Root.
No reason has been confirmed by the band. No replacement has been named.
What is still not established
Nothing official. Not the firing, not the reason, not a date. Slipknot's website and social channels have announced no lineup change. Wilson has not spoken.
The reported explanation — treatment of bandmates — comes from anonymous sources in a tabloid report, and describes no specific conduct. Kelly Osbourne's accusations are her own, made publicly, and unanswered.
What can be said plainly is that four days of reporting have produced a consistent picture from people around the situation and total silence from the two parties who could confirm or deny it. That silence is itself information, but it is not the same as confirmation.
Why the silence matters
Slipknot has handled exits inconsistently. Some members have left with statements; others have simply stopped appearing, with the band confirming nothing for months. Chris Fehn's 2019 departure ended in litigation over royalties and business structure. Others have gone quietly.
If the pattern holds, the most likely next development is not an explanation but an absence — a tour date played by eight, and a fan base doing the counting.
Updated to include Jim Root's Instagram post. This story is based on reporting that has not been confirmed by Slipknot or by Sid Wilson.
