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After Weeks of Silence, Slipknot Finally Addressed Sid Wilson in Two Sentences and Then Deleted the Post

Updated 2 days ago, August 16, 2026

TMZ said Sid Wilson had been kicked out of Slipknot in late July. The band said nothing for weeks, a guitarist told fans to wait for more information, and then the answer came in two sentences.

“Effective immediately, Slipknot will no longer be associated with Sid Wilson. We wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Kelly Osbourne in a black sheer gown with purple hair stands beside Sid Wilson of Slipknot, who wears a pinstripe suit and black gas mask, on the Grammy Awards red carpet. — Kelly Osbourne and Slipknot’s Sid Wilson — the latter donning a black gas mask — pose together on the red carpet at the 66th Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 4, 2024. Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images.

That was the entire statement, white text on black, posted to Instagram and then taken down. It’s still live on the account for the band’s festival, Knotfest. No reason for the split has been given, and none of this is confirmed, but fans have spent the last two weeks filling the vacuum with theories.

The most repeated one lines up with TMZ’s reporting about “the way he treated his bandmates” and it being “a long time coming”: long-running interpersonal problems inside the group, ego, difficulty, friction the remaining members finally stopped absorbing after nearly 30 years. A close second reads Kelly Osbourne’s posts (“I can’t protect you from yourself anymore,” the demands for child support, her dogs, her possessions) as pointing at substance issues or a self-destructive stretch that bled into the band. A third camp thinks the coldness of the wording, and how fast the post came down, means something worse is still coming.

Quieter theories are circulating too. That the remaining core wanted a different sound for the next chapter and Wilson, focused on his DJ Starscream and SID solo projects, felt checked out. That this is part of a house-cleaning pattern after Chris Fehn in 2019 and Craig Jones in 2023, with Corey Taylor and Shawn “Clown” Crahan done tolerating internal drama. That, like the Fehn split, there was a money or business fight behind the scenes. And a smaller group thinks it was closer to mutual, with Wilson wanting out and the band choosing the harshest possible public language anyway.

Sid Wilson at the Dita Von Teese "Diamonds And Dust" world premiere at the Emerald Theatre in London — Sid Wilson at the Emerald Theatre in London for the “Diamonds And Dust” world premiere by Dita Von Teese on July 3, 2025. Photo by Shane Anthony Sinclair / Getty Images.

The silence before the statement is fueling confusion. TMZ reported in late July that Wilson had been kicked out, and Slipknot said nothing. Guitarist Jim Root posted a message to his Instagram story set to the band’s 2008 song “‘Til We Die”: “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.” Weeks later, the more information was two sentences.

Wilson, 49, joined in 1998 and played DJ and keyboards from the self-titled debut through the band’s first and only Grammy, best metal performance for “Before I Forget” in 2006. His exit follows Craig Jones leaving in 2023 and Chris Fehn in 2019; Joey Jordison died in 2021 and Paul Gray in 2020.

Wilson’s firing came amid an already difficult stretch in his personal life, shortly after his reported March split from Kelly Osbourne. The former couple, who got engaged backstage at Ozzy Osbourne’s final Black Sabbath show, share a son, Sidney, born in 2022.