10 Allegedly Cursed Items with Horrifying Backstories

Post Malone was "haunted by a cursed box." Or at least that's what I read.

At first, I thought that I had drank too much, but I had not had my regular shot for the day. People magazine explained that Post Malone decided to visit a museum that held a cursed box called "the Dybbuk Box."

Afterwards, as creepy as it sounds, the rapper and his friend claimed to hear a little girl's voice and feel a pervasive feeling of dread. Later on at night, he saw a shadow person and woke up with an unexplained bruise on his arm. Since then, he's had a string of bad luck, almost dying three times since touching the box.

Post Malone wasn't the only guy to have a strange incident with the Dybbuk Box. It was even featured in a movie called The Possession, with many former owners claiming the box housed something made of pure evil.

The more I looked into the Dybbuk Box, the more I started to wonder about cursed items. What makes them cursed? Could they be cursed? If a thing can be cursed, these items below definitely fit that bill.

Let's kick off this list with the item that first piqued my interest in cursed items, shall we? The Dybbuk Box, at first, looks like a regular wine box. It was found at an estate sale by a man called Kevin Mannis—who, at the time, had an antique store.

Mannis noted that the box belonged to a Holocaust survivor, and that the box was a family heirloom. He offered to give it back, but the family insisted that they didn't want it. They then warned him not to open the box because a malevolent spirit named a dybbuk lived in it.

Being an idiot, Mannis opened the box. It contained two pennies from 1920, a lock of blonde hair, a lock of brown hair, a small statue with the word "Shalom" written on it, a small goblet, a candle holder, and a single dried rosebud.

Since then, strange occurrences started to happen around the box. Lights would flicker in the store. A foul, rotting smell would permeate the area. He would have terrible nightmares, and walk into his store only to find it ransacked.

A man by the name of Jason Haxon then bought the box. He grew very ill, and managed to find a way to get this cryptid that may exist back in the box. Then, he donated it to a museum filled with paranormal and cursed objects, where Post Malone made the mistake of messing with it.

Thomas Busby's Chair

Thomas Busby had a favorite chair. He loved that chair so much, he wouldn't let anyone else sit in it. Right before he was executed in 1702, Busby cursed the chair and claimed that anyone who who'd sit in it would suffer.

Oddly enough, the crime that got him executed was strangling his father-in-law to death for sitting on the very same chair. So, we weren't kidding about him loving that chair.

Since then, around 65 people who have sat in Thomas Busby's chair have met unusual and untimely deaths shortly after they chose to do so. Others who leaned on it also found themselves in serious trouble.

The chair, which found its way to the Thirsk Museum, had so many complaints that museum staff had to hang the chair from the ceiling in the 1970s. The official explanation is that they didn't want visitors to commit "suicide by chair."

The Hope Diamond

One of the most legendary cursed items of all time is the Hope Diamond, a massive 45.52 carat diamond that currently rests in the Smithsonian Museum.

No one knows why the diamond is cursed, but it has a serious amount of lore connected to it. Since its discovery, the Hope Diamond has brought horrible misfortune to those who owned it, wore it, or even come into close contact with it.

Some of the alleged victims of the Hope Diamond include:

• Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. Tavernier was one of the very first European owners of the Hope Diamond. A very wealthy merchant, he ended up being mauled to death by a pack of wild dogs while traveling in Constantinople.

• King Louis XIV. Louis XIV actually bought the diamond from Tavernier shortly before the dogs ripped the merchant to pieces. Within months, Louis XIV died of gangrene. Moreover, all but one of his children died.

• Nicholas Fouquet. A servant of the French King, Fouquet made the grave mistake of wearing the diamond once. He was banned from France for life and spent the rest of his time in jail.

• King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This famous French duo both wore the diamond during their times as royalty. We all know about how well their lives turned out.

• Simon Maoncharides. A merchant who found his way to the diamond, Simon killed himself and his family by driving his car off a cliff.

• Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Abdul was a Turkish sultan who was nicknamed "Abdul the Damned" because of his long reign involving tragedy, failed wars, and more. Many believe the Hope Diamond was to blame.

Even if you don't believe in curses, seeing so many rich and powerful people face tragedy after handling the diamond might make you think twice about meddling with cursed items.

The Woman from Lemb Statue

This weird-looking statue was first made in 3500 BC, and was buried in the dirt. When it was discovered in 1878, the statue soon became known as the "Goddess of Death."

Why? Well, it seemed like everyone who went near the statuette died!

The limestone statue's first owner, Lord Elphont, died soon after he bought the thing home. All seven members of his family died within the span of six years. Ivor Menucci, the next owner, died—as did his family—within four years.

Lord Thompson-Noel’s family was the third group to bring the statue home. Yep, they all died unnaturally young, too. The statue vanished for a while, then resurfaced in the hands of Sir Alan Biverbrook.

Sir Alan Biverbrook's wife and two daughters died. Worried they'd be next, his sons left him alone with the statue. Biverbrook then wisely decided to donate the Woman from Lemb to a museum, where it stays to this day.

The Basano Vase was a 15th century vase that allegedly was made from carved silver and gifted to an Italian woman on her wedding day. Right before she was able to walk down the aisle, she was murdered—and it happened while she was holding the vase.

The vase was passed from family member to family member, each of whom died a very quick, untimely, and often gruesome death. Eventually, the Basano family had enough of it and decided to bury it in a family member's yard. Inside was a note that warned whoever would find it that the vase brings death.

In 1988, it was rediscovered. And, as cursed items are wont to do, quickly got bought by an unfortunate person who died only months after the purchase. The vase was sold again, to a person who died within months. After the third death, a desperate family called Italian police and begged them to take the vase.

The vase has since been buried in a different undisclosed location.

The 'Crying Boy' Paintings

Italian artist Giovanni Bragolin gained fame during the 1950s as the painter of "The Crying Boy." This painting, for some reason, was a huge fad among British households at the time—and that meant that prints sold faster than hotcakes.

Then, the weirdness happened.

Firefighters started to notice that an unusually large number of homes that recently burned down owned Crying Boy prints. This wouldn't be so weird, if the prints themselves didn't all remain unscathed.

Eventually, firefighters grew leery of the prints and started to treat them as cursed items. The Crying Boy fad left Britain not too soon afterwards, and they're probably all relieved for it.

Annabelle the Doll

This seemingly-normal Raggedy Ann doll is anything but! She's one of the most cursed items to be on display in a museum. This is Annabelle: The Demonic Doll, and rumor has it that she was discovered in an antique shop during the 1970s and the moment she was brought home, chaos ensued.

Donna, the young owner of the doll, soon started to hear disembodied laughter. Both Donna and her mother started to notice that the doll would move from room to room, even when no one would touch the doll.

Small notes would appear around the house, all of which would say, "Help me!" The doll's dress would often show up with little droplets of blood from unknown sources.

A psychic that examined the doll claimed it was possessed by the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle. Annabelle asked if she could stay with the family, and they agreed—but that only made things worse.

The doll began to physically attack Donna, often crawling on top of the child as she slept. After years of chaos at the hands of the demonic dolly, they removed the doll from their home and left it in the hands of the Occult Museum in Connecticut.

Maori Warrior Masks

Imagine finding out about not one, but hundreds of cursed items, all within one category. In New Zealand, that's actually a common issue. The masks worn by Maori warriors are said to all be cursed—but only to those who don't belong near them.

Men who are near the masks have no problems. Women, on the other hand, will find themselves to have serious misfortune, miscarriages, and pregnancy complications. Why this is, isn't quite known.

The Dark Mirror

“I saw my own decomposing corpse looking back at me. That’s a dark mirror. I should not have done that. I need to go say a prayer. Excuse me.”—A spectator, Week in Wierd

One of the lesser-known cursed or haunted items that exist today is a scrying mirror called the Dark Mirror. The mirror, which is a regular mirror that has a black bottom, was originally intended for people who wanted to gaze into a mirror to see the future.

However, something isn't quite right with this at all. The Dark Mirror is rumored to only show nightmarish things to people who make the mistake of gazing too long into its dark, bottomless reflection.

People peer into the mirror often see themselves die, or see demonic versions of themselves in the mirror. Oddly enough, anyone around the mirror tends to get the urge to look into it—no matter how disinterested they would usually be.

The Catskills Crone

This strange voodoo figurine was found by a bunch of hikers who were checking out the Catskills—and then they decided to take it home with them.

Not too long after, the voodoo figure gained internet fame on Reddit after the hikers who took it found themselves dealing with one of the creepiest cursed items in existence. The hikers started to notice a strange, swampy smell waft into their room.

They complained of loud noises, bangs, a feeling of dread, and also seeing shadows whenever they would be alone with the statue. Eventually, it found its way into a paranormal museum, where it stays to this very day.