The internet is a weird, wild place. The latest example: A strange and illogical meme that correlates the births of YouTube creator and podcaster Trisha Paytas‘ children with the deaths of prominent figures — and posits that Paytas’ kids are the reincarnation of the recently departed — went viral after news that heavy-metal icon Ozzy Osbourne had died.
The “Trisha Paytas baby theory” first cropped up in 2022 following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8 of that year, with Paytas’ daughter Malibu Barbie born less than a week later (Sept. 14). The 2024 birth of Paytas’ second daughter, Elvis, didn’t actually line up with any famous death — but, showing how resilient conspiracy theories can be, users have somehow tied the second baby to Pope Francis, who died April 21, 2025.
Most recently, Paytas announced the arrival of their third child, Aquaman Moses, in an Instagram post Tuesday (July 22); the baby was born on July 12, 2025. News of the death of Osbourne hit around the same time. The magic number of three — however coincidental and inaccurate — was too much for the internet to resist. “Ozzy, that you?” says the top comment on Paytas’ announcement of Aquaman’s birth.
“Trisha paytas is 3 for 3 omg,” an X user said Tuesday in a post, which has over 9 million views. As of Wednesday morning, “Trisha” was the No. 5 trending topic on X and “Trisha Paytas baby theory” was the No. 8 trending search term on Google.
Grok, the AI chatbot integrated with X, said in explaining the meme, the deaths and Paytas’ childbirths are “pure coincidence, but internet lore loves it.”
Variety has reached out to Paytas’ team for comment.
Paytas has previously addressed the theory on their podcast, saying, “I just don’t get it,” per Newsweek. “Is it just any influential person that dies get to come reincarnated as my baby? … I don’t understand why my womb is carrying all of these souls.”
Social media, of course, was flooded with memes about the wacky Osbourne-Aquaman Moses connection:
