Controversial 'Rolling Stone' Cover Goes Viral 16 Years Later: Here's Why
Yesterday, April 13, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted an image of Rolling' Stone's September 2010 issue.
On it, the three leads of Alan Ball's award-winning True Blood series - Alexander Skarsgård, Anna Paquin, and Stephen Moyer - pose nude, spattered with blood, and strategically blocking each other's private regions. (See the full image here.)
An account that celebrates horror aesthetics, the social media user posted the image with the caption: "True Blood was insane for this." At this time, the post has nearly 1,000 comments and 45,000 likes, with fans reliving the phenomenon that gifted the world with one of the greatest love triangles of all time.
Premiering in September 2008 on HBO, True Blood reinvented the vampire subgenre, transforming it into darker, sexier, unapologetic prestige television, while introducing a world where vampires live openly thanks to a synthetic blood substitute.
Centered on a telepathic waitress (Paquin), the series pulled audiences into a supernatural web of romance, murder, and shifting power - and helped spark the vamp craze of the late 2000s, early 2010s.
Rolling Stone is no stranger to controversy; rather, it welcomes it. Further controversial covers over the years include the Charles Manson cover and interview in 1970, the image of Yoko Ono and a nude John Lennon photographed by Annie Leibovitz in 1980, and the August 2013 issue featuring the Boston Marathon bomber.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 10:17 AM.