DWTS Alum ‘Attacked’ in His Sleep

A former contestant from “Dancing with the Stars” recently revealed he had an incredibly unusual experience that he couldn’t explain, aside from suggesting it might have been related to a spiritual demon. Season 3 DWTS contestant Tucker Carlson opened up about the odd experience that left him bewildered.

Tucker Carlson Awoke to Claw Marks on His Sides

During a clip of “Christianities?” released on October 31 on YouTube, Carlson opened up about the strange experience. He noted it happened about a year and a half ago.

Carlson shared he was sleeping in his bed one night, and his wife and four dogs were in the bed asleep too. He revealed, “I got attacked while I was asleep.”

“A demon or by something unseen that left…claw marks on my sides…it left physical marks, they’re still there,” Carlson explained.

He continued, “I was totally confused, I woke up and I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to suffocate.”

Carlson continued, “I walked around outside and then I walked in and my wife and dogs had not woken up and they’re very light sleepers.”

The political pundit noted he felt “terrible pains on my rib cage and on my shoulder and I was just in my boxer shorts and I went and flipped on the light in the bathroom.”

There, he found he had “four claw marks on either side underneath my arms and on my left shoulder and they’re bleeding.”

“I’m not from a world where things like that happen, I never heard of anything like that happening before, I had no idea what that was…I don’t understand to this day,” Carlson added.

Carlson explained that when he woke up the next morning, he thought he had just had a very strange dream. Then, however, he saw blood on his sheets and “realized that was not a dream at all.”

Perplexed, Carlson called his assisstant who was an evangelical Christian. He explained she was the only religious person he knew he felt he could call about something “totally bizarre” like that.

She told him, “That happens, yeah, people are attacked in their bed by demons.”

Carlson Described It As a ‘Transformative Experience’

Carlson added, “I’m not leaving anything out and I’m not pretending to understand that, I can only say what happened to me and that did happen to me.”

After that, he felt compelled to study the Bible and it became a “transformative experience.”

People shared their reactions online after the video clip release.

One person shared on X, formerly Twitter, “Speaking of demons. Yep. They are real. We are in a war with the devil right now in fact!”

Another person tweeted, “As a skeptic I find encounters like this hard to comprehend as I’ve only had 1 experience that I could describe as paranormal.”

That person continued, “I don’t see why Tucker would lie about this for attention. If anything it would make his haters call him even more delusional. This is interesting & odd.”

A different tweet suggested, “If it happened at all, maybe it was one of the four dogs?!”

“It’s embarassing that adults take this at face value,” tweeted someone else.

People discussed Carlson’s story in a handful of threads on Reddit, too.

One Redditor noted some doubt, writing, “Claw marks from a demon on both sides of his abdomen and on both shoulders that were deep enough to scar because they were still there, but he doesn’t show them and isn’t asked to show them?”

“I have a cat. Sometimes I wake up with scars. I never thought it might have been a demon,” another Redditor shared.

Stacy Carey has been a freelance writer focusing on reality television and celebrity news for more than a decade. She is a Heavy contributor for The Bachelor, Hallmark and Dancing With the Stars. More about Stacy Carey