Ayahuasca is a psychoactive and entheogenic brewed drink, which is commonly used in healing rituals among the indigenous communities of Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador, among other countries. Prepared with traditional Amazonian plants, alkaloids and psychoactive components, drinking it can lead to hallucinogenic effects. Ayahuasca has been used by many people for healing purposes… including the world's biggest celebrities! Find out who they are and what their experiences were...

There has been much speculation about music legend Paul Simon’s use of ayahuasca. It was not until 2016 that the now 81-year-old musician himself talked about it in an interview with Billboard. After being asked if his 1990 song ‘Spirit Voices’ is inspired by an experience with ayahuasca, Paul said: “Ayahuasca has always been there. Nobody outside of the Amazon knew anything about it. And there are several main sets of healers that use ayahuasca. I wouldn’t say that it heals - but I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t. It seems to work sometimes for some people, seemed to really not work for other people. I’m not a proponent and I’m not a detractor. I just wrote the song because this had been my experience.” In the track, Paul sings: “My hands are numb. My feet were lead. I drank a cup of herbal brew. The sweetness in the air, combined with the lightness in my head. And I heard the jungle breathing in the bamboo.”

Comedian Chelsea Handler, 48, traveled to Brazil to film her Netflix series ‘Chelsea Does’, which included her trying ayahuasca. The comic explained to The New York Post newspaper that “I didn’t feel anything the first night… so of course I had to take [the Ayahuasca] a second night with a shaman". Then, she spoke with Ellen DeGeneres about what she exactly felt. She said: "I had all these beautiful images of my childhood and me and my sister laughing on a kayak, and all these beautiful things with me and my sister.”

Will Smith, 54, appeared on an episode of David Letterman’s show ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’, narrating exactly what he felt when he tried ayahuasca. Surprisingly, Will confessed his experience made him contemplate his career failing. Months later, Will received a 10-year ban from the Oscars after slapping presenter Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022 in response to a joke made about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's alopecia. Will recalled: "I'm drinking, I'm sitting there, and then, all of the sudden, it's like I start seeing all of my money flying away, and my house is flying away, and my career is gone away. I'm like, 'Ugh!' And I'm trying to grab for my money and my career. My whole life is getting destroyed. My fear. I'm in there and I'm wanting to vomit and all of that. I hear a voice saying, 'This is what the f*** it is. This is what the f*** life is.'” He also added that "you're not hallucinating” as “it's like both realities are 100 percent present.”

Jim Carrey, 61, is best known for his comedies like ‘The Mask’ and ‘The Truman Show'. Carrey had an ayahuasca experience with a shaman in LA. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “a bit of Jim Carrey lore takes on a different dimension when recounted by an LA shaman: a tale of the actor on ayahuasca, refusing to get off a mountain until he believed he could earn $10 million a picture — which, eventually, he did".

In 2012, the ‘Professional Widow’ singer told The Huffington Post what her songwriting process is. After being asked if drugs were ever an inspiration, Tori answered: “No, because you have to be in control. But it gave me visions. It was [the hallucinogen] ayahuasca - and mushrooms. Ecstasy scared me.” Tori was asked if she had tried ayahuasca more than once. She said: "Oh, yes. Many, many times.”

The Police frontman has always been open about his ayahuasca use. Sting, 71, recalled his first experience in an interview with Daniel Pinchbeck, saying: "I think it was about 20 years ago. I was in Brazil and I met somebody in Copacabana and Trudie and I – my wife – got in the back of his car and were mysteriously led out of Rio through the favelas and into the jungle. There was a big church and they handed out this brew. And Trudie and I looked at each other. We saw everybody drinking it so we did. I drank it in one… and then after four minutes there was something coursing through every cell in my body – like an intelligence searching everything. And I am wired to the entire cosmos! I look at the ground and I see a crack in the ground and inside that crack I see a little flower growing… it’s my brother – everything!”

Terrence Howard, 53, who earned an Oscar nomination for the 2005 film ‘Hustle & Flow’, told Rolling Stone magazine that he developed facial paralysis at some point of his life. Terrence was asked if he ever got any medication, he answered: “No. I took ayahuasca once. The only answer I got was, ‘Keep following your hands.’”

In the early 2010s, ‘How I Met Your Mother’ actor Josh Radnor began penning a memoir titled 'One Big Blissful Thing’. Expected to share never-heard-before details on his private life and career, the 48-year-old actor never published the book. However, a brief catalogue copy obtained by The Hollywood Reporter read: “The story of one man’s unlikely spiritual awakening — this is ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ for those who would rather be reading McSweeney’s. Josh Radnor grew up in Ohio. He was driven to school in a big yellow bus. He watched 'The Cosby Show' and John Hughes movies. He also went on to become a successful actor in Hollywood. "How then, in 2007, did he end up drinking an indigenous plant medicine called ayahuasca with a shaman in Brazil?”

‘Gossip Girl’ actor Penn Badgley, 36, participated in the 2012 Ayahuasca Monologues in New York City. The TV star narrated his own experience with the psychedelic tea. He said: "I dropped into my heart, and I felt it in my blood, and all of the discomfort and this mercurial nature of perceptual boundaries during these ceremonies seemed to melt away and all melt into one gleaming psychic arrow pointing towards my heart... And that was the simplest but, to this day, the most profound moment of my life.”

In 2014, Lindsay Lohan, 36, revealed he suffered a miscarriage which left her with many emotional scars. The ‘Parent Trap’ actress said in her docuseries ‘Lindsay’ on OWN, that the psychedelic beverage helped her heal after she lost her baby. She said: “I did a cleanse, a really eye-opening experience of ayahuasca. It was really intense. I saw my whole life in front of me and I had to let go of past things that I was trying to hold on to, that were dark in my life and physically I felt, when I had this experience, I guess as if I had died. It was insane. I saw myself being born and I feel different ever since that.”