Hozier has been named a titan of 2025 along with Hollywood star Blake Lively, Donald Trump and Keir Starmer in Time Magazine’s list of the most influential people.
The list of 100 individuals “shaping our lives” also features Ed Sheeran, French rape survivor Gisele Pelicot and tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Wicklow musician Hozier, whose real name is Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, broke through as an international star with his 2013 hit, Take Me to the Church. Paying tribute to him as part of the Time100 index, US singer-songwriter Noah Kahan said it was “easy to imagine Hozier as a folk deity in the forests of Ireland” until he ran into him in a hotel lobby in 2023.
“Fortunately he is as kind as they come,” said Kahan, recalling the duo’s subsequent collaboration on Grammy-nominated Kahan’s Northern Attitude song.
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“When an artist can create a sound so beautiful and melancholy, so full of symbolism and truth that you feel they must be from a different time, or a better world, you can’t help but believe in magic. Hozier had me believing from the first note,” Kahan said, adding that he was not sure where his life would have gone if he had not been exposed to Hozier’s music.
Others on the list include US actor Scarlett Johansson, American rapper Snoop Dogg, The Substance star Oscar-nominee Demi Moore and two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody, who took awards season by store with his immigration movie The Brutalist.
Gossip Girl star Lively was named amid an ongoing legal battle with It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni who Lively sued in late December, alleging harassment and a co-ordinated campaign to attack her reputation if she spoke about her treatment on the set of the romance and domestic abuse movie.
Baldoni, who denies Lively’s allegations, filed a countersuit against Lively and Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds for defamation and extortion with a trial date set for March 2026.
US singer Nicole Scherzinger rose to fame as a member of girl group The Pussycat Dolls and won an Olivier award for best actress in a musical for her role as Norma in a West End production of Sunset Boulevard. – PA
