Today I was talking to my friend on the phone, she was staying at her Nana's house out in the country, they have just moved in recently. Her uncle had come around to have another look at the house. He went into their dining room or lounge and saw some paintings on the wall, he instantly told then to take them down. My friend told me to google these paintings and see what I could find out about the curse. I think they are now planing to burn the painting, although there is one article about it being fake, made up by The Sun (see below).
(I have re-written some articles in my own words sources at the bottom)
On September 4th 1985, the Crying Boy curse was born when an article was printed in The Sun. Peter Hall, a Yorkshire firefighter had come across the Crying Boy paintings too many times unscorched in housefires. The Crying Boy paintings were mass produced, so many people owned one. Once this first article was published many people rang The Sun sharing their experiences with these paintings.
The article said that Yorkshire fireman, Peter Hall and his team were coming across an occurence that was happening too frequently for their liking. They were called out to house fires numourous times and put out the fires, when they went inside to investigate the house, they found these "Crying Boy" paintings unharmed even though other paintings and objects in the house were damaged. One servere case involved a man being burnt to death with a Crying Boy painting laying beside him unharmed. It is said that the curse will only effect someone if the owner of the painting becomes aware of it (which is freaky because now my friend's Nana knows about the painting). Some psychics have claimed that the painting is Haunted by the spirit of the boy it depicts.
The Sun invited its readers to send in their Crying Boys to have them burnt in a mass bomb fire. Only to have the warehouse which the painting where being stored in burnt down shortly after.
Peter Hall, the firefighter who was the Sun’s original source, tried to end the curse rumours by giving another interview with another paper, saying that he had orginally informed The Sun that it wasn't uncommon to have paintings survive house fires, although this statement was intentionally omitted from the orginal Sun article.
It is said that a well-respected school teacher from Devon, George Mallory claimed to have gotten to the bottom of the case in 1995. Mallory claimed he had found the artist who painted the Crying Boy - Franchot Seville an old postcard artist who at the time lived in Madrid. Seville said that the Crying Boy was a street kid he had found in Madrid in 1969, he never spoke and looked very sad. He painted the boy.
A Catholic preist said the boy was Don Bonillo, a boy who had run away after seeing his parents burnt to death in a blaze. The preist insisted the artist have nothing to do with the boy as where ever the boy lived fires of unknown origin would mysteriously start endangering the family and possesions of the house he lived in. The villagers called him 'Diablo' because of this.
The artist ignored this preist and looked after the boy. The paintings of the orphan made Seville rich, but one day his studio was mysteriously burned to the ground, ruining Seville. He instantly accused the boy of arson. The boy ran off crying and ws never seen again. From then on, all over Europe news was coming in of the paintings causing fires. From then on Seville was regarded as a jinx and no on would commision him to paint or even look at his paintings, let alone own one.
In 1976 a car exploded into a fireball in Barcelona after crasing into a wall, the victim was burnt beyond recognition, but part of the victim's drivers licence was readable, the name on the licence was 19-year-old Don Donillo, this may have been the boy who was painted eight years ago, but we will probably never know, as no one has come forward to collect the body.
One woman said their would be no trouble with the Crying Boy if it was displayed alongside a Crying Girl painting, others say that the damage will be worse.
The Curse begain to mutate and it was reported that the Crying Boy would bring luck to those who deserved it. One man reported winning money at various gambling establishments after rescuing a Crying Boy painting from a dustbin.
However some people do say it was just a big scam orchestrated by the (at the time) Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie. Apparently MacKenzie was looking for a news story on a slow day, and a news agency in Yorkshire had filed the story of a house fire. In the last line it wrote that the Crying Boy painting was the only thing in the house to survive the blaze, MacKenzie then ramped the story up a bit and splashed "CURSE OF THE CRYING BOY" across the front page of The Sun the next day.
Here are some photos of the paintings (from Quasimondo.com):
In conclusion I'm not sure if this is real or if it's a scam, but I'm not going to be putting one of those paintings up in my house any time soon, I'll let you decide for yourself.
Sources:
