Stephen King's “Mambo No. 5” Obsession

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Stephen King's “Mambo No. 5” Obsession refers to reports that author Stephen King’s wife threatened to divorce him after the author became obsessed with the song "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega and played it repeatedly while he was working on his 2011 novel 11/22/63. King told the story to Rolling Stone during a September 2023 interview, inspiring memes and reactions over the following weeks.

Origins

On September 5th, 2023, Rolling Stone^[1] published an interview with author Stephen King about his new novel Holly. At one point, the interviewer asks King if he’s a fan of the song “Mambo No. 5” and King tells the interviewer that he played it so many times during the writing of the 2011 novel 11/22/63 that his wife threatened to leave him (quote below).

”Oh, yeah. Big time. My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you.’”

The quote began to gain viral spread and became the subject of memes and reactions that day. For example, that day, X^[2] user @ScottWamplerRIP shared the section of the interview, garnering over 15,000 likes in three weeks. Later that day, X^[3] user @JacobOller quote-reposted the post with a meme referencing King’s book “The Shining,” garnering over 46,000 likes in the same span of time (shown below).

Spread

On September 6th, 2023, the quote was reported on by Variety^[4] and on September 8th, it was reported on by The Independent.^[5] On the 6th, a Redditor reposted the X post by @JacobOller to /r/nonpoliticaltwitter,^[6] garnering over 3,900 upvotes in three weeks. On the 8th, TikToker^[7] @tsd_talks posted a comedy skit about the story, garnering over 1.3 million views in three weeks (shown below).

On September 18th, TikToker^[8] @http.wand3rl_st posted a meme about the story, garnering over 475,000 views in two weeks (shown below).