A few years back, speculation began to circulate that Papa Emeritus (and his “replacement” Papa Emeritus II) was actually Tobias Forge. While Ghost has still kept the real identities a secret (at least from the public, that is), it looks like we can thank Adam “Nergal” Darski for essentially confirming the rumors behind Papa’s real identity.

Back in May, the Behemoth frontman posted the photo above via Instagram of him and Forge (who previously sang in bands like Repugnant, Subvision and Magna Carta Cartel) hanging out backstage at the FortaRock festival in The Netherlands. “If you have ghosts… U have everything ;),” read the caption that accompanied the photo. It’s pretty safe to assume that Nergal’s caption is referring to Roky Erickson’s “If You Have Ghosts,” a song Ghost covered last year.

Granted, it’s not like it was really the best kept secret to begin with. In fact, it’s more surprising that it took so long for people to unearth this photo of both Nergal and Papa out of makeup. Still, this picture helps make it even harder to doubt that Forge is indeed the satanic leader of Ghost. But can we expect Forge to also portray the character that eventually replaces Papa Emeritus II? Yeah, probably.

UPDATE: While Nergal has since deleted the photo in question from his Instagram account, below is a screen shot of the post in question.

[via Blabbermouth]