The Surreal Encounter That Sparked a Legend: How Marilyn Monroe Appeared in Jimi Hendrix’s First LSD Trip—and Helped Shape His Career

Jimi Hendrix’s rise to become one of the most innovative guitarists in rock history is filled with groundbreaking performances, technical mastery, and cultural impact. But tucked inside his origin story is a surreal and little-known moment—one that blends the counterculture’s psychedelic experimentation with an unlikely Hollywood cameo.

In 1966, before he was headlining festivals and redefining electric guitar technique, Hendrix was introduced to LSD for the first time in New York. Until then, he had dabbled with cocaine and cannabis, but psychedelics remained uncharted territory. Offered the chance to try acid by a friend, Hendrix took the plunge—an experience that would become a turning point in his music and image.

The Marilyn Monroe Vision

Midway through his first trip, Hendrix glanced into a mirror and saw not his own face, but that of Marilyn Monroe staring back at him. The vision was as strange as it was symbolic, fusing the allure of Hollywood’s golden era with the disorienting fluidity of the psychedelic mind. Monroe, who had passed just four years earlier, was an icon of beauty, vulnerability, and reinvention—qualities Hendrix would later channel in his own artistry.

Adding to the sensory overload, Linda Keith, then-girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, played him Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde. The album’s rough, poetic vocals struck Hendrix deeply, inspiring him to incorporate Dylan’s vocal style into his own performances.

From Trip to Transformation

That single LSD trip set Hendrix on a path toward what would be known as “acid rock”—a heavier, blues-infused variant of psychedelic rock that became the soundtrack of the late 1960s counterculture. His performances soon carried a hallucinatory edge, both in sound and spectacle.

Rumors swirled that Hendrix took acid before shows, dropped it directly into his eyes, or even soaked his trademark headbands in the drug. While much of that remains myth, his music undeniably reflected the kaleidoscopic soundscapes and improvisational freedom inspired by psychedelics.

The Cultural Crossroads

By the time he took the Woodstock stage at 9 a.m. in 1969—playing to a rain-soaked crowd of half a million—Hendrix had become both a musical pioneer and a figurehead of the hippie movement. His bold use of distortion, feedback, and wah-wah effects transformed the electric guitar into a vehicle for raw emotion and sonic exploration.

The vision of Marilyn Monroe during that first LSD trip stands as a strange yet poetic catalyst in this transformation. It bridged the glamour of an older cultural order with the rebellious, free-thinking energy of the 1960s.

An Enduring Legacy

Hendrix’s influence extends far beyond the psychedelic era he helped define. Nearly every strain of modern alternative guitar music—from grunge to metal to indie rock—bears traces of the innovations he pioneered. But the moment that set him on that path wasn’t a stadium concert or a chart-topping single—it was a quiet, mind-altering night in New York, a Dylan record spinning, and a vision of Marilyn Monroe in the mirror.

In a way, Hendrix’s entire career can be traced back to that surreal encounter—a reminder that the sparks of genius sometimes arrive in the most unexpected and hallucinatory forms.