"[4] Designed and sculpted by Jack du Rose[5][6] and manufactured by the Piccadilly jewellers Bentley & Skinner, 8,601 flawless pavé-laid diamonds, weighing in total 1,106.18 carats (221.236 g),[7] over a platinum cast, cover the entirety of the skull.

[3] On 1 June 2007, For the Love of God went on display in an illuminated glass case in a darkened room on the top floor of the White Cube gallery in St James's, London[3][7] with heavy security.

[15] In the 6 February 2012 issue of Time magazine, Hirst elaborated, in his "10 Questions" interview: "In the end I covered my fabrication and a few other costs by selling a third of it to an investment group, who are anonymous.

"[16] In January 2022, Hirst stated the sculpture was still owned by him, along with the White Cube gallery and undisclosed investors, and was in storage in a Hatton Garden vault in London.

"[20] Richard Dorment, art critic of The Daily Telegraph, wrote: "If anyone but Hirst had made this curious object, we would be struck by its vulgarity.

It looks like the kind of thing Asprey or Harrods might sell to credulous visitors from the oil states with unlimited amounts of money to spend, little taste, and no knowledge of art.

"[21] The Australian art critic Robert Hughes described the skull as "a letdown unless you believe the unverifiable claims about its cash value, and are mesmerised by mere bling of rather secondary quality."

Hughes added that "as a spectacle of transformation and terror, the sugar skulls sold on any Mexican street corner on the Day of the Dead are 10 times as vivid and, as a bonus, raise real issues about death and its relation to religious belief in a way that is genuinely democratic, not just a vicarious spectacle for money groupies such as Hirst and his admirers".

"[23] In her 2020 book, Written in Bone, professor Sue Black criticised the artwork, writing that the work raised questions "about the ethics of being able to buy and sell the remains of our ancestors, irrespective of their antiquity."

[25] A photo of the work thrown out with rubbish bags outside the White Cube gallery was a spoof by artist Laura Keeble[26] who created a replica skull with 6522 Swarovski crystals.

[30][31] In 2009, Spanish artist Eugenio Merino unveiled a piece entitled "4 The Love of Go(l)d", a giant sculpture, encased in glass, of Hirst shooting himself in the head.

The piece appears in the second episode of the American-Japanese animated television series Neo Yokio, when it is possessed by a demon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[33] The skull appears in the music video of Simian Mobile Disco's song "Audacity of Huge", where the singer mentions owning a Damien Hirst telephone.

A diamond encrusted skull based on For the Love of God serves as the driving force in the video game 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

For the Love of God graces the cover art of Canadian rapper Tory Lanez's single "Diamonds", which he released on SoundCloud in 2017.