The Twisted World of Marilyn Manson

A deep dive into Marilyn Manson's life, career, and controversies, exploring his dark upbringing, villain persona, and abuse allegations.

Key Takeaways

Marilyn Manson intentionally embraced a controversial image to reflect and challenge societal fears.
His troubled upbringing and family issues deeply influenced his art and personal behavior.
The public villain persona contributed to both his fame and his downfall amid abuse allegations.
Society often scapegoats figures like Manson for larger cultural problems without addressing root causes.
Understanding Manson requires looking beyond the persona to the complex realities of his life.

What the video covers

Marilyn Manson crafted a villainous persona that embodied societal fears about rock music and rebellion.
He faced widespread blame for violent incidents, which he used to challenge societal self-reflection.
Manson's childhood was marked by abuse, a strict religious upbringing, and psychological trauma.
His mother suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, distorting his early reality and health.
He endured physical abuse, molestation, and bullying, which influenced his dark artistic identity.
Manson's stage name combined Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson to symbolize beauty and evil.
His music and performances became a lightning rod for controversy, especially among religious conservatives.
In 2021, multiple women accused him of violent physical and emotional abuse, raising questions about his true nature.
The video discusses his complex family dynamics, including his relationship with his grandfather.
The narrative also touches on societal reactions to his art and the broader cultural impact of his persona.

Chapters

Why did Marilyn Manson create a villainous persona?

Marilyn Manson intentionally crafted a controversial image to embody societal fears about rock music and rebellion, using it as inspiration for his art and to provoke self-reflection in society.

What childhood experiences influenced Marilyn Manson's behavior?

Manson's childhood was marked by physical and emotional abuse from his parents, psychological trauma from his mother's Munchausen syndrome by proxy, bullying, and molestation, all of which shaped his dark artistic identity.

What were the major allegations against Marilyn Manson in 2021?

In 2021, more than a dozen women accused Marilyn Manson of violent physical and emotional abuse, raising serious questions about his true nature beyond his stage persona.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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Marilyn Manson intentionally became the monster that he knew America secretly loved. He embraced every fear parents, politicians, and religious groups had about rock music and used it as inspiration for his art. As a result, whenever society needed someone to blame

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for mass shootings, serial killers, and occult murderers, Manson was their first choice. But he welcomed this criticism with open arms, with the hope that anyone accusing him would take a look in the mirror and ask themselves what they have

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done to contribute to America's problems. However, building a career around being the villain almost always ends in disaster. In 2021, more than a dozen women came forward and accused Marilyn Manson of violent physical and emotional abuse. But with a long history

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of sadistic tendencies and a secret, never-before-seen video with a young girl that could easily get him sent to prison, people started wondering whether or not Marilyn Manson was just a character, or if he was always hiding his twisted depravity in plain sight.

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You think you're going to get married and we're going to have family. SIT DOWN.

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SHUT UP. Before the makeup, colored contacts, and urinating on his fans, Marilyn Manson was just Brian Warner from Canton, Ohio.

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He couldn't have had a more stereotypical 1970s American conservative upbringing. He grew up in a middle-class religious household. His father, Hugh, was a devout Catholic, and his mother, Barbara, was a Christian.

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The family attended church services every week throughout his childhood, while his parents enrolled him in a non-denominational Christian school. But his home life wasn't as picture perfect as you'd see in family photos. His father was often physically aggressive

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towards Brian when he was present and emotionally distant the rest of the time, which made him solely dependent on his mother for parental guidance. He said, "I was kind of a mama's boy. But I had a weird relationship with my mom as

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a kid because it was kind of abusive. But on my part, I wish I could go back and change the way I treated my mom because I used to be really rude to her and she didn't really have any kind of

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control over me. I hit her, spit on her, and tried to choke her. She never retaliated. She just cried, and I never felt sorry for her. One incident in particular resulted in Brian putting his own mother in the hospital when Barbara

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refused to tell her where she had been. Brian assumed she was cheating on his father. In a fit of rage, he threw a glass cologne bottle directly at his mother's face, splitting her lip open and leaving a scar that would never fade

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away. And while this doesn't fully explain why Brian was so demented, it's important to note that Barbara herself played a role in damaging his mind and contributing to this toxic behavior. She suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which was a psychological

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disorder where someone projects a non-existent illness onto their child. Women with this bizarre condition are known to compulsively lie to others and themselves. They might lock their young children in rooms, prevent them from seeing the outside world for days on

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end, and become angry or violent if the victim doesn't cooperate with their perception of reality. For years, Brian believed that he had a handful of different allergies and contracted pneumonia six different times. When a parent constantly convinces their child

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that they're sick or incapable of functioning on their own, it distorts the child's understanding of reality.

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The parent becomes both the source of comfort and the source of suffering. But this was only the beginning of Brian's twisted life. At 8 years old, Brian was nearly suffocated to death after a stranger broke into his home and

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smothered him with a pillow. Around that same time, he also became the victim of molestation by a kid a few years older who lived next door. He said, "As a kid, I experienced many different types of abuse from all different directions."

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Then there was his grandfather, who he described as the ugliest, darkest, foulest, most depraved figure of my childhood. Brian used to sneak down to his grandfather's basement and watch the old man hunch himself over a toy train set, gooning to bestiality prawn with

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grotesque guttural noises emanating from the hole left in his throat by a tracheotomy. However, into adulthood, he'd do his best to flip it around as some kind of life lesson for his artistic future.

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As a kid, I looked at him the way that my family probably still looks at him as an aberration, as a freak, something that doesn't make sense. But after writing the book and experiencing what I've gone through over the past few

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years, the way that the world looks at me, I think now I have more in common with my grandfather than with anyone else because I'm treated the same way.

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But in many ways, you've become your grandfather, haven't they? In some ways, and I don't see him as the monster that I used to see him. I see him as someone who was misunderstood. And while his parents

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believed a religious education would build the future they wanted Brian to have, the restrictions and rules he experienced at Christian school only fueled the rebellion they were trying to prevent. But before we get into that, we all live busy lives. There are so many

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appointment off your to-do list. Stories of a wrathful God, the looming Antichrist, and the rapture gave the young Warner nightmares. He also dealt with a lot of bullying, which would leave a deep cut for the rest of his

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life. On his 1994 single, Lunchbox, Manson recalls fending off bullies by swinging an aluminum Kiss lunchbox. I want to be a big rock and roll star so no one f***s with me. By high school, teachers did their best to warn their

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students of the darkness and evil that plagued the media, on television, in movies, and in music. Manson later explained, "They said, don't listen to this. They played Led Zeppelin backwards, Black Sabbath, and they played Kiss. And they were convinced

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that it was Nights in Satan's service." And yet all of this just made him want to indulge more into this so-called dark side. Brian found comfort and identity in heavy metal music. By the mid-80s, the genre was exploding in popularity.

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Many artists leaned into the hypersexuality, violence, and anti-religious messaging that fueled media outrage. And the more authority figures condemned it, the more the teenagers wanted to hear it. Manson was about to take this strategy to new extremes, and his new music and

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performances would become so popular with dejected youth that he would become public enemy number one to religious conservatives all over America. While Brian Warner loved heavy metal music, he initially studied at Broward Community College to get a degree in journalism.

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However, the first article he ever wrote was about an alter ego named Marilyn Manson and how he felt it reflected the world around him. The name was created by combining the names Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. Marilyn Monroe was

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an American icon remembered for her beauty and appeal, whereas Charles Manson was a sociopathic cult leader responsible for the murder of nine people.

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But you guys have an obsession with serial killers or no more than the rest of America does. I think it's it's kind of a reflection of what America's about. The name Marilyn Manson came from watching a lot of talk

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shows and reading, you know, Hollywood Babylon, that type of literature, and realizing that Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson to me were the most memorable people from the '60s for their own separate reasons. And putting those two together was this was a pretty

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powerful um balance that was kind of irreconcilable, like male and female, positive and negative.

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Marilyn was a creative escape to explore seemingly unnatural or inappropriate topics. There was Marilyn Manson, but there was no music yet. I created a fake world, maybe because I didn't like the one I was living in. But that's what

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made me make music. I had to fill in the gaps I'd created. These feelings would be eventually channeled into actual music with the band Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids in 1989.

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How would you like your present and future audiences to perceive you? Well, I want him to take us seriously, but to have fun at the same time.

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In the beginning, Manson had not quite channeled that full-blown rockstar persona. He seemed more like a social outcast wanting to put some honest art out into the world.

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This is a poem that I composed in high school and it's called I don't I never had a name for it, so I'll just read it.

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The band was quickly becoming established as an interesting new talent in their local scene in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. But becoming a successful band in the preocial media era meant Brian had to get creative to market himself.

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He once bought tickets to a live MTV show taping, pretending to be a huge fan of the host so he could promote his band's live show in New York City.

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We wanted Gail. I came here to marry her. She's not here. I'm sorry. What can I say? I I I hate to disappoint you, man. But um I have this picture of her that I uh Very cool. Now, well, you took this this

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picture off the television. Yeah, that's very cool. You in New York for a while?

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Yeah, we're here for three days. We're in a band and we're doing a showcase tomorrow. So, from Miami, you sir?

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Yeah, we're from Miami. Band's uh Marilyn Manson. After a few years performing at local venues, crafting a more hard rock sound, and opening up for bigger bands, Manson met and built a strong relationship with Trent Resner from 9-in Nails. Resnner would end up

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signing him in 1993 to Nothing Records, his imprint record label under Innercope. From there, 9-in Nails took Marilyn Manson on the self-destruct tour after the release of their smash hit album, The Downward Spiral. Manson was playing in front of 2500 people across

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the USA every night for months, making it the perfect time to release their debut album, Portrait of an American Family. However, the album did not chart and failed to see any commercial success. While Manson had a captivating image, often performing in skintight,

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androgynous clothes with makeup and fake blood all over his face. The early '9s was just too competitive and saturated with exciting new rock music. He needed to level up and he quickly figured out that he had a gift for captivating

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people just by talking about what was on his mind. Individuality is something that is often discouraged in the American household.

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But that's something that you know that I try to encourage to anyone who listens to our music. It's not about how you look or the way you dress. Individuality is what you think. And if you think for yourself, not everybody wants to be an

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individual. A lot of people don't want the the the burden to be an individual.

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It's it's it's a tough too tough for them to think for themselves. They want to let MTV tell them what's cool and they want to let you know religion or their parents tell them uh what they should think.

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Marilyn has consistently promoted individuality and free thinking. He believed people should create their own values rather than blindly accepting someone else's.

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I don't even really read a lot. I just I try and absorb influences from everything that I read. you know, I can find something valuable in uh the teachings of Jesus Christ or Adolf Hitler or Dr. Seuss. You know, you can

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find something anywhere. Uh I like to look in unlikely places. And while critics looked at him as having no clear ethical boundaries or guiding principles, young people who felt misunderstood thought he was intelligent and liberated.

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And that's part of your whole gig is is uh you're you're pissed at parents.

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I'm pissed, but I'm just trying to uh I'm a little bit better of a role model than they think I am. They think I'm a bad guy, but and I am to them, but in the scope of things, I think uh I can uh

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give them something better to uh take into their adult life than their parents were.

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Going into 1995, Marilyn was about to make a few key decisions that would make him one of the most discussed rock stars of the new generation. First was the lead single of their next project, Sweet Dreams, which was an eerily dark cover

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of the iconic Uriics dance track. This song would go on to become the most iconic and commercially successful track of Manson's career. Additionally, their live shows entered a new level of sadistic, fully leaning into the shock rock genre label he was given. Naked

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women nailed to crosses, children in cages, and bloody animal parts were all a fixture in every performance. But Manson was also kind of like a method actor in the sense that his antics didn't stop on stage. He once recalled

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draping a deaf fan in meat and urinating on her at a recording studio. In his own words, "It was more of a living meat sculpture." The combination of his new popular song and twisted live shows sparked outrage in the conservative

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media. Instead of ignoring it, Marilyn saw this as an opportunity to have thoughtful discussions with his critics.

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They likely thought he was some punk degenerate they could dunk on, but instead he was far more articulate than they expected. Everyone's so afraid of death, I think, that they want to get closer to it by fascinating over things

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like serial killers and horror movies and car crashes and that fear of that danger at these concerts in these mosh pits. I think people get a sexual thrill from it. I think that excites people.

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So, there's erotica then is a part of moshing. Well, maybe it's not erotic, but there's there's a there's a term called you stress, and it's people's euphoric feeling over their stress. I think people thrive off of that. It's like

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amusement park ride at your own risk. know at the concerts there's a hint of danger and people like that.

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Ironically, all this did was help Marilyn get more young people interested in his brand and this would become the defining cycle of Marilyn Manson's career. He would provoke outrage, insert himself into the resulting debate and then use the attention to expand his

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audience. But he took it to a new level in 1996 where he released their sophomore album Antichrist Superstar.

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The record was a concept album satarizing the movie Jesus Christ Superstar which told the story of an evil supernatural creature who seeks to destroy humanity. The record featured the other extremely popular single from Manson's catalog, The Beautiful People.

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At the time, Antichrist Superstar was being interpreted as a critical piece on the alleged growing fascist tendencies of the American right-wing. But critics mostly just interpreted it as him admitting to being a Satan worshipper, which was their biggest fear as someone

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who had a massive influence on the youth. So, should moms and dads be worried about you?

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I think the best thing that could happen is if parents are afraid of me, they will take more time to raise their children to be more intelligent so that they can decide whether or not and how music, art, and film is going to affect

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their lives. Antichrist Superstar became a focal point of a broader discussion about the parental advisory labels on albums. Parents were interviewed by news stations to express their concern with a minor's ability to purchase any album that had a parental advisory label on

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it. That's when Cynthia Johnson got mad, realizing her 13-year-old son had no problem buying Antichrist Superstar by Marilyn Manson.

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Part of the whole drive to get the parental advisory was to keep these kind of materials out of the hands of children. So, with the help of 13-year-old Patrick and 14-year-old Ni, we checked out area record stores. What

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could they buy? Turned out anything they wanted. At Harmony House in Brooklyn, I went up and asked to buy this Marilyn Manson CD and there was no problem.

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And looking back, it's actually funny the media didn't realize how this criticism was only giving Marilyn free marketing. I mean, they literally show step by step how children can go into record stores and buy his album regardless of their age. Unfortunately

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for Manson, speaking and performing directly to the youth of America was about to have unintended consequences.

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He'd become a victim of the villain persona he created for himself as he would be accused of influencing countless unexpected deaths, ranging from cult leaders to tragic high school shootings like the one in Coline, Colorado. In 1997, Raymond [ __ ]

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testified before a Senate music violence hearing, claiming that his 15-year-old son made the permanent decision of death shortly after listening to a Marilyn Manson record. He cited the lyrics, "You can [ __ ] now because you're dead in my

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mind," as the key influence in his son's decision. And claims like these would fuel others to fear Manson and his music even more. Some organizations like the American Family Association or AFA would petition their local governments to cancel his upcoming events. Others would

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go as far as threatening to bomb the concerts if they went on, strongarming many venues to cancel their impending Marilyn Manson performances. Manson became so divisive that even listening to his music could get students expelled in a select few schools in Florida. Some

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described the performances as satanic rituals riddled with drugs, abuse, and violence. His music was brought in the discussion of two different cult leaders who would go on to commit murder with both of these murderers allegedly being fans of Marilyn Manson.

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Rod Ferrell and his followers in the Western Kentucky vampire cult are huge Marilyn Manson fans. The accused murderers have said Marilyn Manson's music touches something dark in them.

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And then there's Natasha Cornet, the alleged leader of an Eastern Kentucky cult charged with three members of a Tennessee family. She's told her lawyer she believes she is the daughter of Satan and that she wants to meet Marilyn

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Manson. The media wanted a simple solution to a complicated problem. And Marilyn was extremely comfortable having these hard conversations.

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There's an old saying that the devil has always been the church's best friend cuz he's kept him in business. And I think yeah, like you're saying, they've picked me to be that. But I think I don't mind the protesting. I just wish that they

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would get the facts straight because they think that I do a lot of things.

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But I'm really about individuality and that's really the bottom line. I want guys have it totally backward. You're saying that the church needs people like Marilyn. Even the name of his album, Antichrist Superstar. If there was no Christ, he needs Christ to stay in

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business. The media constantly tried to bring him down, but he proved he was unstoppable after the release of the band's third album, Mechanical Animals. It sold over 200,000 copies in its first week of release and debuted at number one on the

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Billboard Hot 200, making it his first number one album. However, one tragedy would put a screeching halt on his momentum and essentially cause Manson to go into hiding as the media was hellbent on blaming him for the tragic school

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shooting at Coline High School in 1999. On April 20th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Clebold killed 13 students and one teacher before taking themselves out of the picture. While attacks like these have become much more common in recent

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years, at the time this was completely unprecedented. Nobody in the '90s could have ever imagined someone doing something so violent and evil. Before Coline, schools rarely had security cameras, metal detectors, or law enforcement protocols for such an event.

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And while the world had a moment of grief for lost lives, the anger among Americans was growing. They demanded answers. Some argued America's gun culture was to blame. Specifically, the lack of restrictions on purchasing and gifting firearms to families or

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strangers. Others pointed towards a mental health epidemic that had gone unressed. But it didn't take long for various groups in the media to blame movies, television, video games, and music.

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What we teach in music, what we teach in movies, and what we teach in video may degrade the value and desensitize us value of life, desensitize us to brutality and death.

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Since Manson had been on the chopping block for years over similar discussions, he quickly became the perfect scapegoat to dump all of the blame on. Eric Harris's journal was riddled with anti-American and anti-Christian sentiments, which were vaguely similar to Manson's shock rock

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lyrics about anarchy and taking back control. A survivor of the shooting and fellow classmate also claimed they sang Marilyn Manson songs and joked about killing people. The press also started comparing the killer's wardrobe to Marilyn's signature style, claiming that

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they were making an attempt to emulate him. Magazine headlines read, "Woripped rock freak Manson. Nutters loved evil pop hero. Now, typically Manson would lean into shock and controversy whenever he saw the opportunity, but even he understood that this was not the time

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nor the place to do so, offering his own personal comments on the tragedy. It's tragic and disgusting anytime young people's lives are taken in an act of senseless violence. My condolences go out to the students and their families.

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He would further discuss his alleged responsibility for the shooting, saying, "The media has unfairly scapegoated the music industry and so-called goth kids, and has speculated with no basis in truth that artists like myself are in some way to blame. This tragedy was a

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product of ignorance, hatred, and an access to guns. I hope the media's irresponsible fingerpointing doesn't create more discrimination against kids who look different." The situation had spiraled out of control, and Manson would cancel the remaining shows of his

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North American tour. Marilyn would fully discuss his thoughts in an op-ed piece published by the Rolling Stone. We're the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we're the ones who tune in and watch the up

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tothe-minute details of what they do with them. I think it's terrible when anyone dies, especially if it is someone you know and love. But what is more offensive is that when these tragedies happen, most people don't really care

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any more than they would about the season finale of Friends or the real world. I was dumbfounded as I watched the media snake right in, not missing a teardrop, interviewing the parents of dead children, televising the funerals.

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Then came with the witch hunt. In his closing statement, he said, "I'm a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people's ideas in a world that is watered down

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and hollow." In my work, I examine the America we live in, and I've always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just one of us. So don't expect the end of the world to come one day out of the

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blue. It's been happening every day for a long time now. It is almost certain that the events of Coline were the last thing Marilyn Manson ever wanted. He isolated himself for months and even considered ending his career prematurely. There was a bit of

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trepidation in deciding, is it worth it? Are people understanding what I'm trying to say? Am I even going to be allowed to say it? I definitely had every single door shut in my face. There were not a lot of people who stood behind me.

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Instead, he did what he had always done and channeled his inner struggle into his music. His fourth record, Hollywood in the Shadow of the Valley of Death, was released in November of 2000. This is the most important record in my

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heart, maybe because it came straight after Coline. It's not my most personal or confessional record, but maybe in some ways it is because I was talking about all the things in my head. It wasn't until 2 years after the tragedy

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that Marilyn finally decided to speak in depth about Coline and his influence on the youth. Fox's Bill O'Reilly brought him on the show to challenge him and Manson politely responded to any question no matter how tough it was.

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If you die and enough people are watching then you become a martyr. You become a hero. You be well known. So when you have things like Coline and you have these that are angry and they have something to say and it's listening. The

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media sends a message that if you do something loud enough and it gets our attention then you will be famous for it. Those kids ended up on the cover of Time magazine. the media gave them exactly what they wanted and that's why

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I never did any interviews when that happened was getting blamed for it because I felt that I would be contributing to what I found to be reprehensible.

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In a documentary called Bowling for Coline, Marilyn was able to point the blame back on the media for their involvement in these atrocities.

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Do you know that the day that Coline happened, the United States dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other time during that war?

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I think that that's really ironic. you know that nobody said, "Well, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior." Because that's that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin and turn it into fear. Cuz then

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you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's flood, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the whole gate. If you have bad breath, they're not going to talk to you. You got pimples, the

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girl's not going to you. And it's just this it's a campaign of fear and consumption. And that's what I think that it's all based on is the whole idea that keep everyone afraid and they'll consume.

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But what cut through the most was his short and poignant statement at the end about the shooters.

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If you were to talk directly to the to the kids at Coline or the people in that community, what would what would you say to them if they were here right now? If I would say a single word to them, I

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would listen to what they have to say. And that's what no one did. Unfortunately, no matter how clear his statements were, the general public still hated Manson for his alleged responsibility for the tragedy. And this was especially messed up considering

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that the Coline shooters were not actually fans of Manson's music at all. Over a decade later, he admitted that the media blaming him for this tragedy as well as countless others genuinely derailed his career and stopped all of

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his momentum. Did you endorse mass shootings? No, absolutely not. So why you and Coline?

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Because I happen to have a song in the Matrix that just come out and they're shooting and I had a video on TV called Rock is Dead. The kids weren't even fans of me. I think they probably thought

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that I was too much of a [ __ ] cuz I was wearing lipstick. I don't really know. I don't know what's going on with them.

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Well, you must have got a bad rap from that. Yeah, it kind of put my whole career on hold. A lot of people don't know about it because I had to really take an active stance legally against a lot of

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news places for for using Marilyn Manson, which is trademark. Interestingly enough, there was a separate German band called KMFDM that the shooters were much bigger fans of, and the date of the shooting coincided with the release of their 10th album,

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Adios. Now, of course, it would be a stretch to place any responsibility on either of these musical projects. But even if you could, KMFDM would be the target. The problem was that this band was far less famous than Marilyn Manson,

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and they also didn't embrace Satanism or have a tantalizing image. Marilyn was already a scapegoat far before the shooting and was much more recognizable to the public. They didn't blame him because he was responsible. They blamed him because it was easy. However, the

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other thing that was working against Marilyn Manson was time. He continued to tour and diversify his brand in the early 2000s. But his relevance as a cultural super villain and chart topping artist faded away as the years went on.

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The satanic panic of the 20th century was mostly forgotten. Rock was slipping away from the mainstream with hip-hop dominating the charts and the underground art world had transformed drastically during the 2000s as the internet became more accessible. There

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was a time when shock value had to be delivered to the audience on a platter via radio, TV, or music. But now, anyone who wanted to be provoked or disgusted could simply Google it. I'm sure you have noticed that a lot of this video is

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heavily censored because of YouTube strict policies. I can't show anything they deem as too graphic, and I can't say banned words, even though they can sometimes be crucial for educational purposes. So, I've officially decided from this video and forward, I will be

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uploading uncensored and completely ad-free versions of my videos every week to Patreon. I'm tired of my videos getting deleted due to false copyright claims or age restricted for educational and documentary content. But thankfully, we shouldn't have any of those problems

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over on Patreon, and I'd be extremely grateful if you considered supporting the channel. The link will be in the description. Of course, this didn't mean that Marilyn Manson was a complete unknown. He held on to a consistent following like other era defining rock

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stars, and he still could sell out small theaters, but he was nowhere near the cultural powerhouse he once was. But it only got worse. In the late 2010s, his history, both on and off stage, was being interpreted in a different light.

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The irreverent rockstar persona was becoming less sexy and considered more problematic to a changing cultural landscape. And when actress Evan Rachel Wood and over a dozen other women came out with allegations of abuse against Manson, he'd be forced to break many of

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the illusions that made him famous just to try to keep himself out of prison. In 2016, actress Evan Rachel Wood revealed to Rolling Stone that she had beenly assaulted by an exartner. Two years later, she testified before Congress as

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an advocate for the legislature to protect the rights of assault survivors. My name is Evan Rachel Wood and I'm an artist. I am also a domestic violence and assault survivor and the single mother of a young boy. When I was 5

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years old, I started working in film and every day since then, I've worked to reach the very privileged place I'm aware that I occupy. And I'm here today to use my position as an artist, survivor, mother, and advocate to bring

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a human voice to the population of 25 million survivors in the US who are currently experiencing inequality under the law and who desperately need basic civil rights. I struggle to speak to you today because I'm not sure what words

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are appropriate when discussing this issue. However, if you can't hear the whole truth, you will never know true empathy. And I believe in the saying, if we have to live through it, then you should have to hear it.

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Throughout the statement to Congress, Wood described a relationship where she was stripped of her agency, was brainwashed, and was frequently abused.

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She refused to disclose the identity of the man at the time. But that would change in 2021 when Wood said in an Instagram post, "The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming

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me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail." Evan was also working on a documentary to be played at the Sundance Film

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Festival called Phoenix Rising. The doc was created by Wood, her mother, and her on andoff girlfriend, Ilma Gore. The goal of the documentary was to not only tell her and other survivor stories, but also document her transition to becoming

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an activist, specifically launching the Phoenix Act, where Evan and her team hopes to create a bill that passes in California and the rest of the USA to bring more rights to survivors of domestic violence. By the early 2000s,

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Evan Rachel Wood was one of Hollywood's most promising young actresses. She wasn't a household name yet, but after earning critical acclaim as a teenager in 13, many believed she was only one big role away from becoming a major

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star. Her public relationship with Marilyn was so shocking at the time because she was a 19-year-old with a bright future and he was a 36-year-old on the tail end of his relevance. She claims from day one of their

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relationship, things were very wrong. I was a young teenage girl who idolized the music industry. And then the first night I it just hit me like a ton of brick that this was not what I it was going to be at all. And then when I

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started to see it sort of crumble and when he started hurting me and when I was really in such denial and in too much shame to admit to myself that maybe I went down the wrong path.

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The vast majority of her allegations describe emotional manipulation. However, the most scathing accusation is that he rworded her on the set of a music video. Marilyn's song, Heart-shaped Glasses, was inspired by his relationship with Evan Rachel Wood and the novel Lolita, a book centered

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around an older man's unhealthy and predatory obsession with a 12-year-old girl. I wrote the song after a day when Evan came up to me and she was wearing the Lolita glasses, heart-shaped sunglasses, as a bit of a joke because people

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obviously will think because she's younger than me that there's a bit of a Lolita relationship there. And we thought that was very amusing to us and she has the same sense of humor as me.

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So she wore those glasses and immediately that day when I saw her wearing those. The first thing I said to her was, "If you break my heart, I'll break your glasses." And I meant it in a almost violent way, but also in a

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romantic way. Evan starred in the music video in 2007. She wore the heart-shaped glasses, and her character is a little girl who is too young and innocent to be at a hardcore rock show. However, she quickly becomes obsessed with Marilyn

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and they end up having intercourse covered in blood. She claims they never discussed the scene before it happened and that the was not simulated. It was real. However, it was not consensual.

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Normally, when you do an explicit scene, it's it's talked about before. That just didn't exist. This wasn't the plan.

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Wasn't until the cameras were rolling. My clothes started being pulled off me when things started happening. Very specifically having the thought, wait, this isn't a dream. This is really happening. And this was just the start of a wave of other accusations. She also

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alleges to have been isolated from her friends and family as well as put under constant surveillance by Manson. He's hacked into my computer and social media accounts. He was monitoring my every move. I couldn't reach out to anybody to

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say, "I need help." Because if he caught me doing that, it would be up for 2 days getting yelled at, pleading my case, trying to talk him off the ledge. He just knew how to break you down. Looking

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at Manson's own words from a 2009 interview, he admits to extremely manipulative behavior. And every time I called her that day, I called 158 times.

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I took a razor blade. Many of Wood's supporters were proud of her for speaking out. Those of us who have lived it experience PTSD listening to her, and that is how we know how real it is. You can never truly understand

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unless it's happened to you. However, others were suspicious of the credibility of her stories. It's sick how people can publicly accuse someone of something so heinous while repeatedly showing their picture all throughout the show and blatantly condemning them based

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off one party's word of mouth. All without a fair trial, not waiting until both parties have had their day in court first. Marilyn's cultlike fan base immediately rushed to his defense, trying to find any evidence that made Evan look like she was lying. She

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specifically stated that Manson left her brainwashed and manipulated into submission. But others assumed she was a fully aware adult in a consensual relationship, but just embarrassed and ashamed of her behavior afterwards, like when she dressed up with what many

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people interpret to be a Nazi alongside Marilyn. Also doing photooots that appear to be inspired by Nazi attire and allegedly throwing up a Nazi salute multiple times on the side stage of one of his concerts. So, I guess he forced

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her to do that, too. Wow. Marilyn Manson is a powerful man, but Wood's case got much stronger when multiple other women spoke out about their experience with the controversial rock star. Among the most notable names were Ashley Walters,

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Sarah McNeely, and famously Ashley Morgan Smithline, who broke down some of the tactics that Manson allegedly used to control her mind.

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First couple nights we hung out, I was allowed to sleep and he slept. And it was little things that like, you know, we were shooting and all of the windows were blacked out. So he would lie to me

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about what time it was and tell me, "Oh, it's only midnight and it was, you know, maybe 6:00 in the morning and it was late outside." And um just the lies got more and more the what I've read about

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getting someone into a cult is you deprive them of food, you deprive them of sleep, and you deprive them of talking to anyone. All those things were true. Like if I would fall asleep at 1:00 in the morning, he would start

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playing really loud music and wake me up. And then I had to go do a line of to wake up and keep partying with him and entertain him.

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And although these should be taken seriously, much of the focus was on the physical andual abuse. Ashley claimed that the Rwords became too frequent for her to count.

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It was from 2010 to 2012. I I can't between 20 and 300. I I don't know. It just got more and more violent as time went on. He would like my ribs. He didn't like he didn't hit my face, you

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know? I was a model of the job. He didn't hit my face. He definitely my inside of my thighs, my inside of my elbows, my outer thighs have his initials into them. He my lower stomach and he made it very clear that I was

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replaceable, vulnerable, that I was extinguishable, that he could me at any moment and he would remind me when I was tied up or when I was whatever that I could you at any time.

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Many of these women were also featured in the Phoenix Rising documentary which indicated that they had sort of banded together to take down this alleged monster. The allegations were piling up and Manson could not stay silent. He responded to the claim saying,

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"Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners, regardless of how and why, others are

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choosing to misrepresent the past. That is the truth. But it's not hard to see why some people might think there is truth to his art when he explicitly said one of his most violent and disturbing songs was about Evan Rachel Wood. But

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that damage is part of it. And the song I want to kill you, like they do in the movies, is about my fantasies. I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull with a sledgehammer. However, women would continue to come out and

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describe the alleged abuse they suffered at the hands of Manson. Upwards of 16 different women made very similar allegations. He would deprive them of sleep and food and supply them with illicit substances. Nearly all of them claimed to have some sort of PTSD from

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his actions. One even claimed that Manson pulled a gun on her. There were also allegations of whipping, beating, and other physical harm that coupled with photos of bruises and scars, which many have countered with being nothing more than consensual BDSM intercourse

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that is now being reframed as abuse. And just like so many of his past controversies, Marilyn's own words and actions made his past performance art look more like him hiding in plain sight. On a now deleted episode of

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Dinner for Five from 2002 featuring Marilyn Manson, Andy Dick, and actor director John Favro, Marilyn and Andy tell the story of an independent film he made called Groupy that has since been destroyed so the public can never see

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it. Can you get it distributed? No, because when I showed it to my manager, he said, "Please hide the masters. If anyone sees what you're doing, the film, in Manson's words, depicts a girl who could have been 18 or younger

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that comes to a real life party he was hosting. They describe all kinds of deprivity she was subject to, including taking drugs. He did not tell anyone in the party that they were filming or who this girl was, so they didn't know if

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what they were witnessing was a prank. This girl shows up, he lures her in, and she's, you know, he's to be there. He starts to get her to do certain things.

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And those are the things that, you know, maybe we shouldn't really discuss. No, but it gets really scary. And everyone in the room didn't know whether or wait, let me describe the first thing he tries to get her to do. He tries to

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get her to drink Pogo's Europe. He pees in the wine glass and then she she's like, "You do it." He drinks it and then she finally does.

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I introduce a gun into the become really scary to him. I was that was my independence. People start bleeding at some point.

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That girl is tied up at the end and crying. A very small piece of this film was leaked in which Manson seems to have a girl on a chair unable to move, screaming and panicking as he emotionally manipulates her to say,

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"Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so." And then uh you think you're going to get married and you're going to have a happy family and you're going to sit down.

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Shut up. Sit still. Sit still. Let's go. Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so.

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Sing it. Yes. Jesus loves me, but the Bible tells me so. Even if the full film isn't real and Manson was just lying about groupy to create mystique and intrigue during a crucial moment in his career, he has

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created many things that romanticize the very same behavior he was accused of actually committing by countless real women. That does not make it fact, but it does raise suspicion. Were these actually just adult women who were wholeheartedly consenting and

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participating in this partially sadistic lifestyle as some sort of kink? Or were they genuinely being tortured and manipulated with no way to escape? But some women did more than just speak out.

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They took their issues to court in hopes of bringing Manson to justice. Esme Biano, an actress best known for her role in Game of Thrones, filed a civil lawsuit alleging sexual assault, battery, and even human trafficking. The claim stemmed from Manson flying her to

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the United States under the false pretense of appearing in a film and music video produced by Manson, neither of which was ever released. During her visit, Biano claimed she was threatened and abused repeatedly by Manson. He was also sued by both Ashley Walters and

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Ashley Morgan Smith Line, as well as an anonymous woman under the name of Jane Doe. Even Maryland's longtime record label, Lomma Vista, immediately dropped him after the heat continued to pile on among the press. Former guitarist for Marilyn Manson, Wes Borland, said the

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allegations were true. While being interviewed by the Twitch channel Space Zebra, Borland said, "Marilyn Manson, I was in the band for 9 months. He's not a great guy. Every single thing that people have said about him is effing

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true. So relax about the allegations towards the women. Like when people say bad things about these women and they're coming after him right now, f off. They are speaking the truth. I was there when he was with Evan Rachel Wood. I was at

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his house. It's not effing cool. That's all I'm going to say about it. The walls were caving in on Marilyn. Nobody that actually knew him in real life was coming to his defense. So, he decided to defend himself by filing a lawsuit

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against Wood in anticipation of her documentary release. The suit claimed that Wood and her romantic partner, Il Magore, had defamed Manson and caused emotional distress in an attempt to derail his career. His introduction states that the two women recruited,

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pressured, and coached others to make heinous, untrue accusations against Warner, forged a fake letter from a real FBI agent to create the false appearance that Warner was under FBI investigation and his victims were in danger. Marilyn also provided a screenshot of a text

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thread where Evan and Ilma are allegedly drafting the fake FBI letter and what it's going to say. The FBI agent who was on this letter confirmed they did not author or approve the letter and no investigation was implemented on

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Marilyn. However, a criminal investigation was open shortly after the news broke in 2021 with cops raiding Manson's house and analyzing all documents, art, and footage that could incriminate him. But in 2025, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced that they had not found

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significant evidence to warrant charges against Manson. Of course, this was not a clear and cut statement of innocence.

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a 15-year-old case of assault is an extremely difficult crime to prove, but one by one, these cases were being closed with no information given to the public. As May Biano's case was settled out of court in 2023, Ashley Walter suit

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was dismissed multiple times, although it is worth clarifying that it was not based on any direct evidence that exonerated Manson. The case was dismissed before the trial could even begin due to issues regarding the statute of limitations. However, some

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fans would come out and shed light on the fact that Walters possibly joined the fight against Manson because he fired her as an assistant. There's some things about what she says that are suspicious in her Instagram post. She

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says that their professional relationship ended. It's very euphemistic. Instead of saying what I think she meant is that I got fired. So, I think that she was fired probably for incompetence. Who knows? But she she prefers to say that they basically they

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parted ways. our professional relationship ended. And she says that he threat has threatened her financial security. Now, what does that mean? Does Marilyn Manson actually have some kind of control over his personal assistant's financial security? I guess what she

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means is he fired her. Yes, when you're fired, I guess it does uh damage your financial security.

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Additionally, the suit involving the anonymous Jane Doe was also settled out of court. But the most shocking twist that makes everyone question literally every allegation made is the case of Ashley Morgan Smithline. Her lawsuit was dismissed in January of 2023 and she

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would fully redact her allegations a month later. I succumb to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of our word and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.

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She also went on a podcast essentially repeating the argument that Marilyn had been making that Evan Rachel Wood was coercing other women into remembering their abusive relationship differently so her documentary would be more impactful.

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So say like someone takes an X-ray and says like you're missing your lung and they keep saying it to you. You then start to question like am I missing a lung? They were like do you remember this happening? Do you remember that

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happening? And I was like no I really don't. And they were like, "Well, maybe you were just really high. Maybe you were really drunk." And then you start to question your own reality. Like, am I misremembering this? Like, did this

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actually happen? They were making me question my own reality and see her documentary, how sick I look. They were doing it when I was well malnourished and well sick and drinking and being given drink and being given lots of

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drugs. And this complete 180 has only made this situation even more confusing. For supporters of Manson, Ashley changing her story was the final proof that Manson was not a predator, but rather just a victim of cancel culture.

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However, many felt that Ashley's revelation was too abrupt and out of place. To them, it seemed like he used his money and power to pay off and silence all these other women to stop them from pursuing their cases even

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further. While Marilyn Manson has successfully managed to evade any legal repercussions for the allegations, his own personal attempts to prove he had been defamed were massively unsuccessful. There are no verdicts in the many court cases involved in this

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story, just dismissals and settlements, leaving for more questions than answers. We do know that throughout his entire career, he never minded being looked at as a monster by the masses. In fact, he seemed to take great pleasure in it. All

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you have to decide if it was all an act or if he was just hiding in plain sight.

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Those who argue that he has been proven innocent are doing so baselessly. And the individuals that paint him as a sadistic abuser are essentially using his music and videos as evidence, which can easily be brushed off as performance

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art. Then again, if we learned anything from the singer David, it's not entirely impossible that someone's art can give clues or straight up admissions of them committing heinous crimes. But check out this video if you want to hear more

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about that.

Topics:Marilyn MansonBrian Warnerrock music controversyabuse allegationsMunchausen syndrome by proxyheavy metalcelebrity scandalmusic industryreligious upbringingcultural impact

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