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News Apr 30, 2022
Evan Rachel Wood, shown here in 2017, is being sued by former boyfriend Marilyn Manson and claims he raped and tortured her. | Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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Evan Rachel Wood — responding to a lawsuit brought by her former boyfriend, Marilyn Manson, in which he alleges she and another woman encouraged other women to make false accusations of sexual abuse against him — alleges he raped and tortured her during their relationship.
Wood alleged in a 2021 Instagram post that while she and Manson were in a relationship, he “horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
In a lawsuit filed March 2 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Manson alleges Wood and her “on-again, off-again romantic partner, Ashley Gore” falsely portrayed him as a “a rapist and abuser,” derailing his “successful music, TV and film career.”
On Thursday, Wood’s attorneys filed court papers seeking dismissal of portions of Manson’s complaint on First Amendment grounds. In a sworn declaration, Wood, 34, challenges the lawsuit allegations of the 53-year-old Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner. She said the former couple met in 2006 at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.
“My relationship with Mr. Warner began as a friendship under the auspices of a professional collaboration on the film “Phantasmagoria,” Wood says. “Then, one day, when I was about to leave town to film a movie, (Manson) kissed me. I was still 18 years old at the time, and Mr. Warner was 37 years old.”
Thereafter, the two began a romantic relationship that continued on and off, until 2010, during which time Wood was often photographed by paparazzi and the subject of many articles about her relationship with Manson, she says.
“At the beginning of our relationship, (Manson) would tell me that I had inspired him to make music and art again, that I was his soulmate and that he loved me,” Wood says. “However, the relationship became increasingly abusive over time.”
During the course of the relationship, Manson “raped me, tortured me, tied me up, beat me, starved me, deprived me of sleep and shocked sensitive parts of my body,” Wood says.
Manson also isolated her from friends and family, hacked into and monitored her email and social media accounts and threatened her life and those of her friends and family members, she alleges.
“The statements I have made about the abuse inflicted by (Manson) are true,” Wood says. “I have no reason to doubt the accusations made against (Manson) by other survivors.”
But according to Manson’s suit, the allegedly false sexual abuse allegations against him prompted his record label and manager to drop him and he also lost his role in the TV show “American Gods.”
The suit also accuses Gore of defamation, alleging she had multiple conversations with prospective “accusers” against the singer in which she claimed that a 1996 short film made by Manson called “Groupie” depicted child abuse and child pornography. During one such conversation in 2021, Gore said the actress in “Groupie” was a minor at the time of the shoot and was dead, and that, if the video were to be seen, Manson would be indicted, according to the suit.
“Gore’s statements about Warner and ‘Groupie’ are demonstrably false,” the suit states. “Gore knew they were false or acted with reckless disregard of their falsity.”
The suit states that in the decade after they broke up, Wood never once accused Manson of abuse until she met Gore, a “grifter who understood that an organized attack on Warner, spearheaded by Wood’s own fabricated revelation of rape and abuse, could benefit them both.”
Wood decided that with Gore’s help, she could be rebranded from someone who might at best be known for dating Marilyn Manson into an “outspoken standard bearer for victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, thereby absolving her reputation for having a wild past and her embarrassment for having been in a long-term relationship with Marilyn Manson,” the suit states.
Wood and Gore forged and distributed a phony letter from a supposed FBI agent to create the false appearance that Manson’s alleged victims and their families were in danger, the suit states.
“They provided checklists and scripts to prospective accusers, listing the specific alleged acts of abuse that they should claim against (Manson),” the suit states.
A hearing on Woods’ motion is scheduled Dec. 13 before Judge Teresa A. Beaudet.
