Evan Rachel Wood Accuses Marilyn Manson of Sexual, Physical, Emotional Abuse: ‘I Am Here To Expose This Dangerous Man’
Photo by Scott Wintrow/Getty Images.
Actress Evan Rachel Wood has talked about the horrific sexual, physical, and emotional abuse she suffered in a relationship years ago, and finally named her alleged abuser in an Instagram post Monday morning: shock rocker Marilyn Manson, whose legal name is Brian Warner.
Wood’s post was simple black text on a white background:
The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming 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. 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.
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Wood met Manson when she was 18 and he was 36, and they were engaged in 2010 but broke up later that year. She is now 33.
In 2018, Wood joined several other abuse survivors who testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations during a hearing regarding the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act.
Wood’s testimony, which begins at the 18:27 mark in the video below, was an emotional description of how a then-unnamed abuser had originally charmed her, treating her like a “princess” and asking her to move in with him almost immediately. Things quickly turned sour, as she describes a “terrible drug and alcohol problem” he had hidden from her, and repeated acts of physical abuse and torture, rape, blackmail, and threats to kill her, her family, or himself.
Many people speculated that Wood had been speaking about Manson but they both denied it at the time. Now, she seems to have acknowledged that she was in fact talking about Manson.
In 2009, Manson said in an interview with Spin that “I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer,” meaning Wood. A representative for Manson later attempted to dismiss that comment as “a theatrical rock star” and “not factual.”
According to Vanity Fair, four other women posted their own allegations of being abused by Manson in response to Wood’s post. One has since deleted her comment, but the remaining three included similar descriptions of suffering from PTSD, nightmares, and other trauma as a result of their relationships with Manson.
