According to reports, Marilyn Manson is suing ex-fiancee Evan Rachel Wood for defamation over abuse charges she made against the musician. Similarly, according to Deadline, on March 1, 2022, the artist filed a case against Wood and Ashley “Illma” Gore at the Los Angeles Superior Court. According to the artist, Wood and Gore’s previous charges were “malicious falsehoods” that “derailed” his flourishing music, film, and television career. According to the lawsuit, the ladies concocted “a plot” to bring down Manson. The case comes as HBO Max’s Phoenix Rising, a documentary emphasizing Wood’s claims against Manson about a decade after their connection, is released. This article contains references to emotional and sexual abuse.
Investigating the lawsuit filed by Marilyn Manson against Evan Rachel Wood
Marilyn Manson has sued Evan Rachel Wood for defamation, emotional anguish, impersonation, and violation of the Computer Data and Access Fraud Act. The complaint comes almost a year after the actress accused her ex-fiance of domestic assault and abuse. According to the lawsuit, Wood and her “on-again, off-again love companion” Ashley Gore impersonated a real-life FBI agent. This was done to provide the “false impression” that Manson’s purported victims and family were in danger and that the singer was the subject of an ongoing federal investigation.
Manson alleged that the ladies “supplied potential accusers with checklists and scripts.” He stated that they had previously enumerated specific instances of alleged abuse against him, including the “defamatory assertion” that he videotaped a minor’s attack. The complaint also claimed that Gore set up a bogus email account to demonstrate that Manson was sharing improper media files with others. It went on to say that she tried to get his login credentials by hacking into his computer, phone, and email.
View this post on Instagram
According to Manson’s attorney, Howard King, Wood and Gore’s assertions have propagated “vindictive and patently false” information about the singer:
“Wood’s statements may resonate because to the shocking tone of ‘Marilyn Manson,’ but they simply do not represent the facts.” The fabricated facts that these conspirators penned a decade later never transpired.”
According to the lawyer, Gore “recruited other women” and persuaded them to make false claims against Manson years after his connection with Wood ended:
“For at least the last two years, Gore and Wood have secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge concurrently with allegations against Warner, and they have brazenly claimed that it took 10 or more years to’realize’ their consensual relationships with Warner were allegedly abusive.”
The complaint also highlighted past interviews in which Wood admitted to being content with her relationship with Manson. It was alleged that after meeting Gore, she decided to begin a campaign against the singer. Manson said that Gore exploited Wood’s NGO, The Phoenix Act, and her participation in Phoenix Rising to get other women to make false charges against him. Marilyn Manson is presently suing Wood and Gore for “unspecified damages” and an injunction barring the ladies from “participating in additional unlawful behavior” against him.
Meanwhile, his lawyer stated that the thorough lawsuit was filed to end a “series of hostile and unjustifiable assaults against Brian Warner (the true name of Marilyn Manson).” Despite being told of the “acts of wrongdoing,” King said that the HBO Max and Phoenix Rising producers had opted to proceed with the production. At the time of writing, no modifications had been made to the docuseries’ premiere date.
A look into Evan Rachel Wood’s claims against Marilyn Manson
Evan Rachel Wood first met Marilyn Manson in 2005, and their relationship was formally announced in 2007. The pair had a short break up in 2008 but afterward reunited. They were engaged in 2010 but called it quits barely eight months later. Several years after their divorce, Wood told The Rolling Stone that she was abused during a relationship by a “significant other.” Although she did not identify the attacker at the time, the actress said it took her years to comprehend the severity of the assault. The Westworld actor testified about the attack to the House Judiciary Committee in 2008:
“It began slowly but quickly escalated, involving threats to my life, intense gas-lighting, and brainwashing.”
The actress said that she was often tied up during the attack and subjected to mental and physical agony to show her love for her abuser:
“I honestly felt like I could die as I was tied up, tortured, and told awful things.” Not only because my abuser screamed to me, ‘I could murder you right now,’ but because I felt like I had left my body at that time and was too terrified to go.”
Wood took part in the online #IAmNotOkay movement in 2019. She revealed photographs from her 2010 Elle magazine session, recalling how she was “weakened” at the time by an abusive relationship. That same year, the actress spoke in support of the Phoenix Act before the California Senate Public Safety Committee. Although Wood did not identify her abuser, she did indicate that he separated her from her friends and family:
“I ended up embracing the character of the person he wanted me to be an utterly losing myself.”
Wood then claimed that her spouse monitored her phone and subjected her to “starvation, sleep deprivation, and threats.” He allegedly threatened her loved ones and forced her to do painful, agonizing, humiliating activities. Wood also said that she was diagnosed with “complicated PTSD, including disassociation, panic attacks, night terrors, agoraphobia, impulse control, and chronic pain” as a result of her abuse in the past. In February 2021, the Mildred Pierce actress finally disclosed the identity of her abuser, accusing Marilyn Manson of abuse and assault. Despite his denials, the latter was dismissed by his record company, Loma Vista Recordings.
During their relationship, Wood even accused Manson of anti-Semitic activities. She also alleged that she was improperly videotaped while working on the singer’s 2007 song video Heart-Shaped Glasses. In the two-part HBO docuseries Phoenix Rising, the actress went into further detail about the alleged assault. Marilyn Manson continues to deny the allegations brought against him last week, filing a defamation lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood.
