Actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood claims that singer and actor Marilyn Manson “horrifically abused” her “for years,” beginning when she was a teenager. The 33-year-old actress named her abuser, whose real name is Brian Warner, in a short, powerful Instagram post Monday morning. In the past, she’s spoken about the abuse she had to endure at the hands of an unnamed ex. “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood wrote. “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.”
Wood has said that she met the rock musician when she was 18 and he was 36. They were engaged in 2010 before splitting. In 2018, Evan Rachel Wood testified before a House Judiciary Subcommittee as part of an effort to pass the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights in all 50 states. “My experience with domestic violence was this: toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse which started slow but escalated over time, including threats against my life, severe gaslighting and brainwashing, waking up to the man that claimed to love me raping what he believed to be my unconscious body,” she told the subcommittee at the time. That same year, a police report was filed against Warner for unspecific sexual crimes that allegedly took place in 2011, but the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office declined to pursue due to a lack of corroborating evidence, per The Hollywood Reporter. At the time, Warner’s attorney denied all claims. A rep for Warner was not immediately available for comment.
Since Wood’s post, at least three other women have also come forward with their own allegations against Warner, saying they now suffer from PTSD, nightmares, and other mental-health issues. Each describes a pattern where Warner would “love-bomb” them before “torturing” them by locking them in rooms, isolating them, forcing them to take drugs, and many more forms of emotional blackmail and violence. Sarah McNeilly, a model, claimed in an Instagram post that he “threatened” her. Ashley Lindsay Morgan, who says she met Warner while she was modeling in Thailand, also posted about his “violence” and “coercion.” At the end of her Instagram post, she included a screenshot of an email allegedly from Warner, telling her they would be making a “blood pact.” Another accuser, an artist who goes by Gabriella, said the second time she met Warner, in 2015 when she was 22 and he was 46, he “broke a wine glass in the hotel room and demanded we make a blood pact together.” She says the six-month relationship “quickly” devolved. After attempting suicide, she left the relationship feeling “disoriented and shattered.”
Update: In an Instagram post published Monday night, Warner denied the numerous allegations of abuse against him, calling them “horrible distortions of reality.”
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” the singer wrote. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how - or why - others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
This post has been updated to clarify the accusations against Warner.
