Marilyn Manson Unmasked: exploring the allegations that rocked ...

Split into three parts, Marilyn Manson: Unmasked, details the accounts of three women who allege that Manson sexually assaulted them. It includes interviews with former fans, friends and Manson’s entourage to paint a picture of the allegations, how they impacted his career and whether his controversial persona and public image enabled him to allegedly abuse women.

More than a dozen women have since accused Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, of abuse.

Here is a timeline of how the allegations against Mason unfurled.

Also in 2018, Manson’s ex-girlfriend actress Evan Rachel Wood — who appears in the documentary — testified before US Congress in an attempt to pass a bill for survivors of sexual assault across the US. In her testimony, Wood detailed her experiences of sexual assault and domestic abuse in a past relationship with an unnamed man.

“My experience with domestic violence was this. The toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse which started slow but escalated over time, including the 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 said. Over a year later, Wood testified once again before a Californian panel, still refusing to identify her abuser.

“The fear of being judged by society is debilitating and the fear of retaliation from my abuser is paralysing,” she said.

Amid the #MeToo movement, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office received a police report against Mason, detailing sex crimes which reportedly took place in 2011. However, three months later, a statement was released where the office declined to pursue the case due to “lack of corroborating evidence”.

Mason’s attorney Howard E. King told The Hollywood Reporter at the time that the allegations “are either completely delusional or part of a calculated attempt to generate publicity... Any claim of sexual impropriety or imprisonment at that, or any other, time is false.”

“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood wrote on Instagram. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years... I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives.”

In solidarity with Wood, four other women shared their similar allegations against Manson — which included psychological, sexual and physical abuse, coercion and intimidation.

As detailed in a Vanity Fair article, Ashley Lindsay Morgan, Karin Ward (a pseudonym) and Sarah McNeilly allege to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health problems due to the abuse they received at the hands of Mason.

Soon after the claims were made, it was announced that the singer had been dropped by his record label and talent agency and that he’d parted ways with his manager. He’d also been removed from episodes of TV shows he was set to appear in.

Taking to Instagram, the 56-year-old rebuffed the allegations: “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.”

In the days after Wood’s bombshell Instagram post, several others came forward with their accounts of Manson’s alleged abuse and behaviour. Boygenius singer Phoebe Bridger claimed that, when visiting Manson’s home as a teenage fan of his, he described one room as “the rape room”.

Eighties teen idol Corey Feldman claimed that Manson had been “obsessed with him” for over two decades, accusing the singer of “decades-long mental and emotional abuse”.

Known for her role as Ros in Game of Thrones, actress Esmé Bianco told The Cut that she lived with Manson for a period, which she likened to being a “prisoner”. “I came and went at his pleasure. Who I spoke to was completely controlled by him,” she alleged. She also claimed that Manson left her covered in cuts and bruises, chased her with an axe and played her sex scenes on the hit TV show in front of guests to embarrass her.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed it was investigating Manson due to the allegations made against him concerning domestic violence.

Bianco filed a lawsuit against Manson, claiming that he violated human trafficking laws by making her travel to the US from the UK to appear in music videos of his that never materialised. She joined other women — model Ashley Morgan Smithline, Ashley Walters and two anonymous women — in filing similar lawsuits. These detailed various accusations, from “degrading acts of sexual exploitation” and rape to the singer threatening to kill his victims and, in Smithline’s case, carving his initials into her thigh.

In the documents filed by Bianco, she claimed the singer deprived her of food and sleep, whipped and electric shocked her and threatened to rape her.

Manson’s legal team responded to the various lawsuits against him, describing them as “untrue” and “meritless”. They claimed that the women “spent months plotting, workshopping, and fine-tuning their stories to turn what were consensual friendships and relationships with Warner from more than a decade ago, into twisted tales that bear no resemblance to reality”.

An investigation led by Rolling Stone involved more than 50 people who had relationships with Manson over the decades. The publication reported that his apartment was “decorated with blood, swastikas, and clipped photos from porno mags”.

Model Sarah McNeilly, who previously spoke out about her alleged incidents with Manson when Wood named him as her abuser, told the publication that the alleged abuse she suffered from him was “terrifying”. She said: “The physical violence was almost a relief. Like, the mental sh*t that he puts you through, that he infects your brain with, that he brainwashes you, you just want it to stop.”

Manson’s ex-fiancée accused him of “essentially [raping her] on camera” during the filming for one of his music videos in 2007. She claimed to have been given absinthe on the set of the music video and said she agreed to a simulated sex scene. However, when the cameras started rolling, “he started penetrating me for real”, describing the incident as “complete chaos”.

When the couple broke up for a brief period, Manson claimed in 2009 that his song I Want To Kill You Like They Do In the Movies was about Wood. “The song... is about my fantasies,” he told Spin. “I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.” Years later, in 2020, the singer’s team said that the comments were “obviously a theatrical rock star interview promoting a new record, and not a factual account”.

On Wood’s music video allegations, Manson’s lawyer told The Independent that “her imaginative retelling of the making of the ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’ music video 15 years ago is the most brazen and easiest to disprove,” of her allegations, “because there were multiple witnesses.”

Smithline’s lawsuit was dismissed by a judge after her lawyer withdrew her case. A month later, Smithline retracted her allegations against Manson, claiming that Wood and Manson’s other accusors “manipulated” her into speaking out against him.

On January 29, Bianco agreed to settle her lawsuit against Manson “to move on with her life and career,” her lawyer said.

January 30 saw another lawsuit filed against Manson, where an anonymous plaintiff alleged that Manson groomed and sexually assaulted her in the 1990s when she was underage.

The woman claimed that Manson invited her and another child onto his tour bus, where he asked their ages, home addresses and telephone numbers. Manson then, allegedly, “performed various acts of criminal sexual conduct upon Plaintiff, who was a virgin at the time”, leaving her “in pain, scared, upset, humiliated and confused”. The documents allege that Manson then threatened her, telling her that if she told anyone about what happened, he would kill her family. Manson’s lawyer denied the allegations.

Just one week before the trial was to begin, a settlement was reached between Manson and one of his anonymous accusers, who claimed to be one of his ex-girlfriends.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, the Jane Doe accuser said that she “never in a million years” thought she would settle. However, she claimed that since filing the lawsuit, she’d “silently endured threats, bullying, harassment and various forms of intimidation” that had intensified as the trial loomed.

In 2022, Manson sued Wood and artist Ilma Gore for defamation, claiming that they conspired to cast him as “a raper and abuser” which ultimately derailed his “successful music, TV and film career”. However, in November, Manson dropped the defamation suit and agreed to pay Wood’s legal fees, which totalled over $320,000 (£262,641).

In a statement given to Rolling Stone, Wood’s representatives called Manson’s lawsuit “a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career”.