This hasn’t been a good year for shock rocker Marilyn Manson, what with his former girlfriend, actor Evan Rachel Wood, naming him as her abuser and inspiring others to come forward with similar claims. Now, Manson is going to do something about it: he’s suing Wood for defamation, and he’s making a lot of elaborate claims along the way.
According to Deadline, a jury trial seeking complaint was filed this morning in Los Angeles Superior Court, which states:
“This action arises from the wrongful and illegal acts done in furtherance of a conspiracy by Defendant Evan Rachel Wood and her on-again, off-again romantic partner, Defendant Ashley Gore, a/k/a Illma Gore, to publicly cast Plaintiff Brian Warner, p/k/a Marilyn Manson, as a rapist and abuser—a malicious falsehood that has derailed Warner’s successful music, TV, and film career.”
Wait, isn’t he still nominated for a Grammy for his work with Kanye? Yeah, I think he’s doing okay right now.
What’s even crazier comes later, when Manson accuses Wood of actually impersonating an FBI agent:
“They impersonated an actual agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by forging and distributing a fictitious letter from the agent, to create the false appearance that Warner’s alleged “victims” and their families were in danger, and that there was a federal criminal investigation of Warner ongoing (Attachment A);
“They provided checklists and scripts to prospective accusers, listing the specific alleged acts of abuse that they should claim against Warner (Attachments B and C); and
“They made knowingly false statements to prospective accusers (which have since been repeated by those accusers in court filings), including the defamatory claim that Warner filmed the sexual assault of a minor.”
Manson’s attorney Howard King told Deadline the following:
“We’re filing this now because we have been able to gather an overwhelming trove of evidence – including both documents and witness statements – which proves that the stories that Evan Rachel Wood and her co-conspirator Illma Gore have been falsifying and spreading are both vindictive and demonstrably untrue. It’s incredibly important to differentiate between the character of ‘Marilyn Manson’ and the man Brian Warner.”
Obviously, this is an absolutely insane situation. Given how many women have spoken out about Marilyn Manson at this point, these “documents and witness statements” he has better be pretty convincing.
More as we know it. Here’s the first trailer for Phoenix Rising, Wood’s documentary about her abuse experience: