Marilyn Manson, the American singer also known as Brian Warner, has sued actor Evan Rachel Wood over her accusation of sexual abuse, terming it a “malicious falsehood” that has derailed his career.
The lawsuit filed on Wednesday also names Wood’s partner Ashley Gore aka Illma Gore, and further accuses the duo of hacking into the singer’s computers, phone and social media to fabricate evidence that he had circulated illicit pornography.
Wood, who is best known for her role in HBO’s Westworld, accused Manson of abusing her, back in February 2021. In an Instagram post, she 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.”
Manson and Wood began dating in 2007 and got engaged in 2010, but broke up later that year. Wood was 19 at the time and Manson was 36. She had first shared in a letter to Rolling Stone in 2016 that she was raped by a “significant other,” but she did not name the singer at that time.
After her public accusation against Manson, four other women had posted about their own experiences of sexual abuse, violence, and intimidation at the singer’s hands.
Manson’s suit now alleges that Wood and Gore “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse against [Manson].”
It also alleges that they impersonated an FBI agent, and forged and distributed a fictitious letter to “create the false appearance that [Manson]’s alleged victims and their families were in danger, and that there was a federal criminal investigation ongoing.”
Recommended
In addition to the lawsuit, Manson’s attorney, Howard King, told Deadline that his legal team has 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.”
Manson’s suit comes two weeks ahead of the release of the HBO Max documentary Phoenix Rising, which recounts Wood’s history as a sexual assault survivor and how her fight culminated in the passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights in all 50 states of the US.