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Crime

24th Jan 2022

Evan Rachel Wood claims Marilyn Manson ‘essentially raped her’ in music video

April Curtin

The American actor claims this was ‘just the beginning of the violence’ 

Evan Rachel Wood has accused Marilyn Manson of “essentially [raping her] on-camera” during the filming of his music video for ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’.

In a new documentary, ‘Phoenix Rising’, the actor details her relationship with the singer, real-name Brian Warner, which took place between 2006 and 2011. Wood and Manson first became involved when she was 18 and he was 38.

Wood claims that during filming for ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’ in 2007 she was “coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretences”.

“That’s when the first crime was committed against me,” she says in the documentary, “I was essentially raped on-camera.”

Wood is dressed in sunglasses in the video which are identical to those seen on the poster from Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film ‘Lolita’. The film, like the book, is about a man who becomes sexually obsessed with a girl who is underage.

In the music video, Manson appears to have sex with Wood while they are both covered in fake blood.

Speaking about it in the documentary, Wood said she did not feel safe while filming.

“We’re doing things that were not what was pitched to me. We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real. I had never agreed to that […] It was complete chaos,” she alleged.

“No one was looking after me. It was a really traumatising experience filming the video. I felt disgusting and that I had done something shameful, and I could tell that the crew was uncomfortable, and nobody knew what to do.”

Wood claims the musician told her how to describe the making of the video when talking to journalists.

She said: “I was supposed to tell people we had this great, romantic time and none of that was the truth. But I was scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way.”

Wood said the video was “just the beginning of the violence that would keep escalating over the course of the relationship”.

In February 2021, Wood publicly accused Manson on social media for the first time.

The same day, four other women accused Manson of mental, physical, and emotional abuse, as well as sexual and physical violence.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKvmsUmF1ho/

Manson has now been accused of abuse by more than 12 women.

He denies all claims of abuse.

In an Instagram post last week, Wood shared a “friendly reminder” that multiple men have also come forward with stories of witnessing or experiencing their own abuse.

In a 2009 interview with Spin, when Manson and Wood had broken up, Manson said he had fantasies “every day about smashing [Wood’s] skull in with a sledgehammer”.

He also claimed he called Wood 158 times while self-harming and then blamed her for it.

Part one of the two-part documentary ‘Phoenix Rising’ airs in full later this year on HBO.

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