Through his legal team, controversial singer Marilyn Manson has denied the accusation made by his ex-fiancée Evan Rachel Wood that she was ‘essentially raped’ by the musician on a music video set.
Wood makes the claim in a new documentary based on her life and activism, Phoenix Rising, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this week. Wood claims she was “essentially raped on camera” by Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, during the filming of his music video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses“, in 2007.
Yesterday (January 25), Howard King, an attorney for Manson, responded in a statement that Manson “did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.” (via People Magazine)
Of all the false claims that Evan Rachel Wood has made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling of the making of the “Heart-Shaped Glasses” music video 15 years ago is the most brazen and easiest to disprove, because there were multiple witnesses. Evan was not only fully coherent and engaged during the three-day shoot but also heavily involved in weeks of pre-production planning and days of post-production editing of the final cut. The simulated sex scene took several hours to shoot with multiple takes using different angles and several long breaks in between camera setupsMarilyn Manson‘s attorney, Howard King
Last year, several women accused Manson of sexual and other types of abuse, sparked by an initial allegation from Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood. Manson is now facing lawsuits relating to the aforementioned accusations and is currently being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff.
Evan Rachel Wood describes her experience shooting the music video for Marilyn Manson‘s song “Heart-Shaped Glasses” in an excerpt from her new documentary Phoenix Rising, transcribed below:
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. I’m a professional actress, I have been doing this my whole life. I’d never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day. It was complete chaos, and I did not feel safe.
It was a really traumatizing experience filming the video. I didn’t know how to advocate for myself or know how to say no because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back.
I felt disgusting and like I had done something shameful, and I could tell that the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do. I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses. That’s when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera.