Evan Rachel Wood says Marilyn Manson 'horrifically abused me for years'
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
"Westworld" actor Evan Rachel Wood, who has testified before Congress about her experience with domestic and sexual violence, said Monday that she was "horrifically" abused by the musician Marilyn Manson, her ex-partner.
In a post on Instagram, Wood wrote that Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, "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," Wood wrote.
"I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives," the actor added. "I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent."
Wood, now 33, met Manson, 52, when she was a teenager and he was in his late 30s. They dated intermittently in the late 2000s, and in 2010, they were briefly engaged. Wood married "Billy Elliot" star Jamie Bell in 2012, and they divorced in 2014.
In an Instagram post Monday night, Manson said "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. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth."
Manson's record label, Loma Vista, said Monday that it would immediately stop promoting his latest album and not work with him on future projects.
Last fall, the British music magazine Metal Hammer said Manson abruptly ended a telephone interview after the publication mentioned Wood's name.
In a subsequent statement to the magazine, Manson's British public relations representative said in part: "Personal testimony is just that, and we think it's inappropriate to comment on that."
In early 2018, Wood testified before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on her experiences with domestic and sexual violence during a hearing about the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights Act. She recounted being raped two times, first by an abusive partner and then by a man in the storage closet of a bar. (She did not name her abusers.)
She said that she suffered from depression, agoraphobia and night terrors after her assaults, and that she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I was deeply terrified and that fear lives with me to this day," Wood said in her testimony. "What makes me more hurt and more angry than the actual rape and abuse itself was that piece of me that was stolen, which altered the course of my life."
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Whatever in the world did she see in him in the first place?
That was my first thought.
I hear you. My late son liked his music. I thought the guy was totally creepy and the guy disgusted me.
He disgusts me. He was in his 40's while she was still just a teen? Ew...isn't that statutory rape?
(very sorry about your son)
So is he friends with Johnny Depp?