Actress Evan Rachel Wood said her rocker ex “manipulated” her “into submission.”
February 19, 2021, 6:58 AM
5 min read
The LA County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to ABC News it is now investigating the abuse allegations against rocker Marilyn Manson.
They had previously denied an open investigation.
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau is investigating allegation(s) of domestic violence involving Mr. Brian Warner also known as ‘Marilyn Manson,’ who works in the music industry,” they said in a statement to ABC News. “The incidents occurred between 2009 and 2011 when Mr. Warner lived in the city of West Hollywood.”
The LASD’s statement comes after multiple women — including actresses Esmé Bianco and Evan Rachel Wood — spoke out to accuse Manson, 52, of domestic abuse.
On Feb. 1, Wood, 33, shared an Instagram post about her alleged experience with Manson. In it, she wrote that the musician, to whom she was engaged to in 2010, started “grooming” her when she was a teenager and “horrifically abused me for years.”
“I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission,” she wrote. “I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail, I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives.”
Wood had previously spoken of being abused in a relationship, but had not named Manson as her alleged abuser until earlier this month.
Manson responded to the claims via Instagram on Feb. 1.
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in his post. “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.”
Days later, Bianco, 38, who dated Manson for three years, spoke to ABC News about her experience. She said that Manson would often disguise brutal acts of physical abuse as sexual fantasies and, once she moved in with him, would control every aspect of her life, including when she slept, ate and left the house.
“I was coerced, I was defrauded, I was transported from the U.K. to the U.S., I was harbored, and then I was coerced into involuntarily servitude, which included sexual abuse and physical abuse,” she said.
Various sources close to her confirmed to ABC News that she told them about the abuse, and Manson’s former personal assistant Ashley Walters told ABC News she often saw bruises on Bianco’s body and once saw her running around Manson’s West Hollywood apartment while he chased her with an ax.
Walters also shared an Instagram statement on Feb. 1 alleging she was psychologically abused by Manson.
ABC News reached out to representatives for Wood and Manson.
ABC’s Kaylee Hartung, Jinsol Jung, Santina Leuci, Kaitlyn Folmer and Alex Stone contributed to this report.
For anyone affected by abuse and needing support, call 1-800-799-7233, or if you’re unable to speak safely, you can log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474.
