“I have every right to be afraid,” Evan Rachel Wood says to viewers who have tuned in to hear more from the actress about her tumultuous relationship with rock star, Marilyn Manson. In the second part of the documentary, Phoenix Rising, Evan is seen meeting with a group of other women who’ve also accused Manson of physical and emotional abuse. Over the course of the film, Evan goes into detail about the worst parts of her relationship with Manson, including what happened when she tried to leave him.
“We had broken up,” she says as she recounts her story during the meeting with other survivors. “He was calling me and calling me and I just was trying to defuse it, so I went over to the house.” The decision to confront Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, allegedly turned violent, according to Evan, who recalls being taken up to his bedroom, where she claims he had a kneeler placed in the middle of the room. “I just knew what was going to happen,” she explains.
Evan alleges that Manson tied her up and hit her “over and over and over again with a whip,” a whip she recalls having a swastika on it. After allegedly hitting her in the same place repeatedly, she claims he “shocked” her on the welts, as well as her “private parts.” When she could endure no more, she relented to him and apologized to him, because she knew it was what he wanted “to hear”. “I was begging for forgiveness and he’s cradling me and saying , ‘You understand now,’” she recalls.
Then, in a bizarre twist, she claims he then “cut open his hand” and had her drink his blood, before cutting her hand open to do the same. This accusation follows her previous allegation in part one of the documentary that his initials were branded onto the skin above her vagina as a sign of loyalty to him.
By the time the film reaches its conclusion, Evan shows that the brand has healed, which seems befitting, as the last moments of the film follow the events that lead to February 1, 2021 – aka, the day she made her first public statement naming her “abuser” as Marilyn Manson. As for Manson, when filmmakers reached out to him for comment on the documentary, he denied all of Evan’s accusations.
“Mr. Warner vehemently denies any and all claims of sexual assault or abuse of anyone,” his lawyer said in a statement. “These lurid claims against my client have three things in common they are all false, alleged to have taken place more than a decade ago and part of a coordinated attack by former partners and associates of Mr. Warner who have weaponized the otherwise mundane details of his personal life and their consensual relationships into fabricated horror stories.”
Furthermore, shortly before the documentary premiered on HBO, Manson filed a defamation lawsuit against Evan over her rape and abuse allegations. In the documents, obtained by HollywoodLife on March 2nd, the singer accuses Evan and her activist associate Ashley “Illma” Gore, who also appears in the documentary, of having “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers.”
Since Evan has come forward, at least 15 other women have the same to allege that the controversial rock star abused them as well, including Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco. In the film, it’s noted that authorities have launched an investigation into the claims made by Evan and the other women, but as of the premiere, no charges have been brought against him.
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