Left: Marilyn Manson at The 2016 Fashion Awards held on December 5, 2016 at The Royal Albert Hall in London, England, UK (File Photo by: zz/KGC-03/STAR MAX/IPx 2016). Right: Right: Evan Rachel Wood speaks onstage at Let’s Get WEIRD panel during New York Comic Con 2022 on October 09, 2022 in New York (NDZ/STAR MAX photo).
More than a year after a California judge threw out most of Marilyn Manson’s defamation lawsuit against his one-time girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, the shock-rocker filed an appeal alleging that sexual abuse allegations Wood and others made against him were entirely fabricated.
Manson argued in the filing that Wood and her girlfriend Ashley Gore engaged in a scheme to fabricate sexual abuse allegations and get other women to do the same — and that the trial court judge improperly dismissed his defamation case without even considering the sworn statement of a woman who said she was pressured into making an accusation against Manson.
Part of the plot, says Manson, included the creation of a fake letter from an FBI agent that created the illusion that Manson was under investigation.
The allegations
Manson — actual name Brian Warner — sued Wood and Gore in March 2022 for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress over what the singer described as a widespread plan to paint him as a sexual abuser.
The prior year, Wood publicly accused Manson, her former fiance, of being the rapist whose brutal crimes she had detailed to a congressional subcommittee three years earlier. In that testimony, Wood graphically described severe sexual abuse at Manson’s hands, and after she went public with his identity, other women spoke out and said they too had been victimized.
According to Manson, who admitted to threatening at least one woman with rape and violence, Wood and Gore spent years secretly enlisting women to accuse him, all to strengthen an ongoing film project. In court documents, Manson called Wood’s allegation that he is a rapist “a malicious falsehood that has derailed Warner’s successful music, TV, and film career.”
Manson also included an affidavit from Gore’s sister, Bryton Gore, that attested she witnessed her sister and Wood crafting phony FBI letters for the purpose of making allegations against Manson.
A copy of the letter can be seen below.
Marilyn Manson says this FBI letter is a forgery (via court filing).
The dismissal
Wood and Gore filed a motion to dismiss Manson’s lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. Anti-SLAPP — or strategic lawsuits against public participation — statutes aim to prevent the powerful from suing their critics into silence. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Beaudet sided with Wood and Gore and threw out most of the case.
Beaudet struck Manson’s emotional distress claim, which had been based on the “falsified” FBI letter. Manson said the letter was used by Wood as part of a California custody proceeding, and Wood denied fabricating the letter. Beaudet did not specifically rule on the FBI letter’s authenticity, but said even if it was forged, it was used in litigation and therefore “protected activity” for purposes of the anti-SLAPP statute.
Beaudet left in place Manson’s claims for hacking and wrongful impersonation.
The appeal
In an appeal reported Thursday by TMZ, Manson argues Beaudet was wrong to dismiss his lawsuit against Wood and Gore, because there is significant evidence that the abuse allegations against were the product of a coordinated smear campaign.
Manson argued that the FBI later — which he maintains was forged by Wood — should have been considered by the court as evidence against the defendants. The brief alleged that Gore’s sister witnessed Wood fabricating the letter, and that Manson’s lawyer spoke to “the real FBI agent whose identify [sic] was stolen by Wood and Gore,” who confirmed that the letter was a fake.
Manson’s filing also included an affidavit of Ashley Lindsay Morgan Smithline, who said she had “a brief, consensual sexual relationship” with Manson in 2010. In his appeal, Manson argued that the trial court had been wrong to ignore this “bombshell third-party declaration.”
“Ten years later, I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.” Smithline attested in the document.
She said that she was contacted by Manson’s former assistant in 2020 “to participate in a group meeting of women who, they said, had relationships or experiences with Mr. Warner,” and that she participated in one group call and a meeting. Smithline said that over about a year, she had “many communications” with Wood during which Wood described sexual violence and asked whether Smithline had been similarly victimized.
Smithline wrote:
I remember she asked me whether I had been, among other things, whipped, chained, tied up, branded/cut, assaulted while sleeping, beaten, or raped. She said all of these things happened to Ms. Wood and others, and that when Ms. Wood was with Mr. Warner every moment was a moment of survival. When I said, no this did not happen to me and this was not my experience, I recall being told by Ms. Wood that just because I could not remember did not necessarily mean that it did not happen.
She further explained that while she initially knew Manson had not done those things to her, she “eventually … began to question whether he actually did,” after Wood and other said she may have repressed memories.
Smithline said that she eventually began to believe she had been victimized by Manson and eventually allowed Gore to post a statement she had drafted on Smithline’s Instagram page accusing Manson of abuse.
Smithline later recanted, saying that the allegations she made via the statement were untrue. Per her declaration:
The narrative ultimately posted to my account on or around February 1, 2021 contained untrue statements about Mr. Warner, including that there was violence and non-consensual sexual activity in our brief relationship, and that I had repressed memories of the same. As another example, there was no branding or cutting experienced during the brief relationship and certainly no “Marilyn Manson” initials carved on my body.
Smithline said she “never intended to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Warner and have no intention now of ever pursuing criminal charges,” and, that, “[l]ooking back, I feel I was manipulated” by Wood and Gore to “spread publicly false accusations of abuse against Mr. Warner.”
Wood and Gore have not yet responded to Manson’s appellate filing.
“Warner’s appeal simply rehashes the same meritless claims which the trial court threw out,” Wood’s lawyer Michael Kump said in an email to Law&Crime. “As Ms. Wood testified under oath, she did not fabricate or forge the FBI letter.”
Counsel for Manson declined to comment beyond the filing itself, which can be read it its entirety here.
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