Marilyn Manson Sues Evan Rachel Wood for Fraud
Entertainment

Marilyn Manson Sues Evan Rachel Wood for Fraud

In the newest development in ongoing sexual abuse and assault allegations, Marilyn Manson is suing former fiancée Evan Rachel Wood for defamation.

According to Deadline, the lawsuit claims Woods and her “on-again, off-again romantic partner” Ilma Gore conspired to commit fraud and other crimes as a part of broader effort to publicly cast Manson "as a rapist and abuser" and derail his musical career. The lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Howard E. King in the Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Woods and Gore “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse against Warner."

The court filings go on to claim that Woods and Gore engaged in an elaborate and detailed plot that involved providing potential accusers with checklists and scripts that cited specific acts of abuse they should claim against Warner. The lawsuit says this extended to creating “a fictitious email account to manufacture purported evidence that Warner was emailing illicit pornography,” posing as an FBI agent in order to forge and distribute letters as a part of their efforts to reach out to alleged victims, and they even go so far as to claim the two set up a non-profit called the Phoenix Act aimed at helping abused women as a part of a larger money-making effort.

“We’re filing this now because we have been able to gather an overwhelming trove of evidence — including both documents and witness statements — which proves that the stories that Evan Rachel Wood and her co-conspirator Illma Gore have been falsifying and spreading are both vindictive and demonstrably untrue,” Manson's attorney Howard E. King said in a statement. "Wood’s claims may resonate because of the intentionally ‘shocking’ character of ‘Marilyn Manson’ but they simply do not reflect the truth. The manufactured facts these conspirators scripted a decade after the event never happened.”

This latest lawsuit comes just after Evan Rachel Wood's documentary, Phoenix Rising – Part I: Don't Fall, premiered at Sundance earlier this year where she alleges that Manson "essentially raped" her while filming the music video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses" in 2017. "I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses," she says in the documentary. "That’s when the first crime was committed against me, and I was essentially raped on camera." Representatives for Wood and Gore have yet to comment on Manson's lawsuit.

If you are a survivor of sexual assault and need help, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE and online.rainn.org.

Photo via Getty/ Eric Charbonneau/ WireImage