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Actress Evan Rachel Wood says rocker Marilyn Manson raped her on camera: 'Nobody knew what to do'
Photo by John Shearer/WireImage

Actress Evan Rachel Wood says rocker Marilyn Manson raped her on camera: 'Nobody knew what to do'

Actress Evan Rachel Wood says that musician Marilyn Manson, 53, raped her on camera while the two filmed a scene for his 2007 single, "Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)."

Wood — now an advocate for sexual assault and trafficking survivors — opened up on the alleged experience during "Phoenix Rising," a documentary that premiered over the weekend at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

The project focuses on Wood's life and career.

What are the details?

In the documentary, Wood, 34, said that the entertainer — whose real name is Brian Warner — "started penetrating [her] for real" during what was supposed to be a simulated sex scene for the 2007 music video.

"I had never agreed to that," Wood said, noting that she was plied with absinthe while on the set of the music video, which she called the most unprofessional she'd ever visited.

Wood — who would have been around 19 years old at the time of the alleged rape — qualified, "It was complete chaos [and] I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me."

"It [was] nothing like I thought it was going to be,” Wood said. “[We were] doing things that were not what was pitched to me. We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real. I had never agreed to that. ... It was complete chaos. I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me. It was a really traumatizing experience filming the video. I didn’t know how to advocate for myself or know how to say no because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back — to just soldier through. I felt disgusting and that I had done something shameful[.]"

“I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses,” Wood added. “That’s when the first crime was committed against me. I was essentially raped on-camera.”

The crew, she added, was "very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do."

A former crew member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the documentary's production team that he believed that there were "some moments of actual intercourse" during the filming of the music video.

"The crew was very uncomfortable," the source said and noted that production shut down the scene after "a take or two."

“Everyone understood what kind of artist we were dealing with. But we’re not here to shoot an adult film,” the source added. “I’ve never encountered anything like that before or since in my career. It’s never real, ever. That’s something that only happens in the adult film industry.”

'I was scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way'

Wood, who went on to become Warner's girlfriend and eventually his fiancée, said that throughout the relationship he manipulated, used, and abused her.

"I was supposed to tell people we had this great, romantic time and none of that was the truth," Wood explained. "But I was scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way. The video was just the beginning of the violence that would keep escalating over the course of the relationship."

Manson has yet to issue any public statements on the allegations from Wood — which are the latest in a years-long string of disturbing allegations of sexual, physical, and emotional violence against the shock rocker.

Wood in 2021 first publicly announced that she'd been a victim of Warner's abuse and said that he began grooming her when she was just a teenager.

"I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail," she said at the time. "I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives."

She added, "I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent."

Warner at the time denied that he abused Wood.

According to a report from USA Today, Warner's legal team told film executives that their client "vehemently denies any and all claims of sexual assault or abuse of anyone"

"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," the statement added.

Anything else?

Warner in 2009 said that during one particularly nasty breakup with Wood, he called her 158 times in one day and cut his face and hands with a razor blade.

"I wanted to show her the pain she put me through," he said. "It was like, ‘I want you to physically see what you’ve done.’”

Warner added that he had “fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.”

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