Over the weekend, Evan Rachel Wood appeared in the new documentary Phoenix Rising at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. In the film, she claimed her ex-partner Marilyn Manson “essentially raped” her during a music video shoot. The experience, she said, was “traumatizing” and added that even the crew at the shoot was “uncomfortable.” Last spring, Wood accused Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, of “grooming” and “horrifically abusing” her during their relationship. She also said she was “brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
Days after the premiere, Manson’s lawyer, Howard King, released a statement that refuted Wood’s claims.
“Of all the false claims that Evan Rachel Wood has made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling of the making of the ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’ music video 15 years ago is the most brazen and easiest to disprove, because there were multiple witnesses,” King wrote in the statement, which was obtained by Spin. “Evan was not only fully coherent and engaged during the three-day shoot but also heavily involved in weeks of pre-production planning and days of post-production editing of the final cut. The simulated sex scene took several hours to shoot with multiple takes using different angles and several long breaks in between camera setups.”
In conclusion, King wrote, “Brian did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.”
