The investigation into sexual assault allegations against Marilyn Manson has been completed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and was turned over to the district attorney (DA) office, which said it needed more information before considering possible criminal charges against the artist.
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Throughout the last 19 months, the Special Victims Bureau has been reviewing the case against Manson (real name is Brian Hugh Warner) after multiple women accused the singer of sexual and physical abuse. In a statement, the DA said that the sheriff’s department had provided “partial case material” regarding the investigation.
“There is more material that is still outstanding, however, we do not have a timeline for the additional submission from the LASD,” read the statement. “Once we receive everything, experienced prosecutors will carefully and deliberatively review everything that has been submitted prior to making a filing decision. This review will take some time but rest assured our office takes these allegations very seriously.”
In February of 2021, the investigation into Warner began after actress Evan Rachel Wood, who dated him when she was 18 and he was 36, posted that she was abused by her ex-fiancé for years. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” wrote Wood. “I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
Several other women then came forward alleging that they also suffered physical and sexual abuse by the artist, and some have filed individual civil lawsuits. Model Sarah McNeilly claims that Manson “tortured” her, locked her in rooms, and threw her against a wall. Ashley Morgan Smithline, who lived with Manson after meeting him around 2009 or 2010, said she was abused and locked into what Manson allegedly called “the bad girls’ room,” a glass, soundproof room. “I survived a monster,” she said. Ashley Walters also said that she experiences PTSD from her abusive relationship with Manson, while a woman named “Gabriella” also accused Manson of abuse, and said that he cut her during sex and took photos of her nude without her permission.
On March 2, 2022, Warner, who has denied the allegations, sued Wood and artist Illma Gore for defamation, fraud, and conspiracy for the alleged abuse.
“This action arises from the wrongful and illegal acts done in furtherance of a conspiracy by Defendant Evan Rachel Wood and her on-again, off-again romantic partner, Defendant Ashley Gore, a/k/a Illma Gore, to publicly cast Plaintiff Brian Warner, p/k/a Marilyn Manson, as a rapist and abuser—a malicious falsehood that has derailed Warner’s successful music, TV, and film career,” read Warner’s complaint, filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Soon after the allegations in 2021, Warner, who recently appeared as a songwriter on Kanye West’s Donda album, which earned him a Grammy nomination, was dropped by his label Loma Vista, along with his management CAA and lost a role on the Starz series American Gods.
