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Evan Rachel Wood Alleges Marilyn Manson ‘Essentially Raped’ Her In 2007 Music Video

January 24, 2022 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Westworld Season Two Evan Rachel Wood Image Credit: HBO

Evan Rachel Wood went public with abuse allegations against Marilyn Manson last year, and in a new documentary she says she was “essentially raped on-camera” in his “Heart Shaped Glasses” music video. Wood’s new documentary Pheonix Rising debuted at Sundance Film Festival on Sunday night, and Rolling Stone reports that the film covers the abuse she said she suffered at Manson’s hands including sexual assault during the video.

The music video was released in 2007 and featured Manson and Wood having sex in a scene that featured fake blood raining down on them. The site reports that the film, which documents her relationship with Manson from 2006 through 2011, recounts the music video which garnered a ton of controversy at the time over whether the sex scenes were simulated or not. Woods alleges that was the plan, but when it came time to shoot the video Manson changed those plans without her consent.

“It’s nothing like I thought it was going to be,” Wood says in the film. “We’re 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.”

She continues, “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 and I could tell that the crew was uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do.”

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

Wood had talked for years about being abused and had even testified in Congress on behalf of abuse survivors. She named Manson as her abuser last year and is one of several women who have accused the shock rocker of sexual assault and mental, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

Rolling Stone spoke with a crew member on set for the video who backed up Woods’ claim, saying, “I do believe that there were some moments of actual intercourse. The crew was very uncomfortable.” They added that the shoot was shut down after “a take or two” over the sex scenes as arguments blew up between Manson and the producers. They added that Wood “seemed off and numbish” at the time.

Wood states that Manson told her in detail and was “really clear” about how to reference the video in interviews, saying that I was supposed to tell people we had this great, romantic time and none of that was the truth.” She said she complied because she was “scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way” and that the violence from Manson grew from that point throughout the relationship.

Manson’s lawyer Howard King issued a statement to Rolling Stone which read:

“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. 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. Brian did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.”