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Evan Rachel Wood Claims Marilyn Manson 'Essentially Raped' Her On Camera During Music Video

In "Phoenix Rising," Evan Rachel Wood says that she was "essentially raped" during the music video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses."

By Gina Tron
Evan Rachel Wood and Marilyn Manson

Actor Evan Rachel Wood is claiming in a new documentary that her ex, the musician Marilyn Manson, assaulted her during a music video shoot for one of his music videos.

In “Phoenix Rising,” which just debuted at Sundance, Wood states she was “coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses” during the 2007 music video for Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” Rolling Stone reports.

 “That’s when the first crime was committed against me,” the 34-year-old actor says in the docuemntary. "I was essentially raped on-camera.”

The video featured Wood wearing heart-shaped glasses, an homage to the underage girl in Vladimir Nabokov’s book “Lolita." Wood was 19 years old during the shoot and claims she was given absinthe and was close to unconscious. The video features imagery of the pair engaged in sexual activity, which Wood now says was not consensual.

“It’s nothing like I thought it was going to be,” she says in “Phoenix Rising” about the shoot. “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. I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me.”

She characterized the experience as both “traumatizing” and “shameful.”

Sundance Film Festival announced earlier this month “Phoenix Rising” will feature, in part, the accusations she made against the shock rocker last year. It is directed by Amy Berg, who produced other true crime documentaries such as “The Case Against Adnan Syed" in 2019 and "West of Memphis" in 2012. The two-part documentary will air on HBO in a few months, Variety reports.

Wood and multiple other women broke their silence to accuse Manson, whose legal name is Brian Warner, of abusing and sexually assaulting them. Wood began dating the 53-year-old “Antichrist Superstar” singer when she was in her late teens and he was in his late 30s.

“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years," Wood alleged in a 2021 Instagram post. "I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”

Over the past few years, Wood has become an activist, speaking out against domestic violence issues, but never publicly disclosed the name of her alleged abuser until 2021. She testified in 2018 before a House Judiciary subcommittee about her experiences as a rape and domestic violence survivor in an effort to get the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act passed nationwide. 

Manson has vehemently denied all allegations, which he has called "horrible distortions of reality."

"My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth," Manson said.

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