All language subtitles for Marilyn.Manson.Unmasked.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-OPUS_Track02

I just found myself with Hell's Angels
and MS -13 people to have my back.

What are the most dangerous people?

They're women.

If you let them be.

Brian liked to cross boundaries.

There was a moment of fear.

Do I just let this happen?

Do I not fight back?

I just remember everything just
escalated so fast.

And I felt so fucking violated.

Even if I felt like I could say no, it
was still like I'm going to be punished

for this.

If you tap the cobra, you're going to
get the fucking thing.

Ryan just always made it really clear
that if you did anything against his

wishes, he was just going to bring the
full force of everything he had against

you.

And so, yeah, I mean, I take the threats
pretty serious.

In the 2000s, Marilyn Manson, he was
obviously one of the biggest stars in

world.

He's a very savvy individual who
understands the general

zeitgeist of the public.

And so post -Columbine, he doubled down
on who he was and

what he was.

He always touches that nerve that puts
you in an uncomfortable

place.

That scary monster in the corner.

He embodied it.

And projected back at you.

And people loved him for that.

My first encounter with him was
completely by chance.

I was just about to turn 18 years old.

He had an art gallery opening.

I went just solely to look at his
artwork.

When I arrived at the venue, I was
informed that he was there and he was

autographs. And I was like... Oh, my
God, this is my opportunity. I wanted to

meet him for so long.

People probably imagine if I painted
something, it would be like in dog feces

blood or something. But there is blood
in some of them.

There he was right in front of me.

And I was just overwhelmed with emotion.

Flush of tears came over me.

He was really understanding.

You know, he tried to calm me down.

I said, you know, I love your music. I'd
love to work with you on anything that

you might think that we could work
together on.

I thought I embarrassed myself that I'd
probably never be able to see him again,

and I was okay with that.

And then one day he called me.

I couldn't believe it.

We'd have like three -hour
conversations.

One thing I noticed is that he would
talk a lot.

I've tried to let people talk more in
conversations because I tend to talk a

lot. But it's that uncomfortability of
silence.

Then out of the blue, he said, I have a
job for you.

And I said, okay, well, what is it? And
he's like, I want you to come work for

me. And I'm like, Of course, I just
couldn't believe that he would want to

spend that kind of time with me.

And the job that he offered me was to be
his personal assistant.

A typical day would be me waking him up
in the mid -afternoon, serving him

breakfast, trying to make the house
conducive to creativity.

For me now, I don't separate art from
music, from performance.

I no longer think that the performance
has to exist on a stage.

You know, I don't want to live within
those boundaries anymore.

So Manson, at that time, he wanted to go
into filmmaking.

You know, it's funny, sometimes the
hardest part to talk about is the

and when we first met and the time when
you were so blissfully ignorant.

I was 18 years old, just

fresh out of my mom's house.

I had just done a photo shoot for a film
I had done called Running With

Scissors.

I was with Joseph Cross, and he was
like, yeah, I'm going to this party at

Chateau tonight. Do you want to come?

So I was like, sure, I ain't got nothing
else to do. I'm already, like, dressed

up. I may as well go.

We were all, you know, teenagers.

And we were just kind of being
wallflowers in the corner.

And then this big, dark, pale man

walked up to me.

He started talking to me about the film
I'd done 13 and that he was a fan and

that he was doing this film called
Phantasmagoria.

I wanted to make something that's very,
very unsettling, but also very...

because it's kind of...

Romantic in a way.

He said, there's this role in my film
that I think you would be great for,

like, I would love to photograph you.
Like, I'm not just a musician. I take

photographs, I paint, I do all these
things.

And I was just kind of like, wow, that's
so cool. Like, stuff like this never

happens to me.

I'm like a little kid, like if it's food
or a girl, I'm like, I want that.

Me.

That's sort of my childish mentality.

At that point, I did not think that
anything romantic could ever happen

with us.

I saw him as a well -established, much
older man who was married to, like, Dita

Von Teese, a beautiful, established...
burlesque model the thing that we have

common ground with is that we both are
very interested in theatrics and like

living up to our characters that we
created later on

as we grew more close he was alluding to
maybe some things weren't that great in

his marriage he was presenting himself
sort of as this lonely guy who maybe had

lost sight of who he was a bit had been
in a slump a bit uninspired but after

meeting me he feels like inspired again
and he wants to write he wants to make

art so that felt good he

waited for months to even make a move
you know the first time

he sort of let me into the bedroom you
know after we had sort of been dating

months and he had told me that she had
moved out of the house, and I went into

the bedroom, and her things were just
everywhere.

And, like, her stuff still all over the
sink.

And so, yeah, in the beginning, there
were red flags that I definitely

but I really thought that we were in
love.

I didn't see a lot of their relationship
develop in the beginning because he was

on tour with her and I didn't work on
that tour.

But being a fan and being about the same
age, I was like, oh, that's so

exciting. So good for her.

She and I weren't friendly in that sense
where we had an actual friendship.

I interacted with her when she was
around.

But I did notice that she wanted to have
him to herself a lot of the time.

Early on, I really thought this was
something really special, and he really

loved me, and I was really safe, and I
was really lucky.

I think the more and more we talked...
The onions started to be sort of peeled

as to what he believed Marilyn Manson
was.

He did kind of take on this saintly
-like quality in my mind, you know, that

he's trying to deliver a message that's
actually going to, like, move things

forward and wake people up.

I thought... wow, this is just so much
bigger than me and this artist is so

important and their art is so important
for the world and I'll just do anything

it takes to facilitate that and to make
sure that they can be the best version

of themselves no matter what that meant
for me in my life.

I thought I was the youngest person that
he had sort of dated at that point.

So to me, it was a very lighthearted
joke to make in the beginning that, oh,

it's like Lolita.

So I wore heart -shaped glasses to see
him once, you know, sort of as a joke.

And then he said, you know, I'm going to
write a song about it.

Because of our...

relationship and the way that was
inspiring him. We were watching, you

like True Romance and Bonnie and Clyde
and The Hunger and all of these things

that were about this love story that was
shrouded in violence and that started

to sort of devolve into a treatment for
the music video for Heart Shaped

Glasses.

The video commissioner is a very unique
position at the label where you are in

charge of the brand, which is the
artist, and you're also in charge of the

budget and all the overseeing of the
production and making of the video.

There were a lot of people who didn't
want to deal with Manson because he can

complicated.

But I kind of came at it with a very
pragmatic way to work with him.

So Manson is like most big artists. They
have ideas of what they want to do.

So for me, it was just about like
corralling it in a way that made it

Before Heart Shaped Glasses, I was able
to make videos with him and no one heard

about it.

When you do a video shoot and the top
people at the label don't hear anything,

that's a good thing, you know?

So for Heart Shaped Glasses, Basically,
Manson was just like, I want to do

Lolita.

In 2007, it just didn't seem that
radical. It seemed almost past that. I

like, Lolita? Really? Okay. That sounds
great.

The way

it was pitched to me was that there was
going to be a sex scene.

but that it was going to be shot where
the camera is sort of rolling and

And so whatever you see would sort of be
a blur. It would sort of be kind of a

quick flash or a quick blur. It was
going to be so dark.

I had no connection to Evan whatsoever.

I didn't talk to her about creative. I
didn't talk to her about anything.

His name was Manson, 100 % Manson, and
he drove the agenda for everything that

happened.

Certainly with her, he was very
protective.

And on the day of the shoot, with people
just sitting around on set waiting,

waiting, waiting.

You know, there's already this feeling,
this tension.

You know, him and his manager were
getting into a fight because he wouldn't

on set, and, you know, we'll be lucky if
we get anything done today.

And so the second we can get on that
set, let's just get it done.

Brian always had a glass of Absinthe in
his hand, a red Absinthe, and we always

drank it together, and this was another
day there was no exception, and I...

was just, like, drinking a lot.

Eventually, they came out. Again, didn't
talk to anybody. Manson talked to the

DP about what he was looking for.

I went to what's known as Video Village,
where you could watch from the monitor.

And then we just kind of got him in
there.

I just remember everything

just escalated.

So fast.

And I felt like I was in a dream state.

First of all, he just literally started
devouring my face.

It was just so aggressive.

And he just started pulling the clothes
off.

I think we all felt like, what is
actually happening? Are they actually

sex, you know?

But I certainly wasn't going to ask.

I'm assuming it's consensual, right? I'm
assuming that these two people are

dating and they're doing something that
they want to be controversial about, you

know?

They were undercovers?

But it certainly looked to everyone on
set like they were having sex.

I remember putting my hands down to
cover myself and him grabbing my hands

sort of peeling them away from my body
and saying like, it's okay, it's okay,

it's okay. Nobody can see, nobody can
see. It's dark, it's going to be really

dark. Nobody's going to be able to see
you.

I just...

Like, I did not know what to do.

And from there, it just didn't stop.

They yelled, cut.

The next thing I knew, you know, the
entire crew just, like, walked off the

And I was just kind of, like, sitting on
the bed naked, just crying.

I felt so fucking violated.

But I didn't call it rape for many, many
years.

It's demonstrably false that Brian raped
Evan Rachel Wood.

while filming a music video.

This was filmed in a studio.

There were more than ten people within
three feet of the bed.

Brian had clothes on, although I suppose
that wouldn't prevent this. But

none of those people have come forward
and said that they witnessed this act.

It's completely fabricated, and there's
not a witness who will support it.

I do believe her.

I didn't know it was against her will. I
didn't know that she felt raped.

None of that came up.

It's so complicated.

And like I said, I'm not expunging
myself from anything, but I'm also not,

can't say that there was any malice.

None of us showed up like, we're going
to get her.

At the time, I thought these were two
consenting adults doing what they were

doing as a couple.

You know?

That was a big moment, certainly, when
things started to change. That's when I

started to see more the depravity.

some strange dreams about Kendall Otto,
who I grew up with.

I loved him as a kid.

When I think back, there's almost no
time I can think of when he wasn't part

my life.

We were probably in strollers together.

We went to Christian school.

They'd make us go to a Bible class every
day, pray before class and all that.

We never really fit in with our class
because they all seemed like they were

going along with things or enjoying
things, and we're off drawing blue

cult symbols on the desk.

But we didn't really hang out. We didn't
go to their parties, things like that.

I'm not complaining about my childhood.

Everyone has a fucked up childhood.

He only spoke very briefly about his
childhood.

I don't know what his relationship with
him and his mom was like.

He alluded it to being strange.

He mentioned that his mom...

When his dad was away, it sort of, you
know, would call him by his dad's name

and that he was sort of the stand -in
for his father.

It seems sad.

You know, when I was growing up, I think
that I didn't want to be like my

father. My father was, I don't know,
violent, erratic,

driven, which I realize now, okay,
that's me.

I liked his parents.

His mom was very similar to mine.

But his dad, I found a little
frightening.

He had one of the jackets with bullet
holes still in it from Vietnam.

And he would talk about how he had to
spray Agent Orange.

I think that my father's family was very
good at killing people.

He was supposed to be a Jesuit priest or
something like that.

And then he went to Vietnam and became
essentially the character that Martin

Sheen played in Apocalypse Now.

He was saying how when people come back
from the war, it's not post -traumatic

stress syndrome, that they're
traumatized by it.

They were more not able to live without
the...

I know that whenever we would visit his
parents, which was very rare,

he would always kind of hang out with
his dad, and his dad was usually about

just as inappropriate as he was.

You know, I remember kind of like being
in the house with all of them, and Brian

kind of disappeared.

His dad said, oh, you know where Brian
is? He's in the bathroom doing a sniff

-sniff. They just knew he was in the
bathroom doing cocaine and it wasn't a

deal at all.

His dad could just say something that
would sort of shock you a little bit.

So he could push you past your comfort
zone.

I think his dad said, have you ever
sucked a dick sweeter than mine?

Which is, you can get caught in that
because if you say yes or no.

Things like that he would do.

Like your dad.

Brian likes to cross boundaries.

This is the way I am. And then it
becomes a question of nature and

Are people raised to be a villain or
vilified or a pariah like I have become?

If people are worried about what my
music does.

Well, I think about what I would do.

Parrot, motherfucking France.

Officially my favorite goddamn city for
the rest of my life.

As we got into that mid -2000s, I do
think that the audience he was playing

started to shrink.

As an artist, maybe he used to be
platinum. Now he was gold.

But I never saw Manson grappling with
relevancy.

His provocateur persona was something
that I think he always felt was

Whether or not it was, that's a
different thing.

He always loved to have partners that
were ambitious and were successful and

were creative.

But then that also means that they have
a drive in the life of their own.

He's someone that needed constant
companionship, and I think that was

always a bonus intention in the
relationship with Evan.

I don't know if it's a scientific fact,
but if you let a girl who's upset cry or

complain, whatever it is, and just leave
them alone for 15 minutes, they'll get

over it.

They will be set.

There's all these, like, terrible things
that he's done physically,

you know, to me or my body.

But I swear to God.

It's what he does to your mind and your
psyche that is the most damaging.

It's relentless.

It's a constant stream of information,
ideas, and his facts and

his views on the world and his views
about you and your life and what you

be doing, like how he's the answer to
all your problems.

And he just knew.

how to run you around in circles until
you were so exhausted that you just gave

in.

He was functioning, but not in the way
that he had in the past. He was kind of

going through the motions.

I felt very bad for him.

It's a very taxing lifestyle.

There's a lot expected from you.

Drugs and alcohol are one way to cope
with those things.

And he definitely used them.

You could tell that there was a
lifestyle. He started to be more bloated

more, you know, just look a little
unhealthy.

You could see it taking its toll.

By the time you get into your 40s,
eventually something has to give.

At that time, there was problems in the
relationship with Evan.

I was kind of in and out because I was
already overwhelmed myself with

the job and our friendship.

So I decided that I was going to leave
our friendship and it

was going to be over because I couldn't
stand to watch a friend of mine

destroy himself like that.

If Eat Me Drink Me was the love album,
then The High End of Love was definitely

the abuse album.

A lot of it was written and made when

I was trapped in the house and living
out some of the worst days of my

entire life.

There was a very specific day that took
place in Glencoe in the house.

I was kept up for three days, maybe
almost four.

And if you said, you know, I can't stay
awake anymore, I can't keep my eyes

open, I have to go to sleep, you would
say, well, do the drugs, you know, then

you don't have any excuse, you're going
to wake up.

He had locked himself in the bedroom and
he was blasting the Radiohead song,

Exit Music, for a film.

He always said that if he was ever going
to kill himself, that he would put on

that song.

So I was convinced that he was killing
himself and I started, like, pounding on

the door and I was screaming.

I was crying and...

Finally, he opened the door, and I sort
of kind of collapsed inside, and then he

said, you know, we're going up to the
art room. We're going to do it.

The thing that always scared me the most
about him and our time together was

this really romanticized idea about
suicide.

After you're up for three days and,
like, borderline hallucinating at this

point, and...

I'd been in the house for so long and
was just completely broken down. I think

your logic at that time is, well, I know
I can't say no to this person. He's

just not somebody that you say no to.

Maybe he won't go through with it. Maybe
he will.

But either way, I have to show him that
I'm loyal. Otherwise, I put myself more

at risk.

So I grabbed a pair of ruby slippers and
my father's poetry book.

These were the two items that I was
taking with me if I died.

So when we went up to the art room, I
was sort of prepared for anything, and

then he kind of said, okay, we're not
really going to kill ourselves, but

going to make everybody think that we
are.

He wanted me to cut my wrist.

So I did, and then he poured all this,
like, fake blood on me to make it even

worse, like, on the open wounds and
stuff.

And then he made me, like, lay there,
and he was taking photographs of me and

sending it to people.

told them that oh evan slid arrest to
get my attention or like it was a way

him to show look how crazy evan is and
look what i'm having to deal with that

was kind of feeding into this narrative
that um he sort of relied on with all

the girls which was oh my god she's a
drug addict she's crazy she's the one

that's you know making me not able to
work and look at this look at what i

to deal with

Yeah, it was one of the worst days of my
life, for sure.

With Brian, you're put on a pedestal for
a brief moment and then you fall from

that pedestal and then you spend the
rest of your relationship trying to get

back on it and trying to be that savior
again.

But there's usually somebody that's
being groomed.

To be like the savior and being made to
feel really special.

Around 2010,

Brian Warner contacted me via MySpace.

And he wrote to me saying he liked my
photography and would love to work

with me sometime.

I was a fan of his aesthetic and the
images he had created.

Our conversations at the time, it
started on what artists we loved, what

inspired us.

It was a lot of just texting, and it
made me nervous, it made me excited that

someone that I respected in that way
would want to talk to me about these

of things.

photographer occasionally, but I've
never been paid for that.

And the only reason I started it was
because I would like to take pictures of

people to paint from.

And also it's a great way to get girls
naked.

Brian invited me to come over and talk
about doing a project together.

I went over to his house that was above
a liquor store.

He had some people that were working
there, so we weren't alone.

But then as the night went on, people
left, and he showed me some of the stuff

he'd been working on, and then we
started taking some photos.

He was really great at making you feel
comfortable.

After a while, I took my shirt off, but
I had my bra on, and we took some

really beautiful pictures.

But he got a little aggressive and

pushed me on his bed.

He pinned me down so I couldn't move my
arms, and he put my hand down his pants.

And he said, I want you to feel the pre
-cum.

There was a moment of fear.

Do I just let this happen?

Do I not fight back?

And then I somehow got my arm free and
was able to roll out of the situation

try and giggle and laugh because I was
trying my best to not upset him,

basically.

The moment I walked out the door, I was
already getting a barrage of texts from

him love bombing me and saying how
amazing I was and how he's so lucky he's

found someone like me to be in his life.

And that also, I feel like, makes you
repress what just happened and say,

it's okay. That wasn't that bad, right?
That wasn't that bad.

pushed that down really fast and I
didn't talk about it with anyone.

I felt like if I said something to
anyone or like believed that, then all

discussions were like lies.

Yeah.

A few months after our first meeting, he
asked me to come on as a staff member

and help him produce basically all his
art projects.

Society,

they weren't paying as much attention to
him at that point.

And I got a sense that he wasn't.

happy in what he was doing.

He seemed to be stuck in a rut.

When I started working there,

he had me on a pedestal where I'd be in
a different room, maybe organizing some

camera gear or something, and he would
be talking to someone else about me, and

I could overhear him saying, she's
changing my life, she's saving me.

I shouldn't?

Companion.

Companion? Yeah, not lover.

Companion. That's good. That means you
don't have to give gifts. I don't make

sex to her.

I could do no wrong, and it's us against
the world. It's kind of the vibe that

he would give to me.

But after a while, you fall off that
pedestal, and there's nowhere to go

for down.

So... Things got dark.

He would treat me like his property to
give up to someone else, especially if

was meeting a new friend that he was
interested in collaborating with.

We attended the Scream Awards and went
to...

drinks after with a couple of actors and
he would have me sit on the

actor's lap and they would kiss me or
grope me.

How common was this?

All the time. It was very common because
I was so isolated and it was so

normalized. It just became the norm.

Anyone that came in that was new, I
would be put in that situation.

Did you feel that you could say no?

Even if I felt like I could say no, it
was still like, I'm going to be punished

for this.

Like afterwards, it's not going to go
well.

When you're going through those horrible
times and you're mental health

compromised and you're beaten down.

At this point where you don't know
what's up and what's down anymore, and

terrified, how do you leave?

You have no stability. You have nothing.

He controls my finances. I don't know
where to go from there. How do you go?

How do you get out of there?

Around summertime of 2011,

I drove drunk and crashed his, I had his
car at the time, and got a DUI.

And that was like his excuse, basically,
to let me go.

So it was a mixed bag of emotions, for
sure.

A weight lifted as well, like a sense of
freedom.

And also of... terror, like, what do I
do? Where do I go from here?

We didn't talk for a while. After I
stopped working, we had that falling

And then after a while, I started
texting updates.

We started slowly chatting, and he'd
start joking around about our making

of the bad times.

But I also was keeping him at arm's
length.

I didn't want to go back into that inner
circle and be around all the time.

I could see how I could be sucked back
in very quickly.

I think Ashley Walters in particular
thought that working with him in that

capacity was a stepping stone to maybe
further her career. I think she's into

photography and something like that.

And I don't know if that ever
materialized in the way that she was

I don't think having to go to the
grocery store or fetch food for him at 2

was ideally what she wanted to be doing
in life.

Ashley Walters had the time of her life.

She had his credit cards. She had his
car keys.

She was around rock stars.

She never complained.

And it's ludicrous to 10 years later
claim that somebody sexually harassed

her.

Nobody takes a job as a personal
assistant for a rock musician thinking

that this is working in a corporate
environment.

Two things can be true.

Sometimes there were amazing times and
there were things that came out of a

situation that I wouldn't trade for the
world, but there are things that just

also destroy you as a human being and
are horrific that you should never have

go through and you shouldn't have to pay
that price for that.

In 2015, it had been a few years since I
had left Brian,

and I started therapy.

I remember one day I was telling my
therapist a

story or something, and all it took was
her just looking at me and saying, that

sounds really awful.

And I just broke.

For the first time, somebody had looked
at me and said, wow, you know, what you

experienced just sounded terrible.

And like, yeah, I think that was the
first time I'd ever really gotten like,

like really validated about it.

That was like sort of the beginning of
the healing.

And then after the year of Me Too, I
just thought, look, it's the time

to say something.

We welcome everyone to today's hearing
on the Survivors Bill of Rights Act.

Do you swear that the testimony you are
about to give before this committee is

the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? So help you God. Ranking

member Jackson Lee and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you

inviting me to testify today.

My name is Evan Rachel Wood, and I'm an
artist, but I'm also a domestic violence

and sexual assault survivor.

This is a text from Brian after the
testimony that Evan gave for the Phoenix

Act. And he said, just curious if you
are still a friend.

After all the car and whatnot I got
passed, I'm a great friend.

Not the opposite so much. Hope you are
good.

How did you receive that message?

It seemed pretty threatening to me, like
I better be on his side.

My experience with domestic violence was
this.

I felt like, if you're not going to
speak up now, what are you doing?

Everything I had pushed down for so damn
long, it just was like a volcano

exploded.

If you're going to date the Antichrist
superstar, like...

What do you think he is?