How did Marilyn Manson “assault” Evan Rachel Wood in this music video?

Sexual assault accusations continue to pile up against musician Marilyn Manson. Among over a dozen women is actress Evan Rachel Wood, who has been outspoken in her case against the rockstar. Now, she claims that she was first assaulted by Marilyn Manson in a music video when she was only eighteen years old.

The revelation comes from a new two-part documentary, Phoenix Rising, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. In the film, Evan Rachel Wood details her horrific experience while filming Marilyn Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses” music video in 2007. Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, has been dodging assault allegations ever since 2001.

Evan Rachel Wood unveils on-camera assault

In the new documentary, Wood describes the havoc on the set of the music video. She explained, “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.”

The Westworld actress called the incident “complete chaos.” “I had never agreed to that,” Wood said in the documentary. “I’m a professional actress, I’ve been doing this my whole life; I’ve never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day.”

In Phoenix Rising, she also confessed that because of her age and the lack of gender equality in the industry at the time, she didn’t know how to “advocate” for herself on the set of the music video. In her relationship with Marilyn Manson, she reveals that she “had been conditioned and trained to never talk back, to just soldier through.”

“I did not feel safe,” Wood says of the “traumatizing” experience. “No one was looking after me.” In the documentary, Evan Rachel Wood revealed that the on-set assault left her feeling “disgusting and that I had done something shameful, and I could tell that the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do.”

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

Manson’s attorney calls Wood’s claims “brazen”

Evan Rachel Wood is among at least fifteen other women who have accused Brian Warner of sexual assault. Three of his accusers, including ex-girlfriend Ashley Morgan Smithline and Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco, have filed lawsuits. Manson has rejected all claims, which he has called “horrible distortions of reality.”

“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’s statement read. 

“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.”

Timeline of Marilyn Manson & Evan Rachel Wood

In 2006, Marilyn Manson, who was thirty-six, began dating eighteen-year-old Evan Rachel Wood. They continued dating and even were engaged before finally calling it quits in 2011.

In February 2021, Wood joined over a dozen women who publicly accused Marilyn Manson of sexual and psychological abuse. The actress disclosed that he began “grooming” her for a cycle of violence when she was only a teenager.

Wood first hinted that she was sexually assaulted by a “significant other” in 2016, and afterward testified before Congress in support of numerous pieces of legislation meant to defend survivors of sexual assault. In February 2021, Wood named Marilyn Manson as her former abuser.