Marilyn Manson has dropped his defamation lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood, two years after he first filed it.
Manson and Wood reached a settlement agreement on November 19. As part of the agreement, the rocker will pay approximately $327,000 to Wood for her attorneys’ fees.
“Marilyn Manson filed a lawsuit against Ms. Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career. But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms. Wood failed,” wrote a representative for Wood. “As the trial court correctly found, Warner’s claims were meritless. Warner’s decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms. Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.”
“After 4 years of fighting a battle where he was able to tell the truth, Brian is pleased to dismiss his still-pending claims and appeal in order to close the door on this chapter of his life,” Manson’s attorney Howard King added in a statement.
Wood’s lawyers, Michael Kump, Shawn Holley, and Katherine Kleindienst from Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir LLP, said in a statement that Manson had tried to settle the lawsuit earlier this year while he was appealing a judge’s decisions against him. His first offer was to pay part of Wood’s fees in exchange for keeping the settlement confidential, with only a mutually agreed-upon statement being released. Wood rejected this offer, as her lawyers said she did not want to accept the confidentiality or other terms. After this, Warner agreed to drop the lawsuit completely and pay Wood’s full legal fees.
Warner filed the case in March 2022, just weeks before the release of the two-part documentary Phoenix Rising. In the documentary, Wood revealed her allegations of rape and sexual abuse against Warner and how they inspired her to campaign for legislation to support abuse survivors. Warner filed the suit a little more than a year after Wood wrote on Instagram, “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” referring to previous testimony referring to Warner only as an abuser and a 2016 Rolling Stone interview claiming to have been raped.
“[Warner] started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Wood wrote in her first 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.”
Wood went into further detail about the alleged assault in Phoenix Rising, alleging Warner ‘essentially raped’ her on the making of a music video for ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’ and physically attacked her while on tour. She further claimed that he raped her while she was sleeping and that he went with her to have an abortion after she became pregnant.
According to Warner’s lawsuit, Wood and co-defendant Illma Gore impersonated an FBI agent and sent false letters to Warner’s colleagues in an attempt to force them into a conspiracy against him.
He said Wood used her involvement in the formation of the Phoenix Act, a nonprofit organization she formed to assist sexual assault survivors, to get people to accuse him of misconduct. Warner also claimed that Wood and Gore ‘swatted’ him, apparently sending police to his residence to check on him under false pretenses to gain attention. He was seeking unspecified damages in the complaint.
In May 2023, a court dismissed several of Warner’s allegations, including his accusation that Wood solicited women to speak out against him. In February of this year, a court ordered Warner to pay Wood $326,956 in defense expenses and $169,408 to Gore. The decision was made under California’s anti-SLAPP law. It people from unfair lawsuits related to their right to free speech. Warner’s legal team had filed a 92-page appeal in August, and they continued to support it when he decided to drop the lawsuit.
