Though the summer tour of Marilyn Manson with Slaughter to Prevail and Five Finger Death Punch has been announced, there has been no statement issued by any of the bands about the tour nor much information on what we can expect. In a new interview with The Jesea Lee Show , Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory briefly discussed the band's upcoming tour with Marilyn Manson, among other things. As he was talking about what new things to expect in the Five Finger Death Punch shows, including an incredible and unforgettable set designed to blow people's minds, he also mentioned (beginning at the 27:30 mark of the video below) the high expectation of people wanting to see Marilyn Manson, who has not toured since 2019. He said: "Manson hasn't been out on the road for a while, so a lot of people wanna see him. At one point he was one of the most iconic artists on planet earth. So he's back on stage, back in the saddle. That's gonna be amazing." He also
A polaroid of Walters, taken on the first night she met Manson in May 2010.
Although Marilyn Manson's former personal assistant Ashley Walters is one of the least vocal of the main accusers of Marilyn Manson, she is also one who has the most contradictions, so much so that I often find it baffling just to follow her timeline and make any sense of it. Here I will concentrate on one example of this.
On May 18, 2021, Ashley Walters filed a complaint in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, suing her former employer Marilyn Manson/Brian Warner for sexual assault, battery, and harassment. Under the Discovery Rule issued with her complaint, we read the following:
On May 18, 2021, Ashley Walters filed a complaint in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, suing her former employer Marilyn Manson/Brian Warner for sexual assault, battery, and harassment. Under the Discovery Rule issued with her complaint, we read the following:
Walters did not discover the circumstances sufficient to put her on notice of her potential causes of action until the Fall of 2020. During this time a group of individuals who had been victimized by Defendant reached out to Plaintiff to ask about her own experience while working for him. The support group included several of Defendant's ex-girlfriends such as Wood, Bianco and Ashley Morgan Smithline ('Smithline'). It was during these meetings that Plaintiff realized the extent of her experiences and that what she suffered during her employment was not only traumatic, but unlawful.
Through her involvement in the support group, Plaintiff learned about a whole new side in Defendant's manipulative behavior. The stories shared by multiple survivors involved in the group revealed a common thread of Defendant's horrific abusive behavior. Several of the women revealed they had been sexually assaulted, raped, and physically and psychologically abused by Defendant.
The Discovery Rule goes on to list everything recounted in the group that Ashley Walters learned was done by Marilyn Manson/Brian Warner that helped her realize she suffered similar things (most of these actually come from social media, but this will be discussed another day).
When Ashley was interviewed by The Cut, conveniently published on the date she filed (May 18, 2021), she says that after Manson fired her in the summer of 2011, she decided to keep Manson as a friend, which she considered better than having him as an enemy. Then when Evan Rachel Wood gave her congressional testimony in 2018 and recounted her abuse by Manson, that was apparently the first she heard how horrible he was with someone else (even though in her complaint she describes seeing Evan being abused by Manson). We go on to read:
Through her involvement in the support group, Plaintiff learned about a whole new side in Defendant's manipulative behavior. The stories shared by multiple survivors involved in the group revealed a common thread of Defendant's horrific abusive behavior. Several of the women revealed they had been sexually assaulted, raped, and physically and psychologically abused by Defendant.
The Discovery Rule goes on to list everything recounted in the group that Ashley Walters learned was done by Marilyn Manson/Brian Warner that helped her realize she suffered similar things (most of these actually come from social media, but this will be discussed another day).
When Ashley was interviewed by The Cut, conveniently published on the date she filed (May 18, 2021), she says that after Manson fired her in the summer of 2011, she decided to keep Manson as a friend, which she considered better than having him as an enemy. Then when Evan Rachel Wood gave her congressional testimony in 2018 and recounted her abuse by Manson, that was apparently the first she heard how horrible he was with someone else (even though in her complaint she describes seeing Evan being abused by Manson). We go on to read:
Then, in the fall of 2020, a group of Manson’s ex-girlfriends, including Wood and Bianco, reached out to her and they all began sharing stories. "A lot of the isolation and a lot of the psychological abuse was very similar to what I experienced," she said. "Once I realized how many people had been affected, I couldn’t sit by and let this happen to anyone else," Walters said. "My end goal is just to hold him accountable."
Ashley was interviewed again by Rolling Stone, published on November 14, 2021, where she was again asked about how she discovered there were so may others like her. We read there:
In October 2020, in the living room of a Los Angeles home, Bianco’s body shook and her eyes welled as she recounted that moment to about a half-dozen other women, including Walters, Smithline, actress Evan Rachel Wood, and model Sarah McNeilly. Some of the women knew one another; others were strangers. Yet the group shared a reluctant bond: Each of them said that Warner had abused them.
Walters felt stunned hearing some of the stories that day. “I just thought, ‘I can’t believe this happened to so many girls,’” she says. “Once we started talking … you could see the blood drain out of everyone’s face, like, ‘I thought I was the only one.’”
Ashley was interviewed again by Rolling Stone, published on November 14, 2021, where she was again asked about how she discovered there were so may others like her. We read there:
In October 2020, in the living room of a Los Angeles home, Bianco’s body shook and her eyes welled as she recounted that moment to about a half-dozen other women, including Walters, Smithline, actress Evan Rachel Wood, and model Sarah McNeilly. Some of the women knew one another; others were strangers. Yet the group shared a reluctant bond: Each of them said that Warner had abused them.
Walters felt stunned hearing some of the stories that day. “I just thought, ‘I can’t believe this happened to so many girls,’” she says. “Once we started talking … you could see the blood drain out of everyone’s face, like, ‘I thought I was the only one.’”
Having now put it in context, the important line from above that I want to focus on is this:
"It was during these meetings [from October 2020] that Plaintiff realized the extent of her experiences and that what she suffered during her employment was not only traumatic, but unlawful."
The reason I want to focus on it is because it directly contradicts her actions and her words. Here is how (many of these points below I will expand upon elsewhere, but here is just a summary):
1. First of all, according to her now deleted Twitter account and her still active Instagram account, we know for a fact that Ashley Walters was close friends with many of the current accusers of Marilyn Manson. In fact, if there is one common denominator between all the accusers, it is that they are all somehow connected with Ashley Walters. Furthermore, Ashley Walters and Esme Bianco have been what can be described as best friends since 2010, having met through Manson. I will address this in a future article in more detail, but these women who got together in October of 2020 were not unfamiliar with each other, but hung out as friends on a number of occasions. To think they never talked about Manson till that day is absurd. Some of them even attended Manson concerts together till at least 2015.
2. On March 11, 2019, both Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco shared two photos each showing what they considered evidence of their abuse at the hands of Marilyn Manson, who had not been named yet, and these I have examined in detail elsewhere. The next day, March 12th, around 3:00 pm, Ashley Walters shared the following post on her now deleted Twitter account:
"It was during these meetings [from October 2020] that Plaintiff realized the extent of her experiences and that what she suffered during her employment was not only traumatic, but unlawful."
The reason I want to focus on it is because it directly contradicts her actions and her words. Here is how (many of these points below I will expand upon elsewhere, but here is just a summary):
1. First of all, according to her now deleted Twitter account and her still active Instagram account, we know for a fact that Ashley Walters was close friends with many of the current accusers of Marilyn Manson. In fact, if there is one common denominator between all the accusers, it is that they are all somehow connected with Ashley Walters. Furthermore, Ashley Walters and Esme Bianco have been what can be described as best friends since 2010, having met through Manson. I will address this in a future article in more detail, but these women who got together in October of 2020 were not unfamiliar with each other, but hung out as friends on a number of occasions. To think they never talked about Manson till that day is absurd. Some of them even attended Manson concerts together till at least 2015.
2. On March 11, 2019, both Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco shared two photos each showing what they considered evidence of their abuse at the hands of Marilyn Manson, who had not been named yet, and these I have examined in detail elsewhere. The next day, March 12th, around 3:00 pm, Ashley Walters shared the following post on her now deleted Twitter account:
As can be seen, she tagged her close friends Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco with this post, connecting the three as being abused by the same abuser the two had talked about the day prior. On top of this, Ashley Morgan Smithline commented at 3:11 pm that same day under Ashley Walters' post the following words of support: "Love you."
We therefore have the four main accusers, possibly excluding Jane Doe #2 as the fifth, being aware of each others trauma and abuse a year and a half before they gathered as a group in October of 2020.
In this tweet, Ashley Walters furthermore reveals that she was aware of her own alleged abuse in some detail, and she was aware what she allegedly suffered was against the law, though doesn't mention being prevented from filing a lawsuit against Manson because he threatened her, as she would later claim in her lawsuit, but because she thinks a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prevents her from reporting sexual assault, battery, and harassment, which is not true, and one conversation with a lawyer would have revealed to her that NDA's do not cover abuse of any kind. The fact that she spread this false information to the public as if she did have legal knowledge is potentially harmful. Furthermore, in her lawsuit, Ashley conveniently never mentions an NDA preventing her from reporting the abuse, and this is where she changes the narrative and says that it is because Manson was sending threats to her through text and email.
3. On July 9, 2019, Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco testified in support of The Phoenix Act at the California State Capitol, where both revealed details of their abuse. Ashley Walters was in the building that day supporting her two friends, as we can see in video footage from part one of the documentary Phoenix Rising, and other photos, such as the one below from the Instagram account of Esme Bianco:
In this tweet, Ashley Walters furthermore reveals that she was aware of her own alleged abuse in some detail, and she was aware what she allegedly suffered was against the law, though doesn't mention being prevented from filing a lawsuit against Manson because he threatened her, as she would later claim in her lawsuit, but because she thinks a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prevents her from reporting sexual assault, battery, and harassment, which is not true, and one conversation with a lawyer would have revealed to her that NDA's do not cover abuse of any kind. The fact that she spread this false information to the public as if she did have legal knowledge is potentially harmful. Furthermore, in her lawsuit, Ashley conveniently never mentions an NDA preventing her from reporting the abuse, and this is where she changes the narrative and says that it is because Manson was sending threats to her through text and email.
3. On July 9, 2019, Evan Rachel Wood and Esme Bianco testified in support of The Phoenix Act at the California State Capitol, where both revealed details of their abuse. Ashley Walters was in the building that day supporting her two friends, as we can see in video footage from part one of the documentary Phoenix Rising, and other photos, such as the one below from the Instagram account of Esme Bianco:
Concluding Remarks:
In light of this information above, when we read the claim of Ashley Walters, "It was during these meetings [from October of 2020] that Plaintiff realized the extent of her experiences and that what she suffered during her employment was not only traumatic, but unlawful," we must conclude that she is not only contradicting herself, but being very misleading and outright lying.
The reason for her being misleading is at least twofold.
First, because her case more than any other case is in danger of being dismissed due to the statute of limitations. She only had till around 2014 to file her case, so in order to show the judge that her case is valid, she has to show that she was ignorant of Manson's abuse towards her, and her narrative in showing this depends on the meeting in October of 2020, when she heard recounted the stories of other survivors which awakened within her an awareness that she suffered at the hands of Marilyn Manson in similar ways. No doubt, this is also why she deleted her Twitter account, which contradicts this narrative.
Second, the meeting in October of 2020 was not about the "survivors" getting together to share their stories for the first time, but it was about recruiting any female associated with Manson in a romantic way to join the ones who already knew each other and each other's tales. We know this is true just by logical deduction, but it is confirmed through an email sent by Illma Gore trying to recruit these women, which we know about through the testimony of Greta Aurora, a woman who had a romantic weekend with Marilyn Manson in early 2011 which she continues to maintain was a positive experience for her. Ashley Walters was Manson's assistant at the time, and she was the only other person Greta met that weekend associated with Manson, which means Illma Gore received Greta's name and contact information from Ashley Walters.
We can conclude therefore that Ashley Walters was very much aware of the stories of abuse alleged by other "survivors" before the fall of 2020, and even before the fall of 2019, and probably before the fall of 2018, enough for her to have realized before the fall of 2020 that she suffered similar things. Or maybe it never happened at all. With this being the case, it has become an established fact that Ashley Walters is deliberately misleading the public and the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, and should thus be held in contempt.