Los Angeles brand Enfants Riches Déprimés is currently showcasing their Spring 2024 collection at Maxfield LA, and the event was attended by Marilyn Manson and his wife Lindsay on April 17th. On March 16th, Manson posted photos on his social media wearing the Enfants Riches Déprimés brand, which is French for "Depressed Rich Kids". Enfants Riches Déprimés is a Los Angeles and Paris based luxury fashion brand founded in 2012 by the conceptual artist Henri Alexander Levy, who has created a French punk streetwear line based on the movements of the late 1970s and Japanese Avant-garde movements of the 1980s. One of the core precepts of the brand is high price points, with T-shirts ranging on average from $500 to $1,000, and haute couture jackets priced as high as $95,000. ERD consistently utilizes the business model of artificial scarcity. In this regard, all styles are sold on an extremely exclusive basis, and thus in relatively small quantities. In a 2016 interview with Complex
Evan Rachel Wood's Ridiculous Documentary 'Phoenix Rising' (Part Two: Stand Up): A Detailed Review and Examination
Like my review for Part One of Phoenix Rising, I am here presenting a detailed review and examination of Part Two, and will try to clarify its many errors and separate the facts from the fiction. Because so many topics are brought up, as well as left out, in Part Two, I will be giving a summary here and save the details for future articles. I encourage reading this review while watching Part Two of Phoenix Rising, since it is now widely available and I will not post many videos and photos from the documentary to supplement what I write.
Part Two of Evan Rachel Wood's documentary Phoenix Rising begins on September 12, 2020. Anyone familiar with this case knows that on this day, a former crew member and personal assistant of Marilyn Manson, Dan Cleary, came forward on Twitter to lend his support to the accusers of his former boss.
Evan first appears on screen with tears in her eyes, not tears of pain or sorrow, but of joy. She says she just woke up to an email informing her of Dan Cleary's words of support, and her joy lies in the fact that he is a male and was one of Manson's "inner circle". Seeing that Dan Cleary wrote this message at 10:55pm, we can assume this video was taken on September 13th.
The next scene shows Evan with her mom as they read through Dan Cleary's Twitter thread. Both Evan and Dan claim they would often see each other while Manson performed on stage. Dan claims they bonded over the movie Anchorman; Evan only remembers that he was a Boston Red Sox fan. The scene ends with Evan and her mom expressing their wish to hug Dan Cleary for his courage in coming forward and risking his career by doing so.
Part Two of Evan Rachel Wood's documentary Phoenix Rising begins on September 12, 2020. Anyone familiar with this case knows that on this day, a former crew member and personal assistant of Marilyn Manson, Dan Cleary, came forward on Twitter to lend his support to the accusers of his former boss.
Evan first appears on screen with tears in her eyes, not tears of pain or sorrow, but of joy. She says she just woke up to an email informing her of Dan Cleary's words of support, and her joy lies in the fact that he is a male and was one of Manson's "inner circle". Seeing that Dan Cleary wrote this message at 10:55pm, we can assume this video was taken on September 13th.
The next scene shows Evan with her mom as they read through Dan Cleary's Twitter thread. Both Evan and Dan claim they would often see each other while Manson performed on stage. Dan claims they bonded over the movie Anchorman; Evan only remembers that he was a Boston Red Sox fan. The scene ends with Evan and her mom expressing their wish to hug Dan Cleary for his courage in coming forward and risking his career by doing so.
According to Amy Berg, the director of the documentary, it was Dan Cleary's tweet that gave the accusers the courage to come out and name Marilyn Manson, and this is what shifted the documentary from an emphasis on the Phoenix Act (which only gets about ten minutes of time in Part One) to an emphasis on Marilyn Manson.
We next move a little forward in time, a little over a month, to October 21, 2020. This was the day all the accusers recruited by Illma Gore got together to share their stories. The first shot of the scene is Evan walking into the meeting and going over to Dan Cleary to give him a tearful hug for having the courage to step forward.
The Problem With Dan Cleary
The problem with Dan Cleary is that he not only claims things that are not true, but he is an embittered former employee of Marilyn Manson. You can literally go down a known list of the generous things Marilyn Manson did for Dan Cleary, and though he somewhat acknowledges them, at the same time his inflated ego was so hurt by Manson that in 2019, before he came out to support the accusers, he said on his podcast that his anger towards him reached the point that all he wanted to do was trash on him.
The truth of the matter is that when Dan Cleary was a crew member during the Rape of the World Tour in 2007-08, he had no contact with either Marilyn Manson or Evan Rachel Wood, and this comes from people who did have access to them on the tour and have no idea who he even is. While on tour, Manson and those with him don't interact with the crew at all, who are mainly responsible for setting up and tearing down the stage for shows. Dan Cleary himself was a keyboard tech, and even Dan Cleary himself said on his podcast that he had no interaction with Manson during the tour. Everything he says about Manson from that tour he bases on what he heard from other people and not his own experience, and he has even stated that one of his favorite moments while on tour is the gossip that goes around. Therefore, the part about being in Manson's "inner circle" while he was with Evan in 2007-08 is a complete fabrication and exaggeration. The fact that Evan says she remembers Dan for being a Red Sox fan no doubt is also a total fabrication, since Dan prominently states on his social media profiles that he is a big Red Sox fan.
As for his employment as Marilyn Manson's assistant, Dan was married at the time and desperately looking for work in Los Angeles, and since Manson was looking for an extra assistant he gave him the job, not really knowing who he was. Even as Manson's assistant, Dan was never a part of Manson's "inner circle", but worked as an extra assistant during a busy period for Manson while two other assistants, Paula Baby and Ryan, were his main assistants and themselves never had much contact with Dan outside of a few text messages. If Manson's main assistants hardly had contact with him, how much contact do we expect Manson to have had with him? He claims that he was Manson's assistant for two years, but the fact of the matter is that he was only with Manson off and on for about seven months (December 2013 - June 2014), then he was let go for an unknown reason. He then worked as a guitar tech for Manson on tour for about eight months or so in 2015. As a tech and musician, it seems like he thought being Manson's personal assistant was going to springboard him into high places in the music industry, and it seems he became embittered because now he's stuck doing a podcast for a living. Exposure like being the hero on Phoenix Rising will certainly help his podcast career.
If you read through his social media and listen to his podcasts, Dan Cleary is an opinionated guy who takes a stubbornly hard stance on things he chooses to believe in. When he came out against Manson and supported his accusers, Dan claims that someone he knew had just recently been sexually assaulted and he was very sensitive to the topic at the moment, which is why he was so disgusted by the comments on social media against Manson's accusers and decided to support them. Also, he was an advocate of the Me Too Movement from the beginning, and takes up other liberal causes, which included for the most part trashing on Trump, and he came to look upon those who trashed on Manson's accusers as he viewed followers of Trump, while the accusers lined up with his more liberal stance, hence why he aligned himself with them. Even if his testimony has a grain of truth, it has become something that he has exploited, and his provable lies have exposed him as one who cannot be trusted when it comes to anything he says against Manson and on behalf of Manson's accusers.
The "Survivor's Meeting"
This October 21st meeting, called a "Survivor's Meeting" in the documentary, was organized primarily by Illma Gore of like-minded individuals who had accusations to make against Marilyn Manson. Everyone at this meeting knew each other before this meeting. They knew each other's stories, for the most part, before this meeting. Later they would claim this meeting triggered their repressed memories to recall what really happened to them, but this is a demonstrable lie based on the myth of repressed and recovered memories, as well as the fact that they all knew each other already in one way or another, and their interactions are well documented in their social media accounts.
In the documentary, Evan goes around and greets everyone at the Survivor's Meeting, which is treated by the documentary like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where only the first names and the first initial of the last names are given of everyone there, which includes Sarah McNeilly (who says to Evan "we are more powerful than that booger") and Ashley Morgan Smithline (both introduced as former girlfriends, which is not true). Also at the meeting are Ashley Walters, Esme Bianco and Manson's former bassist Fred Sablan. All of these women and Fred have some sort of background with Ashley Walters that went back almost a decade, though it should be particularly noted that Ashley Walters, Esme Bianco and Fred Sablan were especially close since 2011, as their social media accounts show. As for Dan Cleary, he may have had some contact with Fred before he left the band in July 2014; they do both share a tattoo that was given to them by Damien Echols, who himself had a documentary done on his behalf by Amy Berg called West of Memphis.
Though the documentary has us coming back and forth to this meeting throughout most it, Evan is pretty much the only one that speaks, with a few interjections of Dan Cleary and Ashley Morgan Smithline and Ashley Walters. Esme Bianco and Fred Sablan never say a word, but just affirm with gestures their agreement with Evan. Though I don't know why Fred is not given a word to say, I believe Esme is not given a chance to speak in the documentary due to the fact that she has a pending lawsuit against Manson, and this lawsuit at the time of release had been challenged by Manson, while the lawsuit of Ashley Morgan Smithline has not been challenged by Manson, and that of Ashley Walters has only recently been challenged.
The Problem With Dan Cleary
The problem with Dan Cleary is that he not only claims things that are not true, but he is an embittered former employee of Marilyn Manson. You can literally go down a known list of the generous things Marilyn Manson did for Dan Cleary, and though he somewhat acknowledges them, at the same time his inflated ego was so hurt by Manson that in 2019, before he came out to support the accusers, he said on his podcast that his anger towards him reached the point that all he wanted to do was trash on him.
The truth of the matter is that when Dan Cleary was a crew member during the Rape of the World Tour in 2007-08, he had no contact with either Marilyn Manson or Evan Rachel Wood, and this comes from people who did have access to them on the tour and have no idea who he even is. While on tour, Manson and those with him don't interact with the crew at all, who are mainly responsible for setting up and tearing down the stage for shows. Dan Cleary himself was a keyboard tech, and even Dan Cleary himself said on his podcast that he had no interaction with Manson during the tour. Everything he says about Manson from that tour he bases on what he heard from other people and not his own experience, and he has even stated that one of his favorite moments while on tour is the gossip that goes around. Therefore, the part about being in Manson's "inner circle" while he was with Evan in 2007-08 is a complete fabrication and exaggeration. The fact that Evan says she remembers Dan for being a Red Sox fan no doubt is also a total fabrication, since Dan prominently states on his social media profiles that he is a big Red Sox fan.
As for his employment as Marilyn Manson's assistant, Dan was married at the time and desperately looking for work in Los Angeles, and since Manson was looking for an extra assistant he gave him the job, not really knowing who he was. Even as Manson's assistant, Dan was never a part of Manson's "inner circle", but worked as an extra assistant during a busy period for Manson while two other assistants, Paula Baby and Ryan, were his main assistants and themselves never had much contact with Dan outside of a few text messages. If Manson's main assistants hardly had contact with him, how much contact do we expect Manson to have had with him? He claims that he was Manson's assistant for two years, but the fact of the matter is that he was only with Manson off and on for about seven months (December 2013 - June 2014), then he was let go for an unknown reason. He then worked as a guitar tech for Manson on tour for about eight months or so in 2015. As a tech and musician, it seems like he thought being Manson's personal assistant was going to springboard him into high places in the music industry, and it seems he became embittered because now he's stuck doing a podcast for a living. Exposure like being the hero on Phoenix Rising will certainly help his podcast career.
If you read through his social media and listen to his podcasts, Dan Cleary is an opinionated guy who takes a stubbornly hard stance on things he chooses to believe in. When he came out against Manson and supported his accusers, Dan claims that someone he knew had just recently been sexually assaulted and he was very sensitive to the topic at the moment, which is why he was so disgusted by the comments on social media against Manson's accusers and decided to support them. Also, he was an advocate of the Me Too Movement from the beginning, and takes up other liberal causes, which included for the most part trashing on Trump, and he came to look upon those who trashed on Manson's accusers as he viewed followers of Trump, while the accusers lined up with his more liberal stance, hence why he aligned himself with them. Even if his testimony has a grain of truth, it has become something that he has exploited, and his provable lies have exposed him as one who cannot be trusted when it comes to anything he says against Manson and on behalf of Manson's accusers.
The "Survivor's Meeting"
This October 21st meeting, called a "Survivor's Meeting" in the documentary, was organized primarily by Illma Gore of like-minded individuals who had accusations to make against Marilyn Manson. Everyone at this meeting knew each other before this meeting. They knew each other's stories, for the most part, before this meeting. Later they would claim this meeting triggered their repressed memories to recall what really happened to them, but this is a demonstrable lie based on the myth of repressed and recovered memories, as well as the fact that they all knew each other already in one way or another, and their interactions are well documented in their social media accounts.
In the documentary, Evan goes around and greets everyone at the Survivor's Meeting, which is treated by the documentary like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where only the first names and the first initial of the last names are given of everyone there, which includes Sarah McNeilly (who says to Evan "we are more powerful than that booger") and Ashley Morgan Smithline (both introduced as former girlfriends, which is not true). Also at the meeting are Ashley Walters, Esme Bianco and Manson's former bassist Fred Sablan. All of these women and Fred have some sort of background with Ashley Walters that went back almost a decade, though it should be particularly noted that Ashley Walters, Esme Bianco and Fred Sablan were especially close since 2011, as their social media accounts show. As for Dan Cleary, he may have had some contact with Fred before he left the band in July 2014; they do both share a tattoo that was given to them by Damien Echols, who himself had a documentary done on his behalf by Amy Berg called West of Memphis.
Though the documentary has us coming back and forth to this meeting throughout most it, Evan is pretty much the only one that speaks, with a few interjections of Dan Cleary and Ashley Morgan Smithline and Ashley Walters. Esme Bianco and Fred Sablan never say a word, but just affirm with gestures their agreement with Evan. Though I don't know why Fred is not given a word to say, I believe Esme is not given a chance to speak in the documentary due to the fact that she has a pending lawsuit against Manson, and this lawsuit at the time of release had been challenged by Manson, while the lawsuit of Ashley Morgan Smithline has not been challenged by Manson, and that of Ashley Walters has only recently been challenged.
To read about this meeting and similar collaborations of the accusers, I encourage that the lawsuit of Manson against Evan and Illma be read, where proof is provided that each of the accusers received talking points in order to align their testimonies.
Evan Rachel Wood and the Media During the Time She Was With Manson
In the next segment, Evan discusses how the media treated her while she was with Manson. One of the primary reasons Evan Rachel Wood decided to come out against Manson and name him as her accuser is because while she was with Manson she got a lot of bad press that haunted her for years. In fact, it was a main reason for the deep depression she suffered at various points during that time, which she now blames Manson for. Meanwhile, she was constantly defending Manson to the press at the time, who she believed was being wrongly accused by them, and she was right. The problem is, Manson probably never asked her to defend him, because Manson would hardly ever defend himself, and she faced an uphill battle. He knew his persona was fodder for bad press, and he was used to bad press for years, and for many years before Evan he dealt with his ex-fiance Rose McGowan and ex-wife Dita Von Teese get trashed by the press for being with him, but they more easily shrugged it off because they were more mature and understanding than Evan. However, Evan also came off as being mature about the matter, but one interview after another reveals that her primary frustration while being with Manson was the bad press she got.
And not only did she get bad press and was branded trashy and a whore by tabloids, but Manson also never defended her. He probably thought she was mature enough to handle it like Rose and Dita, but he never came out with a strong worded statement to defend Evan's honor, as she may have wanted. He always spoke highly of her and expressed his love for her, but that wasn't enough. In fact, throughout the time Manson and Evan were together, they maybe only appeared together twice for interviews, which were very impromptu. The fact of the matter is, just by being with Manson all those years, no matter how he felt about her and she felt about him, gave her a very bad reputation in Hollywood, and I have no doubt that Evan coming out against Manson has more to do with restoring her name and dignity rather than anything he allegedly did to her. In fact, according to Manson's lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood and Illma Gore, his lawyers agree this has mostly to do with Evan restoring her reputation for the bad press she received while she was with Manson. She wants to distance herself as much as possible from it, for her own sake (and her activist career) and for the sake of her son and family.
And it wasn't only the press that was harassing Evan. As Evan says in the documentary, her agent, her parents, her family and her friends would express to her their disappointment and shock. As Evan was coming more into her own as an adult with Manson, which she viewed as something very positive and needed for her life, everyone who knew her prior to Manson as a less mature and "wholesome" teenager were aghast at the way she was now dressing, living, talking, let alone all those scandalous photoshoots and music videos, some of which were done in the nude. Meanwhile, Manson is a very mature adult at 38 years old, and he is expected to have to deal with issues of a 19 year old just escaping the clutches of her strict mother, which was something Evan very much wanted, as she clearly expresses in interviews from the time, and I'm sure she made clear to Manson. Though Manson gave her the freedom to be who she wanted to be, when the relationship ended years later, Evan also came to realize that now she had to rely more and more on her family and friends, and she was starting her own family, and she had to go back to her old mentality in order to get along in the world without Manson, who basically gave her a taste of the Rock and Roll as well as the Hollywood lifestyle. Though Evan wanted it at the time, it was something she would come to want only short term, but it was to have long term consequences unless she completely demonized that time, removed her own personal responsibility for being a part of it, and rebranded it as a time of her abuse in order for herself to emerge as the Hollywood and media darling instead of the Hollywood and media whore.
Also, Evan Rachel Wood was never an A-list actress at 19, as she claims, but that's another matter, though it is relevant in pointing out to show what kind of a narcissist she is. Until she did Westworld, being with Marilyn Manson was her primary claim to fame. She has always been, albeit by choice, an Indy actress, B-list at best.
How Tech-Savvy is Marilyn Manson?
Dan Cleary then goes on to claim that Manson was so tech-savvy that he could hop on to people's accounts that used his Wi-Fi and hack their phones and laptops "or something". Evan tries to confirm Dan's account by saying she witnessed Manson hack into someone's laptop, as well as hacked into her phone and email and monitored her every move. As she says this, Dan affirms this by nodding his head up and down.
I have talked to a few people about this issue who know Marilyn Manson, and they just find it hilarious that Manson would be considered tech-savvy in any way. Manson can hardly play an instrument, let alone hack into people's computers. Even if he could hack into a laptop or trace someone's emails and phone, the lack of detail about this should make us question at least how they know this, who Manson did this to, and why. Evan's explanation post-accusations cannot be considered trustworthy unless she offers us some evidence. Without evidence, the whole matter is a mute point. Furthermore, did Dan witness Manson doing what he claimed, cause he doesn't really sound like he knows what he's talking about. Such claims require proof if they are to be taken seriously at all, otherwise people can just make up unprovable claims all day long till the sun goes down that may not have a shred of truth to them.
Why would they make this up? As for Dan, his podcast shows he is into conspiracies and loves to speculate on things he doesn't know much about, so he could just be talking out of his ass just to make himself relevant during the meeting, as if he was part of Manson's "inner circle". Evan, on the other hand, who has made this claim many times over the past few years, says these things for very obvious reasons. Evan knows Manson either has or might have evidence against her, and because she is an extremely paranoid person, she knows she needs to cover her ass in case Manson comes out with a piece of evidence against her, whether it be an old email, an old text message, anything. If he does have something like this he can use against her, Evan can just claim it is something he faked when he hacked into her email or her phone to make it look like it was her. Evan knows she needs to cover all her tracks to not get caught.
The Video Clip of Manson Apparently Threatening Evan
The documentary then shows us a video clip without any context attached to it that really makes no sense precisely because it lacks context. It is obviously conveniently placed in the documentary in an edited fashion to make it look like Manson is threatening to kill Evan, but we can only assume this outside of the context, and this is why the context is not given, because Amy Berg, the director of the documentary, and Evan Rachel Wood, want the viewer to make assumptions without any context attached. The only context the viewer needs, for them, is that Evan equals everything good about the world while Manson equals everything bad about the world. So in this context, it looks like Manson is threatening to kill Evan.
The reality, however, is probably something much different. If we watched 30 seconds prior to this clip and 30 seconds after this clip, we would probably have a little more context to tell what is going on. The only thing we see is someone's black shoe we are to assume is Marilyn Manson's, in a room with a Manson painting, food, a pencil and a CD player on the floor. Then we hear what we assume to be Evan's voice asking twice: "Who is texting you?", and what we assume to be Manson, who sounds like he is trying to move something around and unable to hear what she said trying to get clarification whether or not she was asking about someone texting him or her, but she does not reply with a clarification to his question, so in a frustrated manner he says under his breath: "Answer me, for fuck's sake, or I'll kill you."
Personally, I think this video clip, if it is even real or not, outside of its context, and not knowing even at what point in their relationship it was except that it says it was 2008, has more strikes against Evan than it does Manson. Evan, to me, sounds like she is being controlling over Manson by asking him who is texting him. What business is it of hers who is texting him? Secondly, Manson is clearly busy doing something and making noise (someone has said you can hear Evan cutting up and snorting cocaine), making it difficult to hear what she says, and when he asks for clarification, Evan refuses to give it. Hence, because Evan was being controlling and annoying, Manson expresses his frustration in a way that sounds completely normal as he is occupied with another task. Saying "I'll kill you" in such a non-threatening way (especially where she could not hear it) is just an expression of frustration that is very common among all humans. If he really wanted to kill Evan, he would have done it. This video clip is just a silly addition in this documentary, or rather a very desperate attempt to present evidence when real evidence doesn't exist.
And it wasn't only the press that was harassing Evan. As Evan says in the documentary, her agent, her parents, her family and her friends would express to her their disappointment and shock. As Evan was coming more into her own as an adult with Manson, which she viewed as something very positive and needed for her life, everyone who knew her prior to Manson as a less mature and "wholesome" teenager were aghast at the way she was now dressing, living, talking, let alone all those scandalous photoshoots and music videos, some of which were done in the nude. Meanwhile, Manson is a very mature adult at 38 years old, and he is expected to have to deal with issues of a 19 year old just escaping the clutches of her strict mother, which was something Evan very much wanted, as she clearly expresses in interviews from the time, and I'm sure she made clear to Manson. Though Manson gave her the freedom to be who she wanted to be, when the relationship ended years later, Evan also came to realize that now she had to rely more and more on her family and friends, and she was starting her own family, and she had to go back to her old mentality in order to get along in the world without Manson, who basically gave her a taste of the Rock and Roll as well as the Hollywood lifestyle. Though Evan wanted it at the time, it was something she would come to want only short term, but it was to have long term consequences unless she completely demonized that time, removed her own personal responsibility for being a part of it, and rebranded it as a time of her abuse in order for herself to emerge as the Hollywood and media darling instead of the Hollywood and media whore.
Also, Evan Rachel Wood was never an A-list actress at 19, as she claims, but that's another matter, though it is relevant in pointing out to show what kind of a narcissist she is. Until she did Westworld, being with Marilyn Manson was her primary claim to fame. She has always been, albeit by choice, an Indy actress, B-list at best.
How Tech-Savvy is Marilyn Manson?
Dan Cleary then goes on to claim that Manson was so tech-savvy that he could hop on to people's accounts that used his Wi-Fi and hack their phones and laptops "or something". Evan tries to confirm Dan's account by saying she witnessed Manson hack into someone's laptop, as well as hacked into her phone and email and monitored her every move. As she says this, Dan affirms this by nodding his head up and down.
I have talked to a few people about this issue who know Marilyn Manson, and they just find it hilarious that Manson would be considered tech-savvy in any way. Manson can hardly play an instrument, let alone hack into people's computers. Even if he could hack into a laptop or trace someone's emails and phone, the lack of detail about this should make us question at least how they know this, who Manson did this to, and why. Evan's explanation post-accusations cannot be considered trustworthy unless she offers us some evidence. Without evidence, the whole matter is a mute point. Furthermore, did Dan witness Manson doing what he claimed, cause he doesn't really sound like he knows what he's talking about. Such claims require proof if they are to be taken seriously at all, otherwise people can just make up unprovable claims all day long till the sun goes down that may not have a shred of truth to them.
Why would they make this up? As for Dan, his podcast shows he is into conspiracies and loves to speculate on things he doesn't know much about, so he could just be talking out of his ass just to make himself relevant during the meeting, as if he was part of Manson's "inner circle". Evan, on the other hand, who has made this claim many times over the past few years, says these things for very obvious reasons. Evan knows Manson either has or might have evidence against her, and because she is an extremely paranoid person, she knows she needs to cover her ass in case Manson comes out with a piece of evidence against her, whether it be an old email, an old text message, anything. If he does have something like this he can use against her, Evan can just claim it is something he faked when he hacked into her email or her phone to make it look like it was her. Evan knows she needs to cover all her tracks to not get caught.
The Video Clip of Manson Apparently Threatening Evan
The documentary then shows us a video clip without any context attached to it that really makes no sense precisely because it lacks context. It is obviously conveniently placed in the documentary in an edited fashion to make it look like Manson is threatening to kill Evan, but we can only assume this outside of the context, and this is why the context is not given, because Amy Berg, the director of the documentary, and Evan Rachel Wood, want the viewer to make assumptions without any context attached. The only context the viewer needs, for them, is that Evan equals everything good about the world while Manson equals everything bad about the world. So in this context, it looks like Manson is threatening to kill Evan.
The reality, however, is probably something much different. If we watched 30 seconds prior to this clip and 30 seconds after this clip, we would probably have a little more context to tell what is going on. The only thing we see is someone's black shoe we are to assume is Marilyn Manson's, in a room with a Manson painting, food, a pencil and a CD player on the floor. Then we hear what we assume to be Evan's voice asking twice: "Who is texting you?", and what we assume to be Manson, who sounds like he is trying to move something around and unable to hear what she said trying to get clarification whether or not she was asking about someone texting him or her, but she does not reply with a clarification to his question, so in a frustrated manner he says under his breath: "Answer me, for fuck's sake, or I'll kill you."
Personally, I think this video clip, if it is even real or not, outside of its context, and not knowing even at what point in their relationship it was except that it says it was 2008, has more strikes against Evan than it does Manson. Evan, to me, sounds like she is being controlling over Manson by asking him who is texting him. What business is it of hers who is texting him? Secondly, Manson is clearly busy doing something and making noise (someone has said you can hear Evan cutting up and snorting cocaine), making it difficult to hear what she says, and when he asks for clarification, Evan refuses to give it. Hence, because Evan was being controlling and annoying, Manson expresses his frustration in a way that sounds completely normal as he is occupied with another task. Saying "I'll kill you" in such a non-threatening way (especially where she could not hear it) is just an expression of frustration that is very common among all humans. If he really wanted to kill Evan, he would have done it. This video clip is just a silly addition in this documentary, or rather a very desperate attempt to present evidence when real evidence doesn't exist.
We must also ask why this video exists in the first place. Did Evan have surveillance on Manson to keep an eye on him, especially in what looks like his private painting room? When we couple this surveillance with the fact that she is trying to get him to tell her who is texting him, we must question Evan's intentions. We know Evan has controlling tendencies now, but these things just don't manifest overnight; she was probably similar with Manson. One indication this is true is when Manson was forced to fire Paula Baby, Manson's assistant, because Evan didn't like the fact that she brought him his cereal while she was there, though Manson brought her back when Evan was out of the picture. We also know she had a certain jealousy of Manson's relationship with Twiggy Ramirez.
The Truth About Twiggy Ramirez (Jeordie White)
The turning point for Marilyn Manson, according Evan, was when Twiggy rejoined the band. She says that when Twiggy got back in the band, which was on January 9, 2008, Manson changed "like overnight". Manson now became, Evan says, all about "total debauchery, torturing girls, doing massive amounts of drugs, and pain rituals," just like when they first started the band. It should be noted that as Evan says this, clips are shown of Manson during some of his wild moments throughout his career, none of which are related to the time he was with Evan.
Even though Twiggy rejoined the band in January of 2008, Evan says that when she went to film The Wrestler in March of 2008 and came back excited to see Manson and tell him about the work she was so proud of doing, Manson was an entirely different person, the "new Manson", someone she had never met, he had become completely dark and spiteful. This sudden change she ascribes to Twiggy rejoining the band. "It felt like he was trying to prove something to Twiggy, that he wasn't some lovesick person, that I was just another girl that he could control and torture."
When I hear this, I am immediately reminded of the following scene from Grease, where lovesick Danny tries to act cool around his friends when he is surprised by Sandy, the girl he loves, at the school rally:
The truth is twofold: first, Evan is turning this against Twiggy because she obviously became jealous of Twiggy; and second, when Evan went off to do The Wrestler, she came back home for a very short time before she went off for months again to film Whatever Works, interspersed with a bunch of premiers and award shows and parties and promotions related to her work mainly on The Wrestler. Manson and Evan became very dependent on each other after his divorce from Dita, and they were inseparable afterwards for many months, where Evan even joined him on tour for many months. Manson's tour ended on March 2, 2008, which was when Evan was away filming The Wrestler, and her work would continue almost non-stop until the summer of 2008. While Evan says she was being tortured and locked away for months, in reality she was out working and rising in her own career, and there is photographic evidence to prove this. And while she was out progressing in her career, Manson was working on his new album with Twiggy.
Twiggy, who has always been Manson's best friend and like a brother, and who had been apart from Manson for about seven years, became the fulfillment for what Manson needed, as he has expressed in many interviews. For a long time Manson tried to fill the void in his life left by Twiggy's departure, first with Dita and then Evan, but it didn't fulfill him the way he needed. Evan may have sparked inspiration in Manson to write Eat Me, Drink Me and revive his music career at a time when he had contemplated leaving the music industry altogether in order to start a career in film, but now Manson and Evan had two different career paths, and Twiggy fit better with Manson along this new path. Manson perfectly summarizes this in an interview with Spin (June 26, 2009), which was done while he and Evan were no longer together:
"We [Twiggy and Manson] both got ourselves into a lot of relationships that were probably unfair because of our lack of one another -- we tried to have the girls in our lives fill a void that was missing in us as best friends. Looking back now I realize that played a big part. And him coming back into my life caused a great disruption in my past relationship, it just changed me in a way that initially was euphoric. I had no hesitation to tell Tim Skold, who had taken his place, 'Look, this has to happen. I'm sorry, goodbye.' So we just toured for about a month, and we wanted to keep going, so we started writing the record. First and foremost I'm married to what I do, every artist is. And I think that was something that didn't make sense in my past relationship. And I felt torn, like I was supposed to choose between the two. And I couldn't, it was hard. So I ended up just burning one to the ground and just trying to salvage the other one while it was happening."
Manson here confesses that he was the one who indeed chose Twiggy over Evan, but only because Evan put Manson on some sort of an ultimatum to choose between what he needed for the next phase in his career, which was either Twiggy or Evan. In the end, when Manson and Evan broke up for the first time in October of 2008, it was because Evan felt like the third wheel and was jealous of the bond Manson had with Twiggy, even though Manson tried to make them both work, to the point where he even proposed to Evan, since she had promised to be with him forever, but it wasn't the right time for her, so they went their separate ways as Manson and Twiggy went on to create The High End of Low.
In summary, Evan is a controlling person. This has been proven time and time again. When Twiggy came back, Evan lost control over Manson. Now Manson was trying to control the situation to fulfill his own needs, but this didn't work for Evan, so they split up.
By the way, the video clip of Evan asking Manson who texted him in 2008, it could perfectly fit into the narrative that Evan was nagging and controlling Manson, wondering if it was Twiggy texting him.
Dan Cleary and Lindsay Usich
It should be made clear that Marilyn Manson has been with Lindsay since 2010, off and on. When Dan made the remarks about Lindsay in the documentary, and before that on his Twitter and podcast, it was before Manson and Lindsay were married. Lindsay has come out as a strong advocate of Manson's innocence, stating in various ways that all of Manson's accusers are lying, and knowing this because she was there even while Manson was with Evan. Yes, they may have had rough patches, which Manson has been very open about, but Dan's interpretation of anything in the relationship is irrelevant, because he clearly didn't see anything was bad enough to report it to the police or even reach out to help her if she needed it. Even when Dan started telling stories about Manson on podcasts, he never talked about Lindsay until his tweets in September 2020. For all we know, Manson asking Dan to film him threatening Lindsay, if true, could have been something he was filming for a project that Lindsay was aware of. These are all stories without context, which renders them meaningless. Why didn't anyone ask Dan why he filmed the supposed threat, what was done with the recording, and why would Manson incriminate himself by having a witness (his third assistant who he hardly knew) filming this threat, if it was real? Also, he claims to have tried to comfort Lindsay after this threat, but he never says how she felt about it, or what her reaction was, instead all his stories just focus on his current opinion of a certain situation, which is a very narcissistic way of telling a story about abuse towards someone else and making yourself a victim by saying "I felt guilty". I find it really hard to believe this incident even happened, or if it did, there is certainly a lot of details left out preventing us from getting the full picture and finding any credibility in Dan as an alleged witness.
Sarah McNeilly and Ashley Morgan Smithline
Sarah then tells us a weird story during the "Survivor's Meeting" about Manson throwing her up against the wall and threatening to bash her face in with a baseball bat "cause I was trying to get him to pick out pants". Again, a story with absolutely no context that really just makes her sound stupid. Even if this story were true, and it probably is not because Sarah has made up lots of stories about Manson (she was only in one of his music videos and never in a relationship with Manson), but if it were true, even then I would question her innocence in the story by her stating that such a threat was made just because she suggested what pants he should wear. It's ridiculous this even made it into the documentary.
Then Ashley tells a story she first told for her interview with People Magazine, where Manson elbowed her in the face and fractured her nose, even though earlier in the interview she said that when Manson beat her he was always very careful never to hit her in the face so it would not be noticed. Assuming this story is true, which is doubtful based on the many other lies and fabrications in her testimony, this allegedly happened during "a rape or whatever". What could this "whatever" have been? Maybe it was not rape, but just a mistake of some other sort, as arms tend to flail around in various conditions, maybe even during consensual sex. The fact she can't make up her mind is telling, but even more telling is that Manson hits her by mistake with his elbow. It is not a crime or abuse to make a mistake and hit someone with their elbow, even if it results in an injury.
The branding talk is just ridiculous without allowing the cameras to actually show the evidence. They claim to still have these, and it would be easy to film, but the documentarian clearly thinks it is more powerful to allow the viewer to form the worst possible scenario in their minds rather than show them what actually exists, if it exists at all.
Evan's Physical Changes While With Marilyn Manson
We now come to one of the most ridiculous parts of the documentary. Evan wants to show the viewers how she physically changed while she was with Manson, and instead of showing photographs, of which there are hundreds, and always show Evan to be healthy and normal, she shows Manson's paintings, which are more expressionistic rather than realistic. In fact, I believe the only realistic paintings Manson ever made was of Edgar Allan Poe and of Greta (Dita's dog).
Of all the paintings Manson made of Evan, she fails to show the one in which she looks the prettiest, called "Someone Should Put Hearts Over Her Eyes" (we actually will see this painting later on). It should be noted that the painting titled "The Wraith" was titled by Nick Kushner, a friend of Manson and Evan, because he told Manson when he saw it: "It's beautiful. It's completely ghostly and wraith-like." Also, the painting in the documentary with "Title Unknown" is actually known and could have easily been found if it was researched; it is called "Baby's on Fire". "Baby's on Fire" is the title of a song by Brian Eno which was featured in Velvet Goldmine - Evan Rachel Wood's favorite movie. Its plot revolves around a fictionalized David Bowie. As for the painting "Sleep Forever, Please", it is never indicated that it depicted Evan Rachel Wood, but it is assumed that it was a painting of a woman that died; it doesn't even look like Evan Rachel Wood.
Then Dan Cleary talks about Evan's change in physical appearance during the Rape of the World tour, which he ascribes to her being a worse drug user than Manson, which was a rumor of the concert crew. Evan doesn't deny this, and she blames her addiction on Manson, as she can be seen rubbing her nose on camera, probably because it reminds her of snorting cocaine. Then Ashley Walters talks about her appearance from the time she was Manson's assistant as a photo of her comes up, and Ashley Morgan Smithline's photo comes up as she says: "I feel so ashamed, I feel so guilty, there's so much grossness."
As for Evan's appearance becoming darker, Dan Cleary is right, just not with an accurate interpretation. When Evan went on tour in October of 2007, she was blonde, but then towards the end she colored her hair dark, for a reason totally unrelated to Manson, but instead she did this for her role in The Wrestler. Evan was even accused at this time for trying to look like Dita, and Manson had to come out and defend Evan and explain that it was for her role in The Wrestler. As for anything else about her appearance during this time, there are no changes that can be detected with photographs, which explains why the documentary never shows any photographs of Evan while they are talking about her appearance, and instead focus on Manson's expressionist paintings. Also, Evan was a drug user before Manson, and a drug user long after Manson. Furthermore, it's clear Evan never went to treatment for her addiction, because one of the first things you learn when recovering from addiction is to not blame anyone else but yourself for your addiction. If she didn't want to be around drugs, she should have stopped touring with a band very well known for their drug use.
The turning point for Marilyn Manson, according Evan, was when Twiggy rejoined the band. She says that when Twiggy got back in the band, which was on January 9, 2008, Manson changed "like overnight". Manson now became, Evan says, all about "total debauchery, torturing girls, doing massive amounts of drugs, and pain rituals," just like when they first started the band. It should be noted that as Evan says this, clips are shown of Manson during some of his wild moments throughout his career, none of which are related to the time he was with Evan.
Even though Twiggy rejoined the band in January of 2008, Evan says that when she went to film The Wrestler in March of 2008 and came back excited to see Manson and tell him about the work she was so proud of doing, Manson was an entirely different person, the "new Manson", someone she had never met, he had become completely dark and spiteful. This sudden change she ascribes to Twiggy rejoining the band. "It felt like he was trying to prove something to Twiggy, that he wasn't some lovesick person, that I was just another girl that he could control and torture."
When I hear this, I am immediately reminded of the following scene from Grease, where lovesick Danny tries to act cool around his friends when he is surprised by Sandy, the girl he loves, at the school rally:
The truth is twofold: first, Evan is turning this against Twiggy because she obviously became jealous of Twiggy; and second, when Evan went off to do The Wrestler, she came back home for a very short time before she went off for months again to film Whatever Works, interspersed with a bunch of premiers and award shows and parties and promotions related to her work mainly on The Wrestler. Manson and Evan became very dependent on each other after his divorce from Dita, and they were inseparable afterwards for many months, where Evan even joined him on tour for many months. Manson's tour ended on March 2, 2008, which was when Evan was away filming The Wrestler, and her work would continue almost non-stop until the summer of 2008. While Evan says she was being tortured and locked away for months, in reality she was out working and rising in her own career, and there is photographic evidence to prove this. And while she was out progressing in her career, Manson was working on his new album with Twiggy.
Twiggy, who has always been Manson's best friend and like a brother, and who had been apart from Manson for about seven years, became the fulfillment for what Manson needed, as he has expressed in many interviews. For a long time Manson tried to fill the void in his life left by Twiggy's departure, first with Dita and then Evan, but it didn't fulfill him the way he needed. Evan may have sparked inspiration in Manson to write Eat Me, Drink Me and revive his music career at a time when he had contemplated leaving the music industry altogether in order to start a career in film, but now Manson and Evan had two different career paths, and Twiggy fit better with Manson along this new path. Manson perfectly summarizes this in an interview with Spin (June 26, 2009), which was done while he and Evan were no longer together:
"We [Twiggy and Manson] both got ourselves into a lot of relationships that were probably unfair because of our lack of one another -- we tried to have the girls in our lives fill a void that was missing in us as best friends. Looking back now I realize that played a big part. And him coming back into my life caused a great disruption in my past relationship, it just changed me in a way that initially was euphoric. I had no hesitation to tell Tim Skold, who had taken his place, 'Look, this has to happen. I'm sorry, goodbye.' So we just toured for about a month, and we wanted to keep going, so we started writing the record. First and foremost I'm married to what I do, every artist is. And I think that was something that didn't make sense in my past relationship. And I felt torn, like I was supposed to choose between the two. And I couldn't, it was hard. So I ended up just burning one to the ground and just trying to salvage the other one while it was happening."
Manson here confesses that he was the one who indeed chose Twiggy over Evan, but only because Evan put Manson on some sort of an ultimatum to choose between what he needed for the next phase in his career, which was either Twiggy or Evan. In the end, when Manson and Evan broke up for the first time in October of 2008, it was because Evan felt like the third wheel and was jealous of the bond Manson had with Twiggy, even though Manson tried to make them both work, to the point where he even proposed to Evan, since she had promised to be with him forever, but it wasn't the right time for her, so they went their separate ways as Manson and Twiggy went on to create The High End of Low.
In summary, Evan is a controlling person. This has been proven time and time again. When Twiggy came back, Evan lost control over Manson. Now Manson was trying to control the situation to fulfill his own needs, but this didn't work for Evan, so they split up.
By the way, the video clip of Evan asking Manson who texted him in 2008, it could perfectly fit into the narrative that Evan was nagging and controlling Manson, wondering if it was Twiggy texting him.
Dan Cleary and Lindsay Usich
It should be made clear that Marilyn Manson has been with Lindsay since 2010, off and on. When Dan made the remarks about Lindsay in the documentary, and before that on his Twitter and podcast, it was before Manson and Lindsay were married. Lindsay has come out as a strong advocate of Manson's innocence, stating in various ways that all of Manson's accusers are lying, and knowing this because she was there even while Manson was with Evan. Yes, they may have had rough patches, which Manson has been very open about, but Dan's interpretation of anything in the relationship is irrelevant, because he clearly didn't see anything was bad enough to report it to the police or even reach out to help her if she needed it. Even when Dan started telling stories about Manson on podcasts, he never talked about Lindsay until his tweets in September 2020. For all we know, Manson asking Dan to film him threatening Lindsay, if true, could have been something he was filming for a project that Lindsay was aware of. These are all stories without context, which renders them meaningless. Why didn't anyone ask Dan why he filmed the supposed threat, what was done with the recording, and why would Manson incriminate himself by having a witness (his third assistant who he hardly knew) filming this threat, if it was real? Also, he claims to have tried to comfort Lindsay after this threat, but he never says how she felt about it, or what her reaction was, instead all his stories just focus on his current opinion of a certain situation, which is a very narcissistic way of telling a story about abuse towards someone else and making yourself a victim by saying "I felt guilty". I find it really hard to believe this incident even happened, or if it did, there is certainly a lot of details left out preventing us from getting the full picture and finding any credibility in Dan as an alleged witness.
Sarah McNeilly and Ashley Morgan Smithline
Sarah then tells us a weird story during the "Survivor's Meeting" about Manson throwing her up against the wall and threatening to bash her face in with a baseball bat "cause I was trying to get him to pick out pants". Again, a story with absolutely no context that really just makes her sound stupid. Even if this story were true, and it probably is not because Sarah has made up lots of stories about Manson (she was only in one of his music videos and never in a relationship with Manson), but if it were true, even then I would question her innocence in the story by her stating that such a threat was made just because she suggested what pants he should wear. It's ridiculous this even made it into the documentary.
Then Ashley tells a story she first told for her interview with People Magazine, where Manson elbowed her in the face and fractured her nose, even though earlier in the interview she said that when Manson beat her he was always very careful never to hit her in the face so it would not be noticed. Assuming this story is true, which is doubtful based on the many other lies and fabrications in her testimony, this allegedly happened during "a rape or whatever". What could this "whatever" have been? Maybe it was not rape, but just a mistake of some other sort, as arms tend to flail around in various conditions, maybe even during consensual sex. The fact she can't make up her mind is telling, but even more telling is that Manson hits her by mistake with his elbow. It is not a crime or abuse to make a mistake and hit someone with their elbow, even if it results in an injury.
The branding talk is just ridiculous without allowing the cameras to actually show the evidence. They claim to still have these, and it would be easy to film, but the documentarian clearly thinks it is more powerful to allow the viewer to form the worst possible scenario in their minds rather than show them what actually exists, if it exists at all.
Evan's Physical Changes While With Marilyn Manson
We now come to one of the most ridiculous parts of the documentary. Evan wants to show the viewers how she physically changed while she was with Manson, and instead of showing photographs, of which there are hundreds, and always show Evan to be healthy and normal, she shows Manson's paintings, which are more expressionistic rather than realistic. In fact, I believe the only realistic paintings Manson ever made was of Edgar Allan Poe and of Greta (Dita's dog).
Of all the paintings Manson made of Evan, she fails to show the one in which she looks the prettiest, called "Someone Should Put Hearts Over Her Eyes" (we actually will see this painting later on). It should be noted that the painting titled "The Wraith" was titled by Nick Kushner, a friend of Manson and Evan, because he told Manson when he saw it: "It's beautiful. It's completely ghostly and wraith-like." Also, the painting in the documentary with "Title Unknown" is actually known and could have easily been found if it was researched; it is called "Baby's on Fire". "Baby's on Fire" is the title of a song by Brian Eno which was featured in Velvet Goldmine - Evan Rachel Wood's favorite movie. Its plot revolves around a fictionalized David Bowie. As for the painting "Sleep Forever, Please", it is never indicated that it depicted Evan Rachel Wood, but it is assumed that it was a painting of a woman that died; it doesn't even look like Evan Rachel Wood.
Then Dan Cleary talks about Evan's change in physical appearance during the Rape of the World tour, which he ascribes to her being a worse drug user than Manson, which was a rumor of the concert crew. Evan doesn't deny this, and she blames her addiction on Manson, as she can be seen rubbing her nose on camera, probably because it reminds her of snorting cocaine. Then Ashley Walters talks about her appearance from the time she was Manson's assistant as a photo of her comes up, and Ashley Morgan Smithline's photo comes up as she says: "I feel so ashamed, I feel so guilty, there's so much grossness."
As for Evan's appearance becoming darker, Dan Cleary is right, just not with an accurate interpretation. When Evan went on tour in October of 2007, she was blonde, but then towards the end she colored her hair dark, for a reason totally unrelated to Manson, but instead she did this for her role in The Wrestler. Evan was even accused at this time for trying to look like Dita, and Manson had to come out and defend Evan and explain that it was for her role in The Wrestler. As for anything else about her appearance during this time, there are no changes that can be detected with photographs, which explains why the documentary never shows any photographs of Evan while they are talking about her appearance, and instead focus on Manson's expressionist paintings. Also, Evan was a drug user before Manson, and a drug user long after Manson. Furthermore, it's clear Evan never went to treatment for her addiction, because one of the first things you learn when recovering from addiction is to not blame anyone else but yourself for your addiction. If she didn't want to be around drugs, she should have stopped touring with a band very well known for their drug use.
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| Evan in October 2007 |
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| Evan in April 2008 |
Racism and Nazism Claims by Evan Rachel Wood Against Marilyn Manson
According to Evan, the three things Manson would do to people to keep them in line is take naked photos of them, get them drugged up and have them say the "n-word" on video. This is an absurd claim totally fabricated by Evan Rachel Wood and not corroborated by anyone before it became a talking point conspired by the accusers, as seen in Manson's lawsuit against Evan.
This is clearly a smear by Evan to cover her own ass, once again. Evan, trying to rehabilitate her own smeared image, is trying to blame Manson for her drug use, her nude pictures (none of which were taken by Manson but done by professional photographers with Evan's enthusiastic participation), and her own behavior that can be interpreted as racist which she surely regrets now. Manson has never been reported to use nude photos against anyone, forced anyone to do drugs, or even used the "n-word" in a racist way (he only uses the "n-word" in the same sense that John Lennon used it in "Woman is the Nigger of the World" and Patti Smith used in "Rock and Roll Nigger", which Manson covered, and are both meant to be understood as the polar opposite of misogynist and racist.).
Here is the real reason behind Evan exposing Manson as a racist and Nazi:
According to Evan, the three things Manson would do to people to keep them in line is take naked photos of them, get them drugged up and have them say the "n-word" on video. This is an absurd claim totally fabricated by Evan Rachel Wood and not corroborated by anyone before it became a talking point conspired by the accusers, as seen in Manson's lawsuit against Evan.
This is clearly a smear by Evan to cover her own ass, once again. Evan, trying to rehabilitate her own smeared image, is trying to blame Manson for her drug use, her nude pictures (none of which were taken by Manson but done by professional photographers with Evan's enthusiastic participation), and her own behavior that can be interpreted as racist which she surely regrets now. Manson has never been reported to use nude photos against anyone, forced anyone to do drugs, or even used the "n-word" in a racist way (he only uses the "n-word" in the same sense that John Lennon used it in "Woman is the Nigger of the World" and Patti Smith used in "Rock and Roll Nigger", which Manson covered, and are both meant to be understood as the polar opposite of misogynist and racist.).
Here is the real reason behind Evan exposing Manson as a racist and Nazi:
On February 6th 2021, Evan claimed that she filed a police report against Lindsay Usich and Leslee Lane on December 19, 2020. Evan states that Lindsay Usich tried to get underage photos of her from Leslee Lane in July of 2020 that could be used for blackmail purposes to stop Evan from going forward with her allegations against Marilyn Manson. These photos came from a Halloween party. Evan, who not only claims she was underage but also "given large amounts of drugs and alcohol", was later discovered to have fabricated this whole story of filing a police report by showing a picture of a falsified police report. Not only this, but the Halloween party took place in 2007, when Evan was 20 years old ... hardly underage. Furthermore, the photos are damning for Evan, which is why she has to make up stories that she was basically forced to get drunk and do drugs. The photos depict Evan dressed up as a transvestite Hitler, mustache and all, sniffing cocaine from a Nazi knife, and her brother Ira is also there dressed up as a transvestite Nazi. Both Leslee Lane and Manzin, who were both at the party and took photos, both attest to Evan's enthusiastic participation in the dressing up, in painting on her own Hitler mustache, and doing drugs and drinking. And this is not the only party in which she did this, but repeated it another time. Furthermore, there is video and testimony showing Evan giving the Nazi salute over and over again during Manson's performance of "Antichrist Superstar", which she did on her own, as no one else has ever been seen doing this during the performance.
In summary, and as I said, Evan is really trying to drive home the allegation that Manson tried to control people with drugs and was a Nazi enthusiast because in July 2020 she was alerted these photos of her were going to be disclosed to the public. Then in October of 2020, when the accusers meet, Evan really drives this home to get the other accusers on board, as partly seen in the documentary, then she claims to have filed a police report proven to be a hoax in December of 2020. She is trying to distance herself as much as possible from her past behavior and is trying to blame Manson for this behavior, which includes drug use done according to her own free-will, and behaving like a Nazi. Manson has never been seen doing a Nazi salute, and in fact on multiple occasions has denounced Nazism, such as when he said about his band: "We're the polar opposite of Nazism." Anyone who knows anything about Marilyn Manson knows this to be true. Plus, Nazi Chic is very common in punk rock and hard rock circles and has nothing to do with Nazism as an ideology.
I also want to ask Dan Cleary, who claims to have stood to the side of the stage with Evan Rachel Wood during the Rape of the World Tour, why he has never brought up the fact that she did these Nazi salutes multiple times during the performance of "Antichrist Superstar", as can be seen on video? Is he covering up this fact, or is he really just lying that he had such access to Evan, who while in her Nazi persona called herself Eva, after Eva Braun?
Furthermore, I want to point out that in the documentary there is a woman painting a Hitler mustache on another woman. The woman painting the Hitler mustache is Evan Rachel Wood, as evidenced from her engagement ring, which means this video is from 2010. I was actually surprised they showed this. It adds to the claim that not only did Evan do this of her own accord, but she did it to others nearly three years after the Halloween party.
Furthermore, I want to point out that in the documentary there is a woman painting a Hitler mustache on another woman. The woman painting the Hitler mustache is Evan Rachel Wood, as evidenced from her engagement ring, which means this video is from 2010. I was actually surprised they showed this. It adds to the claim that not only did Evan do this of her own accord, but she did it to others nearly three years after the Halloween party.
Evan and Her Offensive Jokes
Evan has tried to spin Manson's joking around into something manipulative. She claims that she was forced by Manson to laugh at his jokes and even to make similar jokes under threat. You might think these claims are a joke in and of themselves, as any reasonable person would, but Evan is being very serious in making these charges against Manson. What Evan is really doing is classic triangulation and gaslighting, manipulating people to believe an entirely different narrative that falls entirely out of the spectrum of common sense.
Again, Evan is very clearly covering her own ass for all the jokes she laughed at and all the jokes she made while she was with Manson. She knows there are multiple witnesses of her laughing at Manson's offensive jokes and of her making offensive jokes, so the only way she can redeem herself without taking any responsibility for them, being the narcissist she is, is to blame Manson for forcing her to laugh and tell offensive jokes.
The Time Ashley Morgan Smithline "Allowed" Her Appendix To Burst
The lawsuit of Ashley Morgan Smithline against Marilyn Manson contains many contradictions and falsehoods that I will not get into here, but one thing worth mentioning is that while Ashley claims she was in a relationship with Manson for two or three years, in reality they only knew each other about two weeks when Manson brought her to Los Angeles to have her audition for a film he was involved with. In the documentary she claims that she "allowed" her appendix to burst while she was with Manson, that she wanted this to happen, because it helped her escape the pain Manson put her through, and she wanted to die because of it.
If you go to Ashley's Facebook account, you will come across at least three mentions of this incident. The first was on January 13, 2017, when she was in the hospital wearing a hospital gown; the second was on December 6, 2020, after the "Survivor's Meeting"; and the third was on April 3, 2021, where she revealed that she has had eight surgeries to remove more and more of her intestines. And of course, she also went into some detail about it in her interview with People.
Her appendix burst while modeling in Thailand in April of 2011; she was in the hospital for ten weeks. In the documentary she says she allowed this to happen to escape the pain Manson was afflicting on her, but you can't just allow your appendix to burst, and she was already away from Manson in Thailand and hadn't seen him in about six months. In other words, her claim is a complete fabrication. And if she wanted to die, why did she go to the hospital and not allow herself to go septic in her own bedroom? In People, she even complains that Manson never called her during this time to see how she was. This was because she and Manson were never a thing in April 2011 and he had long moved past her, and he probably didn't even know about it. Ashley has described this experience as the worst pain she ever felt, and tries to blame Manson for it by including it in her abuse resume.
Events at Glencoe
Around the time Twiggy got back together with Marilyn Manson, he and Evan moved in together in a place behind the Hollywood Bowl on Glencoe Way. This is where, according to Evan, all the torture happened. Timeline wise, this was around March or April of 2008. Evan says she was isolated in this house for months. Of course, Evan is lying and this can be very easily demonstrated. Evan filmed for The Wrestler in March, the made some appearances and did some photoshoots, and even traveled to New York in April. From April to June she was filming Whatever Works with Woody Allen. July and August she had a few things going on, as well as Manson, but it seemed like they both had some down time, then in August and September Evan became busy again. There is no possible way she was isolated for months, and most of this entire time period she was photographed with a lot of exposed skin and showed no signs of abuse.
Evan accuses Manson of using "military tactics" on her to break her down. These included "sleep deprivation, freezing cold temperatures, keeping me isolated." Manson, who was never in the military, being accused of using military tactics proves that Evan has not only researched these things, but has systematized everything carefully in order to categorize it and make a presentation out of it. It has long been known, before Evan came into the picture, that Manson prefers to keep his home cool, that he stays awake through the night and sleeps during the day (sometimes he stays up for a few days at a time), and he doesn't like to leave the house much. All these things are documented since the 1990's. Many people live a similar lifestyle; it's not abnormal, especially for someone in the music industry. In fact, Manson continues to live like this, and guests, both men and women, have reported on it. In fact, if you watch the interview below with author Tom O'Neill, who visited Manson in his home around February of 2020, he describes some of these things and more, including being served drugs (which he happily consumed), meeting late at night, and being in a darkened space, and this was someone Manson was hosting as a friend who he respected and admired. What Evan and the other accusers are doing is using Manson's everyday lifestyle, well known to his fans, and inserting it into their abuse narrative, simply because it is convenient to do so.
Below is the interview with Tom O'Neill. Another significant reason to hear this is because Tom explains how Manson "didn't know how to operate any of the technical stuff," and allowed Twiggy to handle it. So much for "tech-savvy" Marilyn Manson.
Evan, who admitted in the documentary she was addicted to cocaine, now blames Manson for keeping her up for days. Do I need to explain how stupid that sounds?
What about drugging Evan with meth? In an interview with Louder (November 15, 2016), Manson said the following:
“I’ve never smoked meth or done heroin in my life, because I’ve had too many of my friends die of that shit.”
With this being the case, why would Manson even have meth, let alone use it to drug Evan, knowing that she could die? Evan has no evidence for this, she only assumes it, but since it makes for a good abuse claim, a "mind control tactic", then why not say it. As an addict, Evan should know that doing something as simply as changing a drug dealer could make it seem like your drug of choice is stronger. There are many reasons why this could happen. One alleged proof that Evan is lying is when she says she got scabs all over her body and face. However, every picture of herself during this time, and there are dozens upon dozens, betray this testimony, because you will not find one that shows this. And the fact that Evan admits she didn't know what meth was nor know she was doing it, but suddenly "knows" now just makes no sense. So much of this could be made up without evidence, it is hardly worth even responding to. I will just say this: taking meth is supposed to make you feel really good, not bad. Evan's story would have been much more credible if she explained how she started to feel greater than ever, which would align more with the truth, but the fact that she is constantly making everything so bad and horrible reveals she is just lying and not talking from experience. I have read multiple stories online of people who were drugged with meth against their will, and pretty much all of them experienced a euphoric surge because of it and became addicted.
As for the multiple rapes, Evan has long claimed that she was only raped once by Manson and once by a bartender. The bartender has now fallen out of her narrative completely (because it didn't happen), and now Manson has become a serial rapist, doing it over and over again while Evan was drugged with sleeping pills (did he want her awake with the meth or asleep with the sleeping pills?). But why would Manson rape Evan in her sleep multiple times and not do it with the other women he was with, since no one else has ever reported it, and in fact considered him a very normal sexual partner? Evan even said to Manzin in June of 2010 that Manson is a very normal, affectionate lover and does nothing kinky at all. Changing your narrative in such obvious ways without explaining why is an obvious red flag. Evan is lying to make Manson look worse and worse as time goes on. I will admit however, the flinging of the leg after a rape is a nice literary touch by Evan.
As Evan is describing the above, a video in the background is playing titled "Promo Video for Manson's Website". This is well known and can be seen in multiple versions on the internet. According to Manson's assistant, Paula Baby, she was there for the filming of this, and she describes Evan as being very enthusiastic to play the role of being abused, and applying more and more fake blood on herself to make it look real and nasty. This is a fake video, with both Manson and Evan acting.
The "Poem I Wrote After He Raped Me" allegedly written by Evan, for all we know could have been written for this documentary. There is no context to it.
Back in the "Survivor's Meeting"
Evan then misleadingly claims that in such a situation you are "living moment by moment, you aren't thinking about the end game, or how you're gonna get out, because you're too busy trying to survive the moment." You can maybe make this argument if you are going through something and it is that very second, or possibly minute, but if something is happening to you for months, as Evan is claiming, then certainly at some point, if you are truly experiencing everything as she has described, you contemplate an escape and to never return. This is just common sense and simple instinct. Part of "surviving" is "fleeing". Instead, what we have is Evan constantly going out and about working and doing photoshoots and attending red carpet events, and looking better and better with age. Nothing Evan says corresponds to reality, which is why the images in the documentary are never of Evan from that current time of the events described, even though there are dozens upon dozens of them, but images that appear sinister to those who have no idea what they are seeing.
The two Ashley's and Sarah then try to confirm what Evan is saying with similar absurd claims, including Ashley Walters who says she was forced to stay up and be locked up in a bedroom for three days, which is a total contradiction. If you are forced to stay up for three days, but are locked up in a bedroom for three days, then why don't you ever just lie down and sleep? The fact is, Ashley Walters never even lived with Manson, nor was she a girlfriend, but she is trying to align her story with the stories of two women who were never Manson's girlfriend either (Ashley Morgan and Sarah), who are all in turn trying to align their story with that of Evan, who it seems really just fabricated or exaggerated or twisted the truth. Then when Ashley Morgan quotes Manson to Evan saying: "You wanna know what I did to Evan, because it's going to be worse," it just sounds like she is kissing up to and validating Evan rather than telling her something factual.
Evan's Family as Co-conspirators in the Hoax
When Ira, Evan's brother, comes on, we are told a story about he and Evan walking down some stairs near the Glencoe house and Evan slips, then some moments later Manson walks by with a friend and says he is going to Home Depot. Ira assumes Manson knew exactly what was going on, even though Manson wasn't there, and we are never told that Ira or Evan told Manson what happened, but still this is looked upon suspiciously for no real good reason based on the story we are told, and this inspires Ira to call his dad. What we are not told in the documentary was that during this time Ira was living with Manson and Evan for a while, but somehow he never witnessed the horrific abuse she supposedly went through and it took this oversight by Manson for Ira to call his dad who lived on the opposite coast instead of the police. Personally, I don't believe this story, because Evan has been very clear that her family knew nothing about her abuse for many years after Manson.
This is where the timeline becomes really confusing and questionable. The first breakup between Manson and Evan took place on October 26, 2008. They got back together for a few weeks in February 2009, and would see each other here and there until April 2009. Evan went to North Carolina to her dad's theater to star in a production of Romeo and Juliet in May of 2009. In the documentary, Ira's story and his dad's story with his sister and her gun seem to all take place at the same time, which should be October 2008, but Evan didn't go to North Carolina till May 2009. The timeline is so off you begin to wonder based on this alone if these stories are even true. David, Evan's dad, tries to make it sound like Evan was escaping the house, and his sister needed a gun to help her, but this is a complete fabrication. Maybe she helped Evan move, and maybe she had a gun, but to tie this into an escape from abusive Manson is absurd. How do I know this? From Evan's testimonies saying over and over again that no one in her family knew she was being abused till years after she was with Manson. Either Evan lied multiple times when she said this, or now her family is lying to cover her ass in this mess she put them in. In an interview from 2014, Evan's dad recalls the time he spent with Manson very fondly. Later on in the same documentary, when Evan fakes going to the FBI (more about this later), she says that she was asked if she ever spoke of her abuse before, and she says she never spoke about it with anyone.
We must not forget that Evan's family has a lot to lose in all this. Evan's father has a very successful and renowned theater in North Carolina as well as a respected reputation. Ira, her brother, is set to inherit this theater and was with Evan on Halloween in 2007 where they both dressed up as Nazi transvestites and he also abused drugs regularly. Evan's mother, Sara, is an acting teacher with a reputation of her own in Hollywood. By the end of this story, not only does Evan need to look like the hero, but the entire family does as well. This is why none of their stories in the documentary can be trusted.
Now it must be clear that Evan did not go to stay with her father to escape from Manson, as she says in the documentary, but she went because while filming The Wrestler she realized she had some "daddy issues", as she put it, that she needed to deal with, and took the opportunity to deal with these issues she has had for years, as well as to play in Romeo and Juliet. Evan even implies her dad had remarried recently when she went to see him. The fact is that Ira David Wood III and Ashley Mattox Wood were married on December 18, 2004. I have already written about in another article how Evan misrepresents her relationship with her dad, but it seems in part two of Phoenix Rising she does this with his consent, or has deceived him as well.
It is interesting that Evan admits, as I have written elsewhere, that before Evan got together with Manson, she was very angry with her mom and dad and found freedom with Manson. Though she admits it at this point in the documentary, and even says she needed time away from both of them, she still contradicts herself by saying that Manson kept her from her parents and brother, which is a complete fabrication and distortion of reality. Evan wanted to distance herself, meanwhile Manson gave Evan's brother Ira a space to live in his own house. Evan still talked to her family on the phone and went to see her family during the holidays.
Funny how at the end of this segment in the documentary, Evan now says that it was after she reconciled with her father that she began to see the abuse in her relationship. So she didn't realize it when she allegedly escaped Manson's house with her armed aunt? She didn't realize it when she pretended to sleep during her sleep rapes? Also, if she realized it in May of 2009, why was she engaged to Manson in December 2009? Was it because she is going to have to realize it again at a later date? How many times does she have to realize it before she actually realizes it?
The 158 Phone Calls and Scars
I have examined in detail the incident of Manson supposedly calling Evan 158 times and cutting himself 158 times for each call on his hands and face (here and here). Manson first revealed this in March 2009 for Kerrang, then with more detail for Spin in June 2009. This incident never happened and has an entirely different meaning from what many have wrongly taken to be literal. That being the case, the documentary does take this incident literally, very much so, therefore I will examine it in light of the documentary.
Evan's mother Sara explains how Evan was with her dad when Manson began calling her house 158 times. During this bombardment of phone calls, which seems to have been on a landline with no answering machine, she decided to pick up, and Manson told her that he was cutting himself for every time he calls. Then Evan comes on screen and somehow knows that Manson called 158 times, not because she counted, but because she read about it.
We must remember, Evan never spoke of her abuse for years after being with Manson, but now Evan is saying that her friends were trying to get her to get a restraining order against Manson, which she refused, because it would make him more mad. Of course, Evan only brings up a restraining order at this point because it would be the obvious thing to do, but she doesn't do it, so instead she turns it into a lesson explaining how victims are often too scared to get restraining orders, in order to respond to naysayers like me who would ask: "Why the hell didn't you get a restraining order?" Evan then turns the subject off herself to convince the audience how monstrous Manson was that a restraining order would be unthinkable. We shouldn't forget, this issue had also come up during this time when the documentary was being filmed, when Evan fled California with her son against Jaime Bell's wishes, allegedly out of fear of Manson, which resulted in a custody battle between the two and Jaime seeing how crazy she could be. A restraining order was again brought up, but she refused one. It seems like it is being brought up in the documentary to answer her reasons for her then current custody battle.
Then Evan says she left North Carolina in order to diffuse the situation, and put Neosporin on each of the 158 cuts. Manson therefore lured Evan in, and this was around the time he tied her up and tortured her ... again.
There are so many issues with this story, I don't know how to summarize it all. First of all, this whole story is a lie and total fabrication. Nothing about it is true and it proves Evan's mother Sara is in on the hoax. I'll sum it up with five bullet points.
1. If Manson is as tech-savvy as claimed, where he is said to have hacked into Evan's cell phone and emails and computer, why is he calling the landline of her mother in California when he should have known to have called Evan on her cell phone in North Carolina? This is a rookie mistake for such a tech-wizard as Manson is claimed to be.
2. Why didn't Sara call the police on Manson or file for a restraining order for herself, since according to the story Manson was harassing Sara not Evan?
3. How could Sara (and David) allow Evan to be engaged with Manson a few months after this incident without causing an uproar?
4. Manson has made it clear from the way he tells the story, that the calling and cutting 158 times took place on December 25, 2008. However, Evan was with her dad in May of 2009. Even if there is proof that Evan was with her dad that Christmas, Manson and Evan were never together in December of 2008, nor in January of 2009, but they got back together for a few weeks in February 2009 and after that only saw each other here and there till April 2009. Manson himself says that from December 26th 2008 until early January he was working and completing The High End of Low, and he says very specifically that he was alone from Thanksgiving 2008 till his birthday on January 5th 2009, at which time he recorded the album with his band. Now we know it is not true that Manson was alone all this time, it is part of Manson's story for the album and was said for promotional purposes, but if Evan is going to take Manson's story literally, then she has to take the whole thing literally, which means she never put Neosporin on any of his cuts, because he had no cuts, except maybe a paper cut from the sheets on which the lyrics of his album were written.
5. After Evan takes care of the wounds of Manson in, according to her timeline, May of 2009, and according to Manson's timeline, December of 2008, she went to leave again, but this time Manson took her up to the bedroom and tied her up to a kneeler to keep her there and began to torture her. Keep in mind, this last sentence was me trying to put two versions of Evan's story together that are given by Evan right after each other in the documentary. To the camera she says she went to the house and treated Manson, but at the "Survivor's Meeting" Evan says she walked in to diffuse the situation and found the kneeler in the middle of the room, and Manson tied her up. I fused both stories to make it sound like she didn't contradict herself, but the fact of the matter is that Evan did contradict herself within one minute.
Evan's Torture and the KNEELER
The Truth
In February of 2009, Manson and Evan briefly got back together. They went out to dinner for Valentine's Day, then Evan can be seen in a photo with a big smile that night as she lies dressed up on Manson's bed. The next and last time they are seen together during this period is towards the end of February, when Evan is spotted leaving a hotel room with Manson, and later that day Evan attended the Academy Awards by herself. After this Manson and Evan never lived with each other, but they saw each other a few times here and there until April of 2009, when they finally called it off for good a second time. While together in February 2009, Manson was filming both Evan and Esme Bianco in a music video from a song off his new album, but due to his change in contract the video was never released. There may have been some filming for Phantasmagoria as well. Esme flew in for this role, with the prior understanding that the filming for this video would be physically demanding and that there would be simulated torture scenes.
The Lie
In the documentary, Evan uses the 158 phone calls and cutting story for the first time to tie it in to her torture story, even though they were at best a few months apart. What both Evan and Esme have done is take the filming of the music video that was not allowed to be released due to contract and studio issues, and turned it into a real story of being tortured and abused by Manson. Nothing in this story is true, it is a complete fantasy. In fact, the photo shown of the kneeler, which Evan supposedly broke after Manson allegedly zapped her private parts with a violet wand, was taken in March 2009 by Delaney Bishop, after the filming, and way after the alleged torture. What Evan and Esme did was take this photo, single out the kneeler as a torture device, and made it into a torture device with photographic evidence to show for the documentary. So of course, this is not true either. Furthermore, the kneeler doesn't even look like something you could be tied to, though I guess with a little creativity you can be tied to anything. Also, Evan claims she had welts from this incident that were shocked by Manson with a violet wand, but based on the photographic evidence the welts appear nowhere. The blood ritual is something that doesn't sound like Manson, if anything it is very anti-Manson because he is very anti-ritual unless it is done for performance purposes, but it does sound like something he would film for a video or movie, and both Evan and Esme are likely twisting this movie scene and making it into a reality.
The Purpose
The purpose of this fake story is to give Evan a reason to go back to Manson. She can't admit that she went back to her abuser because she was in love with him, as she said time and time again in interviews from 2009 and 2010. That narrative doesn't fit the textbook definition of a monstrous abuser. The textbook says the monstrous abuser lures you and tortures you into submission, and the victim submits in order to survive.
The Problem
The timeline of these events don't fit with reality, making it a demonstrably fake story. Notice the TMZ video is shown from April 2009, which was around the time they fully called it off the second time. Notice her speaking positively about Manson, though the full version shows this even more. The timeline presented in the documentary makes no sense, and it is supposed to make no sense, because it is an entirely fabricated timeline.
Love Bombing
Love bombing is typically defined as an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes. Love bombing is not necessarily bad in and of itself, the problem with accusing someone of love bombing in the negative sense is that in reality love bombing is something very subjective. Some men are taught to love bomb and to them it is really the only way to express how they feel about someone. Some women may view love bombing as romantic. Love bombing becomes toxic if it is not shared, and if it is used to manipulate or to express insecurities.
Both Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood have accused each other of love bombing, though Manson has not used the word.
According to Manson from an interview in 2007, he was lured into a relationship with Evan Rachel Wood by her doing three things: 1) When in deep sorrow over the break up of his marriage to Dita, Evan told him that she would love him forever, and this rejuvenated Manson; 2) When Evan walked into his house with Lolita glasses and played up the Lolita fantasy for him; and 3) When they were sitting on a couch one day Evan was sucking on a heart-shaped lollipop, then leaned over and kissed him. However, when Manson proposed to Evan some time later in 2008, Evan expressed to him that it wasn't the right time for her in her career, so they split, and Manson looked at this as a broken promise. This inspired the creation of The High End of Low, which included the theme of retribution for breaking a promise in a relationship.
Evan has taken an entirely different view of her relationship with Manson after 2016 when she became increasingly radicalized, and this view along with how she believes Manson love bombed her is well documented in Phoenix Rising. However, at this point in the documentary, in part two, Evan accuses Manson of love bombing her to lure her back into the relationship after he tortured her. The documentary then presents a series of love notes that Manson allegedly sent to Evan. Personally, I see nothing wrong with these love notes, and I think most women would love to receive these notes from their significant other, but Evan puts these notes in a sinister context, to make it look like it was a negative form of love bombing. Behind the love notes are photos of Evan which she wants the viewer to think that she was being abused and to show how innocent looking she was.
Evan's Very Messy Timeline of Events According to Phoenix Rising
Evan has rewritten history so many times that she has offered us a very confusing timeline, but I will attempt to break it down real quick. I want to point out, that this timeline is pretty much completely false, with few exceptions, but we are led to believe this is how the timeline goes. Believe me, this timeline is so hard to figure out, that I have attempted to do the impossible, and have even been very generous to Evan by actually trying to make sense of it, because it really makes no sense.
- Manson and Evan meet at the Chateau Marmont in the middle of 2006.
- Manson gives Evan their first kiss around August 2006.
- Their relationship officially begins after Manson's divorce in January 2007.
- The relationship is fine then they go on tour for eight months together around May 2007.
- Manson's tour ends in March of 2008, and Evan goes that same month to film for The Wrestler.
- Evan comes back from filming later that month in March and finds Manson to be a completely different person.
- Evan is locked away for months in their new home. We are not told how many months. We are supposed to assume till they broke up and Evan escapes. Media reports say this was October of 2008.
- Evan immediately goes to stay with her father, but we are led to believe she stayed with her father till April of 2009, with the incident of the 158 phone calls and cuts, which is when Manson and Evan got back together. This is when he tortured her.
- Though Evan never mentions that she and Manson got engaged in December of 2009 in Paris, which is very odd but very convenient for her narrative, she then skips in her timeline from April 2009 to immediately going off to film Mildred Pierce. The problem is that Mildred Pierce didn't begin filming until April of 2010, which means Evan has really skipped an entire year out of her life. She never mentions that she really went to go see her father in May 2009, nor about her wild summer fling with Shane West in June and July, nor about her fling with Alexander Skarsgård in August and September, she never mentions getting back together with Manson in October 2010 and joining him on his tour and getting engaged and coming back home to Los Angeles together. Instead, she wants the viewer to think that through all these wild times apart from Manson, which are well documented, she was actually with Manson getting abused. So now we are supposed to be in the time period of April until June 2010, when Mildred Pierce was being filmed in New York.
Mildred Pierce and Evan's Abortion
The Lie
Now we come to the point where Evan blames Manson on her pregnancy while filming Mildred Pierce. She does this by saying Manson is the one who controlled her birth control to the point where he wasn't happy with any of them, so he didn't allow Evan to take any, while he himself refused to wear a condom, and during one of his rapes he carelessly impregnated her. The reason Evan didn't take birth control was because she "didn't have time", which makes no sense because birth control is something you can take any time during the day. But Evan still tried to prevent a pregnancy while with Manson, with spermacides, but it just wasn't enough.
The Truth
A sure sign Evan is manipulating and lying to her audience is when she just blurts out a shocking statement and expects everyone to believe her at her word, and usually it is about trying to justify herself for something that she is trying to remove herself from any responsibility. So when she says that Manson didn't like any of her birth control options and didn't allow her to take any, she expects you to believe her and she moves on. However, anyone hearing such a weird allegation, no matter who it is, must question at least why Manson was so picky about birth control, then they must ask which birth control it was and what issue he had with each of them. And if he didn't like the birth control she presented, why didn't she tell him to pick out the birth control he liked. What kind of birth control did he like? Obviously he was in many relationships where the woman took birth control, so why was Evan different? It basically comes down to the fact that such an allegation blows open a bunch of holes to the point where it can be confidently believed that Evan is lying about this subject in order to remove herself from any responsibility of getting pregnant.
The only reason Evan is even bringing up this subject is because on December 17, 2021, Colonel Kurtz on her YouTube channel interviewed a friend of Marilyn Manson and of Evan at the time named Manzin. During this interview an exclusive bombshell was revealed for the first time: while Evan was filming Mildred Pierce in New York she got an abortion. But this wasn't the only bombshell from the interview. Manzin was there with Manson in New York, who had flown in to support Evan as she got the abortion and she was going through a personal difficult time, and he informed Manzin during this time that the baby she aborted was not his but was from another man. This took place in the early days of June 2020. Since Manson and Evan were engaged five months earlier in late December 2009, this means the likely scenario was that Evan cheated on her fiance Manson with another man. When news of this broke, which was before anyone knew about the forthcoming documentary Phoenix Rising, there is no doubt Evan felt the need to offer her response. Since we know that Evan's allegations against Marilyn Manson are primarily about rehabilitating her name and dignity from the bad press she got while with him, and in order to do this she is following the tactic of removing any and all responsibility for her past actions and putting them on others, mostly Manson. Evan therefore, by necessity, had to form a scenario where Manson became responsible for her pregnancy and abortion.
As for who got Evan pregnant, it is not known at this time, but you can bet this will be a hot topic in the months and years to come. Personally, I believe the story of the anonymous bar owner that Evan claims raped her has something to do with this, which is why Evan no longer talks about this bar owner. This alleged rape may in fact have been consensual, and he could have been paid off to stay quiet, which is why Evan could use this story any way she wants without naming him.
In a number of interviews promoting Mildred Pierce, Evan talks about how her role was the most difficult of her career because she had entered into the mind of a dark character, and that darkness affected her. If I were to agree with Evan on one thing, it is the fact that an abortion often does come with a heavy emotional toll, and most likely contributed the most to her depression. Manson came out to New York for about a week to support Evan during this time as she was going through this. However, I believe it also had much to do with their final breakup, which took place probably around the middle of June 2010, even though the media reported the end of their engagement was in early August.
The interesting thing is that Evan began filming The Ides of March in February of 2011. This was eight months after her abortion with another man's baby. In The Ides of March she plays a character who gets pregnant and has an abortion with another man's baby. It's actually quit amazing she pulled it off so well, but her character most certainly drew from her own experience on the very same thing.
"Make Me Dinner!"
One of soundbites the media really picked up on was when Evan says that "the second it [the abortion] was over, it was like, 'Make me dinner!' And I remember being like, 'I'm supposed to be resting, my body has gone through this trauma, I'm bleeding; there's aftermath here.' And, uh, he didn't care. And that's when I started getting really suicidal."
My first set of questions are what does "the second it was over" mean? Are we to believe this is what Manson said to Evan as she lay recovering on her hospital bed? Was it in the car that drove them home? Was it as soon as Evan got home from the abortion? Where was home? Was it in the trailer she was in for Mildred Pierce? Was it in her apartment in New York City? Was it in the hotel room Manson moved Evan into because the air conditioning broke in her apartment and it was too hot so Manzin drove them to a hotel? Was it an hour after she got home? Was it twelve hours? twenty-four hours? forty-eight hours? I'm assuming we are not supposed to take "the second it was over" literally, but what does it really mean?
My second set of questions are what did Manson allegedly tell you to make for dinner? Did you slave in the kitchen over a salad, appetizer, entree and desert, or did you heat up a bowl of canned soup in the microwave or pour some milk over some cereal? How involved was this dinner? Why didn't you tell him to order a pizza or some Chinese food?
As I have said before, Evan throws out these statements that she expects her audience to believe just because she is saying it, and leaves out enough details to make her audience think of the worst case scenario. Just see where your mind went when Evan said all this. Don't you picture Manson sitting on the couch angry and indifferent to Evan's needs, telling Evan to cook him dinner with smoke coming out of his nostrils giving her a deathly stare, and she, like a scared, innocent victim with a sad countenance, with bruises and blood running down her leg, begins cooking a beautiful high end steak dinner with some sort of potato and vegetable, as she shivers with pain, then she serves it to him and he just begins eating without saying thank you, and she just wobbles over to her bed and lays down exhausted. If you didn't think of this, I guarantee you, this is exactly what Evan wants you to think. She knows that to give as little information as possible allows the audience to paint images in their heads that are the worst possible conditions. This is what I call "Evan the manipulator".
Evan in a Mental Hospital
The next section deals with Evan's suicide attempt and her stay in a mental hospital. This is something Evan wrote about in some detail in an article for Nylon on January 31, 2019. Some months ago I wrote my thoughts on this article, so my full comments about Evan and her suicide attempt as well as her stay in the mental hospital can be read there. However, the documentary adds some details.
For example, in the documentary it says that after Evan had an abortion, she got very depressed. She left her relationship with Manson, and felt suicidal. After calling her dad in North Carolina from New York asking for his help, he recommended she contact a friend of his because he was busy performing in a play. Instead, Evan got on a tour bus, did a lot of drugs, and drove to Sacramento. There she attempted to kill herself by driving broken glass into her arm, but for some reason the bleeding would stop. She went to bed and felt different. After calling her mom in Los Angeles and telling her she needed to go to a mental hospital, they both got in cars and met each other half way and Evan checked herself into a mental hospital.
First, I have written an article where I did discover that Manson and Evan had broken up while Evan was filming in Long Island for Mildred Pierce, which was some time in June, and she appeared on set the next day feeling really depressed. However, I have a hard time believing the rest of the story. One of the main reasons is because in late June, after she and Manson went their separate ways, she traveled to Rome, Italy with her mom to do a photoshoot and short film for the Gucci fragrance campaign "Guilty", and this is well documented. I have talked about this in detail elsewhere, especially in light of the fact that she tried to make it out that photos from this photoshoot especially captured her abuse even though she was no longer in a relationship with Manson and had been filming in New York since April or May. It just does not fit into the timeline that some time in mid to late June when she and Manson broke up, she traveled cross country with a band to Sacramento, checked into a mental health hospital, and was ready to go for the major fragrance campaign in Rome in late June.
Evan did say in an interview from 2011 that she wanted to take a year off of work and focus on herself after filming Mildred Pierce. She has also been specific that she entered a mental hospital when she was 22. We next see Evan, after the Gucci campaign in Rome, at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010 to promote the new fragrance by Gucci. This was when she was 23; her birthday is on September 7th. Now it is possible, since we really have no record of her doing anything in July and August, that she could have gone to a mental hospital then, but I feel like we are still missing a chunk of the story, and my gut tells me the devil is in the details.
One of the red flags that comes up in the documentary is that Evan felt suicidal in New York and called her dad for help. And even though her dad was indifferent to a certain extent, according to the documentary, he still acknowledged she needed help and urged her to reach out to his friends who could help her while he was busy with his play. She does not take him up on his offer and instead goes on this unnamed tour bus with a band from New York to Sacramento. The first question we must ask is why Evan didn't call her mom at the time, even just to talk to her on the phone, or even why didn't Evan's dad call her mom? Or why didn't Evan's dad send his own wife? or call Ira? The second question is why did Evan expect her dad to cancel his play and ruin the work opportunities of dozens of actors and stage people? This comes off as very selfish and narcissistic and even controlling. For the time it would have taken her dad to do what he needed to in order to cancel his show and fly out to New York, it would have been much quicker for Evan to get on a plane and go to North Carolina or even California to her mother.
Then we come to the third question. If she was feeling so desperate and was trying to get her dad to completely overturn his busy life at the moment and come be with her, instead of her going to be with him or be with her mom, then why would she get on a band's touring bus to go from New York to California, which must have taken at least a few weeks. If this was a band on tour, that means they would have made some stops along the way to play shows. Which brings us to the fourth question: what band was this? If Evan named the band it can be confirmed at least that indeed Evan traveled with them from New York to Sacramento doing a bunch of drugs. For some reason, however, she does not name the band nor say how long she toured with them.
When you add everything up, it all sounds very suspicious. The devil is in the details, though it is hard to determine. Even before the documentary I had reservations about Evan ever going to a mental hospital, but the documentary confirms my suspicions even more. I'm not saying she didn't go, I just highly suspect she didn't go. Perhaps it was not even a mental hospital, which she can try and pin blame on Manson for, but maybe she entered a rehab facility to treat her drug addiction. Or maybe none of this is true.
Let's go back to the anonymous band. Supposedly she toured across the country with an anonymous band perhaps in July of 2010, according to the documentary. The only thing we are told about this tour is that she did a lot of drugs. That Evan blamed Manson for her drug addiction while touring with him in 2007 and now doesn't blame this band for her drug addiction in 2010 should say a lot. In fact, it sounds like she still blames Manson for her drug abuse with another band. Maybe, however, this tour didn't ever happen either ... at least at the time we are told.
Evan has lied about her story on numerous occasions, and even changed her narrative at a whim, so it is very safe to assume she may be lying about touring with this band in July of 2010. But she did sort of tour with a band in July of 2009, a year earlier. Remember when we were examining earlier Evan's very messy timeline, and said that according to the documentary Evan came back to Manson in April 2009 and supposedly stayed with him till June 2010, making it appear as if this was without interruption when in fact they were not back together until around October of 2009? Well, to me this seems like Evan was attempting to cover up her behavior from the summer of 2009. In June and July of 2009, Evan was not dating Marilyn Manson, but was having a fling with Shane West, who is nine years older than her and actually played her older brother on Once and Again. Shane West was lead singer in a band called The Germs, and that summer had some tour dates in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Sacramento, among others. Evan accompanied him on some of these tour dates, though I couldn't confirm if she was with him in Sacramento. Nonetheless, she toured with him, and partied hard with him, much more than she did with Marilyn Manson, and this is well documented. And though she did drugs with Manson, it was not that noticeable to outsiders, but when she was with Shane West it became very clear that Evan was doing more drugs and drinking than ever before. Even though this fling is well documented, Evan clearly wanted to cover over this time in her documentary, as well as her time with Alexander Skarsgård in August and September. Why? Because people might suspect that Evan became pregnant from one of them. It is crucial to Evan's narrative that Manson be entirely blamed for her getting pregnant, and with those two (at least) in the picture, there may be suspicions that Manson is not to blame. Hence, since Evan had to cover this up, maybe she is referring to her time with Shane West when she says that she toured with a band in July 2010, which is not true, but it would account to unsuspecting audiences for all the photos of the two together.
There are many reasons to be suspicious of Evan's supposed time in a mental hospital after a supposed suicide attempt, the description of which sounds so horrific that it in itself makes it sound like a lie. Digging hard into your wrists with broken glass will kill you. She makes it sound as if some miracle happened and she stopped bleeding. Even if this were so, which is doubtful, you probably would not fall asleep after (and ever wake up), but you would need immediate medical attention. There is no indication that Evan ever got medical attention for these deep self-inflicted wounds. Very suspicious.
The "Escape" from Manson That Never Happened
After we hear Evan's dad reveal his guilt over how he handled himself as a father, Evan begins to tell us about her supposed escape from Manson. She talks about now having the will power to resist him and not take him serious and not be afraid of him, and when she went off to film The Ides of March, that was the last time they saw each other.
Evan has found herself in a major contradiction here. When Evan had just spoken with Illma Gore about her suicide attempt and going to a mental hospital, she says that before this she had left Manson. Now we are told she was still with Manson and needed to escape him. The Ides of March didn't start filming until February of 2011. Evan would have us therefore believe that her relationship ended in 2011, as she had said in Part One of Phoenix Rising, but this is not true and there is a lot of evidence to show that in fact the relationship between Manson and Evan ended in June of 2010, when Evan was in New York and Manson was likely in Los Angeles. Evan never stood up to Manson. In fact, it was probably Manson who broke up with her, based on the fact that he had more reasons to break up with her than she had with him, but I don't know this for sure. What I do know is that when the media announced Manson and Evan had split in early August 2010, they had already been separated from each other. The fact that Evan claims the relationship extended into 2011 is also in contradiction with the testimony of Ashley Morgan Smithline, who claims to have moved in with Manson in November 2010.
The Truth
In February of 2009, Manson and Evan briefly got back together. They went out to dinner for Valentine's Day, then Evan can be seen in a photo with a big smile that night as she lies dressed up on Manson's bed. The next and last time they are seen together during this period is towards the end of February, when Evan is spotted leaving a hotel room with Manson, and later that day Evan attended the Academy Awards by herself. After this Manson and Evan never lived with each other, but they saw each other a few times here and there until April of 2009, when they finally called it off for good a second time. While together in February 2009, Manson was filming both Evan and Esme Bianco in a music video from a song off his new album, but due to his change in contract the video was never released. There may have been some filming for Phantasmagoria as well. Esme flew in for this role, with the prior understanding that the filming for this video would be physically demanding and that there would be simulated torture scenes.
The Lie
In the documentary, Evan uses the 158 phone calls and cutting story for the first time to tie it in to her torture story, even though they were at best a few months apart. What both Evan and Esme have done is take the filming of the music video that was not allowed to be released due to contract and studio issues, and turned it into a real story of being tortured and abused by Manson. Nothing in this story is true, it is a complete fantasy. In fact, the photo shown of the kneeler, which Evan supposedly broke after Manson allegedly zapped her private parts with a violet wand, was taken in March 2009 by Delaney Bishop, after the filming, and way after the alleged torture. What Evan and Esme did was take this photo, single out the kneeler as a torture device, and made it into a torture device with photographic evidence to show for the documentary. So of course, this is not true either. Furthermore, the kneeler doesn't even look like something you could be tied to, though I guess with a little creativity you can be tied to anything. Also, Evan claims she had welts from this incident that were shocked by Manson with a violet wand, but based on the photographic evidence the welts appear nowhere. The blood ritual is something that doesn't sound like Manson, if anything it is very anti-Manson because he is very anti-ritual unless it is done for performance purposes, but it does sound like something he would film for a video or movie, and both Evan and Esme are likely twisting this movie scene and making it into a reality.
The Purpose
The purpose of this fake story is to give Evan a reason to go back to Manson. She can't admit that she went back to her abuser because she was in love with him, as she said time and time again in interviews from 2009 and 2010. That narrative doesn't fit the textbook definition of a monstrous abuser. The textbook says the monstrous abuser lures you and tortures you into submission, and the victim submits in order to survive.
The Problem
The timeline of these events don't fit with reality, making it a demonstrably fake story. Notice the TMZ video is shown from April 2009, which was around the time they fully called it off the second time. Notice her speaking positively about Manson, though the full version shows this even more. The timeline presented in the documentary makes no sense, and it is supposed to make no sense, because it is an entirely fabricated timeline.
Love Bombing
Love bombing is typically defined as an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes. Love bombing is not necessarily bad in and of itself, the problem with accusing someone of love bombing in the negative sense is that in reality love bombing is something very subjective. Some men are taught to love bomb and to them it is really the only way to express how they feel about someone. Some women may view love bombing as romantic. Love bombing becomes toxic if it is not shared, and if it is used to manipulate or to express insecurities.
Both Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood have accused each other of love bombing, though Manson has not used the word.
According to Manson from an interview in 2007, he was lured into a relationship with Evan Rachel Wood by her doing three things: 1) When in deep sorrow over the break up of his marriage to Dita, Evan told him that she would love him forever, and this rejuvenated Manson; 2) When Evan walked into his house with Lolita glasses and played up the Lolita fantasy for him; and 3) When they were sitting on a couch one day Evan was sucking on a heart-shaped lollipop, then leaned over and kissed him. However, when Manson proposed to Evan some time later in 2008, Evan expressed to him that it wasn't the right time for her in her career, so they split, and Manson looked at this as a broken promise. This inspired the creation of The High End of Low, which included the theme of retribution for breaking a promise in a relationship.
Evan has taken an entirely different view of her relationship with Manson after 2016 when she became increasingly radicalized, and this view along with how she believes Manson love bombed her is well documented in Phoenix Rising. However, at this point in the documentary, in part two, Evan accuses Manson of love bombing her to lure her back into the relationship after he tortured her. The documentary then presents a series of love notes that Manson allegedly sent to Evan. Personally, I see nothing wrong with these love notes, and I think most women would love to receive these notes from their significant other, but Evan puts these notes in a sinister context, to make it look like it was a negative form of love bombing. Behind the love notes are photos of Evan which she wants the viewer to think that she was being abused and to show how innocent looking she was.
Evan's Very Messy Timeline of Events According to Phoenix Rising
Evan has rewritten history so many times that she has offered us a very confusing timeline, but I will attempt to break it down real quick. I want to point out, that this timeline is pretty much completely false, with few exceptions, but we are led to believe this is how the timeline goes. Believe me, this timeline is so hard to figure out, that I have attempted to do the impossible, and have even been very generous to Evan by actually trying to make sense of it, because it really makes no sense.
- Manson and Evan meet at the Chateau Marmont in the middle of 2006.
- Manson gives Evan their first kiss around August 2006.
- Their relationship officially begins after Manson's divorce in January 2007.
- The relationship is fine then they go on tour for eight months together around May 2007.
- Manson's tour ends in March of 2008, and Evan goes that same month to film for The Wrestler.
- Evan comes back from filming later that month in March and finds Manson to be a completely different person.
- Evan is locked away for months in their new home. We are not told how many months. We are supposed to assume till they broke up and Evan escapes. Media reports say this was October of 2008.
- Evan immediately goes to stay with her father, but we are led to believe she stayed with her father till April of 2009, with the incident of the 158 phone calls and cuts, which is when Manson and Evan got back together. This is when he tortured her.
- Though Evan never mentions that she and Manson got engaged in December of 2009 in Paris, which is very odd but very convenient for her narrative, she then skips in her timeline from April 2009 to immediately going off to film Mildred Pierce. The problem is that Mildred Pierce didn't begin filming until April of 2010, which means Evan has really skipped an entire year out of her life. She never mentions that she really went to go see her father in May 2009, nor about her wild summer fling with Shane West in June and July, nor about her fling with Alexander Skarsgård in August and September, she never mentions getting back together with Manson in October 2010 and joining him on his tour and getting engaged and coming back home to Los Angeles together. Instead, she wants the viewer to think that through all these wild times apart from Manson, which are well documented, she was actually with Manson getting abused. So now we are supposed to be in the time period of April until June 2010, when Mildred Pierce was being filmed in New York.
Mildred Pierce and Evan's Abortion
The Lie
Now we come to the point where Evan blames Manson on her pregnancy while filming Mildred Pierce. She does this by saying Manson is the one who controlled her birth control to the point where he wasn't happy with any of them, so he didn't allow Evan to take any, while he himself refused to wear a condom, and during one of his rapes he carelessly impregnated her. The reason Evan didn't take birth control was because she "didn't have time", which makes no sense because birth control is something you can take any time during the day. But Evan still tried to prevent a pregnancy while with Manson, with spermacides, but it just wasn't enough.
The Truth
A sure sign Evan is manipulating and lying to her audience is when she just blurts out a shocking statement and expects everyone to believe her at her word, and usually it is about trying to justify herself for something that she is trying to remove herself from any responsibility. So when she says that Manson didn't like any of her birth control options and didn't allow her to take any, she expects you to believe her and she moves on. However, anyone hearing such a weird allegation, no matter who it is, must question at least why Manson was so picky about birth control, then they must ask which birth control it was and what issue he had with each of them. And if he didn't like the birth control she presented, why didn't she tell him to pick out the birth control he liked. What kind of birth control did he like? Obviously he was in many relationships where the woman took birth control, so why was Evan different? It basically comes down to the fact that such an allegation blows open a bunch of holes to the point where it can be confidently believed that Evan is lying about this subject in order to remove herself from any responsibility of getting pregnant.
The only reason Evan is even bringing up this subject is because on December 17, 2021, Colonel Kurtz on her YouTube channel interviewed a friend of Marilyn Manson and of Evan at the time named Manzin. During this interview an exclusive bombshell was revealed for the first time: while Evan was filming Mildred Pierce in New York she got an abortion. But this wasn't the only bombshell from the interview. Manzin was there with Manson in New York, who had flown in to support Evan as she got the abortion and she was going through a personal difficult time, and he informed Manzin during this time that the baby she aborted was not his but was from another man. This took place in the early days of June 2020. Since Manson and Evan were engaged five months earlier in late December 2009, this means the likely scenario was that Evan cheated on her fiance Manson with another man. When news of this broke, which was before anyone knew about the forthcoming documentary Phoenix Rising, there is no doubt Evan felt the need to offer her response. Since we know that Evan's allegations against Marilyn Manson are primarily about rehabilitating her name and dignity from the bad press she got while with him, and in order to do this she is following the tactic of removing any and all responsibility for her past actions and putting them on others, mostly Manson. Evan therefore, by necessity, had to form a scenario where Manson became responsible for her pregnancy and abortion.
As for who got Evan pregnant, it is not known at this time, but you can bet this will be a hot topic in the months and years to come. Personally, I believe the story of the anonymous bar owner that Evan claims raped her has something to do with this, which is why Evan no longer talks about this bar owner. This alleged rape may in fact have been consensual, and he could have been paid off to stay quiet, which is why Evan could use this story any way she wants without naming him.
In a number of interviews promoting Mildred Pierce, Evan talks about how her role was the most difficult of her career because she had entered into the mind of a dark character, and that darkness affected her. If I were to agree with Evan on one thing, it is the fact that an abortion often does come with a heavy emotional toll, and most likely contributed the most to her depression. Manson came out to New York for about a week to support Evan during this time as she was going through this. However, I believe it also had much to do with their final breakup, which took place probably around the middle of June 2010, even though the media reported the end of their engagement was in early August.
The interesting thing is that Evan began filming The Ides of March in February of 2011. This was eight months after her abortion with another man's baby. In The Ides of March she plays a character who gets pregnant and has an abortion with another man's baby. It's actually quit amazing she pulled it off so well, but her character most certainly drew from her own experience on the very same thing.
"Make Me Dinner!"
One of soundbites the media really picked up on was when Evan says that "the second it [the abortion] was over, it was like, 'Make me dinner!' And I remember being like, 'I'm supposed to be resting, my body has gone through this trauma, I'm bleeding; there's aftermath here.' And, uh, he didn't care. And that's when I started getting really suicidal."
My first set of questions are what does "the second it was over" mean? Are we to believe this is what Manson said to Evan as she lay recovering on her hospital bed? Was it in the car that drove them home? Was it as soon as Evan got home from the abortion? Where was home? Was it in the trailer she was in for Mildred Pierce? Was it in her apartment in New York City? Was it in the hotel room Manson moved Evan into because the air conditioning broke in her apartment and it was too hot so Manzin drove them to a hotel? Was it an hour after she got home? Was it twelve hours? twenty-four hours? forty-eight hours? I'm assuming we are not supposed to take "the second it was over" literally, but what does it really mean?
My second set of questions are what did Manson allegedly tell you to make for dinner? Did you slave in the kitchen over a salad, appetizer, entree and desert, or did you heat up a bowl of canned soup in the microwave or pour some milk over some cereal? How involved was this dinner? Why didn't you tell him to order a pizza or some Chinese food?
As I have said before, Evan throws out these statements that she expects her audience to believe just because she is saying it, and leaves out enough details to make her audience think of the worst case scenario. Just see where your mind went when Evan said all this. Don't you picture Manson sitting on the couch angry and indifferent to Evan's needs, telling Evan to cook him dinner with smoke coming out of his nostrils giving her a deathly stare, and she, like a scared, innocent victim with a sad countenance, with bruises and blood running down her leg, begins cooking a beautiful high end steak dinner with some sort of potato and vegetable, as she shivers with pain, then she serves it to him and he just begins eating without saying thank you, and she just wobbles over to her bed and lays down exhausted. If you didn't think of this, I guarantee you, this is exactly what Evan wants you to think. She knows that to give as little information as possible allows the audience to paint images in their heads that are the worst possible conditions. This is what I call "Evan the manipulator".
Evan in a Mental Hospital
The next section deals with Evan's suicide attempt and her stay in a mental hospital. This is something Evan wrote about in some detail in an article for Nylon on January 31, 2019. Some months ago I wrote my thoughts on this article, so my full comments about Evan and her suicide attempt as well as her stay in the mental hospital can be read there. However, the documentary adds some details.
For example, in the documentary it says that after Evan had an abortion, she got very depressed. She left her relationship with Manson, and felt suicidal. After calling her dad in North Carolina from New York asking for his help, he recommended she contact a friend of his because he was busy performing in a play. Instead, Evan got on a tour bus, did a lot of drugs, and drove to Sacramento. There she attempted to kill herself by driving broken glass into her arm, but for some reason the bleeding would stop. She went to bed and felt different. After calling her mom in Los Angeles and telling her she needed to go to a mental hospital, they both got in cars and met each other half way and Evan checked herself into a mental hospital.
First, I have written an article where I did discover that Manson and Evan had broken up while Evan was filming in Long Island for Mildred Pierce, which was some time in June, and she appeared on set the next day feeling really depressed. However, I have a hard time believing the rest of the story. One of the main reasons is because in late June, after she and Manson went their separate ways, she traveled to Rome, Italy with her mom to do a photoshoot and short film for the Gucci fragrance campaign "Guilty", and this is well documented. I have talked about this in detail elsewhere, especially in light of the fact that she tried to make it out that photos from this photoshoot especially captured her abuse even though she was no longer in a relationship with Manson and had been filming in New York since April or May. It just does not fit into the timeline that some time in mid to late June when she and Manson broke up, she traveled cross country with a band to Sacramento, checked into a mental health hospital, and was ready to go for the major fragrance campaign in Rome in late June.
Evan did say in an interview from 2011 that she wanted to take a year off of work and focus on herself after filming Mildred Pierce. She has also been specific that she entered a mental hospital when she was 22. We next see Evan, after the Gucci campaign in Rome, at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010 to promote the new fragrance by Gucci. This was when she was 23; her birthday is on September 7th. Now it is possible, since we really have no record of her doing anything in July and August, that she could have gone to a mental hospital then, but I feel like we are still missing a chunk of the story, and my gut tells me the devil is in the details.
One of the red flags that comes up in the documentary is that Evan felt suicidal in New York and called her dad for help. And even though her dad was indifferent to a certain extent, according to the documentary, he still acknowledged she needed help and urged her to reach out to his friends who could help her while he was busy with his play. She does not take him up on his offer and instead goes on this unnamed tour bus with a band from New York to Sacramento. The first question we must ask is why Evan didn't call her mom at the time, even just to talk to her on the phone, or even why didn't Evan's dad call her mom? Or why didn't Evan's dad send his own wife? or call Ira? The second question is why did Evan expect her dad to cancel his play and ruin the work opportunities of dozens of actors and stage people? This comes off as very selfish and narcissistic and even controlling. For the time it would have taken her dad to do what he needed to in order to cancel his show and fly out to New York, it would have been much quicker for Evan to get on a plane and go to North Carolina or even California to her mother.
Then we come to the third question. If she was feeling so desperate and was trying to get her dad to completely overturn his busy life at the moment and come be with her, instead of her going to be with him or be with her mom, then why would she get on a band's touring bus to go from New York to California, which must have taken at least a few weeks. If this was a band on tour, that means they would have made some stops along the way to play shows. Which brings us to the fourth question: what band was this? If Evan named the band it can be confirmed at least that indeed Evan traveled with them from New York to Sacramento doing a bunch of drugs. For some reason, however, she does not name the band nor say how long she toured with them.
When you add everything up, it all sounds very suspicious. The devil is in the details, though it is hard to determine. Even before the documentary I had reservations about Evan ever going to a mental hospital, but the documentary confirms my suspicions even more. I'm not saying she didn't go, I just highly suspect she didn't go. Perhaps it was not even a mental hospital, which she can try and pin blame on Manson for, but maybe she entered a rehab facility to treat her drug addiction. Or maybe none of this is true.
Let's go back to the anonymous band. Supposedly she toured across the country with an anonymous band perhaps in July of 2010, according to the documentary. The only thing we are told about this tour is that she did a lot of drugs. That Evan blamed Manson for her drug addiction while touring with him in 2007 and now doesn't blame this band for her drug addiction in 2010 should say a lot. In fact, it sounds like she still blames Manson for her drug abuse with another band. Maybe, however, this tour didn't ever happen either ... at least at the time we are told.
Evan has lied about her story on numerous occasions, and even changed her narrative at a whim, so it is very safe to assume she may be lying about touring with this band in July of 2010. But she did sort of tour with a band in July of 2009, a year earlier. Remember when we were examining earlier Evan's very messy timeline, and said that according to the documentary Evan came back to Manson in April 2009 and supposedly stayed with him till June 2010, making it appear as if this was without interruption when in fact they were not back together until around October of 2009? Well, to me this seems like Evan was attempting to cover up her behavior from the summer of 2009. In June and July of 2009, Evan was not dating Marilyn Manson, but was having a fling with Shane West, who is nine years older than her and actually played her older brother on Once and Again. Shane West was lead singer in a band called The Germs, and that summer had some tour dates in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Sacramento, among others. Evan accompanied him on some of these tour dates, though I couldn't confirm if she was with him in Sacramento. Nonetheless, she toured with him, and partied hard with him, much more than she did with Marilyn Manson, and this is well documented. And though she did drugs with Manson, it was not that noticeable to outsiders, but when she was with Shane West it became very clear that Evan was doing more drugs and drinking than ever before. Even though this fling is well documented, Evan clearly wanted to cover over this time in her documentary, as well as her time with Alexander Skarsgård in August and September. Why? Because people might suspect that Evan became pregnant from one of them. It is crucial to Evan's narrative that Manson be entirely blamed for her getting pregnant, and with those two (at least) in the picture, there may be suspicions that Manson is not to blame. Hence, since Evan had to cover this up, maybe she is referring to her time with Shane West when she says that she toured with a band in July 2010, which is not true, but it would account to unsuspecting audiences for all the photos of the two together.
There are many reasons to be suspicious of Evan's supposed time in a mental hospital after a supposed suicide attempt, the description of which sounds so horrific that it in itself makes it sound like a lie. Digging hard into your wrists with broken glass will kill you. She makes it sound as if some miracle happened and she stopped bleeding. Even if this were so, which is doubtful, you probably would not fall asleep after (and ever wake up), but you would need immediate medical attention. There is no indication that Evan ever got medical attention for these deep self-inflicted wounds. Very suspicious.
The "Escape" from Manson That Never Happened
After we hear Evan's dad reveal his guilt over how he handled himself as a father, Evan begins to tell us about her supposed escape from Manson. She talks about now having the will power to resist him and not take him serious and not be afraid of him, and when she went off to film The Ides of March, that was the last time they saw each other.
Evan has found herself in a major contradiction here. When Evan had just spoken with Illma Gore about her suicide attempt and going to a mental hospital, she says that before this she had left Manson. Now we are told she was still with Manson and needed to escape him. The Ides of March didn't start filming until February of 2011. Evan would have us therefore believe that her relationship ended in 2011, as she had said in Part One of Phoenix Rising, but this is not true and there is a lot of evidence to show that in fact the relationship between Manson and Evan ended in June of 2010, when Evan was in New York and Manson was likely in Los Angeles. Evan never stood up to Manson. In fact, it was probably Manson who broke up with her, based on the fact that he had more reasons to break up with her than she had with him, but I don't know this for sure. What I do know is that when the media announced Manson and Evan had split in early August 2010, they had already been separated from each other. The fact that Evan claims the relationship extended into 2011 is also in contradiction with the testimony of Ashley Morgan Smithline, who claims to have moved in with Manson in November 2010.
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"Someone Should Put Hearts Over Her Eyes"
In April 2007, Manson and Evan attended an exhibition of his watercolor paintings in Florida, and in an article from that time we read:
"At one point, he [Manson] and Wood posed for a picture in front of a portrait he did of his date called, 'Someone Should Put Hearts Over Her Eyes.' Wood, 19, wore red, heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses for the occasion. She later joked that they were 100 percent 'LUV' proof."
Now Evan has decided to take this portrait (or a copy of it) and deface it as an exhibition act of her own. As she describes her relationship and marriage with Jaime Bell, and how she had to go to therapy three times a week to treat her PTSD, she begins to deface this Manson watercolor portrait with words that describe what she allegedly went through while with Manson. After she writes all the words, she even signs it with her initials, as if it is her own original art piece. In the end, after the watercolor portrait is defaced and she stops talking about Jaime Bell, you realize why she put on this show in the first place: to blame Marilyn Manson for her breakup with Jaime Bell.
For Evan Rachel Wood, everything in Phoenix Rising is about shifting any and all blame off herself and putting it all on Marilyn Manson. As far as psychology is concerned, a person who always blames everyone else for what they themselves are responsible for is a typical narcissist (meaning they have an inflated sense of self). You can also call it delusional. Perhaps the best way to describe it is 'Projection'.
Projection or Blame-Shifting is a term originally coined as a self-defense mechanism by Anna Freud in 1936, when a person attributes their own unwanted thoughts, feelings, or motives onto another person. By projecting, or “blame-shifting” one’s undesirable mental/emotional notions onto another person, the individual is defended against having to be aware of and accountable to their own thought process. The object of the projection is then targeted for blame, since the unwanted thoughts/emotions are too threatening to be accountable to. Narcissistic abusers are classic examples of individuals who deploy this type of defense mechanism but take it up exponentially several notches.
Notice that Evan is not defacing a picture or portrait of Marilyn Manson, but of herself. The words are wounds on her person created by Manson, like the painting was created by Manson. Everything that happened to her, according to her narrative, is a part of her and accounts for all the negative things and behaviors of her life.
The Demonization of Manson Supporters
It's no surprise that in the documentary Phoenix Rising, a certain amount of attention is given to demonizing Manson supporters. There is a moment where Evan and Illma are talking to each other over a video call, and Illma starts telling Evan a bunch of lies to get Evan to flee Los Angeles, because she and her son were in danger of their lives.
One complete falsehood by Illma and Evan is that "leaving is exposing". Illma says that leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time for a victim, and even though the relationship had been over for ten years, they project this statistic into their own situation for the sake of dramatics and equate leaving with exposing, thinking that by exposing Manson, Evan's life is danger. In reality, exposing an abusive celebrity is probably the safest time for a victim, because the abuser would not want the media scrutiny and all blame for whatever happens would make them the most obvious target to blame.
Another falsehood comes from Illma when she says: "There are victims who are being stalked, photos of their houses being posted online." When Evan asks if they are from the Manson cases, Illma replies: "Yeah!" To this day, there is no evidence to suggest this was ever true. No victims have been stalked, and photos of their houses were never posted online. If they were, I would have seen them.
I truly believe all this is staged for the documentary. We now know about the custody battle which this created with Jaime Bell, the fact that Evan left with her child for Nashville without telling the child's father. Evan claimed Manson was threatening her life, and threatened to "fuck" her eight year old son. This is all a complete fabrication. The truth probably lies in the fact that Evan was trying to add dramatics to her documentary, and by pushing things too far she got into legal trouble that began a custody battle.
My favorite dramatic moment is when Evan comforts her dog for being nervous in the situation, then before she leaves her L.A. home she takes a look at the "M" she carved into her thigh for Manson, or is it really a "W" for Wood?
The Evidence Review
After we are shown Evan and Jack flee California for Tennessee, to escape the wrath of Marilyn Manson, a few minutes is spent presenting the bond between Evan and Jack, in order to win over the sympathy of viewers. We are then taken to the house of Illma Gore for an evidence review via face time. There are three black binders on the desk in which the evidence exists to corroborate Evan's story should she need to present it. Though we are not shown everything, here are a few things we do see:
1. There is a list of the things that Evan can testify to which happened to her.
2. The video clip of the apparent threat Manson makes against Evan which we saw earlier in part two of Phoenix Rising is transcribed, and we are given a little more context to the video clip, but not much. The only thing they highlight is that Manson says "Answer me or I'll kill you."
3. The Spin article from June 2009 is shown with a highlight over the quote about Manson fantasizing of smashing Evan's head in with a sledgehammer. This I have addressed a few places elsewhere, but is likely a joke pulled from the movie Punch Drunk Love and may also have a biblical meaning behind it as influenced from the Book of Psalms.
4. They skip the photo of Evan's stomach with a welt on it, which is shown multiple times in the whole documentary but never explained. In the lawsuit of Ashley Walters there is an allegation that Manson threw a fake skull at Evan and hit her in the stomach, causing a welt. This is supposed to have taken place in December 2010. The problem is, Manson and Evan were not together in December 2010 and had gone their separate ways.
5. The next evidence we see is a text message that Ashley Walters posted on Instagram when she came out against Marilyn Manson, but not long after deleted. Nonetheless, it was captured by some media sources. It is supposed to be a text message by Marilyn Manson to Ashley Walters, which opens with "I wanna smash Evan's head in." As Illma reads this, Evan looks like she is about to cry, and Illma sympathetically says "I'm sorry." Now if this is really the first time Evan is hearing this, then Illma is doing a terrible job putting everything into context (Evan knew about this). The problem with this text is that it is dated to January 7, 2011, and refers to Manson's frustration with Evan because she is changing the plans they had to meet each other. However, Manson and Evan were not together at this time, which means this text is either a forgery or taken out of context. Those who know Manson say it doesn't look like a text Manson would write, and have noted that his texts are always very short while this one is long and detailed.
6. An article from May 2007 is shown in which some crew on the set of the 'Heart-Shaped Glasses' video are described as being disturbed by what they saw on set, and Evan is happy someone could confirm what she experienced. The problem is that it is very well documented that the first camera crew didn't want anything to do with the video, because they had conservative beliefs and there was too much sexuality involved and they felt it too pornographic, so Manson had to hire another crew to do the filming; James Cameron also directed on one day. The people who allegedly could corroborate Evan's story probably do exist if they came from the crew that wanted no part in it due to its sexual nature, but the only thing they could corroborate is how they felt disturbed by the sex scenes, not the supposed rape, and that she was drunk, which really means nothing because Evan has admitted to being a drinker and a drug addict. Evan tries to make this allegation into being categorized as sex trafficking, to which Illma agrees, but human trafficking is compelling individuals into labor/commercial sex work through force, fraud or coercion, for the economic gain of the trafficker. There was no sex on the set, everything was simulated, Manson was even wearing pants during the scene where the alleged rape happened, and Evan received the highest salary up to that time for a female appearing in a music video. Likewise they even try to state that her participation in the video could constitute Involuntary Servitude, which is just laughable.
Hanukkah
We are then taken back to Evan's home in Nashville on December 10, 2020, where she and Jack are preparing to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. Evan has said that she was raised Jewish, but was not particularly religious herself. I think it was particularly important to Evan to show in the documentary that she was at least trying to raise her son in her religion. It is difficult to tell how authentic this is for her, but religion is often seen as something that instills a good moral sense in a person, and that may also be a reason this is shown. And though this was filmed before Manson started attending the Sunday Services of Kanye West, this scene could have been added to the documentary as a reaction to Manson's involvement in the Sunday Services. One thing that is odd, however, is that when Manson appeared as a figure of redemption at the first Donda listening party, Evan's reaction was not to have some hope in his redemption, as a religious person would, but to do a concert and sing a song mocking Manson, and when she came to his name she stuck up her middle finger to curse him. This doesn't seem like the act of a religious person, nor is it a good example to Jack.
Evan Visits the FBI Office in Nashville
After taking us to Los Angeles where a camera has filmed Manson's house, Evan is wondering why the police haven't arrested Manson yet. Then we are taken back to Nashville, where Evan claims the FBI called her in to be asked about the Manson case. We now come to the absolute weirdest part in the documentary that is particularly cringe worthy.
We see Evan driving to the Nashville FBI office, pulls into an empty parking lot except for one car, walks into the Donelson building where someone opens the door for her, and then she is next seen in a completely undecorated, plain-looking office, pacing at first, but then apparently talking to some hidden person. With dramatic music playing in the background and a certain slow motion technique of the camera, Evan is seen describing to this completely unseen person with extreme physical movements how she was bound with her hands and had her hair pulled. We then see Evan leaving the building, and as she does so she bids farewell to what looks like the same person who let her in.
Here are the hard facts:
1. There has never been a confirmation from the FBI that there is an investigation against Marilyn Manson, nor that they spoke with Evan Rachel Wood.
In April 2007, Manson and Evan attended an exhibition of his watercolor paintings in Florida, and in an article from that time we read:
"At one point, he [Manson] and Wood posed for a picture in front of a portrait he did of his date called, 'Someone Should Put Hearts Over Her Eyes.' Wood, 19, wore red, heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses for the occasion. She later joked that they were 100 percent 'LUV' proof."
Now Evan has decided to take this portrait (or a copy of it) and deface it as an exhibition act of her own. As she describes her relationship and marriage with Jaime Bell, and how she had to go to therapy three times a week to treat her PTSD, she begins to deface this Manson watercolor portrait with words that describe what she allegedly went through while with Manson. After she writes all the words, she even signs it with her initials, as if it is her own original art piece. In the end, after the watercolor portrait is defaced and she stops talking about Jaime Bell, you realize why she put on this show in the first place: to blame Marilyn Manson for her breakup with Jaime Bell.
For Evan Rachel Wood, everything in Phoenix Rising is about shifting any and all blame off herself and putting it all on Marilyn Manson. As far as psychology is concerned, a person who always blames everyone else for what they themselves are responsible for is a typical narcissist (meaning they have an inflated sense of self). You can also call it delusional. Perhaps the best way to describe it is 'Projection'.
Projection or Blame-Shifting is a term originally coined as a self-defense mechanism by Anna Freud in 1936, when a person attributes their own unwanted thoughts, feelings, or motives onto another person. By projecting, or “blame-shifting” one’s undesirable mental/emotional notions onto another person, the individual is defended against having to be aware of and accountable to their own thought process. The object of the projection is then targeted for blame, since the unwanted thoughts/emotions are too threatening to be accountable to. Narcissistic abusers are classic examples of individuals who deploy this type of defense mechanism but take it up exponentially several notches.
Notice that Evan is not defacing a picture or portrait of Marilyn Manson, but of herself. The words are wounds on her person created by Manson, like the painting was created by Manson. Everything that happened to her, according to her narrative, is a part of her and accounts for all the negative things and behaviors of her life.
The Demonization of Manson Supporters
It's no surprise that in the documentary Phoenix Rising, a certain amount of attention is given to demonizing Manson supporters. There is a moment where Evan and Illma are talking to each other over a video call, and Illma starts telling Evan a bunch of lies to get Evan to flee Los Angeles, because she and her son were in danger of their lives.
One complete falsehood by Illma and Evan is that "leaving is exposing". Illma says that leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time for a victim, and even though the relationship had been over for ten years, they project this statistic into their own situation for the sake of dramatics and equate leaving with exposing, thinking that by exposing Manson, Evan's life is danger. In reality, exposing an abusive celebrity is probably the safest time for a victim, because the abuser would not want the media scrutiny and all blame for whatever happens would make them the most obvious target to blame.
Another falsehood comes from Illma when she says: "There are victims who are being stalked, photos of their houses being posted online." When Evan asks if they are from the Manson cases, Illma replies: "Yeah!" To this day, there is no evidence to suggest this was ever true. No victims have been stalked, and photos of their houses were never posted online. If they were, I would have seen them.
I truly believe all this is staged for the documentary. We now know about the custody battle which this created with Jaime Bell, the fact that Evan left with her child for Nashville without telling the child's father. Evan claimed Manson was threatening her life, and threatened to "fuck" her eight year old son. This is all a complete fabrication. The truth probably lies in the fact that Evan was trying to add dramatics to her documentary, and by pushing things too far she got into legal trouble that began a custody battle.
My favorite dramatic moment is when Evan comforts her dog for being nervous in the situation, then before she leaves her L.A. home she takes a look at the "M" she carved into her thigh for Manson, or is it really a "W" for Wood?
The Evidence Review
After we are shown Evan and Jack flee California for Tennessee, to escape the wrath of Marilyn Manson, a few minutes is spent presenting the bond between Evan and Jack, in order to win over the sympathy of viewers. We are then taken to the house of Illma Gore for an evidence review via face time. There are three black binders on the desk in which the evidence exists to corroborate Evan's story should she need to present it. Though we are not shown everything, here are a few things we do see:
1. There is a list of the things that Evan can testify to which happened to her.
2. The video clip of the apparent threat Manson makes against Evan which we saw earlier in part two of Phoenix Rising is transcribed, and we are given a little more context to the video clip, but not much. The only thing they highlight is that Manson says "Answer me or I'll kill you."
3. The Spin article from June 2009 is shown with a highlight over the quote about Manson fantasizing of smashing Evan's head in with a sledgehammer. This I have addressed a few places elsewhere, but is likely a joke pulled from the movie Punch Drunk Love and may also have a biblical meaning behind it as influenced from the Book of Psalms.
4. They skip the photo of Evan's stomach with a welt on it, which is shown multiple times in the whole documentary but never explained. In the lawsuit of Ashley Walters there is an allegation that Manson threw a fake skull at Evan and hit her in the stomach, causing a welt. This is supposed to have taken place in December 2010. The problem is, Manson and Evan were not together in December 2010 and had gone their separate ways.
5. The next evidence we see is a text message that Ashley Walters posted on Instagram when she came out against Marilyn Manson, but not long after deleted. Nonetheless, it was captured by some media sources. It is supposed to be a text message by Marilyn Manson to Ashley Walters, which opens with "I wanna smash Evan's head in." As Illma reads this, Evan looks like she is about to cry, and Illma sympathetically says "I'm sorry." Now if this is really the first time Evan is hearing this, then Illma is doing a terrible job putting everything into context (Evan knew about this). The problem with this text is that it is dated to January 7, 2011, and refers to Manson's frustration with Evan because she is changing the plans they had to meet each other. However, Manson and Evan were not together at this time, which means this text is either a forgery or taken out of context. Those who know Manson say it doesn't look like a text Manson would write, and have noted that his texts are always very short while this one is long and detailed.
6. An article from May 2007 is shown in which some crew on the set of the 'Heart-Shaped Glasses' video are described as being disturbed by what they saw on set, and Evan is happy someone could confirm what she experienced. The problem is that it is very well documented that the first camera crew didn't want anything to do with the video, because they had conservative beliefs and there was too much sexuality involved and they felt it too pornographic, so Manson had to hire another crew to do the filming; James Cameron also directed on one day. The people who allegedly could corroborate Evan's story probably do exist if they came from the crew that wanted no part in it due to its sexual nature, but the only thing they could corroborate is how they felt disturbed by the sex scenes, not the supposed rape, and that she was drunk, which really means nothing because Evan has admitted to being a drinker and a drug addict. Evan tries to make this allegation into being categorized as sex trafficking, to which Illma agrees, but human trafficking is compelling individuals into labor/commercial sex work through force, fraud or coercion, for the economic gain of the trafficker. There was no sex on the set, everything was simulated, Manson was even wearing pants during the scene where the alleged rape happened, and Evan received the highest salary up to that time for a female appearing in a music video. Likewise they even try to state that her participation in the video could constitute Involuntary Servitude, which is just laughable.
Hanukkah
We are then taken back to Evan's home in Nashville on December 10, 2020, where she and Jack are preparing to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. Evan has said that she was raised Jewish, but was not particularly religious herself. I think it was particularly important to Evan to show in the documentary that she was at least trying to raise her son in her religion. It is difficult to tell how authentic this is for her, but religion is often seen as something that instills a good moral sense in a person, and that may also be a reason this is shown. And though this was filmed before Manson started attending the Sunday Services of Kanye West, this scene could have been added to the documentary as a reaction to Manson's involvement in the Sunday Services. One thing that is odd, however, is that when Manson appeared as a figure of redemption at the first Donda listening party, Evan's reaction was not to have some hope in his redemption, as a religious person would, but to do a concert and sing a song mocking Manson, and when she came to his name she stuck up her middle finger to curse him. This doesn't seem like the act of a religious person, nor is it a good example to Jack.
Evan Visits the FBI Office in Nashville
After taking us to Los Angeles where a camera has filmed Manson's house, Evan is wondering why the police haven't arrested Manson yet. Then we are taken back to Nashville, where Evan claims the FBI called her in to be asked about the Manson case. We now come to the absolute weirdest part in the documentary that is particularly cringe worthy.
We see Evan driving to the Nashville FBI office, pulls into an empty parking lot except for one car, walks into the Donelson building where someone opens the door for her, and then she is next seen in a completely undecorated, plain-looking office, pacing at first, but then apparently talking to some hidden person. With dramatic music playing in the background and a certain slow motion technique of the camera, Evan is seen describing to this completely unseen person with extreme physical movements how she was bound with her hands and had her hair pulled. We then see Evan leaving the building, and as she does so she bids farewell to what looks like the same person who let her in.
Here are the hard facts:
1. There has never been a confirmation from the FBI that there is an investigation against Marilyn Manson, nor that they spoke with Evan Rachel Wood.
2. It has been confirmed that there is no filming allowed in the FBI building in Nashville.
3. The fact that the parking lot was empty and that she was let in and out by what looks like the same person, could indicate she went there and filmed during off hours, though the filming was done secretly outside the property, as the distance of the camera from the building indicates.
4. Evan informed Good Morning America during her interview with them on March 14th that she met with an FBI agent in November of 2021. This means that it was during the time the Donelson building was up for sale. It had been put on the market for $9million in August of 2021 and wasn't sold until January 2022. As an inquirer, she possibly could have had off hours access to the building through a realtor or through the groundskeeper, who we are informed online took care of the property during this time.
5. Evan's dramatics in explaining how she was bound and had her hair pulled looks completely fake. This would be fine if there was a disclaimer that said this was a reenactment, but it doesn't, so we are being sold that it is a real exchange.
6. If you look around at an image of the Donelson building on Google Maps, the windows depicted in the documentary appear to be of a different shape from anything we actually see. Also, the outside view from within the building does not match the actual height of the building nor the surroundings.
7. Evan and Illma have impersonated an FBI agent, as proven in Manson's lawsuit complaint, so it would not be surprising that this whole scenario is fake as well.
8. There is not any mention of the FBI building or agent in the end credits. Not to acknowledge it in the credits seems to confirm that whatever filming they did was done without their permission or knowledge.
We can firmly conclude based on this evidence that Evan not only never met with an FBI agent in Nashville (who she claims she spoke with for six hours!), but she never met with any of them anywhere, and this was all staged for the documentary.
This means that when Evan recounts everything that took place in the building and in her conversation with an agent, it is all a lie. When she says she was heard and not questioned for the first time, it was all a lie. One interesting admission, which she has said elsewhere as well, bears repeating. No one, says Evan, knew about her abuse for years. And she emphasizes "no one". This means that her parents didn't know anything for years, her brother didn't know anything, her friends didn't know anything. Therefore in this whole scene we not only see Evan pulling off a hoax at an FBI office with an imaginary agent, but she is also admitting that her family is in on the hoax for the documentary.
A little added discrepancy is revealed at the end of this scene where Evan is in the back of a car being driven away from the building, while in the beginning of the scene we see her driving up to the FBI office. What happened to her car?
Manson as a Flight Risk
When Evan finds out that Manson has a show in Japan in January 2021, she wonders if he would be a flight risk and try to escape the country. Of course, this is for added dramatics and to show her paranoid, but she even takes out her calendar and inserts under the date Manson will be appearing that he is a "flight risk". Something else interesting, though unrelated, is that she has the birthday of her ex-girlfriend Katherine Moennig, whom she dated in 2014, noted under December 29th.
Evan Writing Her Social Media Statement to Name Manson
There is no way Evan wrote this statement by herself. All of the statements of the main accusers sound very similar, so there is either a common source to them, or they worked on them together. According to one admission of Ashley Morgan Smithline, they seem to have wrote these statements together, which is why they sound so much alike. This being the case, the scenes of Evan nervously trying to put this statement together is Evan acting out a scene as if she is filming a movie and has nothing to do with reality.
One of the oddest moments is when Evan is typing something on her phone, and while she is acting really nervous, she stops and checks her hand to see if it is shaking.
Another comment she makes that is very odd, is when she says, "We could be waiting in line at the DMV for something to happen." What does the Department of Motor Vehicles have to do with the case? Maybe she is making an analogy.
It is during this time that Evan blurts out the tag line to Part Two of Phoenix Rising, which is "Stand Up". As she considers naming Manson, and remembers all the times people told her not to, saying to her: "Stand down, stand down, stand down," she says she is tired of standing down, and asks: "When am I gonna get to stand up?"
"Naming Day"
Illma Gore is seen visiting Evan in Nashville, and they are about to go to North Carolina to name Manson there with her dad present. Before she leaves, Evan writes the words "Freedom" to greet her when she gets back. Along the way, they stop at a pond at sunset to capture Evan contemplating over the horizon for what she is about to do. They arrive at night and Evan tightly embraces her father.
We next see Evan smoking out on the porch, telling us about how she prayed to her guardian angel, and then she asked her dead grandmother to give her a sign if she was present. Upon saying this, a strong wind blew, shaking the snow off the trees, and rattling a canister next to her, and with tears Evan acknowledged this wind as a sign that her grandmother was present and protecting her. Perhaps this is in case Manson shows up, at which time her grandmother will appear and drive his car off the road or something and he will smash into a tree and die.
After they complete an Alice in Wonderland puzzle, which is seen as ironic, Evan just decides to lie down on the living room floor for some reason, as people are walking around her. Then a timer on her phone appears to count down to the moment when her statement will be published, which is 1 hour and 57 minutes away, and a quote on top of the timer by Maya Angelou reads: "This is a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."
As the clock says there is one hour to go, and Evan is nervously reading her statement over as she clutches the side of the table, Illma tells Evan: "Evan, an hour beforehand." Evan then says she feels like she is having an out of body experience. Then Evan cries as she leans her head on her father's stomach, and he gently pets her head. When 4'o clock arrives, it is time to send it out, and her dad hugs her one more time. Then it is posted on February 1, 2021. Evan then breaks down on Illma's shoulder as she shakes with nervousness, breathing deeply, then she leans back on her couch with a big smile.
We next see Evan putting Jack to bed, telling him he no longer needs to worry, because the good guys are gonna win.
End Credits
The documentary ends with a brief general statement from Manson's lawyers, as well as an announcement that Manson has issued a lawsuit against Evan and Illma, both of which contain the most truth in the entire documentary.
As the credits roll, the statements of the accusers and updates of the aftermatch in the media, are put on screen, as well as the aftermath on Manson's career, such as being dropped by his label and manager, and police being called to his house for a wellness check by Illma Gore for publicity.
It should be noted that nothing by Esme Bianco is shown and her name does not come up in the credits. This may have been by request due to her lawsuit, but it is curious nonetheless, especially since she has also been silent about the documentary since its release.
Then a video of Wes Borland comes up, saying in an interview that he was in the band for nine months, and for this reason he can be believed when he says to believe everything the accusers have to say. Of course, this is a lie and a disgruntled statement. First, he was not with the band for nine months, but only played two shows with Manson over the course of a few months, then he was fired. Second, even if Wes Borland saw something he didn't like that Manson did, he has absolutely no authority, just like Dan Cleary, to say that what happened to other women is true, especially when he never even describes witnessing any wrongdoing by Manson. Basically, the guy just hates Manson for hurting his inflated ego.
And again, there is nothing about the FBI in the end credits.
Concluding Remarks
My personal opinion about Phoenix Rising as a whole is that it is a horrible documentary. Even if I believed the accusers, I would think it was a horrible documentary. If I didn't know the details about this case, I would be left very confused by the whole story. The viewpoint of the documentary is entirely and overly one-sided, and never do they even attempt to respond to the allegations brought up against Evan's allegations, as well as those of the other accusers. Also, Evan's narrative in many ways has shifted from the statements she has made since 2016. The only thing that I can see that sells this documentary is Evan's acting. She cries a lot in the documentary, and relies on winning over people emotionally to her side instead of using common sense and logic. There are no arguments made in this documentary in Evan's favor, there is no evidence given at all. It all comes down to Evan making her statements and expecting her audience to believe her, because she actually looks like she has been through some sort of trauma, therefore we have to believe her statements. What people forget, however, is that Evan is a great actress; a lousy thinker, but a great dramatic storyteller. Phoenix Rising will go down in history as a preeminent story of a massive hoax and hit piece of a bunch of women (and a few men) against an innocent man.
This means that when Evan recounts everything that took place in the building and in her conversation with an agent, it is all a lie. When she says she was heard and not questioned for the first time, it was all a lie. One interesting admission, which she has said elsewhere as well, bears repeating. No one, says Evan, knew about her abuse for years. And she emphasizes "no one". This means that her parents didn't know anything for years, her brother didn't know anything, her friends didn't know anything. Therefore in this whole scene we not only see Evan pulling off a hoax at an FBI office with an imaginary agent, but she is also admitting that her family is in on the hoax for the documentary.
A little added discrepancy is revealed at the end of this scene where Evan is in the back of a car being driven away from the building, while in the beginning of the scene we see her driving up to the FBI office. What happened to her car?
Manson as a Flight Risk
When Evan finds out that Manson has a show in Japan in January 2021, she wonders if he would be a flight risk and try to escape the country. Of course, this is for added dramatics and to show her paranoid, but she even takes out her calendar and inserts under the date Manson will be appearing that he is a "flight risk". Something else interesting, though unrelated, is that she has the birthday of her ex-girlfriend Katherine Moennig, whom she dated in 2014, noted under December 29th.
Evan Writing Her Social Media Statement to Name Manson
There is no way Evan wrote this statement by herself. All of the statements of the main accusers sound very similar, so there is either a common source to them, or they worked on them together. According to one admission of Ashley Morgan Smithline, they seem to have wrote these statements together, which is why they sound so much alike. This being the case, the scenes of Evan nervously trying to put this statement together is Evan acting out a scene as if she is filming a movie and has nothing to do with reality.
One of the oddest moments is when Evan is typing something on her phone, and while she is acting really nervous, she stops and checks her hand to see if it is shaking.
Another comment she makes that is very odd, is when she says, "We could be waiting in line at the DMV for something to happen." What does the Department of Motor Vehicles have to do with the case? Maybe she is making an analogy.
It is during this time that Evan blurts out the tag line to Part Two of Phoenix Rising, which is "Stand Up". As she considers naming Manson, and remembers all the times people told her not to, saying to her: "Stand down, stand down, stand down," she says she is tired of standing down, and asks: "When am I gonna get to stand up?"
"Naming Day"
Illma Gore is seen visiting Evan in Nashville, and they are about to go to North Carolina to name Manson there with her dad present. Before she leaves, Evan writes the words "Freedom" to greet her when she gets back. Along the way, they stop at a pond at sunset to capture Evan contemplating over the horizon for what she is about to do. They arrive at night and Evan tightly embraces her father.
We next see Evan smoking out on the porch, telling us about how she prayed to her guardian angel, and then she asked her dead grandmother to give her a sign if she was present. Upon saying this, a strong wind blew, shaking the snow off the trees, and rattling a canister next to her, and with tears Evan acknowledged this wind as a sign that her grandmother was present and protecting her. Perhaps this is in case Manson shows up, at which time her grandmother will appear and drive his car off the road or something and he will smash into a tree and die.
After they complete an Alice in Wonderland puzzle, which is seen as ironic, Evan just decides to lie down on the living room floor for some reason, as people are walking around her. Then a timer on her phone appears to count down to the moment when her statement will be published, which is 1 hour and 57 minutes away, and a quote on top of the timer by Maya Angelou reads: "This is a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."
As the clock says there is one hour to go, and Evan is nervously reading her statement over as she clutches the side of the table, Illma tells Evan: "Evan, an hour beforehand." Evan then says she feels like she is having an out of body experience. Then Evan cries as she leans her head on her father's stomach, and he gently pets her head. When 4'o clock arrives, it is time to send it out, and her dad hugs her one more time. Then it is posted on February 1, 2021. Evan then breaks down on Illma's shoulder as she shakes with nervousness, breathing deeply, then she leans back on her couch with a big smile.
We next see Evan putting Jack to bed, telling him he no longer needs to worry, because the good guys are gonna win.
End Credits
The documentary ends with a brief general statement from Manson's lawyers, as well as an announcement that Manson has issued a lawsuit against Evan and Illma, both of which contain the most truth in the entire documentary.
As the credits roll, the statements of the accusers and updates of the aftermatch in the media, are put on screen, as well as the aftermath on Manson's career, such as being dropped by his label and manager, and police being called to his house for a wellness check by Illma Gore for publicity.
It should be noted that nothing by Esme Bianco is shown and her name does not come up in the credits. This may have been by request due to her lawsuit, but it is curious nonetheless, especially since she has also been silent about the documentary since its release.
Then a video of Wes Borland comes up, saying in an interview that he was in the band for nine months, and for this reason he can be believed when he says to believe everything the accusers have to say. Of course, this is a lie and a disgruntled statement. First, he was not with the band for nine months, but only played two shows with Manson over the course of a few months, then he was fired. Second, even if Wes Borland saw something he didn't like that Manson did, he has absolutely no authority, just like Dan Cleary, to say that what happened to other women is true, especially when he never even describes witnessing any wrongdoing by Manson. Basically, the guy just hates Manson for hurting his inflated ego.
And again, there is nothing about the FBI in the end credits.
Concluding Remarks
My personal opinion about Phoenix Rising as a whole is that it is a horrible documentary. Even if I believed the accusers, I would think it was a horrible documentary. If I didn't know the details about this case, I would be left very confused by the whole story. The viewpoint of the documentary is entirely and overly one-sided, and never do they even attempt to respond to the allegations brought up against Evan's allegations, as well as those of the other accusers. Also, Evan's narrative in many ways has shifted from the statements she has made since 2016. The only thing that I can see that sells this documentary is Evan's acting. She cries a lot in the documentary, and relies on winning over people emotionally to her side instead of using common sense and logic. There are no arguments made in this documentary in Evan's favor, there is no evidence given at all. It all comes down to Evan making her statements and expecting her audience to believe her, because she actually looks like she has been through some sort of trauma, therefore we have to believe her statements. What people forget, however, is that Evan is a great actress; a lousy thinker, but a great dramatic storyteller. Phoenix Rising will go down in history as a preeminent story of a massive hoax and hit piece of a bunch of women (and a few men) against an innocent man.