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The Spoof That Became a Reality: How Evan Rachel Wood and Darren Criss Became Friends in 2014

Evan Rachel Wood and Darren Criss hit the stage together in the Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors on January 30th, and this Sunday, March 31st, their performances are coming to an end. On February 20th, the pair appeared together on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna to promote their show and talk about how their friendship began a decade ago in 2014 and has continued strong till today. But what was it that brought Evan and Darren together in 2014? It was a spoof on the show Funny or Die of the Tom Hank's movie Big , but in this version of the film the male lead role is played by a female, Evan Rachel Wood. Darren Criss is the adult who plays her love interest and eventually finds out he’s had sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl aged by magic. What is interesting on top of this, in the 2003 movie Thirteen , Evan played a 13-year-old who wanted to be older and in one scene she had sex with an older man.   When Big came out in 1988, it was a huge success and few were

A Concise Introduction to Understanding the Marilyn Manson Abuse Cases

Marilyn Manson in 2019 standing at the Areopagus in Athens, 
where judicial trials took place in ancient Greece.

Welcome! If you have come to this page, likely it is because you are trying to understand what the hell is going on with all the current lawsuits and accusations against Marilyn Manson. You've come to the right place.

My goal here is to make it as easy as possible to try to help you understand exactly what is going on in as concise a way as I can. This is a difficult task, but I'm inspired by the opening theme to The Brady Bunch, which tried to show through a short story how a cast of multiple characters from two different families came to be one family living (with a housekeeper) under the same roof. Here I will also concisely tell a story about a bunch of characters that came together against one man to hold him singularly accountable for horrific things that he has strongly argued never happened.

If you are undertaking this task without knowing much about Marilyn Manson, then I would encourage you to get a brief overview by reading his Wikipedia page, which even though I have some issues with it, all around it is a decent summary.

You may have heard that Marilyn Manson has multiple accusers. The fact of the matter is that four women have brought lawsuits against him. Below is a list of the four women who have lawsuits currently against Marilyn Manson (whose legal name is Brian Warner), that were all issued in 2021:

Esme Bianco

Ashley Morgan Smithline

Jane Doe #2

Ashley Walters


Marilyn Manson has also filed a lawsuit against two women. Below are the names of the women Marilyn Manson issued a lawsuit against in March of 2022:

Evan Rachel Wood and Illma Gore

You may be wondering why Marilyn Manson is going after these two women who have not issued a lawsuit against him. This is because Marilyn Manson believes they are the masterminds behind a hoax to destroy him for their own self-serving purposes.

Here's the story of how these bunch of women came together against Marilyn Manson:

The story begins in June 2006, when 36 year old Marilyn Manson was at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood for a party that was also attended by 18 year old actress Evan Rachel Wood. At the time, Marilyn Manson was newly-married to the famous Burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese (Evan was dating actor Jaime Bell), who was often away from their Los Angeles home working in places like Las Vegas. During this time Manson was contemplating dropping out of what he considered an ever-stifling music industry and entering a career in art and film. One project he was working on with friend and photographer Tony Silva was a film called Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll is most famously known as the author of Alice in Wonderland. Lily Cole and Tilda Swinton were attached to leading roles in the film. When Manson saw Evan at the party that night at the Chateau Marmont, he thought she would be perfect as Alice for his film, so he approached her about the project, and she accepted.

While Dita was away from home working, Manson and Evan became good friends working on the film and hanging out mostly as "movie buddies", as Evan described it at the time. This close friendship eventually caused suspicions and upset Dita enough to get a divorce from Manson in late December 2006, which really disappointed Manson, until one day Evan promised him that she would be with him forever, which rejuvenated Manson's spirit, so they began dating by his birthday on January 5th 2007. While marriage and wanting to drop out of the music industry had put Manson in a lonely low point in his life which he tried to fulfill with other artistic projects, it was his relationship with Evan that inspired him to make music again and put his other artistic interests to the side. Upon releasing a new album titled Eat Me, Drink Me, Evan joined him on an international concert tour in 2007 for about eight months. After the tour they bought a house together in Hollywood, and Manson's longtime best friend and former bassist Twiggy Ramirez rejoined the band after they were apart for many years. Whereas Evan was Manson's muse for Eat Me, Drink Me, when Twiggy rejoined the band and Manson had his best friend back, he became Manson's muse for his next album The High End of Low, which would reflect their mutual feelings about difficult relationships that came to an end which they had both recently been in. So in 2008, while Evan was mostly away working on her own film projects and doing promotions and photoshoots and award shows, Manson was working on his own projects. The relationship came to an end in October 2008 when Manson tried proposing to Evan and she rejected his proposal, giving as a primary reason her desire to focus on her career as she transitioned from a child actress to an adult actress. This difficult transition had also been made more difficult with all the negative publicity she was receiving for being with Manson and she feeling the need to defend him, and this would haunt her for many years. By doing this, Evan had broken her promise that she would be with Manson forever.

Though Manson and Evan briefly got back together from February to April 2009, during which time they lived separately, things didn't work out, so both Manson and Evan got into two other brief relationships (Manson dated Isani Griffith and Stoya, while Evan dated Shane West and Alexander Skarsgård) and worked on their own separate projects. Manson released his album The High End of Low with Twiggy during this time and began an international tour, but by around October of 2009 he and Evan got back together, because, as Evan put it at the time, "I missed him every day" during the year they were apart. Before Christmas of 2009 Manson proposed to Evan during the last show of his tour in Paris and she accepted. Around May of 2010 Evan began filming for the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce in New York City. Manson visited Evan in New York City from late May to early June for about a week, and this is the last time they were publicly seen together. It is assumed their relationship came to an end some time in June of 2010, but the official end of their engagement was confirmed by their reps in early August, after it was reported that Manson was seen in a Los Angeles night spot with his current wife Lindsay Usich.

Though there are reports Manson and Evan tied up some loose ends to their relationship for a few months, there are no reports that Manson and Evan ever spoke again after 2011. A reason for the end of their engagement was never given. They both just moved on and proceeded to their various other projects and relationships as usual. Evan in particular got back together with Jaime Bell in 2011, had an informal wedding, gave birth to a son named Jack, and they got a divorce soon after. Manson had an on-again, off-again relationship with Lindsay Usich since 2010 until they were married in May 2020.

It's not exactly known how long Evan has had an acquaintance with Illma Gore, an Australian artist and radical feminist with gender fluidity who is most famous for her painting of Donald Trump with a micro penis and other artistic projects designed to get media attention and scam people out of their money. Their acquaintance likely goes back many years. In 2010, Marilyn Manson had a personal assistant named Erica Summers. In July 2010 Erica left her employment with Manson to be the personal assistant of Evan Rachel Wood, while Ashley Walters replaced Erica as Manson's personal assistant in August 2010. Around 2012, Erica began dating Illma Gore while being Evan's assistant, and they were together for about four or five years. Illma entered into the friendship circle of Evan during this time, and it is believed they started dating in 2017 or 2018.

Before Evan and Illma started dating, in 2016 Evan went through a profound change, a change that I have called a "radicalization". The clearest example of this is how she spoke of Marilyn Manson before November 2016. From 2011 to 2016, Evan had nothing but the nicest things to say about Marilyn Manson and their relationship together, even though in 2015 Manson was already expressing publicly his regret of ever being with Evan. This radicalization primarily came about through her new role in the HBO series Westworld, to the point where she felt like the character of Delores (a robot who was raped and abused and sought out revenge) became a part of her. Other factors that contributed to her radicalization in 2016 was her failure at being accepted by gays and bisexuals in her advocacy for bisexuality (she came out as a bisexual in 2011 and was an activist to educate people about it), moving with her son to Nashville away from Hollywood, her growing friendship with Illma Gore, the abuse allegations of Amber Heard against Johnny Depp, her own coming out as a domestic abuse survivor after the release of a report that bisexuals are most likely to be in abusive relationships, and especially the presidential election and eventual victory of Donald Trump, who she viewed as a rapist and misogynist.

Evan was interviewed by Rolling Stone in early November 2016 to be featured in a story about her experience as a domestic abuse survivor by a significant other she refused to name. She had hoped this story would land her on the cover of Rolling Stone, but Rolling Stone informed her on election day before it was announced that Trump was the new president that her story would not be the cover story. This upset her very much. She was in Canada at the time filming a movie called Allure in which she plays an older predator and rapist of a younger girl. It was there that she heard that Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. She went to bed in tears, contemplating if she should ever return to the United States again, though she knew she had to because her son was still there. When she woke up the next day, she came up with what she thought was a great idea that she believed would land her the cover of Rolling Stone - she would give them an exclusive story how she was raped by not just one man, but two men at two different times. So on the day after Trump was elected president, Evan sent an email to Rolling Stone and gave them that exclusive information. A little over a week later when the issue came out, not only did she find that she had still not landed the cover of Rolling Stone, but they even refused to publish her full statement about her rapes. This is when Evan took matters into her own hands and posted her full statement on Twitter, making sure that Rolling Stone would not be privileged with her exclusive story. From now on, Evan Rachel Wood bore the mantle of being an advocate for domestic abuse and sexual assault survivors and for women everywhere. In fact, in an essay from November 2017, she says her goal was to save America from its abusive marriage to Donald Trump by telling her own story of abuse and how she survived.

From being praised for wearing a pantsuit at every red carpet event to winning the prestigious Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award, in 2017 the radicalization of Evan Rachel Wood was realized. This became even more bolstered with the rise of the MeToo Movement. On February 27, 2018, Evan Rachel Wood testified before Congress on behalf of rape survivors by describing her own experience as a rape survivor. Footage of this testimony went viral, people were horrified by what she described. She claimed to have been raped by two different men, but refused to name them out of fear for her life. Some speculated based on her description that it was Marilyn Manson she was talking about, but even the media respected her silence. When Evan tried to sue her alleged rapist, she was told the statute of limitations was expired for her in California and it would be impossible. Having found this loop hole in the system, Illma Gore came along and suggested to Evan that she make a big dent in her successful activism by starting a non-profit called The Phoenix Act, in which they would campaign to increase the statute of limitations from three years to ten years. They were for the most part successful in passing The Phoenix Act in 2019.

In 2018-2019 the main accusers against Marilyn Manson listed above were recruited by Illma Gore, with the help of Evan and Ashley Walters, Manson's former assistant from 2010 to 2012. During the period when Ashley Walters was Manson's assistant, Manson and Evan had just broken off their engagement and he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Lindsay Usich, but they weren't officially dating till 2012. In between he was seeing very briefly other women such as Ashley Morgan Smithline in November 2010, Greta Aurora in January 2011, Chloe Black (who is believed to be the anonymous Jane Doe #2; Jane Doe #1 was an accuser from 2017 whose case was dismissed for lack of evidence) in February 2011, and Esme Bianco in May-June 2011. (Keep in mind, Evan claims she was dating Manson until February 2011, but this is demonstrably false when we are presented with a list of the other women Manson was with from August 2010 forward.) It is believed that Ashley Walters had saved information about these other women which she gave Evan and Illma to recruit them in order to orchestrate a hoax against Manson. We know this because Greta Aurora has testified that she received two emails from Illma Gore urging her to join a Zoom meeting with other women who claimed to be abused by Manson, but she ignored them because she had a positive experience with Manson.

In the middle of March 2019, the known accusers of Manson (Evan, Esme and the two Ashley's) came forward in a coordinated way on the same day on their social media accounts to talk about the sexual assault they allegedly suffered, but none of them named Manson, though they did tag each other. In September 2020, a former keyboard and guitar tech as well as a personal assistant of Manson named Dan Cleary took to his Twitter account after a friend of his was raped, to publicly testify against Manson as being a witness of his abusive behavior when he saw Manson fans on social media expressing their doubts towards Evan and Esme about what was interpreted as Manson's abusive behavior. The next month, in October 2020, the main accusers of Manson gathered for a "Survivor's Meeting", which included the women mentioned above, as well as Dan Cleary, former band member Fred Sablan (bassist for Manson from 2010 until June 2014) and another woman from 2011 that claimed to have been abused by Manson named Sarah McNeilly. It was during this meeting where the women claim they first discussed their experiences, and Ashley Walters in particular claims that her own repressed memories of abuse and sexual assault by Manson returned to her, even though she described her alleged abuse in March 2019 on social media. All the accusers say at some point they suffered from repressed memories, which is why they took so long to come forward, even though the theory about repressed memories has long been debunked (remember the Satanic Panic in the 1980's?!), and even if true it would have been extremely rare.

Marilyn Manson believes that the meeting in October of 2020 was not a singular event, but only one of several meetings of these women which they previously did through Zoom or Skype in which they coordinated and orchestrated a hoax against him, as his lawyers explain in the complaint he issued against Evan Rachel Wood and Illma Gore. In his complaint, proof is provided that this theory is true, and one way Evan and Illma convinced the other women to go along with the hoax was by showing them an FBI letter confirming there was an investigation against Manson, though in reality, as the complaint clearly shows, Evan and Illma pretended to be an FBI agent and forged a letter from the FBI to do this.

Not only this, but if you read the complaints issued by Esme Bianco, Ashley Walters and Ashley Morgan Smithline, you will find certain features in common which show motives for them to lie about Manson that Evan and Illma exploited to convince them to plot against Manson. For example, Ashley Morgan Smithline says that Manson disrupted her successful modeling career in Thailand by promising her a movie role in a film he was working on. This was her dream come true, because she wanted to retire from modeling in order to become an actress. However, when the film project never came to fruition, she had a deep resentment against Manson, which is why she accuses him of trafficking her. Esme Bianco, who was a famous burlesque dancer and model in England, says something very similar, because he invited her to live with him (even though she was married in England) and help pursue her dream of getting her a visa to work in Hollywood and his own music music video and film, but when his music video and film weren't released (something very common in Hollywood for independent artists), she had a deep resentment against Manson and also later accused him of trafficking her. Ashley Walters alleges that Manson promised her many opportunities to pursue her career in photography, but when she saw him as failing to fulfill his promise, she harbored a deep resentment against Manson. As for Chloe Black, it seems like her primary motive was initially to promote her new singing career, but then when she went anonymous it became more of a financial motivation. Evan and Illma no doubt manipulated these resentful women by exploiting their resentments and seemingly took certain situations that somehow they turned into rape and abuse allegations, while other things are complete fabrications that serve only to boost their claims.

When this hoax was coordinated among the main women involved listed above, Evan decided to finally name her abuser as being Marilyn Manson, a name she had not publicly spoken since 2016, in an effort to rehabilitate her reputation from the time she was with him. Another motivating factor was when certain photos of Evan were released online in July of 2020 from the time she was with Manson that depicted her dressed as a transvestite Hitler making Nazi salutes and snorting cocaine from a Nazi knife. Because of this she felt she had to come out against Manson by name and accuse him of being the real Nazi sympathizer who forced her into the situations depicted in those photos.  
 
The naming of Marilyn Manson was done by these accusers on social media in early February 2021, only months after Manson was married to Lindsay Usich and he came out with a critically acclaimed album We Are Chaos. Other women, mostly radical bisexual feminists, stood in solidarity with these women on social media, with no real substantial allegations, but the media treated them as equal to the main accusations made by the six primary accusers, making it look as if Manson had 15 or 16 accusers or even more. Since that time, the media has been running with the narrative of the accusers, and refuses to look at the mounting evidence against their claims. In March of 2022, a few weeks after Manson issued his lawsuit against Evan and Illma, Evan came out with an HBO two-part documentary against Marilyn Manson called Phoenix Rising, the first part of which had premiered in February at Sundance.

Currently, the cases of Esme Bianco and Ashley Morgan Smithline have court dates set for late 2023, the case of Ashley Walters has been dismissed because it lacked evidence to substantiate her claims and didn't meet the statute of limitations, and the case of Jane Doe #2 also has a court date set for 2023, but talks were being made to settle the case so that Manson's team can concentrate on the more prominent cases. As for Manson's lawsuit, both Evan and Illma, who are no longer either in a relationship or even on friendly terms, are separately disputing the defamation part of Manson's lawsuit, which is only 1/4 of the lawsuit, and the next hearing for that will take place in late 2022 and early 2023.

What makes the Marilyn Manson cases especially confusing are the various timelines, which often contradict each other and overlap. For example, Ashley Morgan Smithline claims she dated Manson from 2010 until 2013, while Manson has issued a statement that says they never dated, but they were together for only about two weeks at most. Ashley's timeline contradicts many aspects of other timelines, so it can be firmly established that the truth is more on Manson's side instead of Ashley's. In fact, Manson and Lindsay officially and exclusively began dating each other in 2012, which is the same year Ashley claims she was dating and living with Manson. It is contradictions like this that abound among all the accusers, and matters became even worse when Phoenix Rising was released and Evan not only presented a new narrative never given before, but her timeline is so contradictory with the reality of events it is literally impossible to follow.

This is all very much a developing story, but this is it in a nutshell. 

What Next?
 
With an understanding of the above, I encourage people to visit the Instagram accounts of the accusers to follow their side of the story, and to read the lawsuit complaints of Esme Bianco, Ashley Walters, Jane Doe #2 and Ashley Morgan Smithline (the attached links are for the pdf files of the complaints brought by these women against Manson). Essential reading is the supposed investigation by Rolling Stone against Marilyn Manson that was heavily in favor of the accusers. The documentary Phoenix Rising on HBO Max is essential viewing as well. I have written detailed reviews of the last two at www.marilynmansonuncanceled.com.

An absolutely essential read is the very readable and detailed lawsuit complaint issued by Marilyn Manson.

There are a number of Instagram accounts that expose the false allegations of Manson accusers, but the most detailed and systematic is Stand By Your Manson, which contains essential reading material that should not be missed.

There are a number of YouTube channels that address the Marilyn Manson cases. The most essential YouTube account to follow is Colonel Kurtz, who you can also follow on Instagram and Twitter and through her you will be led to other Manson-friendly accounts. She is a former professor who has talked about the Manson allegations since the beginning in February of 2021, initially as a skeptic of the allegations against Manson because they did not sit right with her, but after more deeply examining the cases she believes whole-heartedly that Manson is innocent of the crimes he is accused of. On her channel you will find many interviews with people that knew Manson, are friends with Manson, worked for Manson, and even were in romantic relationships with Manson, all of which are essential viewing to understanding the other side of the story which the media refuses to acknowledge exists, or just ignores them altogether. Among the people she has interviewed is Greta Aurora, who is mentioned above, and who has her own YouTube channel where she also supports Manson's innocence, while offering an enlightening critique of modern radical feminism on her other videos.

My own website, www.marilynmansonuncanceled.com, is the only website that takes a deeper look into the Manson cases and allegations. I have written each post for the most part chronologically, beginning with a series that examines the relationship of Manson and Evan from 2006 forward. I am currently still only, timeline wise, in the 2019-20 range, so there are many things yet to be said. When Manson made his appearance at the first Donda listening party in 2021 with Kanye West, I realized that the news stories about Manson and his cases needed to be documented, so right now I am the only one documenting the Manson news, which I try to update on my website every one or two weeks. I also have another website that specifically addresses everything brought up in the documentary Phoenix Rising, which can be visited at www.phoenixrisingdocumentary.com. The latter also has a Twitter account, while my main social media accounts are essential follows for daily updates on all things Marilyn Manson, especially my Instagram account, though you can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook.


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