Phoebe Bridgers Exposed: An Analysis of her Statement Against Marilyn Manson

Though she had just released her second studio album some months before and was nominated for four Grammy's including Best New Artist in 2020, before February 4th of 2021, most people had never really heard of Phoebe Bridgers. All of a sudden, she is all over the media making an accusation on Twitter against Marilyn Manson to supplement the bombardment of accusations of domestic abuse and sexual assault against him made a few days earlier by Evan Rachel Wood and others. She obviously felt like she could contribute something, even though she herself was never acquainted with Manson either romantically or as a friend. Her claim was that she heard something suspicious from Manson one day as a teenager when she went over Manson's house with some friends, and by tweeting what this suspicious thing was, Phoebe Bridgers automatically was listed as one of Marilyn Manson's accusers, and became much more known then she was before. In fact, her name would become almost a household name just two days later, when on February 6th she went viral for giving a much-maligned performance on Saturday Night Live of her song “I Know the End,” where at the end after screaming with a smile on her face she made a 25 second awkward effort to smash her guitar on a loudspeaker that only resulted in some scratches and dings on both. Nonetheless, by going after Marilyn Manson one day and expressing faux rage on Saturday Night Live two days later, Phoebe Bridgers became someone to talk about in the music world.

Phoebe's Statement Against Marilyn Manson

 

Let's take a look at what Phoebe Bridgers tweeted about Marilyn Manson on February 4, 2021:

TW:

I went to Marilyn Manson’s house when I was a teenager with some friends. I was a big fan. He referred to a room in his house as the “r*pe room”, I thought it was just his horrible frat boy sense of humor. I stopped being a fan.

I stand with everyone who came forward.

The label knew, management knew, the band knew. Distancing themselves now, pretending to be shocked and horrified is fucking pathetic.

 

After a "trigger warning", Phoebe goes on to tell us how one day as a teenager with some friends, she went to Marilyn Manson's house. She tells us she was a "big fan". While over Manson's house, he referred to a room in that house as a "rape room", which Phoebe thought was such a "horrible frat boy" joke, that this caused her to stop being a fan. Apparently Phoebe thought this joke reflected some sort of reality, but waited many years before she made a very public tweet about it because she believed it coincided with what he was being accused of by others, therefore she took a stand with "everyone" who came forward. Not only did Phoebe accuse Manson, but she accused his label, management and band of knowing everything to be true that he was accused of while pretending to be "shocked" and "horrified", and she considered this "fucking pathetic".

The Reaction of the Media and Further Statements by Bridgers

 

The reaction of the media to these allegations was brutal, with headlines similar to this:

Phoebe Bridgers claims Marilyn Manson told her he had a “rape room” in his house when she was a teenager (NME)

Marilyn Manson Allegedly Told Phoebe Bridgers He Had a 'Rape Room': 'I Stopped Being a Fan' (People)

Phoebe Bridgers Recalls “Horrible” Experience in Marilyn Manson’s House (Consequence Sound)

Phoebe Bridgers Says Marilyn Manson Has a ‘Rape Room’ in His House (The Cut)

Phoebe Bridgers Recalls Disturbing Experience at Marilyn Manson's Home (Exclaim!)

MORE HORROR: Marilyn Manson ‘bragged about having a “rape room” in his home’ years before abuse accusations, Phoebe Bridgers claims (The Sun)

This tweet was not Phoebe's last word on the matter.

Phoebe appeared on CNN's Amanpour and Company on February 20, 2021, where she was asked about Marilyn Manson, and said the following:

"I think it's very funny that Marilyn Manson's label decided to drop him right when the story went public, and people have just known about it for so long. I find that very annoying. I think it's a lot of performative activism, basically. I think people should take more responsibility internally. It doesn't matter how many people know about it, you should look into things like you're the FBI. But when people make people money, it's really hard – I know – it's really hard to walk away from that. But I think more people should." 

 

A few weeks later, in March 2021, Variety published the following story on Bridgers, titled "How Grammy Nominee Phoebe Bridgers Became a Lockdown Rock Star". Phoebe Bridgers released her second album on June 18, 2020, called Punisher. This was in the middle of the pandemic, yet still for this album she received four Grammy nominations. The name of the album is interesting in itself. “Punisher” is musician slang for “someone who doesn’t know when to stop talking. It’s a specific reference to when fans don’t know when to shut the fuck up, which I know I have definitely done and it has been done to me," says Bridgers in The Ringer. In the album, she sees herself as the "punisher" of her musical idol Elliott Smith.

About Phoebe Bridgers herself, we learn that she grew up in Pasadena, California, and was always adjacent to the entertainment industry. Her dad was a carpenter who built sets for film and television, and her mother, Jamie, had a variety of white-collar jobs, from receptionist to house manager for a fine arts complex. In 2015, when Phoebe was 21, her parents divorced due to her father's substance issues and since then they have had a strained relationship, but after the divorce her mother Jamie became a stand-up comedian. “She has made jokes about me being a musician, and STDs and stuff. She’s pretty raunchy. It’s great.” One of these jokes is based on a true story about Phoebe at 19 sending her mom an up close photo in a text message of her vagina and asking if she has herpes. “Definitely people I date or my friends were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so similar to your mom’ — like, all the time. And I think for the most part we have a very similar sense of humor,” says Phoebe.

The Variety article itself is about her rise from indie to mainstream success, and a lot of that has to do with the feuds she has entered on social media. One of them is Marilyn Manson, where she adds in this article the following information to supplement her initial statement:

"I had a friend whose parents worked on a TV show that he wanted to be a part of, and they knew I was a fan and brought me along to the meeting. I heard him say racial slurs and rape jokes — and he was on his best behavior! I am not one of his victims, but the fact that I can corroborate the stuff he’s being accused of in some way is really expository to me."

In a story on Bridgers published by Esquire on March 11, 2021, she further adds in the following paragraph:

“I think what's special about my experience [with Manson] is how un-special it was,” she says. “I literally met him for like three hours. I am not a survivor of him.” Yet, in the short window that she had been inside Manson’s home, she got “an immediate impression of what he thought was funny, and what he thought was cool, and how he wanted to be perceived.”

 

Since March of 2021, Phoebe has been pretty much silent on the matter of Marilyn Manson.

According to Phoebe, "you should look into things like you're the FBI", so below we will offer an analysis of her statements above and see what is revealed.

An Analysis of the Statement

 

"I went to Marilyn Manson’s house when I was a teenager with some friends."

Reading this, I am immediately struck by how vague this sentence is, how little she goes on to elaborate on it, as well as how little she is scrutinized for being so vague. My immediate questions are:

When exactly did this take place?

Where exactly did this take place?

Why exactly did you go there?

How do you know Marilyn Manson?

How old were you exactly?

Who were the friends you were with?

Though in her initial statement Phoebe does not go into much detail, we do get a little more detail in her Variety interview, where she says: "I had a friend whose parents worked on a TV show that he wanted to be a part of, and they knew I was a fan and brought me along to the meeting." This is very revealing and it finally gives us something to work with. In fact, through this statement alone I was able to identify quit a bit.

Let's begin by asking, who is the friend whose parents worked on a TV show that Manson wanted to be a part of? Once this question is answered, many other answers are brought to light. Fortunately, we can easily deduce who this friend is.

On June 14, 2014, a band named Buster put out a full seven-song EP. Before embarking on her successful solo career, one of the bands Phoebe Bridgers played in was Buster, and on their EP from 2014 she is credited with guitar and vocals. Also credited with guitar and vocals in the band is Jackson White. Phoebe and her Buster bandmate Jackson White had also lent their guitars and voices to a song by Terra Naomi in 2013 before the Buster EP came out. Jackson White is the son of drummer Jack White and actress Katey Sagal. After Jack and Katey divorced, Katey Sagal married Kurt Sutter. Jackson White is therefore Kurt Sutter's stepson. Kurt Sutter is the creator of the acclaimed television show Sons of Anarchy, which his wife Katey Sagal was featured in. And as we know, because Marilyn Manson and his father bonded over their mutual love for Sons of Anarchy, Manson wanted to get a role on the show, which he successfully achieved. He appeared in the last season of the show, which debuted on September 9, 2014. His role was that of a shot caller for the Aryan Brotherhood incarcerated in Stockton State Prison.

If we go to Phoebe's and Kurt's Twitter accounts (it should be noted, Phoebe still follows both Kurt Sutter and Katey Sagal on Twitter; unfortunately Jackson doesn't have much of a social media presence), and see what they were posting around this time, we come across some very revealing things. This is what we find:

On December 19, 2013, Phoebe wrote: "Marilyn Manson's cat in Marilyn Manson's sink last night." This was apparently posted on Instagram and was accompanied by a photo, however this post has since been deleted on Instagram, though I was able to track down the photo from this Instagram post on Phoebe's Tumblr account where she forgot to delete it:

 

 

The day prior to this, therefore, on December 18, 2013, is the day when Phoebe Bridgers went to Manson's house. On that day, it appears Jackson White may have taken a selfie while buying a Christmas tree, according to Phoebe's Tumblr account, which was also deleted on Instagram:

 

Another post from Instagram that Phoebe deleted, but can still be found on her Tumblr account, captures her naked in bed with her boyfriend Leonardo Lawrence a day earlier on December 17, 2013:

Interestingly, on December 20th of 2013, Kurt Sutter tweeted the following:

 

 

Here we seem to have the nature of what the meeting Phoebe described was about. Apparently it was about Manson and Shooter Jennings providing some sort of music for the show. In May 2014, Kurt Sutter responded to a question on Instagram about how Manson got involved with the show:

Marilyn Manson himself gives us even more details about the initial meeting with Kurt Sutter in an interview with Loudwire published exactly a year later on December 19, 2014:

Initially it started with Kurt Sutter wanting to use one of my songs, 'Worship My Wreck,' a song on my record which he didn't end up using. I think that the whole meeting was through Shooter Jennings. We had done a song together that he wrote the music for and Kurt wrote the lyrics for and I was really interested in being on the show because my father loved it as much as I did. And my mother had just died. And the show is just so much about a father and son relationship.

I want to trick my father into coming to L.A. to get out of Ohio because I wanted to shake his shadows and his demons off. I eventually ended up doing that but I didn't intend to be an actor on that [show], that was a dream come true. I didn't even know that was an option and when they said it initially was, I got the phone call when I was in Ohio at my mom's funeral and I got the phone call from Kurt Sutter's people and said, "Dad, I'm gonna be on the show." He said, "That's great." I said, "Dad, I'm gonna be the head of the Aryan nation." He said, "OK." I said, "Dad, I'm gonna get paid. I'm gonna be in it with Jax, with Charlie Hunnam." And it made my dad smile, and that was the biggest deal for me that I made my dad happy about it.

Let's review some of these new details about Phoebe's statement:

First, the "friends" Phoebe went to Manson's house with when she was a teenager were not other teenage girls, as most would assume when reading her statement, but it was Jackson White and his stepfather Kurt Sutter.

Second, though we assume from her initial statement that she and her other teenage friends went to Manson's house for a party of some sort, in reality, as she later said in Variety, she went with Jackson White and Kurt Sutter for a meeting, and presumably the meeting had to do with Manson getting a role on Sons of Anarchy, through his music and/or an acting part.

Third, we know this meeting took place on December 18, 2013. Attending this meeting were at least Marilyn Manson, Shooter Jennings, Kurt Sutter, Jackson White and Phoebe Bridgers.

Fourth, delicious pie was served at this meeting.

Fifth, the meeting was set up by Shooter Jennings and revolved around Manson's musical collaboration for the show with Shooter and Kurt. We know that this musical collaboration never worked out eventually, but Manson's dream did come true by impressing Kurt enough to be offered a key role on the show for the last season, with Kurt saying of Manson: "He was awesome".

Sixth, Phoebe Bridgers was born on August 17, 1994. Therefore, on December 18, 2013 Phoebe was 19 years old ... hardly still a teenager and needlessly emphasized that she was one.

Now ask yourself, is this the type of gathering you pictured when you initially read Phoebe's statement from February 4th 2021? I would venture to think not.

 

Why would Phoebe leave out the names of her friends who she accompanied to this meeting and be so cryptic? It seems like she had something to hide, perhaps not wanting them to witness against her testimony, or maybe she is holding them complicit in Manson's alleged words about a "rape room" and using "racial slurs".

"I went to Marilyn Manson’s house ... He referred to a room in his house as the 'r*pe room'."

It was shortly before this meeting with Kurt Sutter, in October 2013, that Marilyn Manson and his girlfriend (now wife) Lindsay Usich purchased a new house on Troy Street in the Hollywood Hills for nearly $1.1 million (this is the same house that would eventually be swatted by police in February 2021 and that was later sold by Manson and Lindsay for $1,835,000). It is a 2,711-square-foot Spanish-style estate with three-bedrooms, three-bathrooms, and features a room with 20-foot ceilings, a newly updated kitchen that leads out to a patio, a formal dining room with a lounge for entertaining and a home gym. In fact, on October 19, 2013 celebritynetworth.com wrote the following about this house (pictures of the interior here):

You would think that with all of [Marilyn Manson's] success, he would be living the hardcore rocker lifestyle.  You'd be wrong.  Until recently, he was living above a liquor store on Santa Monica Boulevard.  This month, he decided to settle down, buying a two-story house in the Hollywood Hills.

Marilyn Manson's house in the Hollywood Hills is 2,711 square feet and has two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. The home also features a massive living room, double height ceilings, multiple fireplaces, and a large dining room with a separate sitting area. There is also a pseudo guest area in Marilyn Manson's house, which is made up of a single bedroom, a bathroom, a storage area, and a private patio.  Outside of Marilyn Manson's house, there is a concrete terrace, a small landscaped yard area, and a rather funky fountain.  He paid $1.085 million for his new home, which was most likely purchased out of deference to his current girlfriend.  Only time will tell whether either the home, or the woman, will last.

This is certainly the house where Phoebe Bridgers would have visited Marilyn Manson and his girlfriend Lindsay for that meeting with Kurt Sutter and had that delicious pie on December 18, 2013. It was hardly even lived in, since it had been purchased a little more than two months prior to this meeting. In fact, in a video conference with Manson and Sutter almost a year after this initial meeting in August 2014, Manson takes us on a mini-tour of his house and says that the room he was in was painted a different color from the time they initially met (see here). At the time of the meeting in December 2013, Manson was in a serious relationship with his current wife and then girlfriend Lindsay Usich, who he started dating in August 2010 after Evan Rachel Wood, but she never became his exclusive girlfriend until around early 2012.

In this light, and in light of everything we know so far, let us consider the "rape room" allegation, or as she said in Variety, his plural "rape jokes" and "racial slurs":

First, if we were to look at Phoebe's "rape room" reference as being something Manson could have said in any sort of a serious or factual or literal way, I seriously would have a hard time believing that. This was a brand new home, they were probably hardly unpacked by the time of this meeting, therefore it could not have been literal or factual or serious in any way. Also, why would Manson bring up a real rape room in a business meeting, especially with people he had just met and was trying to impress? If Kurt Sutter, who Phoebe still follows on Twitter, heard Manson talking about a real rape room in his house, there is no way he would have taken to such a liking of him that he offered him a role on his show.

Second, Phoebe herself implies that Manson said this as a joke, and not seriously, though in light of the allegations of Evan Rachel Wood and others, she also implies this "frat boy" joke had a level of truth to it, though this implication seems also to be in light of current events and not how she saw it at the time. Phoebe apparently considered this joke to be so "horrible" that she stopped being a fan of Manson, whereas previous to this she claims to have been a "big fan". The problem with this is five-fold:

A. In Manson's own words, to get either a music or an acting role on Sons of Anarchy was for him a dream come true and was part of an emotional bond with his dying father. Are we to suppose Manson told a rape joke in reference to his new house and in front of his girlfriend with two men in the room he greatly admired (Shooter and Kurt) and wanted to impress and two "teenagers" he didn't even know and were probably an insignificant presence (Phoebe was not famous at the time and likely did not take part in the conversation)? Personally, I would never put Manson above saying a rape joke, but certainly not in these conditions. I think for Manson a rape joke may come along in a third or fourth business meeting, but certainly not the first. 

B. If Phoebe was truly a "big fan" of Manson going into the house, and emerged from the house no longer a fan because of some "horrible" joke about a rape room in his new house, then we can assume Phoebe was never really a "big fan", because Manson has said much more offensive things than calling a room a rape room, and she would know this if she was a big fan. If she could endure in her fandom everything Manson said and did before calling a room a rape room, but this is what crossed the line, then we can assume she doesn't have much of a sense of humor either, at least Manson's well-known dark humor (a scroll through her Tumblr account however would show that she does).

C. If Phoebe stopped being a "big fan" of Manson after the rape room joke, then why did she not talk about it until after Evan Rachel Wood and the other accusers came forward? Phoebe goes to great lengths and uses strong language to cast stones against Manson's label, management and band for knowing things and not saying anything, but here we have Phoebe being a full on hypocrite by confessing she knew something about Manson but didn't say anything until not only after Evan and the other accusers did, but her statement came after Manson's label and management dropped him. "Physician heal thyself" is an apt saying for what we have going on here.

D. Phoebe says in the Variety interview that Manson was using "rape jokes and racial slurs" during this meeting - plural - and that this was him on his "best behavior". However, how does Phoebe know to distinguish his best behavior from his worst behavior? She only met him once. The fact that she talks about this being Manson on his "best behavior" indicates to me that she is not making statements of fact, but of malice evaluated in hindsight. Therefore, it would actually indicate that Manson at the time was indeed on his best behavior that night, otherwise why include this detail, and that by her adding that he said "rape jokes and racial slurs" is something that she likely made up in February 2021. In addition, why didn't she ever mention "racial slurs" before? Her descriptive language is very suspicious.

 

E. I don't know whether or not Phoebe was a "big fan" of Manson before she went over his house, but we do know on June 4, 2013 she tweeted about purchasing a Marilyn Manson dress, so this may indicate some level of fandom. However, I do know that the day after Phoebe went to Manson's house, she did not tweet about him saying some horrible offensive joke about a rape room, to make her own friends and followers aware of how horrible he was, but instead on December 19, 2013 she posted on Instagram a picture of his cat Lily White drinking from his sink and she name-dropped him twice in doing so (while also including the hashtag #MarilynManson). What is even more damning is the fact that a month after the meeting at Manson's house, on January 22, 2014, Phoebe tweeted "@marilynmanson is my dad" for no apparent reason other than the fact that we know at the time Phoebe was having a very strained relationship with her father. And then on March 19, 2015 she posted on her Tumblr a photo of Manson holding a cute stuffed dragon. I'll also include below an exchange with a musician she knew who attended a Manson concert in 2016:

 

 

 

 

In light of all this, I highly doubt in the context of this business meeting that Marilyn Manson made a joke about a "rape room" in his brand new house, let alone that she was so offended that she stopped being a fan of Manson or even liking him, let alone that he even said the word "rape" more than once and used "racial slurs" that evening unless it was referred to in relation to the show Sons of Anarchy, and Phoebe may have misunderstood the context as she was off taking photos of Lily drinking water out of the sink or in ecstasy taking a bite out of some delicious pie.

"...his horrible frat boy sense of humor."

Phoebe, being the radicalized feminist that she is, seems to display here a distaste toward a "frat boy sense of humor," probably because radicalized feminists and frat boys aren't really known to get along. By "frat boy" I assume she means a "sophomoric" sense of humor, which is considered juvenile and immature. But anyone familiar with Phoebe Bridger's in any way knows that she has as much of a "frat boy" sense of humor than any real frat boy, probably more, as long as it doesn't get in the way of her radicalized feminist ideology. We already mentioned this above, when talking about her mother's raunchy comedy and the both of them sharing a similar sense of humor.

However, if we look further into Phoebe's dark sense of humor, we will notice something in particular that is very dark about it. As someone who is so offended and put off by an alleged rape joke, of which even Evan Rachel Wood has said that she enjoys a good rape joke as long it's funny, you would assume her to be a prim and proper lady with more of a high brow sense of humor. But Phoebe Bridgers is the exact opposite. I mean, this is a woman whose official website address is https://phoebefuckingbridgers.com. She makes a lot of sex jokes, for example, constantly tells people to "suck my dick", and just a few weeks after accusing Manson she posted on Twitter: "can’t wait to fuck all my friends when this is over." However, it seems her favorite types of jokes revolve around death and murder. Below are just a few of many examples from her Twitter feed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We should add that in her song 'Kyoto' - which is about her relationship with her father - Bridgers sings about wanting to "kill" her dad, if he doesn’t "beat her to it."

 

Joking and fantasizing about killing people sounds a lot worse than Marilyn Manson making a joke about a non-existent rape room, if you ask me. The police should probably scan her backyard for some dead bodies, if we are to take jokes so seriously.

"The label knew, management knew, the band knew. Distancing themselves now, pretending to be shocked and horrified is fucking pathetic."

The way I see it, this seems to be the central gripe of Phoebe Bridgers. As a radicalized bisexual female who was an indie artist for a number of years before recently entering the mainstream, she has a gripe against men, white men in power specifically, like Evan Rachel Wood and the other accusers. The gripe is due to the fact that they demand change in Hollywood and for women in general in whatever industry they are involved in, and this is just one more way to hold them personally accountable for being allegedly silent on behalf of another powerful white man and not listening to women the way they demand they should be heard.

However, how would Phoebe Bridgers know what Manson's label knew, or his management, or his band? How does she know he wasn't dropped by his label and management more out of fear of backlash than anything he may have allegedly done? After all, they have a business to run and Manson for them is just one artist out of many they represent. And as for his band, they are never reported to have dropped or distanced themselves from Manson, so I'm not sure what she is talking about there. It seems Phoebe really doesn't know anything about what the label knew, management knew or the band knew, because she is in no way privileged to that information. If she is privileged to that information, she should tell us, but I find it very unlikely she is. It is much more probable that Manson's label and management dropped Manson for fear of any backlash and for business purposes more than any personal information they had some secret knowledge of. Furthermore, neither Manson's label, management or band have ever expressed that they were "shocked" or "horrified" by Manson, so Phoebe's statement is just sounding more and more meaningless and self-serving. Her rage in this statement sounds like it is more in line with the faux rage expressed on Saturday Night Live.

Phoebe, with her jokes and fantasies about murdering and killing people, and her statements and feuds that reflect her faux rage more than her dry wit, comes off as being an angry and narcissistic person in general rather than having rage about issues that are supposedly important to her. This is a woman who sent the following Holiday message in 2019: "Happy Holidays to everyone whose family has been literally or figuratively torn apart by Donald Trump. And to my racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, hypocritical family members, fuck you." This isn't punk rock, this is more far left progressive ideological rage which is an offspring of feminist radicalization, which only really appeals to like-minded people. If she is trying to be punk rock, as some of her fans may claim, she should be more authentic in her messaging rather making it all about herself. As one person online has commented about Phoebe Bridgers: "She really acts likes she’s above any or all criticism but will not hesitate to input her own when it suits her well…. She really is a hypocrite and has been playing this game for the past few years." And as Johnny Rotten, the frontman from the Sex Pistols, recently stated: "If there are any bigger haters in history than today's cancel culture, it's the Nazis - and Churchill took care of that." Rotten, a founding father of punk rock, would not consider someone like Bridgers as his successor, because he decries wokeness as another form of fascism, which is essentially what punk rock is against, and refers to them as "tempestuous spoilt children" "selfish" and "divisive".

Her Disputed Accusations Against Ryan Adams

Interestingly, Phoebe's faux rage may have roots from her past. One glaring example is her accusations against Ryan Adams. Bridgers dated Ryan Adams beginning in 2014, before eventually breaking up. Her song "Motion Sickness" is about their relationship. On February 13, 2019, The New York Times reported that seven women (including Phoebe Bridgers and ex-wife Mandy Moore) said Adams offered to assist them with their music careers, then pursued the women romantically, which Bridgers refers to as grooming. They also claimed that Adams reportedly retaliated when they spurned his advances, hindering their careers and harassing them in text messages and on social media. 

 

One accuser said that Adams sent her sexually explicit text messages when she was underage. The accusations surfaced in the context of the Me Too movement against sexual harassment. Adams has denied the accusations. The next day, The New York Times reported that the FBI was investigating if Adams had committed a crime by engaging in sexually explicit communications with an underage fan. In the autumn of 2019, the FBI informed Adams's lawyer that the investigation had been dropped and no proof of illegal behavior with underage girls had been found. The underage fan later provided a written statement that included, "I was not truthful about my age in my texts and communications with Ryan and I repeatedly told him I was 18." 

 

On March 1, 2019, SJM Concerts released a statement that Adams's upcoming tour of Britain and Ireland, which had been scheduled to start in Dublin on March 30, 2019, had been cancelled and that full refunds would be issued to ticket holders. 

 

In July 2020, Adams issued a statement in the Daily Mail apologizing for his truly wrongful actions, but not denying his innocence in light of certain accusations made against him.

While gigging around L.A., Bridgers caught the attention of Ryan Adams, who released her single “Killer” through his label PAX AM in 2015. As revealed in The New York Times article by Joe Coscarelli and Melena Ryzik, they began a romantic relationship when she was 20 and he was more than twice her age. The article recounted how, she says, Adams became emotionally abusive, and after she ended the relationship “Adams became evasive about releasing the music they had recorded together and rescinded the offer to open his upcoming concerts.”

Bridgers described one instance in 2017, when she was opening up for Adams on tour, where he exposed himself to her: “The first day, he asked me to bring him something in his hotel room. I came upstairs and he was completely nude.” Adams’ lawyer denied this incident ever took place, and described Adams’ relationship with Bridgers as “a brief, consensual fling” and said that Adams never told Bridgers he would withhold her songs from being released via his record label Pax-Am.

On February 16, 2019, after The New York Times issued its report, Phoebe wrote on Instagram:

"It’s been a weird week and I wanted to say a couple things. Thank you from my whole fucking heart to my friends, my bands, my mom. They all supported and validated me. They told me that what had happened was fucked up and wrong, and that I was right to feel weird about it. I couldn’t have done this without them. Ryan had a network too. Friends, bands, people he worked with. None of them held him accountable. They told him, by what they said or by what they didn’t, that what he was doing was okay. They validated him. He couldn’t have done this without them. Guys, if your friend is acting fucked up, call them out. If they’re actually your friend, they’ll listen. That’s the way this all gets better."

As you can see from this statement, it very much reflects her baseless statement against Marilyn Manson in regards to his label, his management and his band. It appears from this, Phoebe views Manson as a reflection of her allegations against Ryan Adams, and maybe views herself as a reflection of Evan Rachel Wood.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Phoebe Bridgers (@phoebebridgers)

Chris Nelson's Defamation Lawsuit Against Phoebe Bridgers

Amara Foster from Influencer Daily wrote the following summary about this case:

Social media provides people with a platform to share their thoughts, opinions, and personal stories, but it can also be used to mislead and even destroy another person’s life. Record producer Chris Nelson has found himself as the victim of allegations thrown by music artist Phoebe Bridgers, who has accused him of abuse, violence, theft, and grooming. However, the producer has broken silence with a $3.8 million defamation suit against Bridgers.

The owner of downtown recording studio Sound Space presented legal documents that stated how the 27-year old musician damaged his reputation and income following “false and misleading statements” about Nelson on Instagram in October 2020. In the documents, Nelson talked about how he, his ex-girlfriend Emily Bannon, and Bridgers were in a consensual sexual relationship in 2018.

Chris Nelson shares that he met Bridgers through Marshall Vore, a drummer who plays in her gigs. At the time, Nelson believed that Bridgers and Vore had a prior sexual relationship. Throughout his friendship with Bridgers, he noted that she would make several comments about Vore’s preference to date young women despite being in his thirties. Nelson claims that the young artist revealed how the drummer dated an 18-year-old named Zoe and encouraged a 19-year-old named Ruby to move in with him. However, the producer says that Bridgers never made public comments about Vore.

Later in their friendship, Chris Nelson and his then-girlfriend, Emily Bannon, invited Phoebe Bridgers to engage in consensual sexual encounters. The friendship-turned-intimate-relationship would even reach the one-year milestone and they celebrated their “f***iversary” on September 2, 2019.

Chris Nelson found out that prior to their intimate relationship, Bridgers and Bannon had already engaged in a sexual relationship. He claims that the pair had been in a similar affair with the singer’s ex-boyfriend, Conor Oberst. Nelson also noted that Emily Bannon was dating Bridgers’ guitarist Harrison Whitford at the time. However, Whitford was unaware of the three-way relationship occurring.

By the fall of 2019, the producer decided to split from Bannon, but Phoebe Bridgers and Emily Bannon continued to see each other. While the separation seemed to be the end of the story, things took a turn in October 2020 when Bridgers posted “false and misleading statements” about Nelson on her Instagram, reading “I witnessed and can personally verify much of the abuse (grooming, stealing, violence) perpetrated by Chris Nelson, owner of a studio called Sound Space.” The artist directed her followers to Bannon’s account, where she added fuel to the fire talking about Nelson beating a “young Latinx” man and “bludgeoning at least one other man with a baseball bat.” The now-defunct account also accused Nelson of hacking into other women’s accounts, sharing the messages to Bridgers’s account.

With materials that have damaged his reputation and career, Chris Nelson is going after the indie rock singer for defamation and false allegations. With a $3.8 million defamation suit against her, the 27-year-old Los Angeles native is yet to address the issue.

I highly recommend the claim of Chris Nelson be read (see here), which also contains some revealing photos that back up his claim of a revenge plot against him by Phoebe Bridgers and Emily Bannon. This case is ongoing.

Conclusion

 

With this brief analysis of the statement of Phoebe Bridgers against Marilyn Manson, and putting it in context, I find it to be nothing but disturbing. The first time I read her statement, I was open to the possibility of it containing some truth, and perhaps Phoebe was just exaggerating the rest. It seemed silly that she was making such a big deal about a rape joke she heard Manson say as he was entertaining her and her friends. However, almost every major media source has covered this story, and no one has disputed it let alone investigated it. In fact, it was probably because of this statement, among other things, that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department raided Manson's and Lindsay's home looking for a "rape room" while they were honeymooning in Berlin on November 30, 2021 (it was a different residence that was raided, by the way). Of course, they came up with nothing, but statements like this, especially for a public figure are a big deal, and some would even say criminal and prosecutable if not true. And what we find after a brief investigation into the matter is that Phoebe's statement is very likely indeed entirely fictional, except for the fact that she really did go over Manson's house with some friends. There were plenty of people there who could either verify or deny her claims, but it seems to me that until now no one knew what context she was referring to. I have no doubt Marilyn Manson and his wife Lindsay even remember who this girl was that tagged along to a business meeting because she was a fan. This is a business meeting that would go on to make rock and roll as well as television history, and insignificant Phoebe Bridgers tried to make it all about herself, as is customary with her. This brief analysis, if it doesn't convince you that it is part of a self-serving hoax on behalf of Phoebe, it at least will make you have serious doubts about it if you are honest, and have doubts about Phoebe's integrity in general when it comes to her other accusations as well, against Ryan Adams and Chris Nelson.