"Some people tried to get me to say that Marilyn Manson raped me, but it wasn't true." - Paz de la Huerta In a recent interview with the Italian publication Mow Mag (April 27, 2024), actress Paz de la Huerta was asked what she thought about the well-known Johnny Depp and Kevin Spacey cases, and her response was as follows (translated from the original Italian): "As for Johnny, I think he's really innocent. Some people tried to get me to say that Marilyn Manson raped me, but it wasn't true. I've been a real victim of Weinstein and other people who are going to pay, but I tell you that I know women who have lied. I didn't follow Kevin Spacey's trial, but I think it's a very different case than Depp's. However, in general, rape is a horrible thing, it ruins lives. I know something about it." Though it is a very brief and understandably overlooked mention, her statement about Marilyn Manson is very significant as the first public st
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Previously I reported on Evan Rachel Wood's Halloween tour debacle, in which her group Evan + Zane, which is comprised of just herself and her musical partner Zane Carney, embarked on an ambitious attempt to schedule a tour of four Halloween shows, which in previous years they would only do one that appeared to be successful though intimate and small. Just days before their first show, on October 16th 2023, Evan announced "that due to unforeseen circumstances we will be canceling our Halloween shows in Atlanta, Nashville, and New Orleans." She also assured fans that "Everyone is ok, we don't want you to worry too much." Their Los Angeles show scheduled for October 30th was still on.
It appears their ambitions were not in correspondence with reality. Though it was, and still is, under mysterious circumstances why these Halloween shows were canceled, the most probable theory then and even more probable now is because they just could not sell enough tickets to make it worth putting on a tour, so they just did their one show as usual, which, even though it took place in a small venue in Los Angeles, still it did not sell out.
One factor that made this clearer over time was their November 3rd Dreams show at the Staller Center in Stony Brook, New York. As was previously reported, embarrassing photos emerged from that show by the venue which not only showed many empty seats despite its small capacity, but the majority of the audience that did attend either looked too old or too young to comprise their fanbase, which one would assume to be between 20 and 50 years old. It was as if free or discounted tickets were distributed at a retirement home just to make it appear Evan + Zane had an audience that comprised of fans.
Then we come to the show that really should have knocked some reality into the heads of Evan + Zane. In late August 2023 it was announced that Evan + Zane would have their biggest show to date, accompanied by a 30-piece (or 28-piece) orchestra, with orchestral arrangements by Zane Carney and a light show, on January 5th 2024 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. Discounted presale tickets were offered at that time, which could be purchased through Ticketmaster. Not only was this an overly-ambitious undertaking for such a little-known band, but it seemed to be deliberately aimed at some sort of provocation by Evan against Marilyn Manson.
It appears their ambitions were not in correspondence with reality. Though it was, and still is, under mysterious circumstances why these Halloween shows were canceled, the most probable theory then and even more probable now is because they just could not sell enough tickets to make it worth putting on a tour, so they just did their one show as usual, which, even though it took place in a small venue in Los Angeles, still it did not sell out.
One factor that made this clearer over time was their November 3rd Dreams show at the Staller Center in Stony Brook, New York. As was previously reported, embarrassing photos emerged from that show by the venue which not only showed many empty seats despite its small capacity, but the majority of the audience that did attend either looked too old or too young to comprise their fanbase, which one would assume to be between 20 and 50 years old. It was as if free or discounted tickets were distributed at a retirement home just to make it appear Evan + Zane had an audience that comprised of fans.
Then we come to the show that really should have knocked some reality into the heads of Evan + Zane. In late August 2023 it was announced that Evan + Zane would have their biggest show to date, accompanied by a 30-piece (or 28-piece) orchestra, with orchestral arrangements by Zane Carney and a light show, on January 5th 2024 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. Discounted presale tickets were offered at that time, which could be purchased through Ticketmaster. Not only was this an overly-ambitious undertaking for such a little-known band, but it seemed to be deliberately aimed at some sort of provocation by Evan against Marilyn Manson.
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To quickly recap, Evan Rachel Wood made an entire two-part documentary, Phoenix Rising, which aired on HBO, to show how much of a dangerous monster Marilyn Manson was and continues to be, with the purpose of this documentary to document Manson getting arrested by the FBI on criminal charges. As we see towards the end of the documentary, Evan's attempt to get Manson arrested failed, so she decides to flee Los Angeles with her son for her own safety and that of her son who she claims was directly threatened by Manson, and they move to Nashville. What we are not told in the documentary, but was later revealed in custody court documents from when her ex-husband Jaime Bell sued her, was that Evan took their son to Nashville without his parental consent or prior knowledge and of her own accord set limits on the way he could see and communicate with their son. Evan didn't want her son anywhere near Jaime Bell's home, because he lived around five miles from Manson. The problem is, Evan had no proof to show in court that Manson posed any sort of danger to her or her son (suspenseful drama likely created for her documentary), so Evan and her girlfriend at the time Illma Gore forged an FBI letter which tried to show that the FBI advised her to flee Los Angeles for her own safety and that of her child. Eventually, months later, perhaps this and other things led to Evan losing primary custody of her son in May 2023.
With that being said, now we have this concert, the biggest concert of Evan's career, set for January 5th in Glendale, which is in fact Marilyn Manson's birthday in the town he currently resides in! Suddenly Evan loses primary custody of her son and the Marilyn Manson threat goes away! And not only goes away, but with this show scheduled where it is on the date it is means that she is directly provoking him, perhaps hoping to lure him or his fans to do something crazy to further her victim narrative.
When Evan's Halloween tour debacle was announced on October 16th, it was pointed out to me that Evan + Zane ticket sales on Ticketmaster for the January 5th show, which had been on sale for a few months up to this time, had failed to generate even one sale of one single seat. As the weeks went by, still no sales were shown for January 5th, despite both Evan and Zane making appeals to their fans on social media to come for the show of a lifetime. Finally, in the middle of December, a few sales started to show, which by December 15th showed no more than about 20 ticket sales. Then on December 19th, we see this announcement:
With that being said, now we have this concert, the biggest concert of Evan's career, set for January 5th in Glendale, which is in fact Marilyn Manson's birthday in the town he currently resides in! Suddenly Evan loses primary custody of her son and the Marilyn Manson threat goes away! And not only goes away, but with this show scheduled where it is on the date it is means that she is directly provoking him, perhaps hoping to lure him or his fans to do something crazy to further her victim narrative.
When Evan's Halloween tour debacle was announced on October 16th, it was pointed out to me that Evan + Zane ticket sales on Ticketmaster for the January 5th show, which had been on sale for a few months up to this time, had failed to generate even one sale of one single seat. As the weeks went by, still no sales were shown for January 5th, despite both Evan and Zane making appeals to their fans on social media to come for the show of a lifetime. Finally, in the middle of December, a few sales started to show, which by December 15th showed no more than about 20 ticket sales. Then on December 19th, we see this announcement:
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In other words, they moved from the 1400 seated capacity Alex Theatre to the 380 seated capacity Nocturne Theatre down the street, and they told their fans they did this because the smaller venue was more conducive to livestreaming the event. No mention of ticket sales... again. They canceled most of their Halloween tour due to ticket sales and refused to admit it, even though they were practically begging their fans to buy tickets, and now we have the same situation here. It had absolutely nothing to do with livestreaming.
Despite the significantly smaller venue, ticket sales were still an issue even one week before the event. You almost felt bad for Zane putting such hard work into his orchestrations for this one show that could hardly sell tickets. Then just a day or two before the event, it was revealed that Groupon was selling discounted tickets for the January 5th show for $26 instead of the regular $40 price. As Evan and Zane are still begging for their fans to buy tickets, they add guest performers to boost sales, including Zane's brother and sister Reeve and Paris Carney who also perform music, as well as Mason Alexander Park and Eva Noblezada. All talented people for sure, but not enough to draw a crowd that could fill those seats. On the day of the show, Zane even announced to hurry up and get your tickets, because there are only a few left. However, video footage from the show proves that that in the end, there were still plenty of seats available, and one can only wonder if the small crowd mostly consisted of friends and family of the performers and the orchestra. To add to this, before the show it was either announced or reported that she had a nasal infection that may prevent her from performing at her best. This may be true, but it could also have been an excuse if at any point she wanted to cancel the show or express her disappointment during a performance. (See partial video of the show here.)
This is a tale of an epic failure for Evan Rachel Wood, whose ambition was over inflated. To me, it also reveals something else, at least partially.
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving 2023, though long before this as well but not as much, Evan was relentlessly posting on social media about how difficult it is to co-parent with a narcissistic ex-husband. I won't post all these messages, but trust me, there were a lot, even on the day of her epic show on January 5th (see these posts below). None of them named Jaime Bell, but it was clearly aimed at him in a passive-aggressive way. These posts were made at least four or five times a week, it seemed. It appears that the new custody situation has been hard on Evan, especially with Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas. Based on a post from her father, it looks like she may have spent Christmas and the New Year with her dad in North Carolina, especially since he has been sick with pneumonia following his last performance as Scrooge after 50 years (for which Evan made an appearance to reprise her childhood role as the Ghost of Christmas Past, see here). In the midst of all this, it was also announced just before Christmas that from the end of January till the end of March she will star alongside her friend Darren Criss in her first New York onstage production for the Off-Broadway show Little Shop of Horrors.
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All this shows me that what Evan is doing is to counter the loss of her custody battle, she is trying to build up her live musical career, which has always been her dream. In interviews from when she was 13 and 14, she always talked about loving to sing, but was too shy to do it. When she was 18, just days before she met Marilyn Manson, in an interview she stated how it was a dream of hers to perform music live in front of a big audience. It wasn't until she was praised for her performance in Across the Universe and encouraged by Manson that she started getting the courage to perform live, even talking about releasing an album in 2009. As she gets older and is clearly trying to reclaim things she thinks she lost out on in the past, she is now compensating for her loss by trying to fulfill her old dreams and fill her newly-gained motherless time trying to attain them.
Update from January 8th:
You can now see the entire January 5th show here. It appears Evan used her guest performers to perform some of her songs due to her "sinus infection". Again, I don't know if she really had a sinus infection or not, but in light of all we know, I wouldn't be surprised if she made it up and did this replacement thing to sort of downplay and even cover up the fact that it was a much smaller show than anticipated. Overall, skimming through it, it comes off more as a recital to me than a concert per se, slapped together at the last minute with little rehearsal. Worth pointing out is an introduction Evan makes at around the 26 minute mark, where she brings up her ex Jaime Bell in an awkward way without naming him, basically giving him a metaphorical "middle finger" (see below or view here).