The 'Los Angeles Times' Falsely Reports That Most Marilyn Manson Fans Are Conflicted

Marilyn Manson performs at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA (9/6/2024)

The Los Angeles Times published an article on September 30th, reflecting on the comeback tour of Marilyn Manson and what it means in light of the allegations against him. It is titled "Marilyn Manson Returns To Tour After Rape Allegations. Activists Are Furious" and was authored by August Brown. In it exclusive interviews are given to get an overall feel for the tour and what it means for the music industry and even American culture in general. Though it is somewhat of a hit piece, as I will soon show, it is certainly presented as a cautionary tale, with a bunch of misleading information. The moral of the story: Marilyn Manson fans don't care about rape victims, therefore don't support Marilyn Manson.
 

The article begins "outside the Honda Center in Anaheim in early September" where it gives coverage to the "dozen or so" protesters. Immediately the article presents false information where they have a male Manson fan responding to the protestor who told him he was supporting a rapist by attending the concert. August Brown has him saying: "They were asking for it!” The supposed "fury" of this response, according to Brown, turned into "a shoving match" that "broke out between him and the crowd outside." However, Colonel Kurtz captured the whole incident on video, and never do you hear the man saying what the reporter of this article has him say. Furthermore, it is very clear that the shoving was only done by one male protestor, with the Manson fan not even responding to his physical violence with any corresponding physical violence, which was immediately interrupted by a police officer nearby. The whole incident can be seen in the video below, and you can judge for yourself if the reporter of the article accurately depicted what happened:

When an article already begins with such blatant misleading information to make Manson fans and supporters look like violent people who don't take the issue of rape seriously, you know that you really can't trust anything else the article will have to say, at least about Manson fans and supporters. If you watch the full coverage of the protest by both Colonel Kurtz (on her YouTube channel) and Caroline Heldman, the organizer and leader of the protest who shot about 25 minutes of live coverage on her Instagram, you may find less than a handful of concert goers even verbally respond to the protestors, with hundreds completely ignoring them as the dozen or so protestors called them all "rape supporters". The one guy that decided to respond sarcastically to their hate rhetoric was met with violence from a protestor, but August Brown conveniently leaves out those details and instead makes him the bad guy who caused a non-existent "shoving match".

Then Caroline Heldman, who is best friends with Manson's accuser Esme Bianco, is interviewed. On her social media she tries to convey that cancel culture doesn't exist while rape culture does, but here she shows how she is in fact an advocate of cancel culture and bemoans the fact that Marilyn Manson has not been canceled when she says: "I wonder what it is about Manson that makes it hard for people to give him up. It really speaks to depths of how little we care about sexual violence in this culture, and how little his fans care."

And here we have it. With that line Caroline Heldman gave August Brown the story and theme to run with in his article. The story is that Marilyn Manson fans care little about women who are victims of sexual violence. Let's see how this plays out in the rest of the article.

Another portion of false information is given in the article when it is reported that "in November 2021, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department raided Manson’s home after a nearly two year investigation into the assault allegations." First of all, an investigation did not begin by the LASD till early 2021, so the fact that the author came up with a "two year investigation" shows the author is not familiar with the court documents which give the actual reason for the raid. The fact of the matter is that the raid matches with the submission of the Jane Doe (Chloe Black) complaint in November 2021, where she alleges Manson made a short film named Groupie with an underage actress who she believed may have been killed, therefore law enforcement was primarily in search of that film or anything similar to it. It is well known by now that Groupie is not a depiction of real events, but a short film starring the very much alive Pola Weiss, who not only was an adult in the film, but was dating Manson and appeared in a music video of his among her other acting credits.

The author of the article then writes: "For the women who have accused Manson of assault, seeing him back onstage playing to adoring crowds is frightening and demoralizing." Again, we have this juxtaposition of frightened and demoralized Manson accusers versus Manson's "adoring crowds", namely his fans who are here depicted as mindless cult followers. But who are these accusers? For all we know, none of the women involved in the lawsuits against Manson have commented on his comeback tour ... except one.

Bianca Kyne is the only accuser interviewed in the article. This is a woman who not only has been caught lying multiple times about her relationship with Manson, but is the only one of the accusers Manson has claimed he has no memory of even meeting let alone assaulting over a number of years. And for someone who claimed to know and be in contact with Manson for a number of years, all she would have to do is present evidence of having some sort of relationship with him to prove he is lying, but she has produced nothing, not even a photograph of the two together or a credible witness to confirm her testimony. Instead, we get people who would have known her at the time she alleges stating that they also have no idea who she is. This Bianca Kyne is the only accuser the reporter of this article interviewed who spoke on behalf of all the accusers. To support her testimony in the article is her slimy and very questionable attorney Jeff Anderson, who says that Manson is "a predator that presents more of a danger to youth than few I’ve encountered in 40 years of working with survivors.” His opinion of course is based on what his even more questionable client, Bianca Kyne, says.

Bianca even talks about what is noticeably her very bad performance before the Anaheim City Council in August 2024, where she appeared at the request of Caroline Heldman (who also works as a writer and researcher on behalf of Jeff Anderson), to get the city to prohibit Manson from performing in their city. The reason for this is because Bianca alleges she was raped on Manson's bus when she was 16 years old after a 1995 concert in Texas, and therefore he as a predator of children poses a threat to other young girls who attend his concerts. So we see here another connection in the article with Caroline Heldman, who makes a talking point of Manson fans being not only unsympathetic to rape victims, but they are putting themselves in danger of being raped. Again, she, through the author and even Bianca, is painting Manson fans as stupid and mindless followers of a cult.

Colonel Kurtz, whose real name is Kristen Lacefield, is also interviewed in the article, as a "counter-protestor", though she really just attended with her sister to cover for her YouTube channel the protestors led by Caroline Heldman to get an accurate presentation of the events. Immediately we have more misleading information in the article, after the author quotes Colonel Kurtz saying the claims against Manson are “a longstanding hoax that’s been perpetuated for almost four years,” and the author implies she made that statement based solely on Ashley Morgan Smithline recanting her accusations. In fact, she cited it as one example of many, and curiously the author of the article avoided elaborating a little more on that and the arguments that have developed against the accusers.

It's at this point that we return to the demonization of Manson fans as unsympathetic to rape victims. We read:

"In Anaheim, Manson fans seemed aware of the myriad allegations, lawsuits and criminal investigations against him. Most were conflicted but said their love for his music outweighed qualms about his conduct."

Most were conflicted? Was a scientific poll conducted to make a statement like that? You are talking about thousands of Manson fans in attendance at that concert which took place on the hottest day of the year in Anaheim and they payed a lot of money for. How is it possible that August Brown can say with such objectivity that "most were conflicted" who went out of their way to see him? Let's see how August Brown came to this conclusion.

First he interviews Ozma Stasinski of Long Beach, a "steadfast fan" who clearly knows nothing about the accusations or the lawsuits from what she says, but views the matter from the perspective of justice and forgiveness, since Manson has not been found guilty of anything and she thinks he has put any issues he had behind him and is willing to move forward with him as a fan of his art.

Then he interviews Jeff Witt of Fullerton, who has been a fan of Manson since 1994 and also views the matter from the perspective of justice, since Manson has not been found guilty of anything at this point and therefore doesn't view him as guilty.

Lastly he interviewed Alyssa, "a young fan in a Manson T-shirt who declined to give her last name", who doesn't address the Manson accusations at all except she says there are no excuses for abuse, but the author makes her sound unsympathetic to Rhianna being beaten by Chris Brown, which clearly shows the author's desperate attempt to get her to say something he wanted to twist in his own way, as if she is okay with an artist being an abuser when it is likely not what she meant at all.

And there you have it, three people who August Brown believes represents the majority of the Manson fans in Anaheim. August Brown based his objective statement that "most were conflicted" in the audience based on these three interviews, when in fact his examples show absolutely no conflict. All of them in fact are steadfast fans who see no conflict in treating a musician who has not been found guilty of anything as being a great artist they want to support. The reason the author does believe there is conflict is because he believes Manson is guilty, and disturbingly thinks all Manson fans know he is guilty as well, which is absurd, therefore Manson fans are conflicted with separating the art from the artist to support him. However, not one person mentioned Manson was guilty, let alone believed it. This again is a Caroline Heldman talking point, that if a woman makes a sexual assault accusation, it is a fact that everyone has to believe and not wait for the justice system to examine the facts. And since the accusations are to her and those that think like her obvious facts, then anyone accused should immediately be branded as guilty and be canceled. Caroline and August Brown have no concept of what justice means, they don't want to accept the procedure of the American justice system, and believe their opinions should be held by everyone, and therefore cannot fathom how others can support someone who is clearly a rapist instead of canceling him. This dangerous ideology shines through in this article. And seeing how things have previously been misrepresented in this article, we can assume the same is the case with the heavily edited quotes given from the three Manson fans.

We then read the following: "When Manson took the Honda Center stage before strobe-lit inverted crosses, he snarled and strutted as he sang 'We Know Where You F— Live,' a menacing recent single (one that his accusers said they found unnerving)." First of all, this song is not that recent, but dates to 2017, though the article wants to present it as a new song that is a direct threat to accusers. Secondly, I can't recall any accuser saying they found it unnerving, but my guess is that Bianca said this and her views are supposedly shared by all accusers. It is well known that Manson's lyrics have always been designed to be unnerving in many and various ways for decades, so to focus on that one song speaks of an unfamiliarity with Manson's large catalogue of music.

Then we come to comments made by Laina Dawes, who is described as "a metal scholar and author of What Are You Doing Here?” It should be noted that the full title of the book is What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal. She says that Manson is to his benefit taking advantage of the post-MeToo era, "when people are retracting from taking issues like assault seriously." She analyzes recent lyrics from his songs like "Raise the Red Flag" as saying things like "You need to apologize not me, I’m not apologizing to you."

Regarding having a female guitarist in the band, Reba Meyers, Dawes questions her choice of joining the band: "I don’t know what that woman was thinking. She’s a very talented woman, one of very few in underground metal who has made a name for herself, and that’s so disappointing. This elevates her as a musician, but why put yourself in that position? Why tie your young career to [him]?”

Laina Dawes was clearly carefully chosen by August Brown (or Caroline Heldman) to comment on Manson from a black female perspective who obviously shares in the mentality regarding Manson's guilt and his need to be canceled. If I were to analyze her ideology through what she says, it would come very close to a Customer Review someone made on Amazon of her above-mentioned book:

"Having met the author and interacted with her extensively, it's fair to say that from her point of view she sees herself as the leading expert on any topics pertaining to race in heavy music, acts as though she has cornered the market on dialog in this arena, and is threatened by anyone else doing research in this very specific area. She perceives opinions from white people, other black people, and men that are not in lock step with hers as wrong and goes out of her way to make them know their opinions are not valued. Her bullying, when confronted with differing opinions in the real world, is contrary to the way she paints herself as a constant victim of racism and otherness in her writing. Laina also has an opportunistic streak and has used the deaths of major figures like David Bowie as a platform to race bait conversations and promote her personal politics and work."

We then come to Dave Brooks, Billboard’s senior director of live music and touring, who commented that Manson's tour with Five Finger Death Punch was doing “OK at best. Manson has done really well in California historically, especially as part of package tours, so the fact that some of these shows are tanking is not great for him.”

I personally don't know how ticket sales have been for this past summer 2024 tour. Every time I see videos of the crowds, however, the venue looks pretty full with few if any empty seats. The show I attended in an amphitheater in New Jersey was nearly completely full as far as the eye could see. Both Caroline Heldman and Bianca Kyne have commented that the show in Anaheim was "below half in attendance." However, when I look at the video below of the crowd in Anaheim, I don't see it as less than half full. Judge for yourself:

Most people's expectations for this tour were pretty low. Many Manson fans did not want to pay for expensive seats to see him based on what they considered mediocre shows from 2009 to 2019, and many were also skeptical of it being worth going out to see him as a support act for a band they either had no connection to or despised. And being a support act, this would not be a full Manson show, but would be minimal in its stage show and length time. Most importantly, when tickets went on sale, no new music had been released by Manson since 2020. His first new single dropped on the same day his tour started, and until the end of the tour only one other single was released to the public a few weeks after the first. His album is not due to be released till November 22nd. Manson fans didn't even know who was in the band supporting Manson until they walked out on stage their first show. Let alone the fact that there was very little promotion for this tour, which didn't even have a catchy name as in the past. These and other factors played a huge role in a lack of ticket sales, if it is true there was a lack. However, while all this is true, the response to Manson's performance and the tour in general was overwhelmingly positive and it was met beyond anyone's expectations. Some would call it one of the greatest comebacks in Rock music history and an overwhelming success. And let us not forget that every headline show Manson did throughout the tour was sold out, and that his upcoming winter 2025 tour in Europe completely sold out in a matter of days.

I seriously don't think Dave Brooks considered the factors I mentioned and is purely looking at this as a businessman comparing his ticket sales with the past, though he should as a businessman consider the entire perspective. Perhaps he is being misrepresented by the author of the article as well. It is worth noting that Dave Brooks helped write an article for Billboard two days after Evan Rachel Wood named Manson as her abuser, titled "The Business of Marilyn Manson: Here’s What’s at Stake Financially Amid Abuse Claims" dated to February 3, 2021. According to the article, from the time Manson released his first album till 2021, "the recording artist and his band have generated nearly 11 million albums consumptions units worth of activity in the U.S., according to MRC." As for touring, "pre-pandemic Manson had been a consistent earner for CAA, regularly selling $300,00 to $400,000 in tickets per night over the last two decades. His 2012-13 Twins of Evil tour with Rob Zombie was his most commercially successful, followed by the 2017-2019 trek, Twins of Evil: Hell Never Dies, which averaged $342,000 per night. In terms of highest estimated total gross, his 2012-2013 outing with Slayer, Rape of the World Tour, raked in over $28 million." If Dave Brooks is comparing the Manson of today to what he did on tour pre-pandemic, then yes it may be viewed as just "OK at best" from a business perspective, but in reality it is much more than that and it should be celebrated.

After the author of the article comments that Manson would probably be more accepted in MeToo-skeptical red states than blue liberal states, Brooks makes an interesting comment: "I don’t think talent buyers and promoters and venues care that much about Me Too. But it’s really hard to tell where fans are at. Until he does a small headline show or a real co-headline run, its hard to know.” This confirms that Brooks did not take into account the six sold out headline shows from this past tour, or the European sold out shows coming up in 2025. But at least he is honest about his ignorance.

The article ends with a quote about Manson from Bianca Kyne, who is supposed to be the voice for all of Manson's victims in this article: "He’s never changed. The only thing left that he’s truly afraid of is going to prison.”

Overall, this article was a misleading article, primarily focusing on Marilyn Manson's return to the stage amid the allegations that were meant to end his career. A special focus was on his fans who allowed his return to happen, and questions how they can reconcile what is claimed about Manson from various accusers and their devotion to him as an artist and even a person. The conclusion of the article would have you believe that most fans are conflicted and ignorant, while those who do have a supposed knowledge of the accusations see this as a failure of society and mostly of the music industry to hold Manson accountable. What this article in fact does is present the talking points of Caroline Heldman and runs with that theme under the disguise of genuine reporting. It had potential of being objective and presenting both sides fairly, but the ideology of Caroline Heldman clearly shines through to make it as full of false information and hot air as she is.

 

Let's end with Bianca Allain Kyne's reaction to this article when she posted it on Facebook and shared more false information: