There is a point in One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2 where the language of survival finally becomes the language of retaliation. “The Arsonist” is that point. The song is not simply about having survived an attempt to destroy you. It is about what happens afterward, when the person who has been burned decides that the fire did not finish him and that the scars it left behind have become part of his strength. Manson himself described the song as the moment when the narrative of the two chapters “crystallizes into a battle stance,” and, referring to the painting he created for it, said that the “burned scar tissue” had formed into armor. That description gets very close to the heart of the song. The fire has not disappeared. It has changed him. The title is important because Manson does not call the song The Survivor or The Victim . He calls it "The Arsonist." An arsonist deliberately starts a fire, and this changes the entire perspective of the song. The speaker is no...
Last we heard of the custody arrangement between Evan Rachel Wood and Jaime Bell was in May 2023. Then it was reported that according to court documents, Evan Rachel Wood lost primary custody of her son Jack to her ex-husband Jaime Bell, who wanted "the Court to know that Evan's recent behavior with Jack is truly alarming." Among the "truly alarming" things cited by Jaime was that she was "feeding" their son false information about Marilyn Manson, which caused him to have crippling anxiety and fear. Evan, who lived in Tennessee at the time and still does, had been allegedly keeping the boy away from Los Angeles, where Jaime lived, because, she claimed (based on a forged FBI letter written by Evan and Illma Gore), she was a key witness in an investigation into abuse by Manson, who she believed was a threat to her and her son. She had also claimed that in 2014 Manson threatened her that he would "fuck" her infant son. Manson has denied all the...