Some Johnny Depp fans, inspired by Depp’s win in his defamation suit against former wife Amber Heard, are hoping Marilyn Manson can win a similar case against former girlfriend and Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood.
In addition to losing her court case, Heard faced endless opprobrium online from a legion of hardcore Johnny Depp fans and opportunists who turned mockery of Heard on Tik Tok and YouTube into a cottage industry. Depp said he wanted to see Heard brought low by “total global humiliation” and his fans obliged him with videos mocking her and “reenacting” the abuse she said Depp had dealt her for comic effect.
The social media attacks on Wood have already begun; as have the videos, which first started appearing a year ago shortly after Wood first made her allegations against Manson public.
The current controversy started when Wood, who was in a relationship with the decades-older Manson for several years in the late 2000s, wrote on Instagram early last year that Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” keeping her “brainwashed and manipulated into submission” and, after she had extracted herself from the relationship, too afraid of possible retaliation from Manson to accuse him publicly.
After Wood publicly named Manson as her abuser, in early 2021 more than a dozen other women came forward to accuse the aging goth rocker of similar abuse. Many of these women appear in an HBO documentary Phoenix Rising, centering around Wood’s successful crusade to lengthen the statute of limitations for domestic violence in California — and her account of what she says were years of abuse at the hands of Manson. Several of these women — including model Ashley Morgan Smithline and Game of Thrones actor Esme Bianco — filed their own complaints against Manson, accusing him of sexual and physical abuse. (To see all the various things Manson has been accused of over the years, see Billboard’s tally here.)
Manson claims these allegations are false, all part of a plot by Wood to ruin his life and career. In early March, he filed a defamation suit against Wood, accusing her not just of “malicious falsehood” but also of organizing a conspiracy of lies against him, with the help of sometime girlfriend Ashley “Illma” Gore. The lawsuit claims that
Gore and Wood have secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse against [Manson], and brazenly claim that it took 10 or more years to ‘realize’ their consensual relationships with [Manson] were supposedly abusive.
As Billboard notes, the lawsuit goes on to allege that the two
impersonated an FBI agent, provided scripts to “prospective accusers,” solicited his private information from former employees, and created a fake email address to manufacture evidence that he had sent illicit pornography.
We can expect to hear a lot more about these seemingly far-fetched accusations once the #IStandWithMarilynManson crowd gets to posting and YouTubing in earnest.
After Wood publicly named Manson as her abuser, he was dropped by his record label and removed from two television projects. But at this point he doesn’t have that much of a career to destroy, at least compared to his 1990s heyday. His last big hit record was released nearly a quarter of a century ago and the Onion’s classic article “Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People” article was published only a few years later than that.
While Manson presumably hopes his defamation suit will go as well as his longtime friend Johnny Depp’s did, he has one accuser he may not be able to shut up with legal or other threats. That’s himself.
In his autobiography, written with future The Game author Neal Strauss and published in 1998, he accused himself of sexual and other forms of abuse, boasting about his “trick” of getting his “victims” so drunk they passed out, leaving them open to being “tormented.” In one case he described how (he says) he and Trent Reznor poked their hands into the vagina of one such “unsuspecting” victim and burned her pubic hair with a lighter. Reznor, for his part, says the story is a straight-up “fabrication,” and Manson now insists that all of his sexual encounters have been consensual, with “like-minded partners.”
On the JusticeForJohnnyDepp subreddit — with more than 60,000 subscribers — many of the commenters are readying themselves, with no small enthusiasm, to turn Wood into ‘Amber Heard 2.0.”
am0x1c1ll1n seems to have swallowed Manson’s argument and his “facts” whole:
Well, according to the lawsuit filed by MM, ERW and her girlfriend Ilma Gore impersonated an FBI agent, contacted several of MMs past girlfriends and gave them a checklist of things they needed to do. They systematically filed sexual assault charges in last year. Then Ilma Gore hacked and planted child pornography on his devices. They called the cops to check up on him, had his devices ceased and scanned.
ChemicalWord6529 largely agrees:
He’s definitely no saint, but he’s also not the devil incarnate. . …
I’m biased from what I’ve found out about the accusers and their past behaviour, the lack of actual evidence, the timing, the fact there’s actual proof that Ilma Gore and ERW went out of their way to recruit people for this whole thing.
Not all of Amber Heard’s tormenters are looking forward to bashing Wood. Some commenters seem a little less than convinced by Manson’s denials.
“I never said [Manson] was the Devil incarnate,” writes someone called Lord_Snowfall, who describes himself as “a firm Depp supporter.”
But he has 16+accusers, a conviction. For assault and sexual misconduct, spent years bragging about abusing people, dated an 18 year old when he was 37 and filmed an intro video for his website of him beating the shit out of her, bragged about massively emotionally abusing her, threatened to kill journalists, etc. he crafted a persona of being an abusive POS and did so in part by being an abusive POS in public. So when he’s accused of doing the same in private I don’t believe him when he says it’s not true and he is a saint run private.
I suppose the easiest way to bring the Manson skeptics on board the “Amber Heard 2.0” crusade would be for Depp himself to come out for Manson. Because they just happen to be longtime friends. Because of course they do.
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@Jono:
But you’re not satisfied to merely state the facts-as-you-see-them and then move on; oh no, if anyone expresses disagreement you feel the need to state them again, and again and again until you get the last word. Now why might that be?
Depp is seen in Hunter S Thompson’s documentary as his loyal friend despite Thompson’s open and proud abuse of women. Hunter is seen actually abusing his new girlfriend or wife on film in it. Hunter joked and encouraged Depp to beat Kate Moss. I think it’s very possible the true Depp can also be seen in the vast film footage of Manson’s life somewhere. Manson is known to invite young fans into his home, bind them, and abuse them til weeping for party entertainment. Depp brought his buddy up in court despite the rape and abuse testimony in Phoenix Rising. Manson is Depp’s daughter’s god father. So. I’d say Depp is more than just complacent with abuse of women. Oh and there’s all the ignored and excused abuse evidence against Depp too. Years of it.
I’ve avoided commenting on the merits of the case(s); but there is an issue I really want to address. I’m sure no-one here would actually stoop to this. This is a pretty anti racist, anti misogynist, anti classist sort of space. But should you come across anyone actually doing this, then maybe this give some guidance as to how to respond.
It’s from a reply to someone; but the issue should be clear from the context.
@Surplus to Requirements, And where exactly did I do that? I think that I’m allowed to post my opinions in response to someone who disagrees with me just like everyone else in this comment section. You’re the one who’s expressing anger at people disagreeing with you. Now, you’re resorting ad-hominems instead of respectfully engaging with my arguments. If it upsets you so much, then you’re perfectly welcome to ignore my posts.
As are you free to ignore mine. The fact remains, though, that instead of leaving your pro-Depp bon mots and moving on, you kept posting them again and again. Not new arguments; just repetition of the same one every time the previous repetition has ceased to be the last word on the topic. This is informative, but about you more than about Depp.
@Surplus to Requirements, I’ve never repeated the same arguments. All I’ve done is to respond to other comments that I disagree with. Sometimes I bring up information which I believe contradicts what someone else has said but I don’t see a rule on this site that you’re not allowed to disagree with people.