Evan Rachel Wood was nominated for an Emmy for her work in “Mildred Pierce,” but she claims she lived in a daily nightmare away from the spotlight.
Wood, 34, reveals she discovered she was pregnant with the baby of her alleged abuser, Marilyn Manson while working on that 2011 miniseries in the second half of “Phoenix Rising,” a two-part documentary directed by Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg and set to air on HBO beginning March 15.
“From the beginning of our relationship, he had an issue with whatever birth control I was using — and I went through, like, every type to see which one he liked, and he didn’t like any of them, so essentially he didn’t want me using birth control,” Wood says in the film, the first half of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. She alleges Manson refused to use a condom and that spermicides were ineffective after intercourse.
Wood chose to end the pregnancy but was taken aback when Manson requested that she serve him a supper right after the procedure.
On camera, Wood says, “He flew out for the abortion.” “As soon as it was finished, I said, ‘Make me dinner.'” ‘I’m meant to be sleeping — my body has been through this trauma… there’s fallout here,’ I recall thinking. And he didn’t seem to mind.”
She was on the verge of committing herself as a result of the experience. She claims she attempted suicide at a later, undisclosed date.
“I went into the bathroom and smashed a glass on the floor and just started digging as hard as I could at my wrists,” Wood says her friend, the artist and activist Illma Gore.
While Wood’s suicide attempt failed, it was a watershed moment in her life, she says in the film. “I felt different when I awoke. I feel like I was going to sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning, leaving this new version to start reconstructing her life. “I just attempted to kill myself, and I need to get to the hospital, like, right now,” I told my mother.
Alone and on drugs
After previously referring to a horrific encounter with an unidentified individual in the news, the “Westworld” actress named Manson, whose true name is Brian Warner, as her alleged abuser last February. “Phoenix Rising” follows Wood’s choice to go public with his name, which he did via an Instagram announcement. Wood makes shocking charges in the first section of the documentary, including Manson forcing her to have sex on camera for his 2007 music video “Heart-Shaped Glasses.”
Manson allegedly abused Wood on a daily basis, according to Wood. She claims she was confined to his Spanish-style Los Angeles house, where she was subjected to “chilling cold” temperatures and deprived of sleep.
The “True Blood” actress also claims that Manson poisoned her with a variety of substances, including amphetamine and sleeping pills.
In the second half of the movie, Wood adds, “This is also when he started rapping me in my sleep.” “When I awoke, all I remember doing was immediately performing the mental calculations and thinking, ‘Just remain, just stay sleeping, don’t move, just don’t move.’ So I’d simply lie limp and motionless until it was through, and then he’d toss my leg and go out of the room, swearing to God.”
More women’s tales
Several more women followed Wood’s lead when she came forward with her allegations last year, two of whom feature in the sequel. In October 2020, they meet with two former Manson staffers, including Dan Cleary, who had recently made a viral Twitter thread about how the shock-rocker “changed [Wood] into a different person.” He shattered her.”
Model Sarah McNeilly, who claimed on Instagram in 2021 that she was kept in rooms when she was “naughty,” claims that Manson “threw me up against a wall and screamed he was going to break my f – king face in.”
Ashley Morgan Smithline, a Jewish woman, is the other. She revealed how Manson asked her to bring him Nazi artefacts from a modelling job in Thailand, which made her feel “so much remorse and humiliation,” in a 2021 Instagram post.
“I remember this one time, it really got violent — and he slammed me up against a wall and screamed he was going to bash my f–king face in because I was trying to get him to pick out trousers,” McNeilly recalls in the movie. “I let my appendix rupture,” Smithline says while talking about how she wanted to get away from Manson. It became gangrenous, and I became septic. ‘Just let me f–king die, just let me die so I don’t have to,’ I was thinking.
Wood claims that after temporarily escaping Manson’s house in 2009, Manson coaxed her back in — and tells the group that he did it through torture. Wood, who is also Jewish, claims Manson bound her to a prayer kneeler inside his home and whipped her with a Nazi whip repeatedly. With an electrode, he allegedly shocked her welts and “private areas.”
“It hurt so terribly,” Wood informed the others, “that I snapped the kneeler in half.” “At the time, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Just tell him anything he wants to hear, just tell him whatever he wants to hear…’ ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ I murmured. He was hugging me and saying, ‘You understand now,’ while I begged for forgiveness. Then he did something else.
The lawsuit filed by Charles Manson
The film then cuts to headlines revealing Wood’s reconciliation with Manson. “Evan Rachel Whore and Marilyn Manson: ‘On’ Again!” proclaimed one, with the word “HO” written over her head, from Perez Hilton, who began dubbing Wood “Evan Rachel Whore” after the “Heart-Shaped Glasses” video.
When approached for comment on his coverage, Hilton told The Post in a statement, “The charges that Evan Rachel Wood has made against Marilyn Manson are new.” “I have faith in her.”
At least 15 women have accused Manson of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse; an inquiry has been begun, but no charges have been filed.
Manson filed a lawsuit against Wood and Gore in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, alleging that they defamed him with rape charges for monetary gain and purposefully caused mental anguish on him. According to the lawsuit, Wood’s 2021 Instagram statement came after “months of conspiring with Gore on how to use Wood’s celebrity status to recruit other women and coordinate their’stories,’ ” but they also “derailed [Manson’s] career” and used “Phoenix Rising” to “recruit, coordinate, and pressure women who had been linked to Warner to make false accusations of abuse against him.”
“Nothing Evan Rachel Wood, Illma Gore, or their hand-picked co-conspirators have said on this topic can be believed,” Manson’s attorney, Howard King, told The Post in a statement.
