Marilyn Manson has claimed that his ex-fiancee, Evan Rachel Wood, forged an FBI letter in an attempt to destroy his career.
In a new appeal court filing (posted below), the rock star is seeking to revive his defamation lawsuit against Wood.
Manson, real name Brian Warner, had unsuccessfully sued Wood and her partner, Illma Gore, in March 2022 for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Wood, an actress and star of the series Westworld, had alleged that Manson had sexually assaulted several women. Gore also made similar allegations.
Marilyn Manson arrives at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on February 09, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California. Manson is seeking to revive a defamation lawsuit against his ex-fiancee, Evan Rachel Wood.
Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images
In his appeal petition filed in court on Wednesday, Manson included a copy of the FBI letter, which states that Manson is being kept under surveillance and that his sexual assault victims are in danger.
“Defendants Evan Rachel Wood and Illma Gore engaged in a malicious campaign to harm Wood’s ex-fiancee Warner.”
“They recruited, pressured, and coached others to make heinous, untrue accusations against Warner; forged a fake letter from a real FBI agent to create the false appearance that Warner was under FBI investigation and his ‘victims’ were in danger; spread convenient falsehoods to shore up their bogus narrative; solicited personal information from Warner’s former employees; hacked his accounts; manufactured fictitious emails; and “swatted” Warner at his home to draw more attention to the falsehoods they conspired to have made against him,” according to the appeal petition filed by Manson’s attorney, Howard E. King.
Swatting is the illegal practice of calling police, paramedics or other emergency services to a person’s home as a method of embarrassing or irritating them.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Beaudet dismissed Manson’s lawsuit last year under California’s strong anti-SLAPP law.
The law aims to prevent SLAPPs, or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, which are lawsuits taken by powerful people to silence opposition
In Wednesday’s filing before California Court of Appeal, King alleged that Beaudet had erred in dismissing the lawsuit.
“This is an appeal of an order granting two anti-SLAPP motions, in which the trial court rubber-stamped Defendants’ assertions of ‘protected activity’ before weighing and disregarding evidence to conclude that Plaintiff Brian Warner could never prevail on the challenged claims,” King wrote.
Newsweek sought email comment from attorneys for Manson, Wood and Gore on Friday.
The appeal filing state that Beaudet should have considered that one of Manson’s accusers, model Ashley Morgan Smithline, had recanted her story.
Smithline had sued Manson for sexual assault, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unlawful imprisonment. Manson has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.
In January, 2023, Smithline’s lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice by a Los Angeles judge.
In a sworn statement filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Smithline claimed that she was pressured by Wood and others to go public with allegations that she has now declared “false.”
“I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against [Manson] that were not true,” she wrote in the declaration.
Wood and Gore deny those allegations.
Manson appears to be making a comeback after the sexual assault allegations sidelined his career.
He has had two hits in the hard rock digital charts in the last month.
His latest single Raise the Red Flag entered the digital hard rock chart at No. 2 this week.
Earlier in August, his song As Sick as the Secrets Within debuted at No.1 on the same chart.
