Warning Explicit Descriptions of sexual abuse and self harm

With Amy Berg’s two-part HBO documentary “Phoenix Rising” set to debut this week, viewers will get a chance to examine the life of singer, model and actress Evan Rachel Wood. In the documentary, she unveils her rise to stardom and the many hardships that crossed her path to success. One of the biggest hardships recounted was in relation to shock rocker Brian Hugh Warner, aka Marilyn Manson, as Wood details various alleged accounts of sexual abuse, misconduct, and trauma endured within her 15-year relationship with the musician. 

Wood went public naming Manson as her alleged abuser early last year, an act that ignited other women to come forward and share their own alleged tales of abuse. Manson recently fired back at Wood filing a public defamation lawsuit, accusing Wood and her partner, Illma Gore, of falsifying stories of abuse alongside alleging to have impersonated an FBI agent in the process. 

Prior to the documentary’s release, Wood told  both Insider and NYPost that Manson told her to make him dinner after returning from getting an abortion and against medical opinions. 

Wood revealed she was pregnant throughout the production of the 2011 HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce.” According to the documentary and obtained by Insider, Wood claimed Manson flew out to the abortion, and prior to the procedure Wood felt distressed at the situation stating. 

 “I obviously believe in a woman’s right to choose, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating,” she said. “The second it was over {he} was like, ‘Make me dinner,’ and I remember being like, ‘I’m supposed to be resting. My body has gone through this trauma. There’s an aftermath here.’ And he didn’t care.” 

Wood describes in the documentary how Manson always had an issue with the birth control she used 

“He refused to wear a condom, ever,” Wood says. “And it was very much sex on demand, and it was going to cause more problems if I said, ‘no.’ You don’t have time to use birth control when somebody’s just penetrating you while you’re asleep, or if they’ve given you a pill that made you blackout.” 

The film also points to the emotional impact of the abortion, saying that  as a result of Manson’s alleged carelessness towards the pregnancy, Wood became suicidal stating, “I was worried that I was going to kill myself.” 

In the documentary, Wood told Gore about the suicide attempt she planned after she broke up with Manson in 2010. “I went into the bathroom, and I took [a] glass, and I shattered it on the floor and just started digging at my wrists as hard as I could,” Wood said. “I called my mom, and I said, ‘I just tried to kill myself, and I need to go to a hospital, like, immediately.'”

Manson’s lawyer, Howard King, responded to the abortion story telling Insider, “As we detailed in our lawsuit, nothing that Evan Rachel Wood, Illma Gore, or their hand-picked co-conspirators have said on this matter can be trusted. This is just more of the same. But, then again, what else would you expect from a group who have spread falsehood after falsehood about Brian and even went as far as to forge an FBI letter to further their phony claims?”

In the first part of the documentary, it has also been alleged that Manson raped Wood on set while the two were filming the music video to his 2007 song “Heart Shaped Glasses.” Wood also added that she has an “M” scar near her pelvic area that Manson gave her while the two were together. 

King also responded to this alleged act when it became public earlier this year, saying to Insider, “Brian did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.”

The validity of alleged abuses is still under investigation by the LA County Sheriff’s Department. In the wake of the release of “Phoenix Rising,” audiences will have the chance to explore Wood’s career as she details her side of the story to millions of viewers across the globe. The first part of the documentary titled “Phoenix Rising: Don’t Fall” will debut Tuesday, March 15 with its sequel “Stand Up” releasing Wednesday, March 16. Both episodes will be available to stream on HBO Max.

A review of the documentary and additional reporting on the story will follow as it continues to unfold. 

Manson/King Defamation Lawsuit originally obtained by Metal Injection: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LloIWMJrefKSGZ_pfErcaOggmVIYckrd/view