LOS ANGELES (AP) – Detectives are investigating allegations of domestic violence against rocker Marilyn Manson involving incidents that took place about a decade ago in West Hollywood, officials said on Friday.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Special Victims Department opened the investigation after a woman approached the authorities to report the charges, said Sheriff Lieutenant John Adams. The incidents allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2011, when Manson lived in the city of West Hollywood.
“Our people are just in the early stages of an investigation into this,” said Adams. He would not describe the allegations or say when the woman introduced herself.
The news of the investigation came less than three weeks after actor Evan Rachel Wood publicly accused Manson, her ex-fiance, of sexual abuse and other physical abuse, claiming that she was “manipulated to submit” during their relationship.
Adams declined to identify the woman who contacted the Sheriff’s Department, as is typical in cases of domestic violence.
Manson, 52, whose real name is Brian Warner, denied Wood’s claims as “horrible distortions of reality”.
Wood, 33, who stars in HBO’s “Westworld”, had previously spoken about being abused in a relationship, but did not reveal the person’s name until she detailed the accusations on Instagram on February 1.
“My attacker’s name is Brian Warner, also known worldwide as Marilyn Manson,” said Wood. “He started to prepare me when I was a teenager and he abused me terribly for years.”
The relationship between Wood and Manson went public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19. They had a brief engagement in 2010 before breaking up.
Manson responded to Wood’s claims with his own Instagram post on the same day as her post.
“My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners,” said his post. “Regardless of how – and why – others are choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors refused to open charges against Manson on charges of assault, assault and sexual assault that occurred in 2011, saying they were limited by limitations and lack of corroboration. The accuser in that case was identified only as a social acquaintance of Manson.
He denied the charges through his lawyer at the time. The lawyer was not immediately available for comment on Friday.
The Associated Press does not normally cite people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, but named Wood because of his decision to speak publicly.