Rose McGowan.
Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Rose McGowan responded to sexual abuse charges against artist Marilyn Manson, with whom she was briefly engaged two decades ago. “I’m with Evan Rachel Wood and other brave women who performed,” said McGowan in a Series of tweets, criticizing Hollywood and the music industry for “protecting predators and selling their disease to the world”.
In an accompanying video, McGowan – who was among the first accusers of the now wretched tycoon Harvey Weinstein, and who emerged as a leading voice amid Hollywood’s delayed reckoning with sexual harassment and abuse – said his relationship with Manson “it wasn’t like that” by Wood and the other four women who have since brought charges against him. However, McGowan emphasized, “It doesn’t influence whether he was like that with other people before or after,” adding that she is “deeply sad and disgusted today.”
Although Wood did not publicly accuse Manson of abuse until earlier this week, it has long been speculated that he subjected her to such treatment. In 2018, when defending a bill to protect survivors of sexual violence, Wood testified before Congress that one of his former partners raped her and forced her into “sick rituals” involving “tying me by the hands and feet to be mentally and physically tortured until my assailant felt that I had ‘proved my love for them’. ”At the time, Wood refused to name his alleged perpetrator for safety concerns, but on Monday she confirmed the suspicion that the ex-partner she referred to was actually Manson.
Apparently spurred on by Wood’s bravery, at least four other women presented equally disturbing stories about Manson’s alleged predatory behavior. One woman, Manson’s former personal assistant, Ashley Walters, said that Manson “offered me for sexual encounters to please potential employees or friends and bragged that he could do it.” Another woman, named Gabriella Accarino, said that Manson would tie her up and rape her; after the first alleged incident, she continued: “I cried on the floor of the hotel room and when I looked at him, he was smiling. He told me that he knew that I loved him because of my reaction. ”All women say they faced a variety of mental health problems as a result of their relationship with Manson. “I have night terror, PTSD, anxiety and, most of all, disabling OCD,” said actor Ashley Lindsay Morgan on Instagram. “I try to wash constantly to get it out or get it off me. I’m moving forward so that it finally stops. “
On Monday night, Manson denied the charges in a statement posted on Instagram, calling them “horrible distortions of reality”. He wrote: “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how – and why – others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth. “
Still, the repercussions for Manson came quickly. He was released by his label, Loma Vista Recordings, and by his talent agency, CAA, and several chains removed him from various projects.