According to The Blast, Marilyn Manson has filed a lawsuit against actress Evan Rachel Wood over allegations of rape and sexual abuse. Wood alleged in the documentary "Phoenix Rising" that she was "coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses" while filming the 2007 music video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses" with her then-boyfriend Manson. Manson's attorney Howard King later denied Wood's allegations in a statement to People, claiming that the singer "did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth." In his lawsuit against Wood, Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, accused his ex-fiancée of intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, computer fraud, and impersonation over the Internet. The documents, which filed on Wednesday morning (March 2) in the Los Angeles Superior Court, state: "This action arises from the wrongful and illegal acts done in furtherance of a conspiracy by Defendant Evan Rachel Wood and her on-again, off-again romantic partner, Defendant Ashley Gore, a/k/a Illma Gore, to publicly cast Plaintiff Brian Warner, p/k/a Marilyn Manson, as a rapist and abuser—a malicious falsehood that has derailed Warner's successful music, TV, and film career." In the documents, Manson accused Wood of impersonating "an actual agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by forging and distributing a fictitious letter from the agent, to create the false appearance that Warner's alleged 'victims' and their families were in danger, and that there was a federal criminal investigation of Warner ongoing. They provided checklists and scripts to prospective accusers, listing the specific alleged acts of abuse that they should claim against Warner." The documents further allege that Wood "made knowingly false statements to prospective accusers (which have since been repeated by those accusers in court filings), including the defamatory claim that Warner filmed the sexual assault of a minor." Wood, who was in a relationship with Manson from mid-2006 until early 2011, claimed in the "Phoenix Rising" documentary that the music video shoot was "the first crime [he] committed against me." "It's nothing like I thought it was going to be," Wood said. "We're doing things that were not what was pitched to me. ... We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real. I had never agreed to that. I'm a professional actress, I've been doing this my whole life; I've never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day." A little over a year ago, Wood named Manson as the previously anonymous abuser she referenced while testifying before the California Senate in relation to the state's Phoenix Act, which extends the statute of limitations on domestic violence from three years to five. In February 2021, Wood claimed in a social media post that Manson "groomed" and "horrifically" abused her for years. After she shared her accusations, several other women posted their own allegations against the singer. The women claimed to have endured "sexual assault, psychological abuse, and/or various forms of coercion, violence, and intimidation" at the hands of Manson. The 53-year-old Manson later released a statement denying the abuse allegations leveled against him, writing on Instagram: "Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. 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."
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