LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rocker Marilyn Manson is involved in a domestic violence investigation concerning alleged incidents about a decade ago, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau is investigating allegation(s) of domestic violence involving Mr. Brian Warner also known as ‘Marilyn Manson,’ who works in the music industry,” a department statement said. “The incidents occurred between 2009 and 2011 when Mr. Warner lived in the city of West Hollywood.”
The department, which provides police services to West Hollywood, gave no further details.
Word of the investigation came less than three weeks after actor Evan Rachel Wood publicly accused her ex-fiancé of sexual and other physical abuse, alleging she was “manipulated into submission” during their relationship.
Manson, 52, called her allegations “horrible distortions of reality.”
Wood, who stars on HBO’s “Westworld,” had previously spoken about being abused in a relationship but did not name the person until she detailed the allegations on Instagram on Feb. 1.
“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood said. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.”
Wood, now 33, and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19, and they were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up.
Manson responded to Wood’s allegations with his own Instagram post the same day.
“Obviously my art and life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” his post said. “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.”
In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Manson over allegations of assault, battery and sexual assault dating to 2011, saying they were limited by statutes of limitations and a lack of corroboration. The accuser in that case was identified only as a social acquaintance of Manson.
He denied the allegations through his attorney at the time.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they were victims of sexual assault but named Wood because of her decision to speak out publicly.