(Trigger Warning: The article contains details of sexual assault)
Phoenix Rising, the new documentary on actor, model and musician Evan Rachel Wood, recently premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg, the first part of the two-part documentary follows the abuse allegations Wood made against singer-songwriter Marilyn Manson last year. It also includes new allegations.
In the movie, Wood talks about filming the music video for Manson's 2007 single 'Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)'. Wood says that during a previously discussed "simulated sex scene", Manson “started penetrating me for real” once the cameras were rolling.
“I had never agreed to that,” she says in the film. Wood alleges that she was fed absinthe on the set of the video, and was barely conscious to object to Manson's alleged actions.
Wood says that she had “never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day. It was complete chaos and I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me.”
“I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretences. That’s when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera.”
She further says that she couldn't say no “because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back – to just soldier through”. She further claims that Manson gave her "really clear" instructions as to what to say to the press. "
I was supposed to tell people we had this great, romantic time and none of that was the truth,” she says.
“But I was scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way. The video was just the beginning of the violence that would keep escalating over the course of the relationship.”
Manson is yet to react to the allegations. Previously, he had denied all charges made against him, calling them “horrible distortions of reality … my intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual”.
He is facing around four lawsuits, that accuses him of sexual assault, battery and harassment.
(With inputs from The Guardian)
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