Marilyn Manson drops lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood

Photo Credit: Marilyn Manson by Livioandronico2013 / CC by 4.0

Marilyn Manson drops his lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood as well as a related appeal aiming to revive his defamation claim against her.

Marilyn Manson has dropped a lawsuit he filed against Evan Rachel Wood, as well as a related appeal aiming to revive his previous defamation claim against her. He has agreed to pay around $327,000 in her attorneys’ fees, according to new legal documents.

“Marilyn Manson — whose real name is Brian Warner — filed a lawsuit against Ms. Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career. But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms. Wood Failed,” said a rep for Evan Rachel Wood. “As the trial court correctly found, Warner’s claims were meritless. Warner’s decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms. Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.”

According to Wood’s attorneys — Michael Kump, Shawn Holley, and Katherine Kleindienst of Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir LLP — Manson sought to wrap up the lawsuit this past spring as he tried to appeal a judge’s rulings against him.

His initial offer was to pay a portion of Wood’s fees in return for keeping the settlement confidential, aside from a mutually agreed-upon statement. Wood rejected his offer; her lawyers say she did not want to agree to confidentiality nor the terms of the initial offer. Warner, in turn, agreed to drop his suit against Wood entirely, and pay her legal fees.

Manson filed the lawsuit in March 2022, just weeks before the release of the two-part documentary, Phoenix Rising, in which Wood detailed allegations of sexual abuse and rape at the hands of the musician, which led her to advocate for legislation in favor of abuse survivors. She previously revealed Manson was her abuser in an Instagram post, which sparked over a dozen other women to come forward with similar allegations against him.

Marilyn Manson then filed a countersuit against her, alleging that Wood and co-defendant Illma Gore impersonated FBI personnel and sent fraudulent letters to his associates in an effort to encourage them to speak out against him. Last year, a judge struck down many of his claims, including the allegation that Wood recruited women in a conspiracy against him.