Content warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of rape, kidnapping, and domestic violence.
Marilyn Manson may be persona non grata right now, but that wasn’t always the case. In the ’90s he was one of the biggest rock acts of the era, with a combination of catchy hooks and shocking antics that scared parents and delighted misunderstood teenagers everywhere.
Times change though, as do tastes, and while he’s continued to record music, he hasn’t had a hit in a long time and his cultural status has lowered significantly. A series of sexual assault cases hasn’t help matters.
His former fiance Evan Rachel Wood has accused him of horrific abuse and other women have also come forward with similar claims (two of those cases were dismissed and one was settled). In all, about 15 women have accused him of abuse.
He has called the charges “distortions of reality.” Then there’s the Kanye stuff, but that’s for another time.
One of the higher profile assault allegations came from Game of Thrones actress Esme Bianco. Bianco played the prostitute Ros for three seasons of the hit HBO show and claimed that Manson lied, abused, and kidnapped her. She said the abuse left her with PTSD and physical scars.
Recently, Bianco agreed to a settlement with Manson, saying she had to do it to “move on with her life and career,” putting to rest a years-long saga.
Let’s take a closer look at the timeline of their relationship and the allegations.
Marilyn Manson and Esme Bianco Relationship Timeline
Bianco and 54-year-old Manson first met in 2005 through Manson’s fiancé at the time Dita Von Teese. Bianco had apparently been a fan of Manson’s music since she was a teenager and even dated someone who looked like him when she was younger.
Manson — born Brian Warner — told Bianco that he wanted to cast her in a horror movie he was making called Phantasmagoria, and she was elated. After Manson ended his marriage in 2007 he grew closer to Bianco and even though the relationship was shaped as platonic they shared lewd photos.
Things changed in 2009 when Manson asked Bianco to be in his music video for “I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies.” He told her the video would be shot in home-video style and that he needed a “victim/lover” and that she would have to “pretend to like being manhandled by me. Sorry.”
She expected everything to be professional, but when she arrived in Los Angeles she found “there was no crew present and that she was expected to stay at Mr. Warner’s home rather than in the hotel that had been previously booked.”
The shoot was a cocaine-fueled abuse session, she said. For three days, she paraded around in lingerie barely eating or sleeping while he only supplied her with cocaine.
At one point during the shoot he lost his temper and became violent, tying her up and whipping her, then using a sex toy on her wounds. She told herself it was all for art and that her scars were testaments to the couple’s bond.
She was shell-shocked and couldn’t even talk to her friends about the experience. Manson sent her a photo of her scarred back with the caption “bringing sexy back.” Bianco’s marriage was deteriorating and Manson kept telling her they were soulmates, so they started a long-distance relationship.
During their liaisons, she said, Manson bit and bruised her during sex without her consent. At the same time, Manson’s assistant Ashley Walters said she was arranging flights and travel for various women with the promise of music video appearances or model shoots.
In March of 2011, Manson asked her to move in with him and promised to help her with Visa issues by casting her in his movie. She was having daily panic attacks and her eyelashes started falling out, but she thought it was because she was away from Manson at the time.
When she moved in he started controlling her life, she said, telling her what to wear and when to sleep. When she went to sleep without permission she would be “violently shaken awake.” She didn’t have a key to the apartment so he could control where she went.
In May of 2011, someone broke a glass in a studio and he sent Walters a message that said “Esme is gonna get the brunt of this. Don’t care.” She would call friends while hidden in a closet but try to downplay Manson’s behavior as “annoying boyfriend” stuff.
Bianco said Manson kept his apartment pitch black and in the low 60s – so dark and cold that she sometimes had to use a flashlight to see her way around. No one would say anything for fear of Manson flying off the handle.
Everyone was always walking on eggshells, she said, and she never knew if she was going to get fun Manson or the Manson that broke things and was egregiously violent.
He would screen her Game of Thrones nude scenes and humiliate her. “That’s my girlfriend, she’s a whore. Look, her tits are out,” he reportedly said. At one point he kept cutting her with a knife. He told her they were “monogamous” but cheated on her constantly.
The last straw was later in May when he chased her around with an axe, she said. She left one day in June while he was asleep, thinking they just needed space. She broke up with him through email in July 2011 and worried Manson would sabotage her work Visa.
She also blamed herself for the whole thing sometimes. She started to think she was deserving of the abuse because she was dirty. She said it took a combination of the Me Too movement, years of therapy, and watching Wood testify in Congress to bring her around to facing the reality of the situation.
She saw him a few more times publicly and in 2013 he refused to let her leave his tour bus. At first she blamed herself, but in 2019 she joined forces with Wood and helped extend the statute of limitations for reporting domestic violence.
She never named Manson and said she was “terrified” that he might come after her after she spoke to the California Senate about the issue.
“He’s not a misunderstood artist,” she told The Cut. “He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life.”
The Phoenix Act proposed extending the statute of limitations for reporting sexual crimes and assaults from three years to five years. It passed in 2020.
Marilyn Manson and Esme Bianco sexual assault lawsuit explained
Bianco filed her lawsuit in April 2021 in federal court in California. She accused Manson of several things, saying the singer “used drugs, force, and threats of force to coerce sexual acts” and did so “when she was unconscious or otherwise unable to consent.”
Those acts included cutting, whipping, spanking, and biting her and her genitals during sexual encounters. She also sued him for a violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act after he dangled the threat of cancelling her work Visa if she acted up.
“Mr. Warner would berate Ms. Bianco if he did not like her outfit, if she touched the thermostat, if she attempted to open the curtains in the apartment, if she expressed discomfort with the violent and sexually graphic films Mr. Warner played throughout the apartment, and if she failed to find objects he hid around the apartment,” the lawsuit said.
In a different incident Manson “cut Ms. Bianco with a Nazi knife during sex, without her consent, and photographed the cuts on her body,” and then posted them online without her permission.
Manson responded by denying everything.
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote on Instagram. “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.”
Bianco said she still has panic attacks, depression, anxiety, and other maladies from the experience.
“It took Ms. Bianco years to understand the extent of Mr. Warner’s physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse,” the lawsuit said. In a statement following the lawsuit, Bianco said Manson was left “unchecked, enabled by money, fame, and an industry that turned a blind eye.”
“Despite the numerous brave women who have spoken out against Marilyn Manson, countless survivors remain silenced, and some of their voices will never be heard,” Bianco said in the statement. “My hope is that by raising mine I will help to stop Brian Warner from shattering any more lives and empower other victims to seek their own small measure of justice.”
She says she still gets a fight-or-flight response when she talks about Manson, but she told The Cut that she feels powerful as well.
“I have this hot energy and power in my chest. I just want to open my mouth and be like ‘Ahhhhhhh’ and rain fire down,” she said.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse, or if you believe someone you know is being abused, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE or spoken with online via the hotline’s website, or text “START” to 88788.