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The Sickness of Marilyn Manson
He told us who he was— we just didn’t want to believe the women who lived it
Like most kids born in the late ’70s or early ’80s, I fell under Marilyn Manson’s spell. He was the anti-everything icon, the middle finger for suburban misfits. His aesthetic screamed freedom, and defiance: leather, latex, fake blood, inverted crosses, Nietzsche in eyeliner. He didn’t have a great voice, but somehow that made it better. It felt raw. Honest. Smart, even. I gave him a chance. More than once.
And then Evan Rachel Wood happened.
And everything I’d once excused — every grimy lyric, every smug interview, every “he’s just playing a character” defense — rotted.
I watched her testify before Congress. Saw her documentary. Watched her struggle to remember. Not because she was lying. But because abuse like that erases you. And I sat there thinking: how the fuck could anyone believe a piece of shit like Brian Warner?
The persona was the plan
Manson never tricked us. He told us exactly who he was. He called himself The Antichrist Superstar. He wrote about domination, nihilism, annihilation. In “The Reflecting God,” he snarled:
“I went to God just to see / And I was looking at me, yeah / Saw…
