Marilyn Manson arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills on February 9, 2020.
Evan Agostini/AP
The model, who previously accused Marilyn Manson of sexual assault, now says: Westworld Actor Evan Rachel Wood pressured her to file the allegations.
In a declaration filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Ashley Morgan Smithline said the allegations were untrue and that after Wood repeatedly told her simply because she didn’t remember, she Finally yielded to the pressure to make the charges. Manson’s attorney, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, filed the declaration as part of Manson’s defamation lawsuit against Wood and Ashley Gore (also known as Irma Gore).
“At first I knew Mr. Warner didn’t do these things to me, but eventually I started to wonder if he actually did,” Smithline said. .
Evan Rachel Wood at an event in Brooklyn on November 1, 2022.
Getty Images for Slaven Vlasic/The Roku Channel
The model, “many times,” said Wood, game of thrones Actor Esme Bianco recently appeared. settled the lawsuit accused Manson of rape on what happened to them. In 2021, Wood, who has spoken for years about being in an abusive relationship, said: identify manson As former partners on social media, Smithline and three others posted about alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse they suffered from Manson.
Wood, who got engaged to Manson in 2010, said on Instagram that the singer is started “grooming” her Continued to abuse her for years when she was a teenager.
“I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission,” she wrote.
In a proclamation, Smithline said Wood, Bianco, and others asked if the same thing had happened to her, saying, “Maybe I just don’t remember what happened” There is [her] memory of what happened. “
“Eventually, I came to believe that what I was told repeatedly happened to Ms. Wood and also happened to Ms. Bianco,” Smithline said.
Smithline also claimed Gore drafted and posted a statement on Instagram accusing Manson of abusing him.
A spokesperson for Wood denied Smithline’s allegations, saying the actor “never pressured or manipulated” the model.
“Ashley was the first to reach out to Evan about the abuse she suffered,” a spokesperson said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. , it is unfortunate that it appears to have pressured her to change her testimony.”
A lawyer for Gore did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.
Smithline sued Manson in federal court in June 2021, accusing him of sexual assault, sexual assault, willful infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful imprisonment. A judge dismissed her case last month after Smithline’s attorneys did not file her new attorney’s notice or status report after Smithline’s attorneys dropped the case, according to court records.
In a statement, Smithline said that attorney Jay Ellwanger, who filed the complaint on her behalf, did not review its contents with her before filing it and did not have the opportunity to approve it in advance.
“The complaint contains false statements about Mr. Warner, including allegations of violence and non-consensual sexual activity in our brief relationship, the same until I met Mr. Wood, Mr. Gore and others in 2020. ,” she said.
Smithline said it felt pressured to attend the press tour by Ellwanger, who also represented Bianco in her lawsuit against Manson. Smithline fired him after her complaint was filed, she said.
Ellwanger told BuzzFeed News in an email that he was limited in what he could say due to attorney-client privilege. However, he said: [his] Smithline’s statement is emphatically and verifiably false. He also said Bianco had no comment.
Los Angeles authorities started looking Allegations against Manson in February 2021 after Wood, Smithline, and other women went public with their claims.Over the years, dozens of women blame the singer of sexual abuse.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department completed a criminal investigation into Manson last year and turned it over to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. A spokesperson for the district attorney told BuzzFeed News earlier this month that the case is still under review.
In a statement, Smithline said it had no intention of revising the lawsuit against Manson or filing criminal charges against him, stating that “there was no assault or abuse.” [her].”
“Looking back, I feel like I was manipulated by Ms. Wood, Ms. Gore, Ms. Bianco and Ms. Ellwanger to publicly spread false accusations of abuse against Mr. Warner,” she said.