Marilyn Manson’s accuser recants and turns against Evan Rachel Wood

Ashley Morgan Smithline, whose 2021 federal lawsuit against Marilyn Manson was dismissed last month after missing a court deadline to appoint a new attorney, now says actor Evan Rachel Wood and others manipulated her into making false allegations against the rocker .

Wood – who denies the allegations – was one of several women who publicly accused Manson of sexual abuse in early 2021. She said in a documentary the next year that he “essentially raped” her while filming a music video in 2007. The initial allegations resulted in the embattled performer being dropped by his record label and manager, and losing a role on the TV show “American Gods.”

“In November 2010, I had a brief, consensual sexual relationship with Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson, during a trip I took to Los Angeles from Thailand, where I lived,” Smithline, a model, said in an affidavit Statement filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. “Ten years later, I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make allegations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were untrue.”

Wood and others — including Smithline, then known as Ashley Morgan — launched a public campaign in February 2021 accusing Warner of heinous abuse.

Smithline said she was invited by Wood or artist Illma Gore in 2020 to participate in a group discussion with other women who have had relationships with Warner.

Ashley Morgan Smithline has denied her allegations against Marilyn Manson aka Brian Warner.

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

“I remember her [Wood] asked me if I had been whipped, chained, bound, branded/cut, attacked in my sleep, beaten or raped, among other things,” the model said in the statement.

“She said all of these things happened to Ms. Wood and others, and when Ms. Wood is with Mr. Warner, every moment is a moment of survival. When I said no it didn’t happen to me and that wasn’t my experience, I remember Ms. Wood telling me that just because I couldn’t remember doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen.

“While I initially knew Mr. Warner didn’t do those things to me,” Smithline continued, “I eventually began to wonder if he actually did.”

Wood and Gore are co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by Warner in March 2022 alleging defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and identity theft via the Internet.

Smithline’s statement issued on Sunday was filed in connection with Warner’s lawsuit. The shock rocker’s lawyer is seeking court permission to use it in the case.

Smithline said actress Esmé Bianco, a woman on the prosecutor’s panel who reached a settlement with Warner in January, also insisted she was suppressing memories.

Smithline said Gore was the one who wrote her February 2021 statement and posted it to social media using a password provided by the model. The “narrative” that was posted “contained untrue statements” about Warner, she said — specifically a comment that “MM,” the initials for Warner’s stage name, had been carved into her body.

She said her attorney, Jay Ellwanger — the same person who represents Bianco — “pressured her” to appear on The View and speak to People magazine. Smithline fired him after he filed a lawsuit on her behalf. That lawsuit was dismissed unscathed after the model missed a December deadline to tell the court who would represent her going forward.

“I never intended to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Warner and have no intention now of ever seeking criminal charges as Mr. Warner has never assaulted or abused me,” Smithline said in her statement. “Looking back, I feel like I was manipulated by Ms. Wood, Ms. Gore, Ms. Bianco and Mr. Ellwanger into making public false allegations of abuse against Mr. Warner.”

Wood denied Smithline’s allegations in a statement from her representative on Thursday. “Evan never pressured or manipulated Ashley,” the rep said. “It was Ashley who first contacted Evan about the abuse she suffered. It is unfortunate that the harassment and threats Ashley received after filing her federal lawsuit appeared to pressure her to change her testimony.”

“As we’ve always said, the coordinated campaign of #MeToo lies against Brian Warner will go down as one of the greatest hoaxes of all time,” Warner attorney Howard King said in a statement Thursday. “Women at risk have been manipulated by unscrupulous individuals trying to build their own brands and pursue their own vendettas. This affidavit proves it.”

Manson said in June 2021 that he and Smithline’s relationship lasted less than a week in 2010. “There are so many untruths in their claims that we don’t know where to begin to answer them,” he said in a statement released at the time.

“Please note that the details released do not tally with my personal experience during our 7 years together as a couple,” Warner’s ex-wife Dita Von Teese wrote in 2021 after Wood finally gave a name to vague allegations she had been making for years had raised. “If they had, I wouldn’t have married him … I left 12 months later on charges of infidelity and substance abuse.” At the same time, Von Teese said she supports Warner’s accusers.

In January of that year, when Smithline’s case was dismissed, a New York-based Jane Doe filed a lawsuit accusing Warner of assaulting her on multiple occasions in the 1990s when she was a teenager.

King, Warner’s attorney, said at the time his client did not know the woman and had no recollection of meeting her 28 years ago.

“She’s been shopping for her fabricated story in tabloids and podcasts for more than two years,” King said in a statement at the time. “But even the most minimal scrutiny reveals the apparent discrepancies in their ever-shifting stories, as well as their extensive collusion with other false accusers.”