In HBO’s Harrowing ‘Phoenix Rising,’ Evan Rachel Wood Details the Abuse She Endured From Marilyn Manson

Alci Rengifo

Since the #MeToo movement, a wave of documentaries have detailed the scarring experiences of women, both famous and not. HBO’s two-part docuseries, “Phoenix Rising,” is about one of these well-known women. Precisely because Evan Rachel Wood has fame and privilege, her story takes on a potent meaning. It shows how status never guarantees safety from abuse, manipulation and fear. Her case has proved divisive after she outed former boyfriend, Marilyn Manson, as a violent serial abuser. Even now, making an accusation against someone like Manson triggers defensive reactions from fans and skeptics. But Wood’s testimonial as chronicled in this docuseries by director Amy Berg rings with a sincerity hard to dismiss. There was a time in the ‘90s and early aughts when Manson’s music and image sowed terror all over American suburbia. Behind the scenes, he had become the terror of Wood and multiple other women.

The title of the docuseries is taken from the Phoenix Act, which is the legislation Wood and other survivors gathered to champion in order to change the statute of limitations in California. When Wood testified about having been the victim of a predatory relationship, few legal options existed because her experiences had already been more than a decade in the past. That Wood had been Manson’s girlfriend was no secret and provided much tabloid fodder. What “Phoenix Rising” examines in detail is what was going on beyond the public image. When Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, met Wood he was 36 and she was 18. The year was 2007 and Wood was a rising young actor who had garnered acclaim for the 2003 film “Thirteen,” a striking portrait of restless adolescence. By then, Manson was more than a decade removed from his glory days as the provocative rock vocalist behind albums like “Antichrist Superstar” and “Mechanical Animals,” but retained a major following. He was also married at the time to burlesque artist Dita Von Teese. Wood admits to having been taken in by the very idea of Manson’s stage persona, which made her vulnerable to his grooming her. It’s stunning now to see how the media overlooked the age gap and preferred to slut shame Wood for appearing in the sexually violent music video for Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses.”

What was actually happening was Wood finding herself entrapped by the older Manson, who took advantage of her inexperience and insecurities. She recalls discovering her bisexuality and admiring Manson’s androgynous style. “Phoenix Rising” has the feel of watching Wood in real time come to terms with what she wants to reveal. The editing cuts back and forth between dives into the past and footage of Wood in 2019 and 2020 working with artist Illma Gore to document her memories, visual evidence and anything else that exposes what she endured with Manson. Wood is also very open about her childhood and its lingering aftershocks. She was born in Raleigh, North Carolina to two actors, Sara Lynne Moore and Ira David Wood. While this undoubtedly gave Wood the artistic gene, she describes the home as rather unstable (David was virtually an absent parent). Eventually Sara Lynne would literally flee with her daughter to Los Angeles, where Wood would begin landing child actor roles.

It is essential for Wood to tell her story because it also shows how insidious a predator can then be when finding a victim’s sensitive emotional areas. Manson made Wood feel not only wanted but like a lifeline. She remembers him praising her as a muse fueling his new music. He wanted to cast her in his never-made film about Lewis Carroll. It all quickly spiraled to nightmarish levels. Wood branded an M near her vagina. She went on tour with Manson where physical abuse and entrapment followed. It escalated to rape in various forms. Wood recounts being penetrated without consent by Manson while filming the “Heart-Shaped Glasses” video, which at the time inspired Perez Hilton to slam her as “Evan Rachel Whore.” She would also be continuously raped while unconscious or drugged at Manson’s Los Angeles home. Whippings and suicide threats if she left were also part of the picture. When Wood needed to get an abortion, Manson expected her to make dinner after coming back from the procedure.

While “Phoenix Rising” never makes excuses for Manson’s behavior, Berg does give space to probing Manson’s backstory for the early, telling signs of a personality that can become monstrously abusive. Now the patterns are glaringly clear in the rocker’s bestselling 1998 autobiography, “The Long Hard Road Out of Hell.” Berg uses excerpts from the book where Manson describes violence towards women, including his own mother. A stage attitude that in the ‘90s came across as rebellious and provocative now looks like a man full of acute rages, fueled by alcohol and drugs. Backstage footage of Manson pounding doors and ceiling lights says more about his psychology than anything else. In an interview he discusses a short film he made titled “Groupie,” where a woman is tortured. When original guitarist Twiggy Ramirez re-joins the band, Wood remembers Manson becoming even more abusive as if he wanted to prove he was still the beast from the early days. Behind most abusers there’s an insecurity that fuels toxic needs for dominance. 

The docuseries does have a few weaker sections, mostly when regarding the Phoenix Act itself. Berg gives little attention to the actual battle to get the legislation passed and it’s all covered briefly only in the first episode. Other moments where the camera mundanely lingers around Wood, while she texts or plays with her young son, also feel like extra material necessary to justify a longer running time. The docuseries makes up for it with the more powerful moments where other women who were abused by Manson over the years come forward, meet with Wood and share their traumas. Although Wood had revealed her plight in 2018, she had not yet named Manson and the docuseries builds up to her finally doing so in 2021 and risking the ire of enraged fans and doubters. When death threats begin arriving, it’s another example of why victims fear exposing powerful predators. 

Manson is currently being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and no official charges have been brought against the singer. Manson has also issued his own lawsuit against Wood for defamation. But Wood’s testimonial in “Phoenix Rising” is damning enough for the court of public opinion. For some viewers, it might be easy to just nod and say, “of course,” because Manson’s image was always dark and violent. But not every abuser leaves signals strewn around in music videos and lyrics. As a famous musician, Manson could publicly indulge in his obsessions and pass them off as part of an artistic persona. Countless other women are entrapped by abusers who are not famous but will display the same patterns and alarms. Not every victim has the kind of access that allows Wood to tell her story on HBO, which is also why it matters that she has made this choice. She could have stayed quiet and just moved on. Instead, she tells a story that should resonate beyond the world of celebrity, because monsters can prowl anywhere.

“Phoenix Rising” airs in two parts on March 15 and March 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.