Police eye Marilyn Manson in domestic violence investigation

LOS ANGELES — Detectives are investigating allegations of domestic violence against rocker Marilyn Manson involving incidents that occurred about a decade ago in West Hollywood, authorities said Friday.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau opened the investigation after a woman approached authorities to report the allegations, sheriff’s Lt. John Adams said. The incidents reportedly occurred between 2009 and 2011, when Manson lived in the city of West Hollywood.

“Our people are just in the very beginning stages of an investigation into this,” Adams said. He would not describe the allegations or say when the woman came forward.

Word of the investigation came less than three weeks after actor Evan Rachel Wood publicly accused Manson, her ex-fiancé, of sexual and other physical abuse, alleging she was “manipulated into submission” during their relationship.

Adams declined to identify the woman who contacted the Sheriff’s Department, as is typical in domestic violence cases.

Manson, 52, whose real name is Brian Warner, has denied Wood’s allegations as “horrible distortions of reality.”

Wood, 33, who stars on HBO’s “Westworld,” had previously spoken about being abused in a relationship but did not name the person until she detailed the allegations on Instagram on Feb. 1.

“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood said. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.”

The relationship between Wood and Manson became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19. They were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up.

Manson responded to Wood’s allegations with his own Instagram post the same day as her post.

“My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners,” his post said. “Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”

In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Manson over allegations of assault, battery and sexual assault dating to 2011, saying they were limited by statutes of limitations and a lack of corroboration. The accuser in that case was identified only as a social acquaintance of Manson.

He denied the allegations through his attorney at the time. The lawyer could not be reached for comment Friday.

The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they were victims of sexual assault but named Wood because of her decision to speak out publicly.

Stefanie Dazio, The Associated Press