Marilyn Manson Now Owes Nearly $500,000 to Defendants’ Lawyers After Failed Claims
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Marilyn Manson’s penalty for pursuing failed defamation and emotional distress allegations against Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood and artist Illma Gore has ballooned to nearly half a million dollars.
The hefty legal tab first hit six figures back on Jan. 29, when a Los Angeles judge ordered Manson, whose legal name is Brian Warner, to pay $326,956 for the fees Wood racked up defending against the claims struck last May from Warner’s still-pending lawsuit against the two women. On Thursday, the same judge ordered Warner to pay an additional $169,408 to compensate Gore’s lawyers, slightly less than the $204,483 Gore was seeking, sources confirm to Rolling Stone.
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Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teresa A. Beaudet awarded the reimbursements under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which says defendants unfairly sued for exercising their rights of free speech and petition can recover their attorney’s fees and costs from the plaintiff.
It was last May that Judge Beaudet ruled that Wood and Gore were protected by the First Amendment or rights of legal petition when they depicted Warner as sexually abusive, violent or otherwise threatening in communications with others, including prospective fellow accusers. In her ruling, the judge found there was no showing that Wood pressured anyone to make false allegations and that Wood’s participation in support group meetings where she shared her claims that Warner raped, tortured, and threatened her were protected activities. In the case of Gore, the judge further said Warner failed to show Gore “entertained serious doubts” when she alleged that a 1996 short film made by Warner called Groupie depicted child abuse and child pornography
Warner, 55, filed his underlying lawsuit in March 2022. He alleged Wood and Gore conspired to cast him “as a rapist and abuser” in the public eye and claimed the “malicious falsehood” had “derailed” his music, TV, and film career. Though Judge Beaudet largely gutted Warner’s lawsuit with her May ruling, Wood and Gore are still facing claims they conspired to hack into Warner’s computer, impersonate him over the internet, and make a “swatting” call that brought police to his doorstep. A trial is set for May 1.
“For years, Plaintiff Brian Warner raped and tortured Defendant Evan Rachel Wood and threatened retaliation if she told anyone about it. Warner has now made good on those threats by filing the present lawsuit,” Wood and her lawyers wrote in their successful anti-SLAPP motion. Wood said in a declaration that after she testified before Congress about her alleged abuse, several women reached out to her and “claimed to have experienced similar abuse” inflicted by Warner.
Warner is appealing the anti-SLAPP motion ruling. He believes his team “uncovered evidence of malicious intent to ruin his career” and that the fees awarded to Wood and Gore ultimately will be waived, a source close to the case tells Rolling Stone.
The shock rocker has denied Wood’s allegations, as well as the separate claims of abuse from more than a dozen women. Last September, he reached a private settlement with a Jane Doe plaintiff who alleged he brutally raped her in 2011. The Doe accuser claimed Warner deprived her of food and sleep during their abusive dating relationship and that he threatened to “bash her head in” if she reported him. Warner previously reached a separate settlement with Game of Thrones star Esmé Bianco in January 2023. Bianco had alleged Warner raped and battered her.
Ashley Walters, the former assistant who claims Warner sexually assaulted her, whipped her, and threw her against a wall during a drug-induced rage, won a critical appeal in December that revived her previously dismissed lawsuit against the shock rocker. Former accuser Ashley Morgan Smithline, meanwhile, let her lawsuit end in default last year and formally recanted her allegations against Warner.
Last year, another Jane Doe sued Warner for sexual assault.
This story originally published on Jan. 29, 2024 and was updated on Feb. 16, 2024 at 8:56 p.m. E.T. to include an additional penalty Marilyn Manson was ordered to pay to Illma Gore.
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