The True Story Behind 'Wonder Years' Star and Crazy Marilyn Manson Rumor [Video]

Josh Saviano, who played Paul Pfeiffer, once considered getting onstage with the shock rocker.

The True Story Behind 'Wonder Years' Star and Crazy Marilyn Manson Rumor [Video]

Josh Saviano — who played Paul Pfeiffer on the nostalgic dramedy "The Wonder Years" — swears that he's not Marilyn Manson! The rumor has run rampant for years, but Marilyn Manson's real name is Brian Warner, and Paul Saviano is now a New York City corporate attorney. "I think actually it was one of the very first Internet rumors, because it was 1994. The Internet was just sort of becoming mainstream, particularly on college campuses. It was just perfect timing and the perfect storm," Saviano said in a rare on-camera interview for Yahoo!'s "The Yo Show."

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Saviano was a freshman in college when he first heard the rumor, and guess who told him about it? None other than "Wonder Years" hottie Danica McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper. "I had no idea who [Marilyn Manson] was at the time. So I'd spoke to one of my friends at school who did know who he was. It became a progressively more entertaining storyline amongst me and my friends," Saviano dished.

He and his friends even considered orchestrating a grand plan to clear up the rumor by having Saviano go onstage at a Marilyn Manson concert when the band performed near Saviano's college town. They never went through with it, and he's glad they didn't "because 20 years later, it's still out there."

Which other musicians has he been rumored to be? Lady Gaga and the Black Keys' drummer, Patrick Carney. But Saviano doesn't mind at all, saying, "They're beyond my skill set, so I love it."

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What else has the former child star been up to since "The Wonder Years" ended in 1993? He attended Yale and then law school; now, he's behind the camera helping those who are aspiring to make a name for themselves in the arts and entertainment. "What I'm trying to do these days is help individual artists and talent brand themselves — whether it is through a reality television show, or through just being a social media meme, or other skill set that they have," Saviano said. "The fact that I understand the industry, and understood the industry and how it's evolved, only makes it even easier for me to relate to them on the level that I think they need to be related to."

Does he shy away from his child-star past? Not at all. In fact, he embraces it: "It is who I am. There was a time when I wanted to sort of push it away and say, well, I want to be successful in this world on my own and not have to use that. But this is who I am. It was six or seven years of my absolute prime years of growing up."

Did you ever believe that Josh Saviano was Marilyn Manson? Share your thoughts in the comments.