Marilyn Manson’s Home Raided, Hard Drives Seized by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department has raided the home of shock rocker Marilyn Manson, TMZ reports.
As you likely guessed, the raid was connected to the myriad of assault charges brought against the singer this year. Police reportedly “seized media storage units, including hard drives, which will be reviewed before the case is submitted to the Los Angeles County District Attorney.”
Manson is said not to have been home at the time of the raid.
A flood of charges against Manson (né Brian Warner) began in February, when Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood alleged that Manson “horrifically abused me for years.” She elaborated on those accusations a week later, at which point she also said that Manson’s wife, Lindsay Usich, and someone named Leslee Lane were “conspiring to release photos of me when I was UNDERAGE, after being given large amounts of drugs and alcohol, after Brian performed on Halloween in Las Vegas, to ‘ruin my career’ and ‘shut me up.’”
A deluge of similar accusations from other women followed Wood’s, including Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco, model/actress Ashley Morgan Smithline and a Jane Doe, all of whom sued Manson. Manson called the accusations against him “horrible distortions of reality,” but the singer was dropped by his label, Loma Vista, his agency, CAA, and his manager of 25 years, Tony Ciulla. He was also fired from television roles on the programs American Gods and Creepshow.
In July, a lawyer for Manson continued to deny the claims, asserting that Bianco and others were co-conspirators “trying to conflate the imagery and artistry of Warner’s ‘shock rock’ stage persona … with fabricated accounts of abuse.” But earlier this month, Manson’s attorney stated that the vocalist is open to a “global mediation” (i.e., a mass settlement with all of his alleged victims).
In August, Manson made his first public appearance since his the deluge of allegations against him began, joining Kanye West on stage at an event promoting the rapper’s new album, Donda. Manson also lent his voice to that record and is now ostensibly pursuing a conversion to Christianity with Kanye’s lead.
As a result of Manson’s contributions to Donda, he scored two Grammy nominations last week, in the Album of the Year category and in the Best Rap Song category (for the Donda cut “Jail”). Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of The Recording Academy (a.k.a. “The People Who Give Out the Grammys”), defended Manson’s nominations, declaring that “We won’t restrict the people who can submit their material for consideration. We won’t look back at people’s history, we won’t look at their criminal record.”
