Alice Cooper Talks Marilyn Manson
Alice Cooper is the latest high-profile member of the music industry to comment on the recent abuse allegations against Marilyn Manson.
Asked about those accusations by NME, Cooper said:
“It’s funny about Marilyn in that I know Marilyn — when we toured together, we got along very well. I never noticed that streak in him, if it’s there. I always believe in the word — still, allegations are still allegations.”
Cooper went on to defend the actor Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands). Cooper and Depp, alongside Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, play together in the band Hollywood Vampires. Depp has been accused of assault his ex-wife, Amber Heard (Aquaman, The Stand).
“First of all, here’s a prime example: Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp and I are best friends. I’ve never seen him lift a finger against anybody. He’s one of the most gentle people. And all of his former girlfriends and wives say the same thing. So it’s really hard to believe that all of a sudden he’s gonna turn into this monster. And I know the guy — I’m with the guy on tour all the time. He’s one of the most gentle, harmless people I’ve ever met.
“Now I don’t know Marilyn, though, as well as I know Johnny. So what happens in the bedroom is entirely a mystery to me for what’s going on with Marilyn.”
You can listen to the entire interview below.
On February 1, the actress Evan Rachel Wood — a star of HBO’s Westworld and Manson’s former fiancée — said that Manson (born Brian Warner) “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.’”
While Wood has implied in the past that Manson abused her, this has been the first time she explicitly named the shock rocker. Since then, there’s been a deluge of similar accusations from other women. Earlier, a former assistant claimed that he had seen Manson physically and emotionally abuse Usich.
Manson has called the previous accusations against him “horrible distortions of reality.” But the fallout has already been tremendous, with the singer being dropped by his label, Loma Vista, and his agency, CAA. He was also fired from television roles on the programs American Gods and Creepshow and by his longtime manager, Tony Ciulla, who dropped his client after 25 years of working together.
Two former Manson collaborators, Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland and Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor, have both spoken out against the shock rocker. Borland called Manson “a bad fucking guy” and asserted that his victims “are speaking the truth,” while Reznor said that he has “been vocal over the years about my dislike of Manson as a person and cut ties with him nearly 25 years ago.” He also denied, not for the first time, a story from Manson’s memoir, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, in which the singer claims that he and Reznor plied two women with alcohol and then took advantage of them once they were heavily inebriated.
Otep frontwoman Otep Shamaya shared an unsettling story about Manson over the weekend, as did singer/songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. The actor Corey Feldman has also accused Manson of “decades [of] mental and emotional abuse.”
Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy’s wife and manager, addressed calls to comment on Manson by saying her relationship with him was strictly business and that she wasn’t privy to his personal life.
On Wednesday, February 3, police reportedly “swarmed” Manson’s home after a friend contacted authorities to say they couldn’t reach the singer and were concerned for his well-being. Although Manson never emerged from his house, a rep for the singer told police he was “fine.” Two weeks later, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department confirmed it was investigating the singer.
California State Senator Susan Rubio has requested that the FBI investigate Manson, and one victim, Bianca Allaine, has said that she is, indeed, meeting with federal agents. There has been no word as to whether or not the LA Sheriff’s investigation or Allaine’s meeting with the FBI is in any way connected to Rubio’s request.
