Channel 4’s Marilyn Manson: Unmasked makes for horrifying but essential viewing
“The lines between acceptable hedonism and criminal conduct in music have always been extremely blurry,” says Jason Newman, news director for Rolling Stone, in Channel 4’s gripping three-part documentary, Marilyn Manson: Unmasked. It is exactly this “blurriness” that the musician born Brian Warner is said to have manipulated in order to carry out sickening abuse and assault of multiple women over his decades-long career (he denies all of the allegations against him).
With his deathly white makeup, jet-black hair and provocative lyrics, the US shock rocker had always courted controversy. But in 2021, his former partner Evan Rachel Wood, known to many as the star of the hit drama series Westworld, accused him of psychological, physical and sexual abuse during their three-year relationship. Channel 4 sets out to investigate – through testimony from his accusers, as well as those who worked with and for him over the years – the man behind the mask and whether it was this “character” that helped him evade scrutiny for so many years.
From the first episode, it is made abundantly clear that Warner’s magnetism and charm played a huge role in his success. “He was very charismatic and I was drawn to that,” superfan Jennifer Pavao recalls. She is instantly likeable – one of those people who always seems cheerful – as she details how she struggled to fit in when her family moved to Florida. It was only when she stumbled upon Warner’s band, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, after they formed in 1990, that she felt as though she’d found her tribe.
Pavao, then 14, was one of hundreds of disillusioned teenagers who felt drawn to Warner’s captivating onstage presence, his provocative image and clear disregard for “the norm”. She was delighted when she got through to a hotline the band had set up for fans and found she was speaking to Warner himself. She and her friends started carrying children’s lunchboxes after seeing Warner and his bandmates do the same; the band called them “the lunchbox girls”.
Marilyn Manson: A timeline of the allegations against the embattled rock star
“When I watch these movies about Charles Manson and his Family, it does strike a chord where these little adoring followers are looking up to you and nobody really understands why,” she says. Warner was always respectful with his younger female fanbase, she insists, before pausing. “One of my lunchboxes he signed, and he wrote, ‘To Jen, you cum-guzzling gutterslut, love Marilyn.’” She didn’t realise at the time how inappropriate that was. The first time she saw a penis in real life, she believes, is when Manson exposed himself during a show. “Did I just miss all of this?” she asks, a concerned frown briefly clouding that cheery demeanour. Watching Pavao wrestle with her love of Warner’s music and what she has heard of his alleged behaviour towards women is one of the most affecting throughlines of the documentary.
Later, the documentary demonstrates how musicians and other celebrities accused of abuse can sit back while many of their fans speak out on their behalf. Online, women are bombarded with abuse from loyalists who mock them in videos or leave appalling comments, so convinced are they of their hero’s innocence. In episode three, in particular, the documentary examines how Warner established layers of protection – the devoted fans, the apathetic band, the crew silenced by money, the supposedly oblivious record label, the media thrilled by his antics – that were near-impossible to penetrate.
Episode two, meanwhile, introduces us to Wood, whose allegations sparked a wider investigation and prompted Warner’s record label to drop him in 2021. While the actor, now 37, has spoken about her alleged experiences with Warner at length before, it is still haunting to hear her recount how she first met the musician when she was 18, “just fresh out of mum’s house” and adjusting to early fame thanks to her performance in the critically acclaimed film Thirteen. She recalls “this big dark pale man” walking up to her at a party at the Chateau Marmont and saying he admired the movie, before telling her he was making his own film.
“I saw him as a well-established, much older man who was married to Dita Von Teese, a beautiful, established burlesque model,” Wood says. But early on, she claims, Warner spoke negatively about his marriage while telling her that she inspired him. “That felt good,” she says. She speaks matter-of-factly, for the most part, about how their relationship grew more and more toxic, particularly after the traumatic shoot for his music video, “Heart-Shaped Glasses”. The details are horrifying.
Marilyn Manson: Unmasked does an admirable job of challenging the victim-blaming narrative that questions why someone trapped in a cycle of abuse didn’t speak up at the time, or why they only spoke out when others did. The media circus surrounding the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial is just one example of this pervasive trope – Wood claims that one of Warner’s accusers recanted her statement after seeing the level of online abuse Heard suffered during the highly publicised 2022 defamation trial.
The documentary deftly points out the systems that permit figures such as Warner to go for decades unchecked. Newman says that many of Warner’s statements about his treatment of women were dismissed as “typical rock star behaviour” by the music press. Maybe after this documentary, the next time a rock star tells us they’re a monster, we’ll believe them.
‘Marilyn Manson: Unmasked’ airs on 14, 15 and 16 January at 9pm on Channel 4.
