New updates in Marilyn Manson’s defamation court case against Evan Rachel Wood and Ilma Gore: the legal team of the musician also known as Brian Warner has filed a declaration statement from Ashley Morgan Smithline, one of his accusers, into evidence, per Pitchfork. First filed in June 2022, Smithline’s lawsuit was dismissed in January 2023 after she failed to hire new legal representation. The A.V. Club has reached out to both Warner and Woods’ respective legal teams for comment.
In the declaration statement, Smithline recants her allegations against Warner, claiming that Wood and Gore “manipulated” her into making false accusations and she ultimately “succumbed to pressure.” Smithline also states that she never gave her attorney permission to file the initial lawsuit.
Smithline first went public with descriptions of Warner’s alleged abuse in a February 2021 statement on Instagram— she later further detailed her experiences to People Magazinein May 2021. She accused Warner of rape, sexual assault, and coercion. “I have bonded with the five other main girls who went through this, and we have found such a strength in numbers,” she shared at the time. “And our stories are all fucking identical, it’s disgusting.”
In the same People interview, Smithline revealed to the magazine a scar on her upper thigh that she claimed was a result of Warner carving his initials into her skin. In her new statement, Smithline denies that Warner ever carved or branded her.
Read Smithline’s full declaration statement, obtained by Pitchfork, below:
I, Ashley Lindsay Morgan Smithline, declares as follows:
1. In November 2010, I had a brief, consensual sexual relationship with Brian Warner, also known as Marilyn Manson, during a trip I took to Los Angeles from Thailand, where I was living.
2. Ten years later, I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.
3. In 2020, I was contacted by either Ashley Walters or Illma Gore to participate in a group meeting of women who, they said, had relationships or experiences with Mr. Warner. (I knew Ms. Walters from my trip to Los Angeles in 2010. She was Mr. Warner’s assistant, and she arranged my travel. I also spent time with her during the trip.) Ultimately, I participated in at least one such group call and a meeting that was filmed in October 2020 (which I only later learned was for Phoenix Rising). From this time in 2020 through June 2021, I had many communications with Ms. Wood.
4. During my conversations with Ms. Wood, she described acts allegedly committed by Mr. Warner against Ms. Wood and other supposed victims and asked me whether the same things happened to me. I remember she asked me whether I had been, among other things, whipped, chained, tied up, branded/cut, assaulted while sleeping, beaten, or raped. She said all of these things happened to Ms. Wood and others, and that when Ms. Wood was with Mr. Warner every moment was a moment of survival. When I said, no this did not happen to me and this was not my experience, I recall being told by Ms. Wood that just because I could not remember did not necessarily mean that it did not happen.
