Trent Reznor SLAMS Marilyn Manson As Shock Rocker's Story About Sexually Assaulting A Woman Together Resurfaces

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Now that Evan Rachel Wood has gone public with her accusations of abuse against ex Marilyn Manson, along with multiple other women coming forward, folks are finally starting to put the shock rocker’s past words under a microscope. And they should also be using a blacklight because it is NOT good. One horrible nugget that has resurfaced this week is a passage from his 1998 autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, in which he actually admits to an act of sexual assault.

But it isn’t just himself he inculpates in the disgusting anecdote — his collaborator and friend at the time, Trent Reznor, is also a key player in what reads to us like a blatant criminal act. In the passage, Manson tells the story of tricking two women into drinking full glasses of tequila (while he had replaced his with beer) until one passed out. They took the one who was still conscious, Manson says, and blindfolded and “poked our fingers into the birth cavity.” But that wasn’t enough — Manson wrote:

“But we knew we must continue with our debasement of this poor unsuspecting person. So I found a cigarette lighter, and I started to burn her pubic hair. Though it didn’t hurt her, it didn’t help things smell any better than they already did.”

Ugh. There is not enough ewwwww in the world for this… It’s one thing to learn Manson actually admitted to some of the types of degrading, misogynist behavior he called “horrible distortions of reality” earlier this week. But did Trent Reznor really take part? As the story started to spread across the internet, the Nine Inch Nails frontman gave a statement to Pitchfork both denying it ever happened AND explicitly denouncing Manson:

“I have been vocal over the years about my dislike of Manson as a person and cut ties with him nearly 25 years ago. As I said at the time, the passage from Manson’s memoir is a complete fabrication. I was infuriated and offended back when it came out and remain so today.”

Hmm… Do we believe him? Manson has been caught making up stories in the past. Is it just part of his persona? Was this actually the “distortion of reality”?

Reznor not only signed Manson but also worked on the ’90s albums Portrait of an American Family and Antichrist Superstar. So the two were tight for a while. But apparently not for some time. We don’t know if it’s actually been 25 years, but the Closer singer has been slamming his former pal for over a decade. He was quoted telling Mojo of Manson way back in 2009:

“He is a malicious guy and will step on anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of decency. Seeing him now, drugs and alcohol now rule his life and he’s become a dopey clown.”

Ouch. We hope he removed his nine inch nails before that slap. Innerestingly Manson actually claimed the two had reconciled, telling Zane Lowe in 2017:

“He’s the one who’s actually sent me an email, we had sort of mended ways after a long time through [Manson collaborator and producer] Tyler Bates strangely enough… He goes and he said in the email something along the lines of, ‘It really pisses me off that music’s not dangerous anymore and it reminds me of how great you were and I was and the time, the era.'”

Hmm. Does that sound like something a guy who has been married for over a decade and writes film scores all day would write? If it is true, it’s seriously disgusting. But at this point we’re not really invested in trusting Manson’s word on anything. Let us know what YOU think in the comments (below)!

[Image via Ivan Nikolov/LK/WENN.]