Since Marilyn Manson filed a defamation lawsuit against her earlier this month, Evan Rachel Wood has now publicly addressed her feelings toward the legal action.
Appearing on morning talk show The View, Wood opened up about the lawsuit and how, despite what some may think, she doesn’t feel afraid of what’s to come.
“I can’t obviously speak about any of the specific allegations of the lawsuit,” she told the hosts, adding, “but I am not scared.”
Wood was on the talk show to promote her upcoming two-part HBO documentary Phoenix Rising, which addresses the alleged abuse that she suffered from her former relationship with Manson.
“I am sad because this is how it works. This is what pretty much every survivor that tries to expose someone in a position of power goes through, and this is part of the retaliation that keeps survivors quiet,” she explained.
“This is why people don’t want to come forward. This was expected.”
The 34-year-old actress also admitted that in the face of the lawsuit, she still feels “very confident that I have the truth on my side and that the truth will come out.”
“I’m doing this to protect people. I’m doing this to sound the alarm that there is a dangerous person out there and I don’t want anybody getting near him,” Wood added.
“So people can think whatever they want about me. I have to let the legal process run its course, and I’m steady as a rock.”
In a separate appearance on late night talk show The Daily Show, Wood looked back at when her alleged abuse began, claiming that her involvement in Manson’s 2007 “Heart-Shaped Glasses” music video saw her experience an on-camera assault.
“You’re running, you’re trying to forget that it ever happened, and then, of course, it catches up with you. And I couldn’t run from it,” Wood told host Trevor Noah, adding, “The trauma started to seep into other areas of my life.”
As a result, the Westworld star explained that it lead to her seeking therapy and she admitted her prior plans to take her story “to my grave” because she thought she “was the only one”.
But once she opened up about an alleged sexual assault by an unnamed ex-partner in 2016, everything changed, especially during her testimony at the House Judiciary Committee in 2018 to advocate for the passage of the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act nationwide.
By February 2021, she would come forward with the name of her alleged abuser and would claim that “he started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years”.
Phoenix Rising is set to premiere in Australia on BINGE on March 16, 2021. You can stream the two-part documentary for free with a two-week trial when you sign up here.
