Model Ashley Morgan Smithline has shared a statement retracting the “false” sexual assault allegations she made against Marilyn Manson in 2021.
In an interview with People, Smithline detailed her allegations against the singer, claiming he raped her, cut her, and locked her in a soundproof glass room.
Earlier this year, the sexual assault case was dismissed by a California court. The lawsuit was withdrawn after Smithline’s attorney withdrew as her representative in October 2022, and she missed a December deadline to get new representation or represent herself.
Yesterday (February 23), Smithline filed a plea in Los Angeles Superior Court saying he was “rigged” by individuals including another of Manson’s accusers, Evan Rachel Wood, to make the allegations public, which Smithline describes as “false”.
“I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and his associates to make allegations of rape and assault against me. [Manson] that was not true,” he wrote in the statement, seen by People.
She went on to claim that Wood “gassed her repeatedly”, and her new statement said she had a “brief consensual sexual relationship” with Manson in 2010.
“I remember that [Wood] He asked me if I had, among other things, been beaten, chained, tied, marked/cut, sleep-attacked, beaten or raped,” Smithline wrote. “He said all these things had happened to Mrs. Wood and for others, and that’s when Mrs. Wood was with [Manson] Every moment was a moment of survival.”
“When I said no, this didn’t happen to me and it wasn’t my experience, I remember Ms Wood telling me that just because I didn’t remember it didn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen.”
Smithline went on to say that Wood and others suggested that she might be “misremembering” her encounters with Manson, or “suppressing” memories of that time.
He wrote: “Over time, I have come to believe that what I have been repeatedly told happened to Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Bianco happened to me.”
In a statement shared with People, Wood’s rep said: “Evan did not pressure or manipulate Ashley. Ashley was the first person to contact Evan about the abuse she had suffered.
“It is unfortunate that it appears that the harassment and threats Ashley received after filing her federal lawsuit forced her to change her testimony.”
Manson has strongly denied all allegations of sexual misconduct made against him.
Earlier this year, Game of Thrones actors Esmé Bianco and Manson settled out of court in their sexual assault lawsuit against the musician. Bianco went public with her allegations in February 2021, saying the singer’s alleged abuses between 2009 and 2011 made her “[sentirse] like a prisoner.”
The exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but in a statement provided to NME, Bianco’s lawyer confirmed that the actress has agreed to settle her lawsuit against Brian Warner and Marilyn Manson Records, Inc. and business. career”.
For help, advice or more information on sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the charity Rape Crisis website. In the United States, visit RAINN.
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