Marilyn Manson Told Us Who He Was
The rock star abused women for years—but we were so used to pop-culture misogyny that we didn’t notice
When I was growing up in the 1990s, it was a sign of sophistication to like Marilyn Manson. He was the go-to signifier of edginess for suburban white kids, a man who embodied all that was ugliest in the world, but who did it, like, ironically. He sang songs from the perspective of abortion clinic shooters and the Antichrist. He used unredacted n-words and endorsed fascism in his biggest singles. For his fans — and I was very much among them — taking all that in stride, without getting offended, was a way to prove our own cool. Manson was a performance artist, we told ourselves, whose act highlighted the most unsavory corners of society. We were too smart to take his music at face value, let alone be shocked.
But Marilyn Manson was also, by his own account, an abuser of women. In his memoir, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Manson tells the story of getting rid of a troublesome ex-girlfriend named Nancy by calling her up and telling her “if you don’t leave town, I’m going to have you killed.” In his own words, “I wasn’t exaggerating… I began mapping out different ways I could carry out my threat to Nancy with the least possible risk to myself.” The murder was planned out meticulously, down to…
