In the official trailer for the HBO documentary, the 'Westworld' actress talks about the emotional 'feeling of being believed' after speaking up about the accused abuser's crimes.

• Feb 23, 2022

AceShowbiz - Evan Rachel Wood is opening up more about Marilyn Manson's alleged sexual abuse. In the official trailer of "Phoenix Rising", the "Westworld" actress details accusations she made against her former lover.

"It's always really hard for me to look at photos of myself from before," the 34-year-old actress begins telling her story in the preview of the two-part HBO documentary. "I'm here to talk about Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson," says the Old Dolio depicter in "Kajillionaire".

The documentary also features interviews with Evan Rachel's relatives. In it, her mother Sara Lynn Moore accuses the "We Are Chaos" artist of grooming her daughter and studying "how to manipulate people. He's a predator." In the meantime, Evan Rachel's brother Ira Wood IV chimes in, "Everybody was looking at Marilyn Manson and they weren't looking at Brian Warner."

"Numerous women heard my story, and knew exactly who it was," Evan Rachel, who named Marilyn as her alleged abuser in an Instagram post last year, declares. The documentary also explores her efforts with The Phoenix Act which would see the statute of limitations extended in cases in California involving domestic violence.

"I became an activist, fighting for victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault," Evan Rachel continues explaining. "Not only did people hear our stories but they said, 'Yeah, we hear you, and something does need to change.' We need to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else."

Evan Rachel goes on to claim that after her admissions and meetings with other sexual assault survivors, she realizes that her views are finally resonating. "I realized that this is the first time I haven't been doubted or questioned or shamed, this is the first time that someone was really listening," she says, before adding, "I was like, 'What is this feeling?' And it's this feeling of being believed."

In the documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Evan Rachel claimed that Marilyn's "first crime" against her took place while filming the rocker's 2007 "Heart-Shaped Glasses" music video when she was 19 years old.

The music video features Evan Rachel groping her genital area and having sex with the "Beautiful People" crooner, whom she claimed "horrifically abused" her for years, while fake blood rains down on the duo. However, in the documentary, which was directed by Amy Berg, the "True Blood" alum insists that she "had never agreed to that" and that "was complete chaos."

"It's nothing like I thought it was going to be," Evan Rachel stresses. "We're doing things that were not what was pitched to me. We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real."

Evan Rachel adds, "I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses." She goes on saying, "That's when the first crime was committed against me. I was essentially raped on-camera."

Responding to the shocking accusations, Marilyn vehemently denied the claims via his lawyer Howard King. Howard went on to note that Rachel's accusations were "brazen" and easily debunked.

"Of all the false claims that Evan Rachel Wood has made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling of the making of the 'Heart-Shaped Glasses' music video 15 years ago is the most brazen and easiest to disprove," said Howard. The attorney then reasoned, "Because there were multiple witnesses."

"Evan was not only fully coherent and engaged during the three-day shoot but also heavily involved in weeks of pre-production planning and days of post-production editing of the final cut," Howard continued. The attorney added that the simulated sex scene "took several hours to shoot with multiple takes using different angles and several long breaks in between camera setups." He further stressed that his client "did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth."