Phoenix Rising is an upcoming documentary film centred on actor and musician Evan Rachel Wood’s allegations of abuse against Brian Warner, better known as Marilyn Manson.
The film, directed by Amy Berg, looks at Wood’s historical allegations of abuse and how her public admission of Manson’s abuse put her in touch with a network of sexual abuse survivors. In her own words, it’s now her mission “to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
The trailer begins with Wood looking through her old diaries. She admits, “It’s always really hard for me to look at photos of myself from before.” The film includes the claim that Manson raped Wood during the making of his ‘Heart-Shaped Glasses’ music video in 2007, filmed when Wood was 19 years old.
Wood, who is now 34 years old, entered a relationship with Manson in 2006. They got engaged in 2010, before breaking up later that year. In February 2021, Wood alleged that Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
“He studied how to manipulate people,” says Wood’s mother, Sara Lynn Moore, in the Phoenix Rising trailer. “He groomed her. He’s a predator.” An abuse expert explains that, “Statistically, a lot of victims take seven to ten years to even recognise that they were a victim of this abuse.”
Watch the trailer below. Part one, Don’t Fall, is airing on HBO on Tuesday, 15th March, and part two, Stand Up, on Wednesday, 16th March. We expect it to be available to stream on Binge shortly thereafter.
