Game of Thrones star Esmé Bianco is joining the group of women who have come forward with claims of assault and abuse against musician Marilyn Manson.
The actress and burlesque performer details her relationship with Manson, whom she calls a “monster who almost destroyed me and almost destroyed so many women” in a story in New York magazine that was published Wednesday. In the piece, she alleges that during the years-long relationship, Manson assaulted her without consent in a music video shoot and during sex, rigidly set rules for her life and once chased her with an ax.
According to Bianco, who says she entered into a relationship with Manson in 2009 when she was 26 years old, the singer first became violent with her while shooting a music video for the song “I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies.” Though Manson initially said the role would require Bianco to “pretend to like being manhandled by me,” during production Bianco says he whipped her, tied her up with cables and used a violet wand sex toy, which produces electricity, on injuries. Bianco says the two never discussed consent.
After the shoot, Bianco and Manson began an affair, and she moved in with him in 2011. During that time, she says he controlled her schedule, what she could wear and when she could leave his apartment, bit her during sex without consent, and once cut her with a knife and later sent an image of the injuries to his then-assistant and a bandmate. “I basically felt like a prisoner,” Bianco told New York. “I came and went at his pleasure. Who I spoke to was completely controlled by him. I called my family hiding in the closet,” she says.
Bianco says she fled Manson’s apartment in June 2011, not long after Manson had chased her around the place with an ax, and later broke up with him.
Manson’s lawyer did not respond to Bianco’s claims when reached by New York. After Evan Rachel Wood came forward with claims of abuse in early February — and now more than a dozen women have told their own stories — Manson responded with the following statement: “Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
Since Wood came forward with her story, Manson has been dropped by his record label, Loma Vista Recordings, and his appearances were scrubbed from upcoming episodes of the Shudder series Creepshow and Starz’s American Gods. He has also been dropped by his agency, CAA.
Bianco worked with Wood to advocate for California’s Phoenix Act to extend the statute of limitations for reporting domestic violence. The Act passed in California in 2020. Bianco went public with claims of abuse while testifying, but never named her abuser.
Bianco’s attorney, Jay Ellwanger, also said that she has been interviewed by the FBI and has given evidence regarding potential human trafficking and sex crime claims. The FBI told New York in a statement, “We never confirm or deny investigations.”
Bianco is the first Manson accuser to come forward with allegations against Manson around human trafficking. Elaborating during a follow-up interview with ABC’s Good Morning America on Thursday, the actress said, “I was coerced, I was defrauded, I was transported from the U.K. to the U.S., I was harbored, and then I was coerced into involuntarily servitude, which included sexual abuse and physical abuse.”
After educating herself about domestic sex trafficking, Bianco said, “I wish I had known what I know now, that you can be trafficked by an intimate partner.”
Feb. 11, 8:20 a.m. Updated to include Bianco’s GMA interview.
About Post Author
