This week, Marilyn Manson was confirmed to support Slipknot in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium next July. He was booked despite the wave of sexual misconduct allegations levelled against him, plus a lawsuit from his former assistant alleging physical, emotional and psychological abuse that’s set to go to trial in November 2027. (The singer denies any wrongdoing, and in 2025 a four-year investigation into his alleged crimes was dropped with no charges filed.) If metal is supposed to uplift the downtrodden, then putting a man accused of wrongdoing by more than a dozen women on one of Europe’s biggest stages feels like the antithesis of everything the genre stands for.
Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, retreated from the public eye after the start of the allegations against him in 2021, but he returned in 2024 with a new record deal and a string of high-profile tour dates. He’s far from the only allegedly problematic figure to have recently made a successful musical comeback. Chris Brown, who in 2009 pleaded guilty to felony assault of his ex-girlfriend Rihanna, and Ye (formerly Kanye West), who made a string of antisemitic statements in 2022, are playing massive venues. Earlier this month, the Guardian published an op-ed about Queen of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme’s cosy image rehabilitation after he kicked a female photographer and his ex-wife accused him of domestic abuse.
Metal, with its long-established identity as a dangerous and anti-mainstream force, appears to be particularly lenient with this kind of figure. The news of Manson touring with Slipknot came three months after Pantera supported Metallica on their second night at the 62,500-capacity London Stadium. In 2016, Pantera singer Phil Anselmo faced widespread backlash for raising his hand and screaming “white power!” onstage at a charity concert. He eventually apologised, but in 2017 gave an interview where he called some of his detractors “phonies”. None of it stopped his band from reuniting to much celebration in 2022. In November, Nuclear Blast Records, the same label to which Manson signed in 2024, will release a new album by Anselmo’s other group, Down.
In February, As I Lay Dying are poised to release a new album. The band split in 2014 after its sole constant member, singer Tim Lambesis, was sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his ex-wife. Then, in 2024, everyone bar Lambesis quit the band, and some disturbing video surfaced online where he’s seen flipping a table that another ex-wife was sitting at. (The former couple have each accused the other of abuse.) As I Lay Dying’s latest single, aptly entitled Polarized, has amassed 560,000 YouTube views in two weeks regardless.
I’m not a metal head. I enjoy some metal music but that scene isn’t one that I feel like I belong in.
But I think there is something to be said for the types of open secrets that exist in Hollywood and the music industry (specifically the American music industry).
R. Kelly abused, assault groomed, and harmed women for years. It was such an open secret that a lot of the Black community in Chicago knew and at least some of those people were complicit. To the point where they were still offering up their under aged daughters to this predator in the hopes that he could get them their big break.
This all was happening long after Aaliyah and her teen marriage to him while he was a grown man. That news was known and authenticated as fact and people still did this.
Other artists still made music with him. He wrote songs about what he’d done, including writing Aaliyah’s songs, several of which implicated him.
There was a lot of talk about “separating the music from the artist” when he was finally sentenced. I drew a line in the sand at that point with both family and friends because it was not okay to me. At the point where the artist is writing music about what they did there is no separating art from the artist.
It seems like this scenario where a popular artist does something terrible and that has been general public knowledge or rumor for a long time ends up becoming a well publicized scandal, there are always going to be people who ape for them regardless of what they have done. We have seen that specifically with P Diddy and Cosby, and Michael Jackson (who I will admit has a questionable chain of events implicating him at best). We saw it with Pee Wee Herman both before and after his death.
It happens because some people don’t want to admit that something they like is problematic. They feel compromised by proxy and they actively avoid that shame and guilt they feel for “enabling a monster” by completely avoiding confronting it. To some extent it’s… clique mechanics. To some extent I think it’s human nature.
I’d also be willing to bet that a lot of people who don’t pay any attention to celebrity news just don’t know.
There are a lot of music artists who have done terrible things and are still popular. Al Green was a wife beater. Marvin Gay was a serial cheater.
Everyone knows the story about Tina Turner and Ike Turner, but would we know that story if it hadn’t been turned into a movie?
I think Sting from the Police cheated on his wife and stole his band mates wife or girlfriend.
My point is, I’m sure there’s some malice involved in people continuing to support Manson. But I would bet a lot of people just aren’t aware of a lot of what he’s accused of (including the newest allegations - this is the first I’ve heard or them).
I’d bet more people are just ignorant than anything else.
I agree with the entirety of your comment, except for Pee Wee. He was the victim of anti-gay policing and he never victimized anyone. It’s a true shame what happened to Paul Ruebens.
Unfortunately while I do agree with you that he was the victim of anti-gay policing, the main problem is that he has also been accused of having CSAM materials and my understanding is that this happened because another person who was also accused of possessing what at the time were called child pornographic materials had ratted him out.
He took a plea deal (confessing to a lesser charge).
I was even willing to go as far as to believe that this was an attempt to persecute him, but the fact that he admitted to owning and knowing about those images (when previously I had understood it as he didn’t know the images were contained in a collection of porn he bought) is why I make the distinction.
Source
I know. I’ve read that article and several others on this topic.
You will note that I didn’t call him a pedophile because that’s not the problem I have with him. I don’t believe he was a pedophile. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t caught in possession of items depicting sexual acts of minors and that is exactly what I am pointing out. I am not claiming that he abused children or that he had any urges to do so. I am pointing out that he admitted to knowing that such images were in the collection (when previously news outlets reported and the public was led to believe he did not know his collection contained the images).
You can stop quoting whole articles I have already read to me.
He did it to avoid a public trial.
I’ll continue to quote whatever the fuck articles I want. You’re free to ignore me if you so choose.
This was an attack on a gay man because he was gay and they smeared his name for no good reason.
Two things can be true at once. One does not negate the other.
And yet you continue to put Paul’s name up with P Diddy and Michael Jackson as if their crimes are in any way comparable.
Disgusting.
It’s incredibly funny you bring up Michael Jackson because there’s quite a lot of controversy around whether or not the testimony about his acts towards children are even true because the stories don’t match up and at least one of the people who accused him has since recanted.
But go off.