Ashley Smithline; Marilyn Manson.Photo: Jana Cruder; Richard Shotwell/INvision/AP/Shutterstock
One month after her lawsuit against Marilyn Manson wasdismissed, model Ashley Morgan Smithline has filed a sworn statement rescinding her sexual abuse allegations, as she claims she was “manipulated” into accusing the rocker of psychological, sexual and physical abuse.
A rep for Wood denied that was the case in a statement to PEOPLE.
“Evan never pressured or manipulated Ashley. It was Ashley who first contacted Evan about the abuse she had suffered,” the statement read. “It’s unfortunate that the harassment and threats Ashley received after filing her federal lawsuit appear to have pressured her to change her testimony.”
Marilyn Manson.Frazer Harrison/Getty
Smithline wrote that over conversations with theWestworldactress, she began to question whether Manson actually had abused her, and says Wood and others suggested she “may just be misremembering” and “repressing” her memories of their time together.
“Eventually, I started to believe that what I was repeatedly told happened to Ms. Wood and Ms. Bianco happened to me,” she wrote.
Around January 2021, Smithline says she was encouraged to publicly name Manson as her abuser, and did so in an Instagram post that February. She now says that public statement — as well as an interview she gave to PEOPLE and thecivil complaint she filed in June 2021— “contained untrue statements” about the star, “including that there was violence and non-consensual sexual activity.”
Smithline also says Manson never branded or cut her body as she previously claimed.
Attorneys for Gore and a rep for Smithline did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Manson has repeatedly denied Smithline’s allegations, and said in a July court declaration that their relationship — as well as his relationships with at least three accusers — was “consensual.”
Smithline was the fourth woman to file suit against the star, and at least 15 other women have accused him of sexual assault. He has denied all allegations, which he has called “horrible distortions of reality.”
source: people.com
