Just days after former Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco filed suit against Marilyn Manson and his former manager in U.S. District Court alleging that the singer sexually assaulted and terrorized her on various occasions during their relationship, another one of the disgraced shock rocker’s former girlfriends has come forward with shocking allegations of her own.
To date, Manson, 52, has been accused by a number of women of sexual, physical and psychological abuse, and in a harrowing interview with People magazine, Ashley Morgan Smithline alleged she suffered similarly at the singer’s hands.
“I survived a monster,” Smithline, 36, told the magazine four months after she first claimed in an Instagram post that Manson abused her. In the Feb. 1 post, she alleged that her relationship with the singer included “abuse, sexual violence, physical violence and coercion.” During their two-year relationship, Smithline told People, Manson allegedly bit and whipped her, cut her with a knife featuring a Nazi swastika symbol, and shoved his fist in her mouth during sex.
She also claimed that he forced her into a blood pact and locked her in a soundproof glass “bad girls’ room” whenever she angered him. The pair reportedly began dating in summer of 2010 when Manson reached out with the promise of a role in a film, intriguing her with his “endless intelligence” and chats about literature and foreign films.
Smithline said in her interview that Manson barraged her with dozens of texts at all hours of the day and night, and also allegedly asked Ashley — who is of Jewish descent — to find him some Nazi memorabilia to bring back to him in Los Angeles. “He kind of made it like this is just like a joke between us,” she told the mag. “I think at that point, I was already coerced enough that I felt he would not like me if I didn’t bring those things. If I’d known the weapons would be used on me, I think it would have felt a lot stranger.”
In allegations that are chillingly similar to those of Manson’s other accusers — which include former fiancee, actress Evan Rachel Wood — Smithline claimed Manson whipped her, bound her arms, raped her in her sleep and cut her as part of a “blood pact” in which he drank her blood and asked her to drink his.
“At one point I asked him, ‘Do you want me to kill myself? Do you want me to just f—ing kill myself?’” she said. The relationship continued for several years, with her healing process kicking off in September 2020 when she met with Wood, Bianco and several other alleged Manson victims.
“Being with the other girls, these feelings of guilt and shame have lessened,” said Smithline, who says she suffers from OCD, night terrors and PTSD as a result of her alleged abuse at Manson’s hands. A spokesperson for the rocker told People they “strongly deny her claims.”
Billboard has reached out to Manson’s attorney, and has previously made several attempts to reach the musician for comment through his now former management, but has not received any responses.
On May 1, the Associated Press reported that Manson denied Bianco’s allegations with a statement from attorney Howard E. King: “These claims are provably false. To be clear, this suit was only filed after my client refused to be shaken down by Ms. Bianco and her lawyer and give in to their outrageous financial demands based on conduct that simply never occurred. We will vigorously contest these allegations in court and are confident that we will prevail.”
Manson also previously denied Wood’s allegations. “Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in a Feb. 1 Instagram post after Wood publicly named him as her abuser. “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.”
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
