Fights, drugs, and injuries galore: If Marilyn Manson loves anything, it's shocking people... or trying to, at least.
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00:00Fights, drugs, and injuries galore.
00:02If Marilyn Manson loves anything, it's shocking people.
00:06Or trying to, at least.
00:08The band Marilyn Manson released their first album in 1994.
00:12Almost immediately, Marilyn Manson himself began making headlines for his untoward, relentlessly
00:17provocative, and possibly illegal onstage antics.
00:20I think your quality as an artist is measured equally by people that dislike you and people
00:27that love you."
00:28During a December 1994 show in Jacksonville, not far from the band's origin point of Fort
00:33Lauderdale, Manson performed what appeared to be a sexual act on Jessica, singer for
00:38the band Jack Off Jill, with whom the band had shared a bill.
00:41Jessica was actually wearing a prosthetic recreation of the male sexual organ at the
00:46time, but Manson was still arrested for what he described in his memoir as violating the
00:51Adult Entertainment Code.
00:53For allegedly performing a male-on-male sexual act in public and urinating on members of
00:57his audience, Manson was held overnight by police.
01:01He was later released without charge.
01:03Marilyn Manson usually performs shirtless, a confrontational choice that allows the audience
01:08to see the self-inflicted scars on his body.
01:11While he was a self-described cutter in his youth, Manson gave himself one of his most
01:15prominent and lasting wounds in full view of the crowd.
01:19In 1995, Manson played a concert in San Francisco.
01:23During the show, the musician broke a beer bottle and then used a large piece of the
01:27shattered glass to stab himself in the chest.
01:30In his memoir, Manson recalled,
01:32"...I took the jagged half-bottle and plunged it into the side of my chest, dragging it
01:37across my skin until it reached the other side, and creating one of the deepest and
01:41biggest scars on the latticework that is my torso."
01:46Marilyn Manson broke through into the commercial mainstream with the hit single, The Beautiful
01:49People, in 1996, and a cover of Eurythmics' own hit, Sweet Dreams.
01:54Both the band and the man himself were poised for even more success thanks to the growing
01:58support of the upper echelon of the music industry, and they played a showcase for such
02:03people in New York City in September 1996.
02:06It did not go well.
02:07During the band's set at Manhattan's Irving Plaza venue, Manson reportedly threw his microphone
02:12stand at his drummer, Ginger Fish.
02:15The piece of equipment knocked Fish in the head so squarely and severely that the concert
02:19ended after that song.
02:20Fish, who had been left temporarily unconscious from the blow, was removed from the club via
02:25an ambulance and taken away to receive treatment for his injury.
02:29DJ Moby, who attended the gig, later said,
02:32"...It was disgusting.
02:33I'm waiting to see if the police want witnesses.
02:36That kind of violence is totally unnecessary on stage."
02:40A November 2000 Marilyn Manson show at New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom almost went
02:44off without a hitch.
02:46Apart from the choreographed chaos, that's a requisite part of any of the band's concerts.
02:50"...I represent what everyone's afraid of, because I do and say what I want."
02:56During the last scheduled song of the evening, however, Marilyn Manson himself decided to
03:00tear apart the drum set while Ginger Fish continued playing it.
03:04Fish eventually joined in the fracas, and the bandmates got so caught up in the destruction
03:08of their own gear that the drummer lost his balance and fell onto the stage below.
03:13Manson continued to perform and eventually left the stage with the rest of the band,
03:17while Fish continued to lay immobile on the ground.
03:20About a half an hour later, the house lights came on, and emergency medical workers were
03:24allowed to go up on stage and treat Fish for his injuries.
03:28Doctors at a local hospital diagnosed the drummer with a fractured collarbone.
03:32Meanwhile, the Marilyn Manson website announced,
03:34"...he is feeling fine and will not miss any shows."
03:38The Marilyn Manson Traveling Stage Circus descended on the Detroit area in July 2001
03:43to see the show at the DTE Energy Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan.
03:47Manson did what he usually did during concerts, growling out lyrics and stalking menacingly
03:52about the stage, until he approached security guard Joshua Kiesler, who was standing at
03:57ground level beneath the stage.
03:59While dressed in a stage outfit of skimpy leather underwear and hosiery, Manson twisted
04:03his legs around the neck of the guard and moved around provocatively, simulating sexual
04:08behavior.
04:09After the concert, Manson was arrested by local police.
04:12Initially charged with account of improper sexual conduct, the singer entered a plea
04:16of no contest to disorderly conduct and assault and battery, paying a fine of $4,000.
04:22Kiesler subsequently filed a civil suit, accusing Manson of sexual assault and intentional
04:27infliction of emotional distress.
04:29The two sides reached an out-of-court settlement of an undisclosed sum.
04:34In 2003, Marilyn Manson played Rock Am Ring, a hard rock festival in Germany.
04:40During the band's performance of The Beautiful People, Manson approached his guitarist, John
04:44Five, and kicked him through his instrument and in the chest.
04:47John Five was used to this, calling it a common occurrence on stage, but this time it escalated
04:52into more violence.
04:54He took off his instrument and threw it down after Manson shoved him a few more times and
04:59acted like he wanted a fight.
05:00I was so angry inside and so tired and exhausted, I just snapped.
05:08When John Five backed down, Manson retreated.
05:11Speaking about his reaction to his bandmate's provocation, John Five pointed out that he
05:15was grieving his sister at the time.
05:17I was just, you know, in a state of shock.
05:21John Five left the band just a few months later.
05:25In 2012, the Australian alt-rock festival Soundwave welcomed two headliners fond of
05:30makeup, costumes, and shock value, Marilyn Manson and Slipknot.
05:35Manson played first, and the set progressed less than smoothly, with the band's frontman
05:39engaging in odd and aggressive behaviors.
05:42Aside from frequently telling the crowd how drunk and high on drugs he was, he also dumped
05:46a container of what appeared to be cocaine all over the band's bass player.
05:50When he wasn't singing, he was fighting with stagehands or reciting slurred, improvised,
05:55free-verse poetry instead of lyrics.
05:58The crowd, consisting primarily of ardent Slipknot fans at that point, grew increasingly
06:02agitated by Manson's actions.
06:05When crew members began building the Slipknot stage set as Marilyn Manson was still performing,
06:09audience members repeatedly chanted,
06:11"'Slipknot' over and over," which upset the singer so much that he walked off the stage
06:16in the middle of a song.
06:18When Marilyn Manson acts strangely during a performance, it's usually out of choice,
06:23or because he's consumed a substance of some kind.
06:26On one occasion, however, Manson's antics were attributed to a viral infection.
06:30TCU Place in Saskatchewan hosted a Marilyn Manson concert in February 2013.
06:36The show went along as planned, until the singer repeatedly vomited onstage.
06:40Then, during The Beautiful People, Manson abruptly stopped singing and collapsed where
06:45he stood.
06:46The rest of the band continued on, having believed the singer's barfing to be an act,
06:49but Manson didn't move until stage crew arrived to help him backstage.
06:53Manson went to a hotel room to convalesce.
06:55He had reportedly felt ill before the concert but decided to proceed anyway.
07:00The diagnosis?
07:01Flu.
07:03Marilyn Manson performed in Pittsburgh in September 2017.
07:06While the group tore through The Beautiful People, Manson himself attempted to do a little
07:10crowd work by singing into the faces of the fans behind the barricades separating the
07:14stage from the audience.
07:16As he descended from the stage, however, Manson slipped.
07:19When he headed back up, it was clear that he was having trouble walking.
07:23He ordered his backing band to stop playing and then told the crowd what was going on,
07:26saying,
07:27"'I just broke my ankle, but it's okay because Alice Glass is going to fill in for me.'"
07:32Of course, this was news to Glass, who had opened for Manson that night.
07:36Bafflingly, Manson continued,
07:38"'Come on, you can do it.
07:39I told you I'd break my ankle because the tour manager is a fascist.'"
07:43"'We're in a bully culture where it's, like, names and blames, and we just need to move
07:49past all that.'"
07:51Despite the band's lead singer suffering a hurt ankle at the Pittsburgh show in September
07:552017, Manson's tour continued uninterrupted, heading to New York City for a show at the
08:01Hammerstein Ballroom the very next night.
08:03As the band worked its way through its cover of Sweet Dreams, Manson decided to climb up
08:07onto the centerpiece of the stage decorations.
08:10Witnesses later said that Manson took just one step onto the huge prop, which is all
08:15it took for the entire weighty apparatus to instantly disassemble and fall down on top
08:20of the singer.
08:21Members of the group and stage workers rushed in to rescue Manson, but he still wasn't able
08:26to get back on his feet.
08:27One attendee told the BBC,
08:29"'He was pretty limp, almost as though he was unconscious.'"
08:32Manson was draped with a black cloth and escorted offstage before organizers canceled the show.
08:37The band subsequently called off the rest of their tour.
08:40"'The bone is healed.
08:42It's just the muscle damage, the ligaments.'"
08:47To make up dates after the Hammerstein Ballroom fiasco, Marilyn Manson returned to New York
08:51City in February 2018 for a concert at the Paramount.
08:55That show also ended abruptly, albeit for very different reasons.
08:59On the Paramount's Instagram page, one witness reported,
09:01"'Three songs in and the dude had a mental breakdown.'"
09:05Another fan wrote on X, formerly Twitter,
09:07"'Marilyn Manson put on the worst show I have ever seen, played five songs, f----- about
09:13people not saying I love you, and walked off.'"
09:15Witnesses say Manson repeatedly told the crowd that he was unable to properly sing that night,
09:20but did so anyway to give paying customers what they came to see.
09:24One fan said on Reddit that the singer was also behaving erratically at the pre-show
09:28meet-and-greet.
09:29They wrote,
09:30He was wasted.
09:31He was worse on stage.
09:32Rambled on and on about us loving him."
09:35Finally, during the song Disposable Teens, Manson angrily threw down his microphone,
09:40pushed over an amp, and left the stage.
09:43About ten minutes later, he returned, ranted incoherently while his backing musicians attempted
09:47to play, and then skittered offstage again.
09:50If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
09:55Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
10:00at 1-800-656-HOPE, 1-800-656-4673.