Letting it spill. Evan Rachel Wood candidly discussed her controversial romance with ex Marilyn Manson in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
The Westworld actress, 29, met Manson, 47, at a party at West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont in 2006 when she was just 18 years old. Not long after, Wood and the “Beautiful People” singer — who was married to Dita Von Teese at the time — began dating. (Manson and Von Teese, now 44, divorced in December 2007.)
"I met somebody that promised freedom and expression and no judgments," Wood, who played a Lolita-like character in Manson’s racy 2007 music video for “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” told Rolling Stone.
Despite criticism over their 18-year age difference, Wood personally felt that a relationship with Manson was worth pursuing. "And I was craving danger and excitement,” the True Blood alum explained to the magazine. “I looked at my mother one day and said, 'Mom, I'm gonna get on this tour bus for eight months and see the world and have a crazy journey and find myself, and if people aren't OK with that, I'm sorry, but I can't live my life for other people.'"
Wood went on to explain that the backlash she received for dating Manson only made her stronger. “Most teenagers are searching for identity, and I was thrown into a situation where I was supposed to have that already figured out," she said. "Then you're demonized for figuring it out and getting messy. People would call me a whore when I walked down the street, and you can't not be hurt by that."
The pair dated on and off for four years and got engaged in January 2010 after Manson proposed onstage in Paris. Though they eventually split for good in 2011, Wood has no regrets about the time she spent with the rock star.
"I wouldn’t trade any of [our relationship]," Wood told Net-a-Porter’s The Edit in August 2015. "I appreciate everything he taught me. I just don’t think we were right for each other."
