Trent Reznor has distanced himself from Marilyn Manson.
Trent Reznor
The Nine Inch Nails frontman insisted he "cut ties" with his former friend and collaborator more than two decades ago and insisted he is still "offended" by a recently-resurfaced tale from the 52-year-old rocker's 1998 autobiography 'The Long Hard Road Out of Hell'.
In the book, Manson alleged he and the 'Head Like a Hole' hitmaker physically and sexually assaulted an intoxicated woman, and the passage was recently shared on social media after the 'Dope Show' singer's former fiancee Evan Rachel Wood and a number of other women accused him of abuse.
Trent said in a statement given to Pitchfork: "I have been vocal over the years about my dislike of Manson as a person and cut ties with him nearly 25 years ago.
"As I said at the time, the passage from Manson’s memoir is a complete fabrication. I was infuriated and offended back when it came out and remain so today."
The story in the book - which was co-written by Neil Strauss - was originally supposed to run in a 1995 issue of the now-defunct Empyrian magazine but the tome explained the interview was never printed due to “content objections on the part of Empyrean’s publisher, Centaur Enterprises, which believed that the magazine had followed unethical interview procedures in order to extract information from Mr. Manson."
Manson had told the story in response to being asked by the interviewer how he ended up working with Trent and claimed the incident took place the night before the 55-year-old star told him he wanted to sign him to Nothing Records.
Trent has previously branded his former friend a "malicious guy" and "dopey clown".
He said in 2009: “He is a malicious guy and will step on anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of decency. Seeing him now, drugs and alcohol now rule his life and he’s become a dopey clown.”
However, in 2017, Manson insisted they had reconciled.
He said: “He’s the one who’s actually sent me an email, we had sort of mended ways after a long time through Tyler Bates strangely enough.
“He goes and he said in the email something along the lines of, ‘It really pisses me off that music’s not dangerous anymore and it reminds me of how great you were and I was and the time, the era.’”
In the wake of this week's allegations, Manson has been dropped from his record label and touring agency, and lost his role in 'American Gods'.
He has denied the claims against him.
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