Marilyn Manson has come forward with an official statement concerning an unreleased but recently leaked music video that portrays a gruesomely staged rape scene featuring Lana Del Rey getting assaulted by director Eli Roth. When the clip surfaced online last month, it was identified as an abandoned Marilyn Manson video — something the shock-rock titan has denied, saying, “It wasn’t a Marilyn Manson video.” The NSFW footage, which also depicts another woman covered in blood with her head stuck underwater, was quickly removed from YouTube.
In an interview with NME, Manson claims have been present at various points during filming, but that the scene with Del Rey was never intended to be part of an official Marilyn Manson video. “The editor of the company that put it out was somebody who’s edited my videos, that video was something that was done with a camera that Eli [Roth], who’s my friend, and I both wanted to test out, so I let him test it out […] what they filmed was put in context seemingly as if it were a Marilyn Manson video, and that was in no way the intention,” he said.
Manson also pointed out that he had wanted to collaborate with Del Rey, but eventially dropped the idea, saying, “Eli and I wanted to do a music video with her, but she was being such a problem…” and “I would not make a video of that nature, nor would Eli. I don’t think either of us were ever intending for that to be seen, it was more of a camera test. I’m a person that would beat somebody’s ass if they raped somebody that I know.”
Marilyn Manson’s forthcoming album, The Pale Emperor, comes out January 19.
UPDATE: Wondering Sound has contacted Alan Lasky, who has worked on previous Manson videos and is part of the Sturmgruppe visual group that originally published the disturbing clip to its website. Of the Del Rey footage, Lasky related that it gets even darker from the short video originally found on YouTube. “When we work together as Sturmgruppe we tend to do very dark rock video stuff for Manson and other people,” Lasky said. “We have had our reel up, which is the reel that caused the controversy in the first place, for a year and a half. And aside from the people who were looking at it for work-related stuff, very few people made any notice of it.” Lasky, however, declined to confirm or deny that the footage had been shot for a Manson video, citing legal concerns.
