Evan Rachel Wood Reclaims Her Narrative in “Phoenix Rising”

Evan Rachel Wood tells the story of struggling to reclaim her story as a victim of abuse in the new, two-part HBO documentary Phoenix Rising.

The documentary centers around Wood’s experience of both physical and sexual abuse, as well as the immense difficulty she faces naming her alleged abuser.

As is now known by many, Wood names Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner) as her abuser.

Manson claims he is innocent and that his “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.”

Phoenix Rising is named after the bill Wood proposed in 2019, the Phoenix Act, that extends the time domestic abuse survivors have to press charges against their abusers so that the law could have an improved understanding of rape and abuse survivors.

The documentary and Wood’s bravery in speaking out aims to educate the world about how abusers manipulate and lure their victims and the reality of an unsupportive public that often victim shames women’s accounts of violence.

“There are other victims and potential future victims,” Wood says in the documentary about herself not being the only survivor of Manson’s abuse. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I want this to stop.”

Phoenix Rising is available to stream in full on HBO Max.

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