The Smashing Pumpkins vocalist/guitarist, etc. Billy Corgan has newly spoken at length about why he has chosen to stand behind shock rocker Marilyn Manson in recent years. A roughly five years ago now, Manson (aka Brian Warner) found himself exiled from the entertainment industry in the wake of troubling allegations of sexual assault and more being leveled against him by over a dozen women.
A number of those allegations resulted in civil lawsuits filed by his accusers. Manson denied the allegations, with two of those civil lawsuits being settled out of court, another being recanted by his accusers, and two more cases remaining in play.
The LADA’s Sex Crimes Division investigated the various claims made against Manson, but ultimately chose not to press charges, citing issues with the statute of limitations and the inability to prove the claims beyond a reasonable doubt. The flurry of allegations against Manson followed his ex-fiancée Evan Rachel Wood publicly naming him as her abuser back in 2021.
The ramifications of those allegations saw Manson dropped by his management, label, talent agency and more. Newly appearing on the below episode of ‘Popcast‘, Corgan, who faced some scrutiny after attending Manson‘s 50th birthday party in January of 2025, among other sightings together. opened up on his friendship with Manson, and why he remains close with him [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“…I think that ultimately, as a Christian person, you… how can I put it? You have to stand by your friends. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have an opinion, and that doesn’t mean you’re not critical. In his case — and I’m not here to adjudicate it — but the DA looked at the case for five years. In some cases, I knew personal things behind the scenes that are not in the public sphere. I personally didn’t feel that he was guilty of the things he was being charged with, and ultimately, the fact that the DA didn’t pursue it.
So, basically, the person that I knew, and the way it all kind of went down, even though it was an elongated process, was commensurate with the person that I knew. You know what I mean? It all kind of lined up. But, I wasn’t there. I can’t be there for everything. But I guess it’s one of those things where I don’t, I don’t want the world to tell me who my friends are and who I should associate with. That’s politically, socially, and in Brian’s case, we have a relationship that goes back close to 30 years.
The other thing that people should know, and it gets lost in the gloss here, is Manson’s wife Lindsay is a twin. And her twin is Ashley, and Ashley’s married to James Iha of the Pumpkins. So, Manson’s basically a part of our family — yeah, there’s a deeper set of relationships there. Plus, I knew Manson’s parents.
So, I think anybody in that situation struggles with the accusations, the seriousness of the accusations, but again, I also knew the inside baseball of the case. I knew certain people who are involved, and so you make those evaluations. At the end of the day, I feel I made the right determination, but if things had come out… Like, people would ask me privately, ‘Well, what happens if…’ and I’d say, ‘If he’s guilty, or anybody in that situation is guilty, they should go to jail.'”
Corgan also went on to explain his views on forgiveness and second chances from a Christian point of view in an overall sense, offering:
“So, I’m not saying I have any moral supremacy here. I’m saying it’s a case-by-case basis. But I don’t like the idea of… this kind of witch mob thing bothers me. I think we all struggle with how to go through life and make those determinations. My father went to jail three separate times. My father stole from me.
My sister-in-law, who’s an incredible person, asked me repeatedly, because obviously she’s married to my brother, asked me, ‘How can you guys forgive your father? How do you forgive your father?’ And I would say, ‘He’s our father.’ ‘Yeah, but he did this, and he did this’, and it’d be like, ‘Trust me it’s not an easy thing.’ So I think in all these cases it requires thoughtful prayer and meditation to to ask what’s the right thing to do.”
In early 2025 Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman stated in part of their decision to not press charges against Manson:
“We have determined that allegations of domestic violence fall outside of the statute of limitations, and we cannot prove charges of sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Manson went on to file a defamation suit against Wood and her associate for the the claims she made about him, accusing of her coaching other women to come forward. He ultimately dropped that suit after suffering numerous legal setbacks in it.
He is currently facing a tentative November 15th, 2027 jury trial for claims of sexual assault and more brought against him by his ex-personal assistant Ashley Walters for incidents she claims took place back in 2010-2011.
