Game of Thrones star Esmé Bianco says she’s spent the last four years in “absolute agony,” waiting quietly for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to make a charging decision over her claims rock musician Marilyn Manson trafficked her, whipped her, repeatedly sexually assaulted her, and raped her at knifepoint during a highly traumatic two-year domestic relationship that ended in 2011.
On Thursday, Bianco said it was time to demand answers.
She and several other women first stepped forward with disturbing allegations of physical and psychological abuse against Manson back in early 2021 — allegations he vehemently denies. Around the same time, she had her first meeting with the FBI and sheriff investigators amid a not-so-secret criminal investigation. Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, was then the subject of a Special Victims Unit search warrant that involved a raid of his home in November 2021. Bianco later gave a highly detailed, three-hour interview to prosecutors at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles last January, and she is willing to testify in front of a jury, she says.
“What is the holdup? I’m doing all the things. It’s long overdue that Brian Warner sees the inside of a courtroom. I would be ecstatic if he saw the inside of a jail, because that’s where he deserves to be, but whatever is coming, we’ll survive it. We’ve survived it this far. Once you’ve survived him, you could survive anything. If I have to walk through hell reliving it all over again, and it puts him behind bars, then that’s what I’ll do,” she tells Rolling Stone in an exclusive interview. She just wants a decision, one way or another, Bianco says. Otherwise, she’s trapped in a “constant state of unbalance, just waiting to see which of two drastically different trajectories” her life is about to take.
“I don’t take issue with due process at all. I don’t take issue with a thorough investigation. I want them to do a thorough investigation because I know the truth, so I want them to do that. I want to make sure that if they bring charges against him, and if it goes to trial, that it’s an airtight case and they will win. The last thing I want is to see him go through a trial and get away with it. But there has to be a point at which you call ‘time,’ and you make an informed decision. Nearly four years is far beyond a reasonable amount of time to keep multiple survivors of a serial perpetrator waiting,” Bianco says, sitting at a table about a block from the same Hall of Justice with her lawyer, Jay Ellwanger.
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She says it feels “really wrong” that she’s had to “hound” prosecutors for updates. “I’ve handed over all of my evidence, warts and all. I’ve made it perfectly clear I’m going to be as cooperative as I can be. I’ve made myself available to them. I have the willingness to stick my neck out. Yet, we’re still waiting,” she says. “It’s just devastating.”
In an emailed statement to Rolling Stone, the District Attorney’s Office wrote that trial lawyers and the Bureau of Victim Services have been in contact with the case’s known victims. “We remain committed to making sure that they have been informed of our progress every step of the way,” read the statement.
Warner’s lawyer Howard King declined a request for comment on Bianco’s remarks Thursday.
Bianco, an actress as well as an activist and married mother of two, spoke with Rolling Stone after having appeared an hour earlier at a press conference with Nathan Hochman, the former federal prosecutor running against current Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Speaking in front of a bank of TV news cameras, Bianco faulted Gascón for waiting until after the Hochman event was announced on Wednesday to issue an update in the case. In a written statement issued Wednesday night, Gascón said his office was assessing “new leads and additional evidence” in the case and anticipated “making a filing decision soon.”
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“Almost four years ago, I did what victims of rape are ‘supposed’ to do — I went to the police. I described to them in agonizing detail how the rock musician Brian Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, raped and abused me over the course of our relationship. I presented to them hundreds of pieces of evidence, including photos of my body covered in bites, bruises and knife wounds, emails and text messages, threats to my immigration status. An investigation was opened, the sheriff’s department raided Warner’s home, and then in the Fall of 2022, they presented their evidence to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecutorial decision. I have been waiting for that decision ever since. While I have been waiting, I have received death threats to myself, my family, my friends. He is now back out on tour, and the first song he performed after near silence for four years was, ‘We Know Where You Fucking Live,’” Bianco said, standing next to Hochman on the steps of the Hall of Justice.
Bianco faulted Gascón for releasing a “preemptive press statement” after learning about the Hochman event instead of reaching out to her personally first. Speaking to Rolling Stone, she says Gascón’s claim that it was inappropriate for him to speak directly with an alleged victim during an active investigation “feels very hollow.”
“That is his literal job, to be an advocate for victims. And to be ignored by him, it’s disgusting,” Bianco says. She and Ellwanger provided evidence that Bianco emailed Gascón directly in August 2022 and again in March 2023 and received no response.
No matter what happens with the election, Bianco says she wants movement and a decision.
“It’s not a decision that will feel easy either way. Do I want Brian to be charged? One thousand percent. Do I also know that’s going to bring a highly publicized and very traumatizing trial, yes. Am I willing to go through it? You bet your ass I am,” she says.
Bianco and Ellwanger say prosecutors have not told them the scope of their investigation, the number of alleged victims involved or how many charges they’re considering. But Ellwanger says he personally has sat in interviews with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigators and “more than half a dozen women who have come forward and given testimony on this case.”
“It’s traumatizing for survivors to come forward and just be a part of the process. Esme was sobbing in the parking lot of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department [after one of the meetings]. So, it shouldn’t be anything other than normal to have clear lines of communication and follow-up and decisions,” he tells Rolling Stone.
Bianco, who is British by birth, first went public with her allegations in 2021 amid a wave of similar claims from fellow accusers. In her sexual assault, sexual battery, and human trafficking lawsuit filed in April 2021, she says she first met Warner in 2005 through his then-fiancée, Dita Von Teese. She recalls flying to Los Angeles in February 2009 after Warner said he wanted her to appear in one of his music videos. During the trip, Warner allegedly threatened to rape Bianco and violently threw objects and destroyed camera equipment in her presence. “Perhaps most horrifyingly, Mr. Warner locked Ms. Bianco in the bedroom, tied her to a prayer kneeler and beat her with a whip that Mr. Warner said was utilized by the Nazis. He also electrocuted her,” her lawsuit said.
Bianco says Warner conditioned her to accept his abuse through threats and claims that he was “simply eccentric” and misunderstood. She says Warner convinced her to move to Los Angeles in 2011 with the promise he would help her secure a visa and launch her Hollywood acting career. After she arrived, Warner became increasingly controlling and physically violent, her lawsuit said.
“On one occasion, Mr. Warner chased [Bianco] around the apartment with an ax, smashing holes in the walls. On another occasion, Mr. Warner cut Ms. Bianco with a Nazi knife during sex, without her consent, and photographed the cuts on her body,” the lawsuit alleged.
Warner responded to the lawsuit through his lawyer, denying the allegations and claiming he was the victim of a “coordinated attack” by former partners. His former finacée, Evan Rachel Wood, had recenetly named Warner as her alleged abuser in a blockbuster Instagram post in February 2021. The post followed after Wood previously stated she had been raped by an unidentified significant other and testified before the California State Senate in 2019 in support of legislation extending the statute of limitations for victims of domestic abuse.
“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission,” Wood wrote in her post alleging physical and psychological abuse during her relationship with Warner that started in 2007, when she was 19 and Warner was 38, and ended in 2010.
Other women stepped forward with similar allegations that same month, leading the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to open an investigation. Sheriff investigators submitted their findings to the District Attorney’s Office in September 2022, but the case receded from the headlines. On Wednesday night, Gascón issued his statement ahead of Hochman’s press conference.
“It is our office’s responsibility to ensure that we have a complete picture of the admissible evidence available before making a filing decision,” Gascón said. “Senior staff members have met with victims, and our prosecutors continue to remain in contact with the victims and their representatives throughout this process.”
He added that although he has “received requests from victims to meet personally to discuss the case,” since the case is under investigation, it would be “inappropriate” for him to meet with the victims at this time. Gascón said his office anticipates “making a filing decision soon and will provide an update when that time comes.”
Outside the criminal investigation, Warner, 55, went on to reach an out-of-court settlement with Bianco. Last year, he also reached a private settlement with a Jane Doe accuser who alleged he brutally raped her in 2011. The Doe accuser further alleged that Warner also deprived her of food and sleep during their relationship and that he threatened to “bash her head in” if she reported him.
Former accuser Ashley Morgan Smithline let her lawsuit end in default last year and formally recanted her allegations against Warner.
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Warner’s former assistant Ashley Walters sued Warner in 2021 and recently received a June 2025 trial date. Walters, an artist who worked for Warner for what she calls a “horrific” year that ended in 2011, alleges Warner whipped her, threw plates at her, and sexually assaulted her.
In July, accuser Bianca Kyne publicly spoke for the first time and stepped forward with her full identity after a recent ruling in one of her two lawsuits against the shock rocker filed in New York and Louisiana. Kyne has accused Warner of grooming and sexually assaulting her multiple times in the Nineties, starting when she was still a minor.
