Marilyn Manson Wants Woman to Shut Up

LOS ANGELES (CN) - Marilyn Manson claims in court that a publicity-hungry woman defamed him with "false and despicable" accusations that he's "pro-Nazi," claimed to be his fiancée though they've never met, and blamed him for the death of her cats.

Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, sued Yolanda Tharpe aka Seraphim Ward, in Superior Court.

In his complaint, Warner/Manson claims that Tharpe has spent almost a year dragging his name through the mud, concocting a "nonexistent dispute" to trade on his name and generate publicity for herself.

Tharpe, who "claims to be a musician and 'independent 'occult' filmmaker," cooked up the engagement story in April 2012 with her then-publicist, "celebrity mudslinger" Jonathan Jaxson, Manson says in the complaint.

Jaxson is not a party to the complaint.

But Warner/Manson claims that Tharpe and Jaxson "falsely announced that Warner and Tharpe were engaged, embellishing the fiction with a bogus photograph of a ring they described as a Warner family heirloom. As Tharpe intended, the false story appeared on multiple Internet gossip websites. Warner and Tharpe do not know each other and, to the best of Warner's recollection, have never met.

"Warner demanded that Tharpe and Jaxson issue a retraction, which they agreed to do during a telephone conversation with Warner and his personal manager."

However, the complaint continues: "Almost immediately, Tharpe published on questionable and frequently untraceable Internet gossip outlets written and recorded interviews in which she made despicable false allegations that her engagement with Warner was not true because Warner was 'pro-Nazi' and 'did not want to be seen with' an African American woman like her. Tharpe also made up and published a story that Warner had lost his home due to litigation with her boyfriend."

Warner/Manson says he demanded another retraction, and that Tharpe and Jaxson each blamed the other.

"Tharpe's harassment of Warner abated for a period," the complaint states, but "Tharpe resurfaced in fall 2012. Since then she has continued to give interviews and post statements to keep her 'Marilyn Manson engagement scandal' alive, and to use that attention as a platform to continue to defame Warner while at the same time using his name for her own self-promotion."

Warner/Manson claims that Tharpe is "expanding on her old false accusations with outrageous new ones that Warner is somehow responsible for the deaths of her two cats and is stalking her."

He claims that he has "repeatedly demanded that Tharpe stop her baseless and malicious attacks on his reputation and that she stop using his name to generate publicity for herself, to no avail."

Warner/Manson seeks an injunction and damages for defamation, violation of common law publicity rights, violation of statutory publicity rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

He is represented by Howard King, with King, Holmes, Paterno & Berliner.

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