“Games Of Thrones” Actress Esme Bianco Accuses Marilyn Manson Of Abuse

OK, first off… I did not want to subject your eyes or my eyes to another photo of that alleged abuser Marilyn Manson. Secondly, once again, things are about to get gross and horrifying. Here we go! British actress and burlesque performer Esme Bianco, best known for her role as Ros in Game of Thrones, has bravely accused MM of abuse in an interview with New York Magazine. Esme says their relationship left her with both physical scars and PTSD and called MM “monster who almost destroyed me and almost destroyed so many women.”

Esme initially came forward as an abuse survivor back in 2019, when she testified in front of the California Assembly to help reform domestic-violence laws. She didn’t name MM as her abuser at the time. But now that Evan Rachel Wood and more than a dozen women have come forward with their own accusations about MM, she says:

 “I have this hot energy and power in my chest. I just want to open my mouth and be like ‘Ahhhhhhh’ and rain fire down”

Esme says she was a big fan of MM when she was a teenager in the late 90s. She was dealing with a friend’s recent suicide and his music was the soundtrack to her dark feelings. She even dated a dude in high school who wore the same kind of black and white emo makeup. When she finally met him in 2005, through his then-wife and fellow burlesque performer Dita Von Teese, she was thrilled. After Dita and MM divorced, Esme kept in touch with him via email. MM would “joke” about her sending him “previously-forbidden nude photos”, but she says things were pretty platonic. She was also married to another man and living in London at the time.

Things changed in 2009 when MM asked Esme to fly out to LA and star in a music video for his song, “I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies.” He told Esme it would be shot on a flip phone and involve him kidnapping and manhandling her as his “victim/lover.” Esme believed it would be strictly professional. But it wasn’t:

Once she arrived, she says, the line between art and reality immediately blurred. Bianco, who was 26 at the time, says she spent the next three days in lingerie, barely sleeping or eating, with Manson serving up cocaine rather than food. She remembers him losing his temper and throwing the camera at a smoke alarm. Soon, she says, he became violent, tying her with cables to a prayer kneeler, lashing her with a whip, and using an electric sex toy called a Violet Wand on her wounds — the same kind of “torture device” Wood has said was used on her. Bianco was terrified but tried to calm down by telling herself, It’s just Manson being theatrical. We are going to make great art.

She sobbed while waiting for her flight home. At the time she felt that her wounds were proof of her and MM bond, but, on some level, she knew that without consent or safe words, that shit wasn’t BDSM. Her then-roommate pointed out that filming a BDSM music video shouldn’t result in any actual injuries, but Esme was in denial.

MM never actually sent Esme footage from their shoot, and she says he made constant excuses for never releasing the video. As her marriage fell apart, MM began showering her with attention and telling her they were soulmates. Soon they began an affair, with both of them traveling between LA and London. Esme says MM would bite her during sex and leave her whole body bruised. His assistant at the time, Ashley Walters, who has also come forward as an “alleged” victim of MM’s, says she managed travel for Esme and MM’s other girlfriends, who were always promised opportunities of photoshoots or music videos. Ashley said she didn’t know the extent of the violence.

In 2011, MM asked Esme to move to LA to move in with him. He promised her he’d help with her acting career and visa. She’d recently filmed the first season of Game of Thrones and wanted to try her luck in Hollywood. So she left her husband and moved in with MM. Soon enough, he began to control every aspect of her life:

She says he dictated what she could wear (she says he preferred her in a short pencil dress with stockings), her sleep schedule (“I was often violently shaken awake should I go to sleep without permission,” she told the California Assembly), and when she could come and go from the apartment (she says she didn’t have a key). One night in May, Manson sent Walters a text saying someone had broken a glass in the studio and that “Esme is gonna get the brunt of this. Don’t care.”

“I basically felt like a prisoner,” says Bianco. “I came and went at his pleasure. Who I spoke to was completely controlled by him. I called my family hiding in the closet.”

She details MM’s heavy drinking and drug use, how the house was always kept very cold and very dark with blackout curtains drawn, and how no one was ever allowed to challenge him. When Game of Thrones premiered, MM would play Esme’s sex scene on a projector for guests, which humiliated her. Her friend Alex, who was also in MM’s fucked up orbit, recalls seeing her body covered in bruises. Esme says MM once repeatedly cut her torso with a knife, and, in May 2011, a month after she moved in, he chased her around the apartment with a FUCKING AXE. She finally left him the following month, while he was sleeping.

Once her character was killed off on Game of Thrones (Ros was murdered by sadistic abuser Joffrey, and only now does Esme realize how triggering that role was), the actress struggled to find work. She said she was a mess, and suffered from panic attacks and night terrors. She lived in a constant state of fear and blamed herself for the abuse.

Then, after the #MeToo movement and years of therapy, Esme joined forces with Evan Rachel Wood after seeing her testify about MM’s abuse in front of Congress. They both fought to extend California’s statute of limitations on reporting domestic violence offenses. Last year the Phoenix Act extended the statute from three to five years. It’s now California state law. But even with the new law, neither Evan nor Esme can legally press criminal charges. Her attorney says she’s spoken with the FBI and gave agents evidence related to MM’s alleged sex crimes. And since he paid for Esme’s plane ticket from London to LA to abuse her under the guise of a music video, that abuse could technically be considered human trafficking.

Esme says MM isn’t a misunderstood artist, he’s a “serial predator” who “deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life.” Yeah, behind bars in a lit-up jail cell full of fluorescent lighting and mirrors so he’s forced to look at the image of Marilyn Manson all the time.

Pic: YouTube