Brave Read online

  Hollywood thinks this is normal—they started it—but it’s not normal; they’ve just spread this diseased idea of beauty to the world. And I am a part of that disease.

  On the big screen, I see my name, I see my face moving, and all I can concentrate on is my teeth. My small nose looks giant. I didn’t know I had that one wrinkle. I didn’t know that my voice sounded so much like my sister’s. Oh shit, here comes the topless scene. I feel a strange shame wash over me. Not because I’m naked, but because of how I’m interpreted by the men doing the interpreting.

  CIRCUS LIFE

  I was so sick of working. I’d worked to survive since I was a child, at any kind of job I could possibly get, and I’d never had any period where I didn’t have to worry, like stomach-in-knots worry. When I was little, I heard kids in school talk about going on vacation. Once I figured out what they meant by vacation, I started thinking about what my dream vacation would look like. I decided mine would be a week in a hospital where no one could hurt me and I could have all the pudding I wanted. And right about then it was all I wanted. Pudding and no one hurting me.

  My angel dogs, Bug and Fester, were my lifesavers during this time. They were what got me up in the morning. I had to tend to them. I couldn’t wallow in my sadness. I hated how I was feeling after the assault. There was some good news around the corner, though, quite literally.

  In the year leading up to our meeting, a huge rock star had a meteoric rise and his name was Marilyn Manson. I was quite unaware of what was going on in popular culture because I’d been so deeply absorbed into the world of movies. As far as Marilyn Manson went, I remember seeing a couple photos of him in makeup and thinking, He is the ugliest person I’ve ever seen. But simultaneously I thought it was kind of cool that he was willing to be that ugly.

  Then one night I was at this absurd restaurant in New York, an S&M restaurant, of all ridiculous things, where you had to choose what kind of abuse you wanted while you ate. The whole place was dark so you didn’t even know what you were eating, which, as a picky Virgo, was not my thing. Ceding control in exchange for food seemed silly and I was trying not to laugh out loud. Some people were in cages, and the waiter said I could go in, too. I settled on letting him rub my feet.

  The waiter rubbing my feet said to me, “My friend Brian has a crush on you.” “Oh, that’s nice.” He went on, “I’m from Ohio. We knew each other back home.” “Oh, okay, uh-huh, that’s nice.” He said, “It’s Marilyn Manson.” And I said, “Oh, that’s the ugly guy.” He was taken aback. He said, “Yes, but he has a huge crush on you.” I said, “Okay, well, that’s nice.”

  Then one night shortly after that and back in L A, I was on my way to a screening of the seminal indie movie Gummo. I was late, and I had to bang on the screening room doors to be let in. I knocked again and finally this guy who looked like a cross between an eighteenth-century dandy and Ichabod Crane opened it. I looked right at him, recognized him as Marilyn Manson. I smiled and said, “Hey, I hear you have a crush on me.” I didn’t think he was ugly in person, I thought he was incredibly unique looking. We were pretty much together from that moment on.

  For the record, you call him Manson. Anybody who would later come up and say, “How’s Marilyn?,” I would know immediately they didn’t know him. Or they would say, “How’s Brian?,” trying to make it seem like they knew who he was, because they knew his real name.

  We had so much fun. We truly did. But still, I was plagued with night terrors and post-traumatic stress disorder. The first year we were together, Manson patched me back together after the assault. I didn’t tell him what had happened for the first few months, but finally he asked a girlfriend of mine, “What’s wrong with Rose?” I was waking up screaming at night, soaking the sheets with my night sweats. My friend told him the truth, and Manson was so sweet with me. Finally, some kindness.

  He was a very misunderstood person. Even though the media had dealt with controversial musicians like Alice Cooper or Ozzy Osbourne, and rational people knew it was all about art performance, with Manson they really bought it. They really thought he spent his nights skinning puppy dogs alive and boiling them in vats of acid while saying, “Hail Satan!”

  In reality, the exact opposite was going on. The truth was that at the time when he wasn’t creating electrifying music, Manson was painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware from Martha Stewart’s online store. We basically hid out from the world at home, totally domestic, when we weren’t on the road having mad escapades. I was happy because I could forget about what happened to me, at least during the day.

  Nevertheless, people thought it was bizarre that I was going out with him. When they freaked out about it, I’d think, But you’re bizarre to me. This is somebody who’s kind to me, who’s taking care of me. Manson always saw to my needs and paid great attention to detail, and we fell in love. When I ran off with the Manson circus, I didn’t really work for about three and a half years. We had to worry about death threats and bomb threats, and being terrorized online, but at least I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from because I’d saved up some money from acting.

  It was a blast, and we were madly in love, and anybody else who thinks differently is wrong. It was a pretty legendary relationship, not just in the media. It was a pretty legendary relationship behind the scenes, too. We had a whole lot of amazing.

  Unfortunately, it seems his manager, his bandmates, and his whiny friend Billy were telling Manson things to the effect of “Rose is making you look soft. Going out with an actress is making you look like a pussy.” Since when is the long tradition of actresses and rock stars going out together a bad thing? Whatever. Male jealousy is a strange and stupid thing. Manson likes yes-people around him. I’ve never been a yes-person.

  I knew there were going to be serious career repercussions for me going out with Manson. People already didn’t know what to do with me because I was unique, because I wasn’t the “girl next door.” I was told that a lot by casting directors, “You’re not the girl next door.” You know who was? A blond Reese Witherspoon type. So apparently everyone who has a female neighbor better make sure she looks like a sweet blonde who never offends. The first five months I went out with Manson I kept it very much on the down low because I didn’t want to be known as his accessory. I eventually got brave enough and decided: you love who you love, this is it. I braced myself and came out and took the slings and arrows from the world. Boy, did I take some hits. The squares were after me, mainstream media in a tizzy.

  Sometimes messing with the public was fun. I love subversion. I have an impish sense of humor. Hollywood is filled with nervous little biddies in the shape of men and women. They’re such scaredy-cats. They’re scared of their own shadows. They’re scared of anything different, anything unique. Manson terrified them. When I’d see how these producers reacted when they saw Manson, I’d think to myself, You’re in the entertainment business, what part of entertainment do you not get?

  A few years ago, long after we split up, I was at a dinner with ten male agents from the “powerhouse” Hollywood agency CAA. If there’s one thing I really loathe, it’s these guys. The agents are such douche bags and have incredibly delusional senses of self-worth. They make the lists for who gets hired and pushed and who doesn’t. One of the agents (think an older frat dude in a $3k suit) turned to me and asked one of the questions that most annoys me:

  “Why’d you go out with that freak Marilyn?”

  Before he could even get his offensive question out, I stood up. I walked to the head of the table. I put my hands on it. I leaned forward. I looked each one in the eye, and I said, “Gentlemen, let me give you some truth. The second you can make a child feel less alone, the second you can move somebody to tears, the second you can make somebody feel, think, and live through you by being a creative, by being an artist, the second you can do that, you can discuss why I went out with somebody who is more creative in his little pinkie
than you will ever be in your goddamn boring life with your fucked-up value system and your bloated ego that is not warranted for any fucking reason that I can discern. Alone in the dark at the end of your life, you will be an empty suit in a coffin. You will leave nothing and be nothing. Good night, gentlemen.” I stand by my words.

  Even if Hollywood was scared of Manson, he obviously deeply affected many people. One time, I remember standing on the side of the stage, looking out over 350,000 people, this human wave of an audience, while Manson sang a song called “Coma White,” which was a song about my life, my story.

  There’s something cold and blank behind her smile.

  Yes, there was something definitely cold and blank behind my smile.

  She’s standing on an overpass in her miracle mile.

  I lived in the Miracle Mile section of L A when we first met.

  He goes on to sing in that particular song about taking pills to make yourself numb and dumb, but how all the drugs in the world wouldn’t save you from yourself. At the time, I had started taking medication for my overwhelming depression and panic attacks after the assault.

  It was a uniquely strange sensation to hear all these people singing along to lyrics that were about my life story, even though they didn’t know it.

  Touring was both fun and banal, and it was especially hard encountering groupies subjugating themselves and letting themselves be used and abused by the guys in the band and the crew, just for the sake of being closer to someone famous. At every stop of the tour I was on, women were lining up to submit themselves to abuse. Wash, rinse, repeat. One of the guys in the band would zero in on overweight girls, spend all night with them, and propose marriage. Then he’d never call them again, and do it the next night. I’d bet these girls have histories of personal abuse, of being valued only for one thing, and they think that by being with someone famous, or having a rock star pay them any attention, their lives are going to change. In the face of that, to keep my pro-woman stance alive was a bit of a challenge, but I did. I didn’t know enough yet to know that the system is flawed because of men.

  It was also lonely. Manson and I would be holed up in the back of the tour bus watching The Big Lebowski for the sixtieth time, while the other guys would be in the front of the bus or hotel doing whatever it was they did. Manson was quite shy at the time, and the guys were nice to me, but grudgingly and only if Manson was around. He didn’t mingle much in the public, so I wasn’t in danger of groupie girls coming after him. But a lot of the fangirls online hated me because I occupied a space they imagined themselves filling. It inspired a lot of rage toward me, just for existing. On the Hollywood side I had these idiots thinking I boil cats, then on the public side, these girls hating me for being with someone they fantasized about. Fun times.

  I used to think, What’s the upside in all of this? Well, the upside was that we stuck together. We were like a unit. And he did put on an incredible show. I loved dancing on the side of the stage because the band could rock the house down.

  Once, on my birthday, Manson took me to Italy, to the Tuscan countryside where I was born and raised. I was trying to find the stone barn I was born in on the duke’s property. There’s Manson, all 138 pounds, six feet three inches, dressed in black, wearing big stomper shoes that made him six seven, looking like a scarecrow with his hat, and a leather jacket, in the heat of Tuscany, walking over hillsides with me, looking like a deranged Easter egg in a long pink skirt with a yellow shirt, and Petey, his gigantic bodyguard, following close behind. We huffed and puffed all over the hills, trying to find the barn. At one point this little kid on a tiny bike passed us and yelled out in his thick accent, “Ai! Ai, Marilyn Manson!” It was surreal and hilarious.

  Eventually, we found the stone barn. The sister of the duke of Zoagli now owned the property—Rosa Arianna, my namesake. When I presented myself on her doorstep, I worked up the courage to knock. She came out and started screaming at me in Italian to get off her property, trying to hit me with a broom. I laughed it off as we scurried away.

  But we found the barn I was born in. I was so touched by him taking me there.

  The first big event I went to with Manson was a little thing in 1998 called the MTV Video Music Awards. At that time, everyone tuned in to see what people were wearing and what the incredible moment would be, as well as what the acts were going to be doing onstage, who was going to say what, and what crazy music-world stuff might happen. It was a really special time. Courtney Love and Hole were huge. Manson was the most controversial star in the world. There was some cool art going on in the mainstream.

  Thinking about my own red-carpet moment, I figured, Manson’s going to be really flamboyant for these awards. What the hell do I wear? And then I started to think about what I was going to wear in regard to how Hollywood and mainstream media would perceive me; I thought: You know what? Fuck you. You want to objectify me? You want to see a body? This is what you want? All you media men, all you photographers, you vultures, this is what you want to see? I’ll fucking show you a body. And so I did.

  Wearing the “naked dress,” as I call it, was a big middle finger to pretty much everybody.

  It was a reclamation of my own body after my assault. I wanted to challenge the media to see how they would deal with it. You want me to be your show pony, I’ll be your show pony.

  The infamous dress was sent to me the night before the event. The day of the MTV Awards I had a 101-degree fever and was taking sinus medicine that made me loopy.

  On the way there, I had to be on my knees in the limo because otherwise the beading from the dress would have imprinted a waffle print on my backside, which would be more or less entirely exposed to the cameras. My heart was racing as we stepped out of the limo. I raised my arm up high and silently said, “Yes, bitches, I’m here.” I changed right when I got off the red carpet into a different outfit, one that covered more.

  The dress raised hell, which, I guess, was my intention of sorts, but what I didn’t anticipate was the global slut-shaming that came afterward. I didn’t realize how seriously everyone would take it. Do these people not understand rebellion and humor? I thought, It’s a music awards show. My dress was punk as fuck. This is what it’s about.

  It was, of course, misinterpreted and sexualized, which was the exact opposite point I was trying to make. That’s the thing that other women who have copied me have gotten wrong through the years; when they copy the dress, they do it to be sexy and turn society on. I didn’t do it to be sexy. I did it with power, not to titillate or turn on the boys and men of the world. I did it as a big middle finger, and there’s the difference.

  I think that’s why it became such an iconic thing. Every year, every time there’s an awards show, that picture of me pops back up. It was my first time having a big scandal, so to speak, a global one, anyway. I say first time because I’ve done it several times since, but that one is the most physically memorable to people. For years, I was the actress who wore the dress. Regardless, it took some serious bravery to do that. I was scared, but I just did it anyway. Punk as fuck.

  At least I know when I’m eighty, looking back on my history, I certainly won’t identify as a scared person who didn’t live. I’m from Europe, I’m not a freak about my body. American puritanical society shames you for daring to show any part of yourself, especially when it’s done in a nonsexual manner. When a woman owns her body, she gets vilified. I was vilified for making people uncomfortable. Ever since then I’ve had to deal with the slut-shaming that came from wearing that dress. I regretted it at times, and other times I just thought, Fuck off. Now, I don’t regret it at all. It’s my body: I can do what I want with it. But being a part of a media shitstorm is definitely a weird version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and there’s nothing that can prepare you for it.

  At the time, all the managers and agents were saying to both Manson and to me, “You have to have a website about yourself and look at the message boards to see what the fans want.” That was
before famous people understood it’s treacherous, and you absolutely should NOT look at message boards. It’s like Lord of the Flies. They pile on the defenseless and beat them with their negativity. Some of the vilest scum of humanity post on message boards, bad people with bad energy. I guess now they’re on all platforms. I can’t imagine what these people are like in their real lives or why they have so much hate in their hearts. If you are one of them, know that you cause damage to other humans.

  So I dove into the message boards and went deep. I took a lot of things into my brain that would break most people. Most people can’t handle hearing one bad thing said about them, let alone global bullying. About your face, your body, your character. The enmity and the hatred for me was so intense. When you read nasty things about yourself, it sticks. You can have thirty compliments and one negative, and you remember the negative. It’s human nature, right? Now imagine that times millions. It really messed with my head.

  Just know that if people are saying cruel things to you and about you, you can weather it, you will survive. If you can get to a place where you are okay marching to your own beat, you will thrive and be free. I promise you, it gets better.

  It took me time to learn this. One day, a supposed friend told me to check out this site online, so I did. It was a website devoted to how fat I was. I was shocked. It was page after page of me. In some pages my dog’s face was mixed with mine; in other ones I was put on a cross with diagrams all over me pointing out how fat I was. It was really expertly done, and the crazy woman—yes, it was a woman who created it—could spell and used perfect grammar, so it really stuck in my head. Somehow it’s easier to dismiss the people who write mean things when they can’t even spell. Like “your a whore” instead of “you’re a whore.” When they can spell, it stings more. It was strange because the creator of this lovely site used a lot of the same terminology that I had used in my own head when I was at the height of my anorexia.