Manson's Groin Cleared

Mon., Sep. 8, 2003 2:45 PM PDT by Marcus Errico

Gotta love America. Not only does the Constitution allow Marilyn Manson to prance around and sing pseudo-demonic songs, but it also allows him to rub his nether regions against others in the name of his art.

So says a Minnesota jury Monday, which cleared the shock rocker of using his genitals to wantonly assault a concert security guard.

Said security guard, David Diaz, sued the singer (real name: Brian Warner) in 2000, seeking damages for battery and emotional distress. The complaint, filed in federal court in St. Paul, claimed Diaz "endured ridicule and shame" after finding himself the unwitting magnet of Manson's groin on October 27, 2000, during a concert at the Historic Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis.

Diaz sought more than $75,000 in reparations from the rocker.

Appearing on the stand last week (eschewing his usual goth getup for a jacket and wire-rim glasses), Manson didn't deny the rubbing took place, but he testified that the crotch job was all in fun.

"I thought it would be entertaining, " Manson said, per the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "In no way did I think it was humiliating...but [rather] that he would be in the spotlight for a moment.

"It was a gesture, horseplay. There certainly wasn't anything sexual about it to me."

Manson, 34, also noted that a video of the show shows Diaz smiling, pumping his fist in the air and high-fiving the rocker.

For his part, Diaz said he was smiling "because I was embarrassed." And the fist pump? "I was going with the flow of the crowd."

It took jurors two full days of deliberating before rejecting Diaz's claim.

This isn't the first time Manson's groin has gotten him into hot water.

In June 2002, he copped a plea to criminal charges in a Michigan case involving his gyrating genitalia and an uncooperative security guard. In exchange for pleading no contest to counts of disorderly conduct and assault and battery, Manson was sentenced to pay $4,000 in fines and court costs but avoided any jail time.

Perhaps wanting to avoid on outbreak of Manson gyrations on its own security force, officials at Six Flags Darien Lake barred Manson from appearing at the Buffalo-area venue as part of Ozzfest. The Six Flags folks deemed Manson's stage act "inappropriate."

Manson, whose latest album The Golden Age of Grotesque, topped the charts upon its release in May, responded by saying, "Marilyn Manson is simply too dangerous for Darien Lake."