Content warning: This story discusses sexual assault and rape.
Evan Rachel Wood will not be silenced.
During her appearance on The View on Monday, March 14, the Westworld star addressed the defamation lawsuit her ex-fiancé Marilyn Manson recently filed against her after being accused of sexual abuse by numerous women. Though Wood said she's "not scared" of the suit, she described the situation as "sad" because "this is what pretty much every survivor that that it tries to expose someone in a position of power goes through."
Sharing that an attempt to silence her "was expected," Wood continued, "This is part of the retaliation that keeps survivors quiet. This is why people don't want to come forward."
The 34-year-old actress added, "I'm very confident that I have the truth on my side and that and that the truth will come out."
Manson's lawsuit came just weeks before the scheduled release of Phoenix Rising, an HBO docu-series centered around the the actress' work in advocating for the passage of the Phoenix Act in California. In the documentary, which first premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Wood spoke about the alleged sexual abuse she faced at the hands of Manson—born Brian Warner—throughout their relationship.
Saying that Manson's legal move was "clearly timed" ahead of Phoenix Rising's public release, Wood defended the documentary and said, "I'm doing this to protect people. I'm doing this to sound the alarm that there is a dangerous person out there and I don't want anybody getting near him."
In the suit, Manson alleged that Wood and her friend Ashley Gore—a.k.a. Illma Gore—impersonated an FBI agent and pressured other women to share false rape and sexual assault allegations against him.
Though Wood could not comment on specific allegations mention in the complaint during her appearance on The View, she did express the notion that she won't be backing down in the face of the lawsuit. "I have to let the legal process run its course," she shared. "I'm steady as a rock."
She also spoke about some of the claims she made against Manson in Phoenix Rising, including how she was allegedly raped in 2007 while filming his "Heart-Shaped Glasses" music video, and the singer's denial of the sexual abuse allegations against him. "The most insidious thing that he did and people like him do is completely fracture your sense of self," she said. "He made me forget who I was and it's taken me years to remember."
In the wake of Wood's latest comment about Manson, the singer's attorney, Howard King, said in a statement to E! News, "As we detailed in our lawsuit, nothing that Evan Rachel Wood, Illma Gore or their hand-picked co-conspirators have said on this matter can be trusted. This is just more of the same. But, then again, what else would you expect from a group who have spread falsehood after falsehood about Brian and even went as far as to forge an FBI letter to further their phony claims?"