Kobe Bryant’s widow Vanessa has slammed Evan Rachel Wood as ‘vile and disturbing’ more than a year after the actress called him a ‘rapist’ just hours after he died.
The NBA legend and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant, died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020 sparking memorials and murals across the country.
Wood, 33, had tweeted: ‘What has happened is tragic. I am heartbroken for Kobe’s family. He was a sports hero. He was also a rapist. And all of these truths can exist simultaneously.’
Vanessa Bryant, 38, took to her Instagram Stories to respond to the Westworld actress, noting that the tweet had just come to her attention.
Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood, 33, had slammed Kobe Bryant as a ‘rapist’ on the day he died
Bryant’s widow Vanessa, left, respond to Wood’s tweet more than a year later claiming it had just come to her attention
Vanessa Bryant called Wood’s tweet ‘false’ and ‘defamatory,’ adding the actress did not ‘know the facts of the case’
Bryant also thanks actress Kyla Pratt for condemning actress Evan Rachel Wood after she called Kobe a ‘rapist’ in a since deleted tweet
Evan Rachel Wood had tweeted that Kobe ‘was a sports hero’ and a ‘rapist’ just hours after he died
‘Your false, insensitive, defamatory and slanderous tweet on 1/26/20 is vile and disturbing to say the least,’ Bryant posted.
‘Behavior like this is part of the reason why innocent black men go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. An accusation doesn’t make someone guilty.’
She added: ‘YOU DON’T KNOW THE FACTS OF THE CASE.’
Vanessa sent the same message to film producer Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, who co-founded The Walt Disney Company with her great-uncle Walt Disney.
‘The man was a rapist. Deal with it,’ Disney tweeted at the time.
Fans immediately came to Kobe’s defense in 2020 after Wood’s tweet, including Dr. Dolittle actress Kayla Pratt.
‘Evan. We met as kids & I grew up in the same industry as you and have admired your work from afar these past few years. On camera and off. But this tweet? How f**king dare you?’ Pratt tweeted.
Bryant also posted to her Instagram stories on Saturday to rip the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which she filed a lawsuit against in September for taking and leaking a photo of the helicopter crash that killed her husband.
‘The Sheriff’s Department wants to redact the names of the deputies that took and/or shared photos of my husband, daughter and other victims. They want their names to be exempt from the public,’ Bryant posted.
‘Anyone else facing allegations would be unprotected, named and released to the public.’
She continued: ‘Not all law enforcement is bad. These specific deputies need to be held accountable for their actions just like everyone else. #doublestandard.’
Shortly after receiving backlash last year for her Kobe tweet, Wood said her post was ‘not a condemnation or a celebration’ of the athlete and his death, E! Online reported.
She wrote that her tweet was ‘a reminder that everyone will have different feelings and there is room for us all to grieve together instead of fighting. Everyone has lost. Everyone will be triggered, so please show kindness and respect to all.’
Wood later deleted both tweets after more online criticism, the outlet reported.
Kobe, left, is pictured with Vanessa Bryant who sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in September after deputies leaked photos of the helicopter crash that killed him
Kobe Bryant, right, is pictured with his daughter Gianna Bryant, who also died in the crash
The actress has not yet publicly commented on Bryant’s post, but she has since posted to her own Instagram Stories with a screenshot of a tweet from marketing executive Steven Bartlett criticizing the social media platform.
‘Instagram has ruined a whole generations expectations of relationships, work, and everything in between. It has made “perfect” look normal. So now “good” has become disposable,’ reads Bartlett’s tweet, posted by Wood.
A 19-year-old employee of a hotel in Colorado accused Kobe of sexual assault in 2003 but the charges were dropped when she declined to testify.
The woman, who worked at the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera, accused Kobe of raping her and causing bruising to her neck. Bryant denied raping her and insisted sex with the woman was consensual.
Musician Marilyn Manson, right, is pictured with his wife Lindsay Usich at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party
Wood, a rape survivor, has accused Manson, pictured, of grooming and abusing her for years
Prosecutors dropped the charges after she declined to testify. She later filed a civil case against the Los Angeles Lakers, which settled with her out of court in 2005.
Wood, a rape survivor, has no known personal connection to Kobe but came forward earlier this month with allegations she was groomed and abused for years by her ex-boyfriend Marilyn Manson.
Manson has denied the sexual abuse allegations against him as ‘horrible distortions of reality’ after he was dropped by his record label.
Wood has claimed Marilyn Manson hurled anti-Semitic abuse at her, has three Nazi tattoos and drew swastikas on her bedside table ‘when he was mad’ during their relationship.
In Instagram Stories earlier this month, Wood claimed Manson, who real name is Brian Hugh Warner, would use the ‘N-word’, called her ‘a ‘Jew’ in a ‘derogatory manner’ and told her it was ‘better’ that her mother had converted to Judaism and did not have Jewish descent because it meant she wasn’t ‘blood Jewish’.
Wood posted photos of two tattoos on Manson’s arms and another on his chest which she said are Nazi symbols,
In her previous Instagram story, Wood also denied she and Manson were just having ‘kinky sex’ when he ‘tortured’ her saying they ‘never had a ‘BDSM’ relationship’ and that she ‘thought [she] was going to die.’
Wood was among the first to publicly accuse Manson of abuse and at least 11 women have since come forward accusing the rocker of physical and sexual abuse dating back several years.
Police were called out to Manson’s Hollywood Hills home earlier this month to carry out a ‘welfare check’ after a concerned friend was unable to get in touch with him as new allegations continued to surface against him.
Wood, who started dating Manson in 2007 before they split in 2010, said Manson made derogatory comments about her Jewish heritage on top of the ‘grooming’ and ‘horrific abuse’ she previously said she endured.
‘I was called a ‘jew’ in a derogatory manner,’ she wrote in an Instagram Story.
‘He would draw swastikas over my bedside table when he was mad at me.’
Wood explained that her mom is Jewish and she was raised in the religion.
‘Because she converted and wasn’t of Jewish descent he would say things like, ‘that’s better’ because I wasn’t ‘blood Jewish,” she said.
One of Manson’s other accusers, Ashley Lindsay Morgan, claimed the 52-year-old rocker once asked her to buy Nazi memorabilia for him in Asia and bring it to the US.
Wood also claimed Manson would often say the N-word and that, if anyone tried to confront him about it, they would be ‘abused more.’
In a 2009 interview with Spin, Manson made disturbing remarks about wanting to ‘smash’ Wood’s skull in.
He was being asked about his new album and was asked: ‘It sounds like the period after you and Evan Rachel Wood broke up was really tough. What was your lowest point?’
Manson replied: ‘My lowest point was Christmas Day 2008, because I didn’t speak to my family. My walls were covered in scrawlings of the lyrics and cocaine bags nailed to the wall.
‘And I did have an experience where I was struggling to deal with being alone and being forsaken and being betrayed by putting your trust in one person, and making the mistake of that being the wrong person.
‘And that’s a mistake that everyone can relate to. I made the mistake of trying to, desperately, grasp on and save that and own it. And every time I called her that day — I called 158 times — I took a razor blade and I cut myself on my face or on my hands.
‘I didn’t want people to ask me every time I did an interview, “Oh, is this record about your relationship with your ex-girlfriend?” But that damage is part of it, and the song “I Want to Kill You Like They Do in The Movies” is about my fantasies.
‘I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.’
Manson and Wood got engaged six months after the interview and were engaged for eight months.
When the comments resurfaced in November 2020, Manson’s reps downplayed them as him being a ‘theatrical rockstar.’
In 2018, she testified before Congress as part of a campaign for domestic violence victims about being tied up, raped and beaten by a partner when she was a teenager.
She did not name her abuser at the time but said she had been told she could not take it to police because the statute of limitations had expired.
‘My experience with domestic violence was this: Toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse which started slow but escalated over time, including threats against my life, severe gas-lighting and brainwashing, waking up to the man that claimed to love me raping what he believed to be my unconscious body,’ she said.
Wood was one of five women who made coordinated statements on Instagram Monday about how Manson allegedly abused them.
They are Wood, an artist known only as Gabriella; photographer Ashley Walters; model Sarah McNeilly; and model Ashley Lindsay Morgan.
They claimed they had been victims of sexual misconduct, manipulation, and physical and emotional abuse at Manson’s hands.
The women’s allegations vary but all say Manson left them with PTSD after forcing them into blood pacts, plying them with drugs, becoming violent with them and gaslighting them.
Artist Gabriella claimed she dated Marilyn Manson for six months between 2015 and 2016 and that he drove her to attempt suicide after tying her up, depriving her of sleep and plying her with drugs during their relationship which began when she was 22 and he was 46.
She shared photographs of herself with Manson and texts she says he sent her to add validity to her story.
On Monday night, another three women made allegations on social media that Wood re-posted on her account. They did not go into detail about their relationships with Manson but all three said he was an abuser.
Three other women who accused Manson of abuse include Scarlett Kapella, Brittany Leigh, and Torii Lynn.
Visual filmmaker Love Bailey claimed Manson once held a gun to her forehead.
In an Instagram video she claimed that Manson told her he didn’t ‘like f*****s’ as he held the weapon to her head while she was working at a shoot in his home in 2011.
Musician Chloe Black spoke out on Instagram to allege Manson deprived her of sleep, made racist and anti-Semitic comments and that she once ‘thought he was actually going to kill me.’
Artist and writer Louise Keay Bell claimed Manson ’emotionally and financially abused me and tried to control me’ from the age of 19.
Actor Charlyne Yi also alleged Manson harassed her and other women on the set of the TV series House and said when she spoke out about the abuse three years ago she had received death threats.
Former porn star Jenna Jameson told DailyMail.com that Manson fantasized about burning her alive and ‘liked to bite’ during sex when they dated back in 1997.
Indie star Phoebe Bridgers said she ‘stand[s] by’ Manson’s alleged victims as she recalled a time she visited Manson’s home as a teenager and the 52-year-old rock star showed her a room he described as his ‘rape room’.
She slammed people now ‘pretending to be shocked’ about the abuse allegations as ‘f**ing pathetic’.
Manson’s ex-wife Dita Von Teese has addressed the allegations leveled at Manson in a statement on Instagram.
In it, the 48-year-old burlesque star said she had been ‘processing the news’ about her ex, who she dated for six years before they tied the knot in 2005.
Von Teese insisted the experiences detailed by Manson’s alleged victims ‘do not match’ her own experience with the rock star.
‘Please know that the details made public do not match my personal experience during our 7 years together as a couple,’ she wrote.
‘Had they, I would not have married him in December 2005.’
She said she left Manson and filed for divorce 12 months after they wed ‘due to infidelity and drug abuse.’
While Von Teese said she had not been abused by Manson during their time together, she wished ‘strength’ on the women who had come forward.
‘Abuse of any kind has no place in any relationship. I urge those of you who have incurred abuse to take steps to heal and the strength to fully realize yourself,’ she wrote.
Von Teese said she also appreciated the ‘kindness’ of people who voiced concern for her ‘well-being’ following the news this week.
Rose McGowan, one of Manson’s former girlfriends, also said in a statement that while he was never abusive to her, she ‘stands with’ the accusers on Monday.
California State Senator Susan Rubio wrote to the FBI and the Justice Department demanding an investigation into Manson on January 21 – a week before the claims became public.
No investigation has been launched and Manson has never been arrested for any of the women’s allegations.