Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson now blames his lackluster career on a mass shooting he was initially blamed for.
In 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into Columbine High School in Colorado armed to the teeth and murdered 12 fellow students and one teacher and injured dozens of others. Because someone has to be blamed for teenagers doing the unthinkable, Manson was a prime target due to his devilish appearance and antics. As it turns out, the murderers were not fans of Manson’s music so he was let off the hook. However, in a sort of tit for tat, Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, is blaming the mass shooting for ruining his career. He told The Guardian:
“If your parents give you money to buy a clean version of my record at Walmart, you might as well go there, buy a gun instead, take it into your own hands, do whatever you want.
“Give them the money and let them make their own choice: guns or records. If [the Columbine killers] had just bought my records, they would be better off. Certain people blame me for the shootings at schools – I think my numbers are low, and hopefully they go up on this record. That’s going to be a great pull-quote for you. But, honestly, the Columbine era destroyed my entire career at the time.”
“Well, I asked for it,” Manson added. “You don’t make a record called Antichrist Superstar and not expect people to hate you.”
Manson recalled “hundreds” of death threats when his tour would go through Colorado after Columbine. Here’s how he handled it:
“I would just get on stage and smash beer bottles and cut myself and go, ‘Fuck you, bring it,’ – I’ve got scars all over my chest – I can show you. I would jump into the crowd and punch people. It wasn’t even those people who were at fault.”
During the election last year, Manson released a video in which he beheaded an effigy of Donald Trump, way before Kathy Griffin did. And here we thought it was stuff like that, his crappy music, and the stupid androgynous costumes that made him so unlikeable. Surely the families of the Columbine victims feel his pain.
