Billy Corgan has defended his friendship with Marilyn Manson and said that he “personally didn’t feel that he was guilty” of sexual and domestic abuse.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman has been friends with the shock rocker for decades now, and hit the road with him back in 2015 for the co-headlining ‘End Times Tour’.
Manson spoke about how Corgan gifted him his very first guitar and tried to teach him how to play. He also opened up about having the same musical influences as Corgan and shared how they both love cats in a 2015 interview with Loudwire. They did have a falling out after Corgan penned Manson a letter to warn him about the impact of dating Rose McGowan, but buried the hatchet in 2014 when Manson joined Smashing Pumpkins on stage in London.
More recently, Corgan joined a number of famous faces in attending Manson’s 56th birthday party last year, being spotted alongside James Iha, Falling in Reverse‘s Ronnie Radke and Motley Crüe guitarist John 5.
Now, following numerous allegations of sexual and domestic abuse that have been made against Manson, real name Brian Warner – all of which he has denied – Corgan has defended their friendship and shared his thoughts on the accusations.
“I think that ultimately, as a Christian person… you have to stand by your friends,” he shared on The New York Times podcast Popcast. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have an opinion, and that doesn’t mean you’re not critical.”
“In his case – and I’m not here to adjudicate it – the DA looked at the case for five years. In some cases, I knew personal things behind the scenes that are not in the public sphere,” he added. “I personally didn’t feel that he was guilty of the things he was being charged with, and ultimately, the fact that the DA didn’t pursue it.”
He continued: “But, I wasn’t there. I can’t be there for everything. But it’s one of those things where I don’t want the world to tell me who my friends are and who I should associate with. That’s politically, socially, and in Brian’s case, we have a relationship that goes back close to 30 years.”
Corgan went on to share how he knew Manson’s parents, and Manson’s wife has a twin sister who is married to Smashing Pumpkins’ guitarist James Iha, so he is “basically a part of our family”.
Rounding off, Corgan shared: “I think anybody in that situation struggles with the seriousness of the accusations, but again, I also knew the inside baseball of the case. I knew certain people who are involved, and so you make those evaluations.
“At the end of the day, I feel I made the right determination, but [also] when people would ask me privately, ‘Well, what happens if…’, I’d say, ‘If he’s guilty, or anybody in that situation is guilty, they should go to jail.’”
Warner’s former partner Evan Rachel Wood publicly named him as her alleged abuser in 2021, accusing him of grooming, manipulation and abuse during their relationship. Warner denied her allegations and those made by other women, describing them as “horrible distortions of reality”.
Wood later detailed her allegations in the 2022 documentary Phoenix Rising. Warner sued Wood and artist Illma Gore for defamation and other claims, but dropped the lawsuit in November 2024 and agreed to pay Wood nearly $327,000 (£244,000) in legal fees.
In January 2025, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office confirmed that Warner would not face criminal charges following a four-year investigation into allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence. This was because the allegations of domestic violence fell outside the statute of limitations, and prosecutors could not “prove charges of sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt”.
That being said, a separate civil case brought by Warner’s former assistant Ashley Walters was revived in January this year under a new California law. Walters first filed the lawsuit in 2021, alleging sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual harassment and other abuse during the period in which she worked for Warner in 2010 and 2011. The case had most recently been dismissed in December 2025 because of the statute of limitations, but California’s Assembly Bill 250 extended the window and allowed for it to be revived. Warner has denied Walters’ allegations, as he has the other allegations made against him.
Game Of Thrones actor Esmé Bianco previously brought a separate lawsuit alleging sexual assault, physical abuse and human trafficking. Warner denied those allegations, and the pair reached an out-of-court settlement in 2023.
Slipknot have recently received some backlash from fans for enlisting Manson as a support act for their newly announced 2027 ‘(sic)est Stadium Tour’.
For help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
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