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After Evan Rachel Wood accused her ex-fiance Marilyn Manson of sexual abuse on Monday (Feb. 1), the musician took to Instagram to deny her claims.
“Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how – and why – others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
In addition to her own claims, Wood also shared the allegations of at least four other women on her Instagram Stories who said they had similar experiences with Manson (real name: Brian Warner).
Wood’s Monday post came after she had previously said she had been raped twice, including by a significant other that she wouldn’t name. “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood wrote on Instagram. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives. I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
The Westworld actress met Manson when she was 18 and he was 36. They were engaged in 2010 before breaking up. In 2018, Wood testified in front of a House subcommittee in an effort to get the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights passed in all 50 states.
After Wood’s allegations were posted on Monday, Manson’s label announced it was cutting ties with the shock rocker.
“In light of today’s disturbing allegations by Evan Rachel Wood and other women naming Marilyn Manson as their abuser, Loma Vista will cease to further promote his current album, effective immediately,” the label said in a statement. “Due to these concerning developments, we have also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”
Kobalt Music Group is back to being a pure music publishing operation with the pending sale of its AWAL distribution and music company and neighboring rights division to Sony Corp. announced Monday (Feb. 1). Moreover, the company says it is no longer on the block.
The lucrative deal, which still needs regulatory approval, is expected to bring in about a $430 million return for the company’s investors, presumably taking the pressure off the sale process.
Kobalt and its backers had been trying to sell the entire company, with the hopes of achieving a $750 million to $1 billion payday, sources tell Billboard. Kobalt spent about $75 million in acquiring AWAL (in 2011) and Fintage House’s neighboring rights division (in 2016), Billboard estimates, but also spent a considerable amount in building those operations. Still, the price tag of the just announced deal looks like it will help investors at least recoup their investments in the company.
Kobalt issued a statement Monday following news of the sale, saying it will strengthen its commitment to its publishing business and AMRA. “We are both excited for the big opportunities ahead across music publishing, AMRA and Kobalt Capital,” Kobalt founder and chairman Willard Ahdritz said in a statement. “Our team and capabilities will only grow stronger and play a continued role in making the industry better for creators.”
Going forward the company says it will stick to its core mission. “Kobalt’s mission from the start has been to create transparency and fairness for creators,” Kobalt CEO Laurent Hubert said in a statement. “I could not be more excited to focus 100% of our efforts on our incredibly successful music publishing business. Through our world-class creative and synch team’s ‘one roster, one territory’ approach combined with our global tech infrastructure, Kobalt has become the destination of choice for some of the most successful music talent in the world.”
Kobalt’s publishing operation had $450 million in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2019, while AMRA had another $65 million. (The company’s financials for the year ended June 30,2020, are expected to be filed in April or May.) The company has been predicting it will finally achieve profitability when its numbers are reported, after many years of the company reporting red ink.
Meanwhile, this deal allows the three major music companies to continue to dominate the indie distribution sector. As noted earlier, the deal will give Sony an estimated $1 billion in revenue from distributing independent labels through its The Orchard and AWAL operations.
While Kobalt doesn’t break out AWAL’s operations by geography, overall the company says 45% of all of its revenue, including publishing, is derived from the U.S. marketplace. If that percentage is applied to AWAL’s $106 million in revenue, that would give its U.S. arm about $48 million. That means the deal would add another 0.7% to Sony’s U.S. market share, increasing it to about 26.4% based on 2020 figures, Billboard estimates.
Sony’s presence in the independent sector increases to about 6.5% market share, also including releases from its Orchard and RED distribution services.
Cardi B has a brand-new single on the way: “UP” will drop on Friday.
The rapper took to Twitter on Monday night (Feb. 1) to announce the new release. “My new single ‘UP’ drops this Friday! LETS GOOOOOO! #Up.”
On Sunday, Cardi tweeted a video with the caption “I got an announcement to make tomorrow” and a loud-speaker emoji, so it’s safe to say this was her big news. In addition to the single news, Cardi also linked fans to her webstore, where she’s selling a CD single of the new song.
Cardi’s last release was “WAP,” her blockbuster team-up with Megan Thee Stallion that topped the Billboard Hot 100 back in August. She was named Billboard’s 2020 Woman of the Year in December, accepting the honor from Breonna Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer.
Travis Scott’s little girl Stormi is growing up, and he captured the feeling in an original poem he wrote for her third birthday on Monday (Feb. 1).
“3 is bigger than 2/ 3 more years of love that’s true/ 3 more inches u might have grew/ 3 more years a lot to dooo!!!/ 3 more TIMES I LOVE UUUUUU,” the chart-topping rapper wrote on Instagram with two black-and-white shots of the famous father-daughter duo. “Happy bday to my Lil storm storm.”
His Cactus Jack Records signee Don Toliver commented “BiG3,” while Bryson Tiller sent his love in the form of three brown hearts. Scott and Tiller chopped it up about fatherhood and raising Black daughters in a “crazy” climate on an episode of .WAV RADIO on Apple Music last fall.
Young Thug posted a tribute to his “niecey Pooh stormskii” on his IG Story featuring a throwback shot of his “Franchise” collaborator and Stormi at her second birthday last year. Scott reposted it, writing back, “She said thanks unk.”
Her mother Kylie Jenner posted her own touching series dedicated to their toddler for her 213 million Instagram followers, including a shot from the family of three’s Despicable Me-inspired Minion Halloween costumes last year. “crying today because i can’t stop the time. it’s all the little things i’ll miss like your cute voice and our long talks on the potty,” Jenner wrote. “Watching you experience everything for the very first time has been the best part of these last few years.”
Chloe Bailey of Chloe x Halle commented, “what an angel,” under her post, which also received a lot of love and teary-eyed messages from the Kardashian-Jenner clan.
See Scott’s sweet birthday poem for Stormi here.
Sabrina Carpenter released the highly anticipated music video for her single “Skin” on Monday (Feb. 1), and the romantic mini-film has another familiar face.
She cast Gavin Leatherwood from Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Sabrina Spellman, that is) as her love interest in the Jason Lester-directed visual. Their cozy relationship gets shaken up by an earthquake, snowstorm and rain showers that are symbolic of people trying to disturb her happiness. But the two weather it all together.
Carpenter is also credited as the video’s creative director. She recently signed with Island Records, and her latest single marks her first release under the label.
Carpenter shut down widespread speculation that “Skin” was a response to Olivia Rodrigo’s No. 1 smash single “Drivers License” in an Instagram post last Sunday.
“I wasn’t bothered by a few lines in a (magnificent) song and wrote a diss track about it. I was at a tipping point in my life for countless reasons,” she explained in the caption. “So I was inspired to do what i usually do to cope, write something that I wish I could have told myself in the past. people can only get to you if you give them the power to. and a lot of people were trying to get to me.”
Watch her official “Skin” music video below.
The colorful ensembles BTS wore in their “Dynamite” music video were the top-selling items at an event hosted by Julien’s Auctions on Sunday (Jan. 31).
The collection of outfits sold for a total of $162,500, a number that was more than eight times the amount they were estimated to bring in, according to a press release about the auction benefiting MusiCares.
Japanese art collector Yusaku Maezawa and YouTuber HIKAKIN were the buyers.
A painting of Snoop Dogg’s self-portrait dog wearing a “Doggy Style 25″ gold chain signed by Snoop was the next top seller at $96,000.
Other top-selling items featured in the auction included an original painting of Coldplay’s Chris Martin by Billy Morrison, a Schecter bass guitar signed by Nikki Sixx with a handwritten note from him, Pete Townsend’s blue boiler suit and long beige linen ‘kimono’ coat worn on stage in 2019 and Joe Walsh’s signed Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar with the original Gibson hard shell case donated by Gibson Guitars. Browse the full list of items at the auction here.
All proceeds from the items sold at auction will go to MusiCares, providing aid to artists and music community professionals in times of need.
