Evan Rachel Wood Is the Latest Celebrity Victim of an Online Misogyny Playbook
In a February 2021 statement on Instagram, actress Evan Rachel Wood said she was done being silent.
“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood said. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
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Before this statement, Wood had spent more than three years being a vocal advocate for women experiencing domestic assault and abuse. But her post was the first time she publicly named Warner, whom she met when she was 18 years old, as her alleged abuser. Wood also said that she hoped to call out the industries that enabled him — regardless of the fear of retaliation. Warner has denied all of Wood’s allegations, and in March 2022, sued Wood for defamation.
In legal documents, Warner’s legal team claimed Wood created a “conspiracy” to cast him as “a rapist and abuser — a malicious falsehood that has derailed [his] successful music, TV, and film career.” And since the suit began in earnest, Warner’s fans have used their platforms to attack and harass Wood and his other accusers.
In the last year, Amber Heard, Angelina Jolie, Megan Thee Stallion, and Wood have all accused past celebrity partners of abuse or violence — only to have armies of fans accuse them of lying, misrepresent their legal proceedings, and encourage misogynistic rhetoric against them. When Heard lost the highly publicized defamation case filed by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, she told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie that her portrayal on social media played an outsized role in the outcome.
“I think the vast majority of this trial was played out on social media. I think that this trial is an example of that gone haywire, gone amok. And the jury is not immune to that,” Heard said. “I think even the most well-intentioned juror, it would have been impossible to avoid this.” But the end of Heard’s case didn’t end the attacks. Instead, accounts that successfully monetized video after video about Heard have begun to repeatedly latch on to other cases of abuse involving celebrities — creating a playbook of misogyny that puts famous women, and their reputations, on trial.
Here’s how it works: A celebrity — usually a woman — alleges that a past partner (also famous) has been abusive or violent. Documents are filed and journalists begin to report on the case. Online accounts that have commented on at least one case in the past glom onto the coverage, often directly co-opting reporting and then twisting its findings. These accounts are usually run by people who hop from case to case, taking the side of the famous man involved and using the account’s past notoriety in other cases to draw new and return viewers. Outside interest in famous names means the videos pop up in searches and gain popularity, especially when the information provided differs from more reputable sources like news sites. And because platforms like YouTube allow accounts like this to exist under the guise of commentating, the videos can be monetized, letting the cash roll in. (YouTube did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.)
Since Wood’s first claims, Warner’s fans have continued to support him, similar to how stans rallied around Depp during his lawsuit against Heard. And earlier this month, accounts doubled down on their harassment after Warner accuser Ashley Smithline recanted her testimony and claimed that she had been manipulated by Wood and others to lie about her relationship with Warner. Wood has denied Smithline’s accusations, stating in a court declaration that she “never pressured or manipulated Ashley Morgan Smithline to make any accusations against Plaintiff Brian Warner, and I certainly never pressured or manipulated her to make accusations that were not true.” A representative for Wood previously told Rolling Stone that they believe outside harassment may have played a role in Smithline’s reversal.
In one example, an account with more than 600,000 subscribers has posted at least eight videos surrounding the Warner-Wood trial, all of which accuse Wood of trying to defame Warner and derail his career. The videos, a majority of which are sponsored, have made the creator at least $2,000 on views alone, according to calculations made by Rolling Stone. YouTube gives creators who are part of the platform’s Partner Program — which allows users who meet certain criteria to run ads and monetize their content — roughly $3 to $5 per 1,000 views on a video, but rates can differ based on outside sponsorships, as well as a YouTuber’s subscriber number and engagement rate.
Another popular account, which has accused both Wood supporters and female reporters of trying to frame Warner, has posted at least 23 videos about the Warner suit in the past three months, each of which not only refers to Warner as innocent but directs viewers to donate to the creator’s Patreon for more Warner updates. The videos have a total of 193,000 views.
Wood isn’t the only celeb who has found herself the target of online misinformation and harassment. Meghann Cuniff, a trial reporter in Los Angeles, tells Rolling Stone that when she covered the trial of rapper Tory Lanez, she was shocked by how much misinformation bloggers were able to successfully spread about his victim, rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
“One thing that struck me was just how wrong some of these people were,” Cuniff says, describing dozens of times instances in which bloggers would take her direct reporting and distort it to post videos filled with blatantly inaccurate information about the trial and its proceedings. “I was just like, ‘These people have no idea what they’re talking about.’ It was kind of shocking.”
In December 2022, Lanez — whose legal name is Daystar Peterson— was found guilty of shooting Megan in both feet. In a June 2022 Rolling Stone cover story, Megan said she was subject to almost three years of online harassment from bloggers accusing her of lying. “I think it’s so crazy that people are able to get online or publish anything that is not a 100 percent fact,” she said. “That really is messing with my life. How are you able to do it and get away with it?”
Cuniff grew a following online for producing trial updates that were informed and detailed. But because many popular bloggers and YouTubers aren’t experts in the legal field, or even bound to the same ethical and reporting standards of journalists, Cuniff tells Rolling Stone that it allows people to take work directly from journalists and then misrepresent it for clicks.
“There’s this whole monetization of trials that’s going on,” Cuniff says. “People who just want to get clicks. But there’s an irresponsibility to the exploitation that comes with breathlessly covering this stuff in a YouTube-like fashion.”
According to Ruth Glenn, President of Public Affairs for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, online harassment campaigns are often successful because they rely on the average person being misinformed about how domestic violence occurs. Even in the case of famous couples, abuse doesn’t change when millions of dollars are involved — it’s still about power.
“When you have a male superstar and you have a woman superstar, we know who’s going to be believed,” Glenn tells Rolling Stone. “‘You’ve got money, why didn’t you just just go?’ Well, no, because it’s not that simple. It’s about control. It’s a very complicated thing. So when you don’t understand those dynamics, and you see this woman and it looks as though everything is fine and she’s got a lot of money — the backlash against them is pretty strong.”
Margo Lindauer, an expert in law and domestic violence, tells Rolling Stone that women are often easier targets for harassment and misinformation campaigns because social media has become a public forum for debate. But, she adds, this is nothing new — the same tactics historically used to discredit women in the courtroom are now being used online.
“There is this idea that victims of interpersonal violence must be perfect in this very specific way,” Lindauer says. “They can’t be sexual beings. They have to be cisgender, they have to be white, they have to be pure. They have to be all of these to even be able to assert that they’ve been harmed. And I find this line of thinking to be incredibly problematic and part of this generalized misogyny that we have towards women, and particularly women of color.”
Lindauer points to Heard’s past relationships, Megan Thee Stallion’s dating history, and Wood’s past roles that included nudity or sex — all things bloggers have used to imply the women were liars, untrustworthy, or simply seeking attention. She also says that online accounts often reinforce their twisted narratives by directly targeting journalists or lawyers working on cases, which can discourage people from speaking up about misinformation they see online.
“We’re headed in a scary direction. As a society, we give a lot of power and respect to men in power,” Lindauer tells Rolling Stone. “And it doesn’t feel like there’s the same element of protection for famous women as there is for the men that are accused.”
History has proven that Wood’s case is not unique. Warner’s defamation case against the actress is still ongoing — and unlike Heard’s, is not televised — making it unclear whether online accusations, if any, will play a deciding factor in the case’s outcome. But each of the three experts who spoke with Rolling Stone said ongoing harassment campaigns are actively changing how high-profile abuse and violence cases are handled in the future.
“There’s definitely a big court of public opinion these [online accounts] are winning,” Cuniff says. “The courtroom is hopefully isolated but it changes the way society thinks about things. It could make it so all the next jury pools you get are just a little bit changed through the cultural focus on this.”
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or start a live chat at https://www.thehotline.org
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