Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson is an American singer, songwriter, and visual artist whose four-decade music career — primarily as the founder of American industrial-rock band Marilyn Manson — has produced one of the most-controversial bodies of work in late-20th and early-21st-century American rock music. He was born Brian Hugh Warner on January 5, 1969, in Canton, Ohio. His father Hugh Angus Warner was a U.S. Air Force veteran and a furniture salesman, and his mother Barbara Jo Warner was a homemaker. The 1985 family relocation to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when he was 16, launched his early-career path. His stage name combines actress Marilyn Monroe and convicted murderer Charles Manson — a juxtaposition designed to provoke as much controversy as possible.

His education at Broward Community College (1987–1990; without earning a degree) launched his early-career path as a music journalist for the Fort Lauderdale-area entertainment magazine 25th Parallel. His 1989 founding of the early Marilyn Manson band (initially called Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids) with Daisy Berkowitz produced his late-1980s and early-1990s American rock-band public profile.

His 1994 first commercial album Portrait of an American Family — released by Trent Reznor's Nothing Records label — launched the Marilyn Manson band's mid-1990s American rock-music public profile. The 1996 second commercial album Antichrist Superstar — produced by Trent Reznor — sold over seven million copies worldwide and produced the singles "The Beautiful People" and "Tourniquet."

His 1998 third commercial album Mechanical Animals — released by Nothing Records — debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and produced the singles "The Dope Show" and "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)." The April 20, 1999 Columbine High School massacre — and the subsequent American media speculation about the music influence on the perpetrators (which Marilyn Manson refuted in his subsequent interviews) — shaped his later biographical narrative. His later biographical narrative across the 2020s has been complicated by 2021 multiple female-partner allegations of sexual misconduct, physical abuse, and domestic violence (some of which subsequently produced civil-court legal settlements). He has been with German-American photographer Lindsay Usich since 2010.

His name Marilyn derives from the English combination of Mary and Lyn (popularized by 20th-century American actress Marilyn Monroe). Marilyn was the third-most-popular American girls' name in 1937.