This week, Marilyn Manson was confirmed to support Slipknot in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium next July. He was booked despite the wave of sexual misconduct allegations levelled against him, plus a lawsuit from his former assistant alleging physical, emotional and psychological abuse that’s set to go to trial in November 2027. (The singer denies any wrongdoing, and in 2025 a four-year investigation into his alleged crimes was dropped with no charges filed.) If metal is supposed to uplift the downtrodden, then putting a man accused of wrongdoing by more than a dozen women on one of Europe’s biggest stages feels like the antithesis of everything the genre stands for.
Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, retreated from the public eye after the start of the allegations against him in 2021, but he returned in 2024 with a new record deal and a string of high-profile tour dates. He’s far from the only allegedly problematic figure to have recently made a successful musical comeback. Chris Brown, who in 2009 pleaded guilty to felony assault of his ex-girlfriend Rihanna, and Ye (formerly Kanye West), who made a string of antisemitic statements in 2022, are playing massive venues. Earlier this month, the Guardian published an op-ed about Queen of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme’s cosy image rehabilitation after he kicked a female photographer and his ex-wife accused him of domestic abuse.
Metal, with its long-established identity as a dangerous and anti-mainstream force, appears to be particularly lenient with this kind of figure. The news of Manson touring with Slipknot came three months after Pantera supported Metallica on their second night at the 62,500-capacity London Stadium. In 2016, Pantera singer Phil Anselmo faced widespread backlash for raising his hand and screaming “white power!” onstage at a charity concert. He eventually apologised, but in 2017 gave an interview where he called some of his detractors “phonies”. None of it stopped his band from reuniting to much celebration in 2022. In November, Nuclear Blast Records, the same label to which Manson signed in 2024, will release a new album by Anselmo’s other group, Down.
In February, As I Lay Dying are poised to release a new album. The band split in 2014 after its sole constant member, singer Tim Lambesis, was sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his ex-wife. Then, in 2024, everyone bar Lambesis quit the band, and some disturbing video surfaced online where he’s seen flipping a table that another ex-wife was sitting at. (The former couple have each accused the other of abuse.) As I Lay Dying’s latest single, aptly entitled Polarized, has amassed 560,000 YouTube views in two weeks regardless.
