In the music industry, it’s inevitable to encounter some feuds between musicians. Whether collaborated or not, brothers, friends, or just acquaintances, a small disagreement or misunderstanding might cause long-lasting feuds. In this case, the feud between collaborators and former friends includes Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson.
How The Feud Started
Before the misunderstandings, the two worked together. Reznor helped Manson with three of his albums, namely ‘Portrait of an American Family,’ ‘Smells Like Children’ and ‘Antichrist Superstar.’
According to the rocker, whenever he finished helping with the albums, he felt like he was in a shallow emotional place. Eventually, ‘Antichrist Superstar’ caused creative tension between the two, and Manson claimed it was Reznor who caused a feud in the studio. Apparently, drugs were involved in the feud as well. Manson said of the argument:
“Trent came to me and said, ‘We need to stop doing drugs. The very next day I stopped doing drugs. Then things changed and I was the nerd.”
Reznor’s Changing Thoughts of Manson
Over the years, the two had an on-and-off friendship. With the release of Nine Inch Nails’ 1999 third studio album, ‘The Fragile,’ a song from the album was interpreted as a diss track for Marilyn Manson. Despite the track, Manson appeared in a Nine Inch Nails show a year after the release of the album.
According to Reznor, it made no sense for the two to stop communicating, and he doesn’t know why they fell out. He said of his former friend:
“It felt really good to see the guy again and hang out. I reluctantly missed him. We were like brothers and I couldn’t even tell you why we fell out. It was something to do with him getting some fame and both of us being out of our minds.”
Well, the on-and-off friendship still seems to be ‘off.’ In a story that resurfaced two years ago, Manson alleged Reznor and himself of physically and sexually assaulting a woman in his 1998 autobiography ‘The Long Hard Road Out of Hell.’ Ironically, the statement came right a few days after Manson’s former girlfriend, Evan Rachel Wood, claimed that during her relationship with Manson, he used to groom and abuse her.
The Nine Inch Nails frontman denied the claims. He also expressed his dislike of the rocker and made it clear that he has been doing so over the past years. He said:
“I have been vocal over the years about my dislike of Manson as a person and cut ties with him nearly 25 years ago. As I said at the time, the passage from Manson’s memoir is a complete fabrication. I was infuriated and offended back when it came out and remain so today.”
So, it seems to be certain that the two former friends won’t be reconciling anytime soon.