inthemix | International News | Marilyn Manson taken to court for "sick" spending habits

It’s the kind of publicity you can’t buy – Marilyn Manson has been accused of using his band’s money for various “sick” purchases.

The complaint was filed in an LA court by Stephen ‘Pogo’ Bier, who formerly played keyboard in Manson’s band. He claims the shock rocker purchased African masks made of human skin and a full skeleton of a four-year-old Chinese girl to use as a chandelier. As if that wasn’t disturbing enough a indictment, Bier also maintains Manson had a skeleton of a man in a wheelchair, swastika wall tiles and a mounted grizzly bear on his shopping list.

Also covered in the lawsuit are accusations that Evan Rachael Wood, the frontman’s 19-year-old girlfriend, was given “the highest salary ever paid to any actress in any music video in history” for starring in the Heart Shaped Glasses clip. All in all, Bier stated America’s favourite bad guy owes him at least $23.35m in shared profits. Skeletons, it seems, do not come cheap.

When the allegations first arose in August, Manson dismissed them as ludicrous.

“I would never spend my money on a Chinese girl skeleton. That would be crossing the line. It’s a Chinese boy, for the record,” he told MTV News. “It just seems like another ex-band member suing me and trying to assassinate my personality as a means to financial gain.”

Here’s that controversial video for Marilyn Manson’s Heart Shaped Glasses, starring his girlfriend Evan Rachael Wood. You decide how much this performance is worth…