Sunday Times; April 25, 1999
The heavy-metal "shock rock" artist Marilyn Manson, whose music has been linked to the Columbine High School shootings, has cancelled a show in Denver.
The 1,84m transvestite and self-styled "anti-Christ" had planned to play on Friday at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre near the school in Littleton where this week's massacre took place.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were known to be among the singer's legions of fans.
Dressed all in black, covered in satanic symbols, smeared with ghoulish white make-up and trying so very hard to shock, Manson fans are to be seen in small towns across the US, report tabloids The Mirror and The Sun.
They are in awe of the man who on stage slashes his arms with knives and razor blades, tortures animals and strips naked and simulates sex with his band, all the while roaring about drugs, death and devil worship.
Calling himself the "God of F**k," he pours bile over the American family, Christianity and, as he puts it, anything that discourages people from thinking for themselves.
"It's easy to shock Americans because they're all so stupid. My band is a reaction against the fake, sunny, cheerful, Disneyworld America," he boasts.
Asked how he would react if a fan did something "tragically stupid" after listening to his music, Manson said: "That would just go to show how ignorant people were raised."
Before the Littleton shootings, he was accused of inspiring a 13-year-old boy to commit suicide and was arrested for indecent exposure during a show, but wasn't charged.
Legal bids to ban his shows have failed.
Stores in Australia have refused to stock Manson albums.
The debut album Portrait of an American Family - which included the track Get your Gun - was released four years ago by the band, whose members all belong to a Satan-worshipping church in San Francisco.
Two years ago, their following was multiplied by their "masterpiece," Antichrist Superstar, which went to the top of the US charts and sold more than two million copies, bringing Manson the superstar status he had craved.
As his name suggests, he is fascinated by celebrity in all forms. And turned Marilyn into what he had always wanted to be - a rich celebrity.
Born Brian Warner in Canton, Ohio, the sickly son of a Vietnam vet, he hated being sent to a top Christian boarding school.
The former cocaine addict now lives a sober life in a Hollywood Hills mansion with his actress girlfriend.
