Trent Reznor may be currently performing an act of kindness — after all, raising almost a million dollars for someone’s heart transplant gets you points with the guy upstairs — but in the new issue of UK magazine Mojo, Reznor unleashes some not-so-nice words about former protégé Marilyn Manson.
“I might be happy and engaged, but I’m still a prick,” Reznor says before ripping into Manson. “He is a malicious guy and will step on anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of decency. Seeing him now, drugs and alcohol now rule his life and he’s become a dopey clown.”
Reznor does acknowledge that things “got shitty” between the two and that he’s not “blameless,” stating his feelings stem between 1994 and 1995, at the same time Manson’s Portrait of an American Family and Antichrist Superstar was released. Reznor co-produced both albums and cites the tours that followed each album as sources of the bad blood, as people close to him dealt with alcoholism and Manson “[pretending] to be fucked up a lot when he wasn’t.”
While the Nine Inch Nails frontman does speak some words of endearment for Manson — “He used to be the smartest guy in the room. And as a fan of his talents, I hope he gets his shit together” — before ending with, “The majority of it though was coming from a resentment guy who finally got out from under the master’s umbrella and was able to stab him in the back.” Jeez. Remind us to never get on this guy’s bad side.
