Marilyn Manson Will Play Wembley. Metal's Outsider Ethos Is Paying the Price

Slipknot have booked Marilyn Manson to open for 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium next July. The announcement lands despite a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against the singer and a lawsuit from his former assistant alleging physical, emotional and psychological abuse, set to go to trial in November 2027. Manson denies any wrongdoing; in 2025, a four-year investigation into the alleged crimes was dropped with no charges filed.

For a genre that has always sold itself as a refuge for the misfit, the booking raises an uncomfortable question. Metallica's James Hetfield and Judas Priest singer Rob Halford have both spoken, in readily found interviews, about how heavy music champions the outcast — or at least is supposed to. Putting a man accused of wrongdoing by more than a dozen women on one of Europe's biggest stages feels like the antithesis of that promise.

Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, retreated from public view when the allegations began in 2021. He returned in 2024 with a new record deal and a string of high-profile tour dates. He is not an isolated case. Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault of his ex-girlfriend Rihanna, and Ye, who made a string of antisemitic statements in 2022, are both filling massive venues. Earlier this month, the Guardian published an op-ed on the image rehabilitation of Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, after he kicked a female photographer and his ex-wife accused him of domestic abuse.

Metal, with its long-cultivated identity as a dangerous, anti-mainstream force, appears particularly lenient with such figures. The Slipknot announcement came three months after Pantera supported Metallica at the 62,500-capacity London Stadium. In 2016, Pantera singer Phil Anselmo raised his hand and screamed "white power!" onstage at a charity concert. He apologised, then in 2017 called some of his detractors "phonies" in an interview. None of it prevented Pantera from reuniting to celebration in 2022. In November, Nuclear Blast Records — the label Manson signed with in 2024 — will release a new album by Anselmo's other group, Down.

In February, As I Lay Dying 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. In 2024, every member bar Lambesis quit, and disturbing video surfaced online showing him flipping a table another ex-wife was sitting at; the former couple have each accused the other of abuse. The band's latest single, aptly titled Polarized, has nonetheless amassed 560,000 YouTube views in two weeks.

Those numbers are dwarfed by Falling in Reverse's track Joseph — currently one of metal's hottest songs, with 20 million YouTube views in two weeks, boosted by guest spots from Slipknot's Corey Taylor and System of a Down's Serj Tankian. Frontman Ronnie Radke has made a number of transphobic comments on social media and folded the backlash into his image: the cover of the band's 2024 album Popular Monster bears his mugshot from a 2012 arrest for domestic assault. The charge was dismissed in court in 2014.

The most consistent pushback has come from disappointed fans on social media, who have dominated the Slipknot/Manson announcement to the point that the BBC and NME have reported on it. Historically, those cries lose to ticket sales: Manson's UK tour in February 2025 completely sold out. Other artists have played along. Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory attempted a rehabilitation narrative ahead of their joint summer 2024 tour, saying it was fine because Manson is now "clean and sober". Lamb of God toured with Pantera in 2023 and 2024; singer Randy Blythe then in 2025 called Elon Musk a "fucking asshole" for raising his hand in a manner similar to Anselmo's gesture.

Metal was never a post-judgmental utopia: female representation has long been scarce, and hate has found pockets in underground subcultures such as the Nationalist Socialist Black Metal scene. But in 2026 — with some of its biggest artists accused of heinous acts against vulnerable people, only to return as popular as before, possibly more — the genre has never felt more fractured or unwelcoming, and its inclusive messaging has never sounded more hollow. A teenager walking into their first festival today, watching Falling in Reverse or Marilyn Manson play to thousands, then searching their histories at home, would very likely never buy a ticket to a second.