Names and faces
■ The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed it is investigating decade-old domestic violence allegations lodged against rocker Marilyn Manson. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau is investigating allegation(s) of domestic violence involving Mr. Brian Warner also known as ‘Marilyn Manson,’ who works in the music industry,” a department statement said. “The incidents occurred between 2009 and 2011 when Mr. Warner lived in the city of West Hollywood.” The department gave no further details. Word of the investigation came less than three weeks after actor Evan Rachel Wood publicly accused her ex-fiance of sexual and other physical abuse, alleging she was “manipulated into submission” during their relationship. Manson, 52, has called her allegations “horrible distortions of reality,” saying that his “intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual.” Wood, who stars on HBO’s “Westworld,” had previously spoken about being abused in a relationship but did not name the person until she detailed the allegations on social media on Feb. 1. Wood, now 33, and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19, and they were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up. In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Manson over assault, battery and sexual assault dating to 2011 made by an unidentified accuser. At the time, Manson denied the allegations.
■ If good things come in threes, then Kelly Rowland is basking in her current moment of bliss. Less than a month ago the Grammy winner gave birth to her second child, Noah; she celebrated her milestone 40th birthday last week; and on Friday she dropped a new EP, simply titled “K.” “A couple of months ago, I said I’ll have two births: the birth of the baby and the birth of an album,” Rowland said, after cautioning that her 6-year-old son Titan or the cries of her newborn might interrupt the interview. “Some songs I’ve had for years, some of the songs I’ve had for maybe a year or a couple of months, but it’s all come together so beautifully.” The result of her musical labor of love is a six-track project heavily influenced by Afrobeat rhythms. So how was it recording with a growing womb? “[I was] out of breath!” Rowland laughed. It’s been nearly a quarter-century since the original Destiny’s Child quartet blasted out of Houston, and it’s that lifelong bond between Kelly and Beyonce, along with Michelle Williams who was later added to the group, that’s helped keep Rowland anchored. “That’s been the greatest blessing,” Rowland said of the sisterhood. “The fact that no one will know, but we’ll be at my house or B’s house or Michelle’s house and we’ll just be chillin’ and that’s some of our sweetest moments.”