Marilyn Manson

"We went to this bar and she started dancing really sexy dancing to Iron Maiden, which I thought, if a girl can dance to Iron Maiden, this is the girl that I'm going to be with forever." - Manson on Rose

Rose McGowan met the shock-rocker Marilyn Manson aka Brian Warner in late 1997, at the premiere of Gummo. Manson had just moved to Hollywood and said, "The only person I want to meet is Rose McGowan." Rose had a boyfriend at the time but was unhappy in that relationship and ended it. "It was a little messy because, as I say, I was with somebody else at the time, who I left - one, because I didn't really want to be with that person, and two, because I felt I'd had so much tragedy I needed to go off, go crazy, and maybe live on the outside for a while. That was my plan, anyways, and ironically it coincided with meeting the person who has given my life a strong foundation and a relationship in which I feel safe. It's interesting how my plan backfired in the best possible way".

Not long after Rose and Manson started dating she moved in with him. Rose also followed Manson on his huge tour, because they didn't want to be apart for more than 7 days. "Well, I like to say that this year I've ended up being a professional groupie. I took about 10 months off to adjust to the touring thing with Manson. I kept trying to break up with him before he went on tour because I am no man's Jerry Hall. Please. In fact, I would say I'm the one he has to worry about." Rose also starred on Manson's music video, Coma White.

On February 12, 1999, in a bathtub surrounded by candles Manson asked Rose to marry him. Rose announced her engagement on Howard Stern's radio show on February 16, 1999. They never set a date but did buy a house together. "My answer is yes, but it doesn't have to be for a long time. Right? I haven't gotten that far in the whole mental thing. I don't know, it's pretty freaky. I'm kind of like the guy who won't commit!", said Rose about marriage in 1999.

On January 2001, Rose announced her relationship to Manson was over. "There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater,'' McGowan said in a statement announcing the couple are breaking off their nearly two-year engagement. Rose refused to talk about the break-up publicly for a while but later on implied that she couldn't deal with Manson's drug abuse. "I couldn't take his lifestyle. The drugs - more than you could imagine. I realized it wasn't a lifestyle I wanted to be married to. I have never been a rock chick." Manson got angry at Rose for talking about his drug problems in public and bashed his ex. fiance on interviews and in songs, even on his newest album although they broke up over two years ago. He has said that Rose is controlling and manipulative and that he had to get his father to kick Rose out of the house when they broke up.

Both Rose and Manson have happily moved on. Rose looks as happy as ever with her boyfriend David Zinczenko and Manson has been involved with dancer-model Dita von Teese for quite a time. Rose has said she is not in touch with Manson anymore at all.
 

Rose on Manson:

"He helps me let things go. He taught me not to let things fester inside and roll with the punches. He's got a really good attitude- he'd have to, when you think about it- about people throwing stones. But the thing with him is, he's not that different from his stage persona. It's not all fake, it's how he expresses himself. He can be really wild at home or not, just like we all can. Well, some of us."

"I don't think about the institution part of it as much as the idea that marrying the person you're with is the highest compliment you can pay them. I think it's an amazing thing to tell someone you want to spend everyday for the rest of your life with them. Right from the moment we've been engaged, I've felt that the invisible threads bindings us together have become even tighter. It's very sweet, actually. I can imagine being with Manson at sixty-five."

"He's very masculine in real life. The image is exactly that, just an image. Marilyn has no skeletons in his closet and is not into any private perversions, unlike many of his critics. Marilyn parades everything in public. That's what angers the moral majority people. He says and does things in public that they fantasize about."

"It's funny because people think that we're becoming conventional, but I think it will actually give us more freedom to be crazy. The more comfortable we get with each other, the crazier we become individually, so I actually expect him to be ten times as crazy. I think this will totally probably free us both up to be way more crazy, and we're the only two people in the world that are kind of as crazy as each other, so we're perfectly compatible."

Manson on Rose:

"Rose inspires me, she's got more balls than the Jennifer Love Hewitt's of the world, who are so watered-down and boring. I told her she should change her name to Rose Hate-McGowan."

"Probably the most peculiar person I know. And my best friend in the world. Probably I wouldn't say fate, but someone that I had planned on meeting when I moved to Hollywood. Things happen for a reason. Since I met her I really haven't looked back."

"We're going to get married. We just bought a house. I don't feel as though that's settling down. I think it's great that I've found somebody who respects what I do and gives me the ability to do what I want. I have someone that I trust and it's hard to find someone that you trust in this world, especially someone like me. So I feel lucky that I'm in that situation. In no way does it fell like settling down - it feels liberating to me. I think the idea of always trying to find someone you can believe in is much more painful than having that person."

"There's something very tragic about her, something very classic, in a Marilyn Monroe sort of way, that just captured me. I've never met anyone like her, a guy or a girl. And she has very extreme ups and downs - they're so extreme that they affect me as well. I think we have a great relationship, but it still has a sense of tragedy to it. Maybe that's what makes it appealing in some ways, that it just seems like it has an unhappy ending to it somewhere."