Adele’s Confessions

How She Turned Her Pain Into Her Most Honest Album Yet
Co
34
‘It Fucking
ts SPECIAL
REPORT

Devastated Me’
How Adele turned heartache
The
into her most honest album yet.
By Brittany Spanos Monster
44 in Plain
Welcome to Sight
Guillermo Del Marilyn Manson was a
provocative media darling for
Toro’s Nightmare decades. Offstage, exes allege,
Inside the twisted mind of he made their lives hell.
Hollywood’s horror auteur. By Kory Grow and
By David Fear Jason Newman

48 60
Where the “If y’all don’t understand
Taliban Rule it, then that’s on y’all.”
A portrait of a country LATTO | P. 18
on the edge, where the
conquering militants
govern by fear.
By Andrew
Quilty

ISSUE 1358
‘ALL THE NEWS
THAT FITS’

PHOTOGRAPH BY Eric Hart Jr.

Contents

20
20 ESSAY
Year of the Black
Queer Revolution
26
RS REPORTS
Inside the VIP-
Ticket Hustle
77
The rise of Lil Nas X and Selling access to some of
others heralds a cultural the world’s biggest stars —
paradigm shift. but not always delivering.
BY ERNEST OWENS BY SAMANTHA HISSONG

Q&A GIFT GUIDE

11 25 Azealia Banks
The outspoken rapper
opens up about new music
31 Holiday
Must-Haves
Find the coolest tech,
and cancel culture (and music, books, fashion, and
The Mix dunks on Kanye).
BY JEFF IHAZA
more for all your friends
and family this season.
Reviews TV
76 A Plague on All
Our Houses
11 The Truth Music In a dystopian post-
About Snail Mail
Lindsey Jordan went to
rehab, wised up, and made
25 69 ABBA’s Brave
New Voyage
Pop’s super troupers ride
pandemic future, survivors
debate the role of art in
sustaining the human race.
a blazingly intense album again with their first new
BY ALAN SEPINWALL

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: JOHN SHEARER/GETTY IMAGES; JOSEFINA SANTOS;

about heartbreak. album in 40 years.
BY ANGIE MARTOCCIO
BY ROB SHEFFIELD Movies
77 How ‘The Matrix’
ARTIST YOU
NEED TO KNOW 70 Courtney Barnett Saw the Future
Slows Down As ‘Resurrections’ takes on
18 How Latto
One of the world’s sharpest the red-pill era, a look back
Cracked the
WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION; GRIFFIN LOTZ

songwriters thinks deep at the way the series saw

Code to Success and blisses out. what was coming.
“I’m maturing as a person,” BY JON DOLAN BY K. AUSTIN COLLINS
says the bold voice behind
hit single “Big Energy.”
BY MELINDA FAKUADE
On the Cover
Adele photographed in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, 2021,
by Theo Wenner.
Produced by Brittany Brooks and Walaa Elsiddig. Fashion direction by Alex Badia. Market editors:
Departments Emily Mercer, Luis Campuzano, and Thomas Waller. Sittings editor: Luis Campuzano. Location:
Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. Hair by Sami Knight at A-Frame Agency. Makeup by Anthony Nguyen
RS Recommends 17 at the Wall Group. Nails by Kimmie Kyees at the Wall Group. Styling by Jamie Mizrahi with Forward
The Last Word 82 Artists. Tailoring by Farah Bashiz. T-shirt by Hanes.

4 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

 S UB SC R IB E TO DAY

ONE YEAR OF PRINT PLUS

FOR $59.95
A year of print magazine mailed
directly to your door. A year of E-edition
delivered right to your inbox.
ROLLINGSTONE.COM/INTROOFFER
 Noah Shachtman Gus Wenner Jay Penske
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER CHAIRMAN AND CEO

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Sean Woods PUBLISHER, EVP HEAD OF Brian Szejka

DEPUTY EDITOR Maria Fontoura GLOBAL BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
ROLLING STONE is owned and
MANAGING EDITOR Alison Weinflash EVP HEAD OF GLOBAL Mike Van
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
published by PMRC Holdings, LLC.
DIGITAL DIRECTOR Lisa Tozzi
MUSIC EDITOR Christian Hoard VP INTEGRATED MARKETING Anjali Raja
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Joseph Hutchinson VP BRAND EXPERIENCES Dana Droppo
DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE CONTENT Catriona Ni Aolain EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF Jessica Grill VICE CHAIRMAN Gerry Byrne
DEPUTY MUSIC EDITOR Simon Vozick-Levinson BUSINESS OPERATIONS CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER George Grobar
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR David Fear EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Shameka Frank CHIEF ACCOUNTING OFFICER Sarlina See
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
NEWS DIRECTOR Jason Newman CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER Craig Perreault
POLITICS EDITOR Patrick Reis SENIOR DIRECTOR EVENTS Kelly Schwantner EVP, BUSINESS AFFAIRS Todd Greene
CULTURE EDITOR Elisabeth Garber-Paul SALES Edward Stepankovsky AND CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER

SENIOR MUSIC EDITORS Jeff Ihaza Nicholas Urkonis CHIEF ADVERTISING Mark Howard
Hank Shteamer Brendan Hoey AND PARTNERSHIPS OFFICER
REVIEWS EDITOR Jon Dolan Mitch Herskowitz EVP, OPERATIONS AND FINANCE Paul Rainey
SENIOR NEWS EDITOR Brenna Ehrlich Sam Forrest EVP, OPERATIONS AND FINANCE Tom Finn
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Angie Martoccio Sabrina Phillips MANAGING DIRECTOR, Debashish Ghosh
SENIOR REPORTER Nancy Dillon Alex Kim INTERNATIONAL MARKETS

SENIOR WRITERS David Browne Mindy Schneider SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCT Jenny Connelly
Tim Dickinson Justine Matthews SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, Judith R. Margolin
EJ Dickson DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL
Joe Maimone
Andy Greene SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE Ken DelAlcazar
Christina Tom
Kory Grow SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, Lauren Utecht
Brian Hiatt Lauren Kiggins HUMAN RESOURCES
Alex Morris MARKETING Christopher Santorella SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, Nelson Anderson
Stephen Rodrick Jeanne Dienstag CREATIVE
Brittany Spanos Brandon Kosikov SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, Rachel Terrace
Tessa Stuart DESIGN Stacey Saunders LICENSING & BRANDING
CHIEF TV CRITIC Alan Sepinwall Adrian Castillo VICE PRESIDENT AND Adrian White
FILM CRITIC K. Austin Collins PROJECT MANAGEMENT Sara Katzki ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL
STAFF WRITERS Sage Anderson Renee Giardina VICE PRESIDENT, Anne Doyle
Jon Blistein Anna Viserto
HUMAN RESOURCES
Ryan Bort VICE PRESIDENT, Brian Levine
Sarah Lombard
Mankaprr Conteh REVENUE OPERATIONS
Samantha Hissong BRANDED CONTENT Alfred Marroquin HEAD OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS Brooke Jaffe
Daniel Kreps Kwasi Boadi & COMMUNICATIONS
Elias Leight Elizabeth Lancaster VICE PRESIDENT, SEO Constance Ejuma
John Lonsdale Quincy Green VICE PRESIDENT AND Dan Feinberg
Julyssa Lopez ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT Annie Quinn ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL
Andrea Marks Kathleen Garcia VICE PRESIDENT,AUDIENCE Ellen Dealy
Ethan Millman Galina Druzhinina MARKETING & SPECIAL PROJECTS
Brandt Ranj VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL TAX Frank McCallick
LIVE EVENTS Kacie Collins
Peter Wade VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY Gabriel Koen
Mary Rooney
WASHINGTON, D.C., BUREAU CHIEF Andy Kroll VICE PRESIDENT, Jamie Miles
Josh Benbow
RS COUNTRY EDITOR Joseph Hudak E-COMMERCE
RS COUNTRY DEPUTY EDITOR Jon Freeman DIRECTOR OF Jason Fine
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT VICE PRESIDENT, ACQUISITIONS Jerry Ruiz
DIRECTOR OF CHARTS Emily Blake AND OPERATIONS
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTS AND Tim Chan MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT Bridget Schelzi
VICE PRESIDENT, Joni Antonacci
COMMERCE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Kevin Hurley PRODUCTION OPERATIONS
FASHION DIRECTOR Alex Badia DIRECTOR, DISTRIBUTION Mike Petre VICE PRESIDENT, Karen Reed
DATA QUALITY ANALYST Andrew Firriolo IMAGING SPECIALIST Germany Feng FINANCE
ART DIRECTOR Matthew Cooley PRODUCTION MANAGER Anne Leonard VICE PRESIDENT, Marissa O‘Hare
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR Toby Fox BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
SENIOR DESIGNER Kyle Rice CMO, HEAD OF PMC STUDIOS Mike Monroe
Sacha Lecca Mike Ye
DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR
ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Griffin Lotz Jann S. Wenner VICE PRESIDENT,
STRATEGIC PLANNING
SENIOR MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Joe Rodriguez FOUNDER AND ACQUISITIONS

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – VIDEO Daniel Halperin VICE PRESIDENT, Nici Catton

PRODUCT DELIVERY
CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Kimberly Aleah
SUPERVISING PRODUCER, NEWS Delisa Shannon LOS ANGELES OFFICE VICE PRESIDENT, Noemi Lazo
11175 Santa Monica Boulevard CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND
PRODUCER Reed Dunlea
Los Angeles, CA 90025 MARKETING OPERATIONS
VIDEO EDITOR Adisa Duke 310.321.5000 VICE PRESIDENT, Stephanie Parker
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER (TWITCH) Christopher Cruz PORTFOLIO SALES
CO-HOST/ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Jon Weigell NEW YORK OFFICE
475 Fifth Avenue VICE PRESIDENT, Victor Hendrickson
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR (TWITCH) Ian Blau
New York, NY 10017 ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL
TALENT MANAGER (TWITCH) Becca Higgins
212.213.1900 VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE Young Ko
ASSOCIATE SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Dewayne Gage
RESEARCH EDITORS Jonathan Bernstein
Rick Carp ROLLING STONE (ISSN 0035-791x)
Meagan Jordan is published 12 times per year, which is subject to
COPY EDITORS Chris Kobiella change at any time, by Penske Business Media, LLC,
Jason Maxey 475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Periodicals
Steven Pearl postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing
offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to
ROLLING STONE Customer Service, P.O. Box 37505,
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Boone, IA 50037-0505. Canadian Postmaster:
Cameron Crowe, Patrick Doyle, Raoul Duke (Sports), Send address changes and returns to P.O. Box
Josh Eells, David Fricke, Mikal Gilmore, Jeff Goodell, 63, Malton CFC, Mississauga, Ontario L4T3B5.
Vanessa Grigoriadis, Seth Harp, Erik Hedegaard, Will Hermes, Canada Poste publication agreement #40683192.
Seth Hettena, Greil Marcus, Jason Motlagh, Janet Reitman, International Publications Mail Sales Product
Rob Sheffield, Paul Solotaroff, Ralph Steadman (Gardening), Agreement No. 450553. The entire contents of
Touré, Peter Travers, Jonah Weiner, Elizabeth Yuko ROLLING STONE are copyright © 2021 by ROLLING
STONE LLC, and may not be reproduced in any
Ralph J. Gleason 1917-1975 manner, either in whole or in part, without written
Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005 permission. All rights are reserved.

6 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

TRIBUTE

Tragedy
in Texas
A concert turns into
a nightmare we’ll be
processing for years

W
HEN TRAVIS SCOTT was a kid in
Houston, his favorite place on
Earth was the local Six Flags
amusement park, known as Astroworld. It
shut down when he was 13, but he named
his 2018 album after it, and created the
Astroworld Festival at Houston’s NRG Park,
its former site, aiming to re-create some
version of his childhood dream.
At the third edition of the festival, on
Nov. 5, 2021, during Scott’s headlining set,
in front of a giant sculpture of the artist’s
own face, Astroworld turned into a waking
nightmare. At press time, nine people
were dead after a crowd crush; at least 25
more concertgoers were seriously injured,
including a gravely hurt nine-year-old boy,
Ezra Blount, who had been watching the
show from on top of his father’s shoulders.
“I had no elbow room and no space,”
Demarkus Bullock, a 28-year-old attendee
who survived the concert, told ROLLING
STONE. “Everyone was pulling. If that’s
what hell is like, I never want to go to hell.”
Now, Astroworld will stand alongside
Altamont and Woodstock ’99 as a short-
hand for concert disasters, though it was
far more deadly; a better comparison
would be the 11 people trampled before
a 1979 concert by the Who at Riverfront
Coliseum in Cincinnati, or the nine
attendees killed in another crowd crush
while Pearl Jam played at 2000’s Roskilde
Festival, outside of Copenhagen.
At press time, just days after the tragedy,
more than 40 lawsuits had already been
filed against Scott, show promoter Live
Nation, and other targets; lawyers who had
sued in prior concert tragedies predicted
settlements in the hundreds of millions of
dollars. Houston police were conducting a
criminal investigation.
However blame is assessed — and there
may be plenty to go around — Astroworld is
a live-music catastrophe of historic propor-
tions, one that hit an industry still reeling
from the Covid-19 shutdown, with conse-
quences still to be seen. As one concert-
insurance expert told ROLLING STONE,
“This is going to be something people are
talking about 10 years from now.” BRIAN HIATT

An impromptu memorial lined with flowers,

photos, and candles outside of NRG Park

8| PHOTOGRAPH BY Arturo Olmos

Beneful Incredibites Wet Recipes
Great flavor and nutrition all in one package.
Made with delicious real beef, chicken or salmon

No artificial flavors, colors or preservatives

High-protein recipes specially formulated for small dogs

Learn more at Beneful.com/IncrediBites

Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.
 WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S N

The Truth
About
Snail Mail
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY KENTO UTSUBO

Three years after becoming a teen

phenom, she’s fresh out of rehab
with a blazingly intense album

PHOTOGRAPH BY Josefina Santos 11

The Mix
TREEFINGERS
Donwood based this drawing of a
bizarre tree on a dream he had. “At the
ARTWORK time, I had very realistic dreams,” he
says. (Adds Yorke: “We were grabbing

Secrets of
anything that made any kind of sense,
and dreams were central to that.”)

ICE AGE COMING

Radiohead’s
Bottom left: “There was some
financial shock that happened, and
I was trying to finish the lyrics to
‘Idioteque’ at the time, so it became

Dream World
part of the same thing,” Yorke says.

THROW IT IN THE FIRE

The colors of this 2000 Donwood
canvas (below) reflect the influence of a
EARLY IN 1999, Radiohead began to size up the task of David Hockney museum show that the
band took in the year before. “It was the
what to do next after 1997’s acclaimed OK Computer.
first thing we did when we got to Paris,
“We were deeply suspicious of any level of success that we’d before we started recording,” Yorke
earned,” Thom Yorke says now. “Trying to get away from wher- says. “It completely blew our heads off.”
ever the fuck we had found ourselves to somewhere new.” Over
the next two years, with 2000’s Kid A and 2001’s Amnesiac, the
band leapt forward into a new universe
beyond rock’s horizon — accompanied
by a rich world of eerie, dreamlike im-
agery created by Yorke and visual artist
Stanley Donwood. Now, they are look-
ing back with a pair of art books, Kid A
Mnesia and Fear Stalks the Land!, and a
deluxe reissue of the two albums. “At
the end of it, the music and the artwork
ended up becoming something more
Kid A Mnesia: A Book
of Radiohead Artwork
transcendent,” Yorke says. “Trying to
Canongate, $50 embrace some sort of future, even if it’s
a nightmare.” SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON

er with white-and-brown Celine loafers, she FAST FACTS wanted to match the intensity of the song,”
SNAIL MAIL looks like an impossibly fashionable middle she explains. “I had a good time wearing that
TOP CHEF
THOM YORKE AND STANLEY DONWOOD/CANNONGATE UK

schooler on a field trip. Even her lace face “I’ve been exper- outfit, sauntering around.”

O
H, MY GOD, I’m so sorry,” says Lind-
sey Jordan, 22, as she emerges from
the leafy steps of Manhattan’s Fort
Tryon Park, half an hour late, and approaches
the Cloisters. “I was coming back from ther-
apy, and I was like, ‘Either I’m going to pee
at my apartment or, potentially, my pants.’ ”
Jordan, who performs as Snail Mail, takes
good care of the deep-indigo jeans she’s wear-
ing — later, she’ll stop to trickle water on her
knee after spilling some coffee. Clutching a
black backpack and wearing a lavender sweat-
mask, which she got from her mother’s bra imenting with my Jordan’s songs on Valentine are a master
store in Maryland, wins compliments from the air fryer,” Jordan class in being world-weary and heartsick,
museum guards. “It’s so addicting, getting nice says. “I do a little the way only a sensitive person in their early
clothes,” she says. “It’s the ultimate cure-all.” baking. That’s, like, twenties can be, from the slow-burning
my number-three
Jordan works with a stylist these days to “Headlock” (“When did you start seeing her?/
hobby right now.”
craft a precise look to get across the feeling Guess somebody finally tamed you”) to the
she wants in each photo shoot or music video. UNPLUGGED silky “Forever (Sailing)” (“You’re taking her
Like her friend
Take the title track for her latest album, Valen- home/Doesn’t obsession just become you?”).
Katie Crutchfield
tine. It’s a blazing rocker fueled by heartbreak of Waxahatchee,
But more than a lost love, Valentine is real-
and betrayal; in the video, she wears a Regen- Jordan is off social ly about how Jordan almost lost herself when
cy-style suit while savagely murdering an ex’s media: “It’s so her 2018 breakthrough, Lush, turned her into
new lover and stuffing her face with cake. “I liberating.” a nationally celebrated indie-rock prodigy.

12 | Rolling Stone | December 2021


PULK/PULL
Yorke connects this drawing
to a disturbing 1998 incident
when he was “beaten up
randomly” by a stranger in his
hometown of Oxford, England.
After a three-year tour and an unsuccessful at- “If there’s
tempt to tackle a follow-up, Jordan felt stuck. any reason
“I was isolated,” she says. “A lot of the stuff to let [my]
that I needed to talk through, nobody could personal
help me with.” life into the
In November 2020, Jordan spent 45 days in
fold, it’s for
a rehab facility in Arizona. It wasn’t her idea
other people
— “Rehab might not have necessarily been the
next step of what I needed,” she maintains —
to be like,
but the people around her felt it was import-
‘This is
ant, and she went along. She describes that something I
time as both “a bitch” and “an exhale.” And can identify
while she declines to answer if she’s currently with.’ ”
sober, the classes she took in rehab had a pro-
found impact on her. “Now, I feel like I have
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND
“It’s almost a dark fairyland,”
Donwood says of the icy
mountain range seen in this
2000 painting. “It was a very
lonely, cold, and quiet place.”
this,” she says. “At least on an intellectual
level, but not necessarily always in practice.”
After leaving the Arizona facility, she met
up with producer Brad Cook in Durham,
North Carolina, bringing along some demos
that she’d written mostly at the start of the
pandemic, when she temporarily moved back
in with her parents in Baltimore. “Something
about being where I physically was when I
wrote Lush made it feel low-pressure,” she
says. “It was crazy how quickly it started hap-
pening once I had alone, quiet time.”
Riding the A train downtown to her Lower
East Side apartment after the museum, Jordan
says she’s looking forward to getting some
I’M NOT HERE
Donwood based this large painting, which
sold for £137,500 at a recent auction, on a
newspaper photograph of a bombed-out scene
in Yugoslavia. “It was just a square of snow,” he
says. “But the snow had footprints, cigarettes,
blood . . . a very up-close reality of war.”
LOST AT SEA
The Minotaur of ancient mythology became a
key motif for the Amnesiac artwork. “One of the
problems I was having trying to write music —
the words especially — was how I was relating
to my voice,” Yorke says. “I felt like I had built
myself this fucking maze and I couldn’t get out.”
sleep. Lately, she’s so exhausted she’s been
dozing off even while talking to her girlfriend,
who she’s been dating for four months. “I’ll
be in the middle of a conversation and boom,
asleep,” she says with a laugh. “For a while I
thought I had narcolepsy.”
Jordan is pleased by the idea that some
queer fans look up to her and feel recognized
by her music. “If there’s any reason to let [my]
personal life into the fold, it’s for other peo-
ple to be able to be like, ‘This is something
that I can identify with,’ ” she says. “I’m pret-
ty young. I didn’t have any of that. I’m happy
that the rockers of tomorrow get to see so
much of it.” ANGIE MARTOCCIO
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 13
Journalism That Matters.
Music That Inspires.
Unlimited access to RollingStone.com
for just $59.99 a year.

ROLLINGSTONE.COM/DIGITAL-OFFER

1
5
ALBUM
1. ‘Drones,’ by
Terrace Martin
This frequent Kendrick
Lamar collaborator’s
ALEXIS NICOLE/@BLACKFORAGER; CAROLE BETHUEL/NETFLIX; MATT KENNEDY/COLUMBIA PICTURES/© 2021 MARVEL STUDIOS
new album fuses R&B,
funk, and hip-hop into
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: SAMANTHA WHITEHEAD; MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES; PARAS GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES;
a sound that’s as warm
and welcoming as a
70-degree afternoon.
DOCUMENTARY
2. ‘Ricky Powell:
The Individualist’
Filmed before the photog-
rapher’s death earlier this
year, this doc uses his ex-
tensive catalog, clips from
his public-access show,
and interviews with every-
one from the Beastie Boys
and Laurence Fishburne
to Powell himself to tell
the story of his life — and
the epic 1980s Manhattan
scene he captured.
TOUR
3. Buffalo Nichols
On the road in the South
and Midwest this month,
this bluesman updates
the genre for the Black
Lives Matter era, making it
feel as soulful and urgent
as it was 100 years ago.
RECOMMENDS
CUL
4
POETRY COLLECTION
‘The L.A. Riots’
4. ‘Call Us What
We Carry’
Amanda Gorman’s first
book was rushed to
press after she became
America’s youngest-ever
inaugural poet. Now, The
Hill We Climb and Other
Poems is expanded and
renamed, though it still
includes the titular piece
she wrote to welcome Joe
Biden into office.
MOVIE
5. ‘Spider-Man:
No Way Home’
Stripped of his secret
identity and framed
for murder, Spider-Man
(Tom Holland) seeks out
Dr. Strange (Benedict
Cumberbatch) for help.
Expect Marvel villains,
mind-bending visuals, and
a trip to the metaverse.
OUR
THE
PODCAST
6. ‘Slow Burn’
Season Six:
Host Joel Anderson
reexamines the 1992
uprising — and the events
leading up to it — from
the perspective of those
who were there, including
the last known interview
with George Holiday, who
filmed police beating
Rodney King.
ANNIVERSARY SHOW
7. Metallica
It’s been 40 years since
James Hetfield and Lars
Ulrich wrote their first
neck-snapping head-
banger together, kicking
off a career that redefined
metal and gave the world
anthems like “Enter Sand-
man.” To mark Metallica’s
anniversary, the thrashers
are holding two supersize
concerts in their adopted
hometown of San Fran-
cisco on Dec. 17 and 19.
TIKTOK’S
NEW FACE
7 OF FOOD
FORAGING
Nelson finding food
THE IMAGE of outdoorsi-
ness may be overwhelm-
ingly white, but Alexis
Nelson — a.k.a. @black
forager on Instagram and
Twitter, and @AlexisNikole
on TikTok — wants people
to know that exploring the
wild is very much Black.
“Foraging almost feels like
tapping back into a prac-
tice we forgot about for
a couple of generations,”
says Nelson, 29. Although
she grew up watching
her father cook and her
mother garden, Nelson
found foraging in 2015,
when she was scraping by
in Columbus, Ohio. “I was
9
sick of ramen and Boca
burgers,” she says. “Some
neighbors had started
doing urban foraging, and
it lit up a lightbulb for me.”
Nelson hit the outdoors,
ALBUM
grabbing dock leaves to
sprinkle into her noodles
8. ‘Paragons,’ by for a lemony taste, and
Constant Smiles field garlic greens to spice
A new release from the up her vegan burgers. She
collective/15-year project started reading countless
of Massachusetts indie books on plants, becom-
ing a walking, talking
musician Ben Jones,
botanical encyclopedia.
Paragons is the perfect
In July 2018, she cre-
record for a blistery
ated @blackforager, and
winter day, embracing
has so far racked up mil-
heartbreak, sobriety, and
lions of followers across
in rare moments, hope.
her accounts. Unlike
STREAMING SHOW many influencers, though,
Nelson isn’t really inter-
9. ‘Emily in Paris’ ested in fame. (She was
Season Two pretty psyched, though,
Netflix’s inane yet when SZA DM’d her to
addictive rom-com was set up foraging plans.)
a peak-pandemic hit. In “My most sincere hope
For Season Two, we’ll see if is that someday [soon] I
reviews, Emily (Lily Collins) finds have to change my handle
premieres, love, if she’ll continue because it feels redun-
and more, to be a touched-by-God dant; because there’s so
go to marketing genius, and many other Black folks in
Rolling whether this show will the space, specifying I’m
Stone.com/ still be inexplicably, one of them won’t make
music deliciously watchable. sense.” MEAGAN JORDAN
Rolling Stone | 17
The Mix

ARTIST YOU NEED TO KNOW

How Latto
Cracked
the Code
to Success
YOU’D HARDLY ever guess that
Latto — a rapper as glamorous as
she is braggadocious — was born
with a name as understated as
Alyssa Stephens. She has spent
this year recording a new album,
riding the high of her Mariah Carey-
sampling single “Big Energy,” and
enjoying popularity on TikTok. One
key to her success: her choice
to shorten her stage name from
“Mulatto” in early 2021. “At first I
wasn’t open to changing it. I was
like, ‘If y’all don’t understand it,
then that’s on y’all,’ ” she says on
a recent Zoom call, adorned in
micro cornrows and ultralong
French tips. “But I’m maturing
as a person.” MELINDA FAKUADE

STYLING BY TODD WHITE. MAKEUP BY MELISSA OCASIO. NAILS BY JOHNETHEA JOHNSON

10-SECOND BIO
HOME BASE
Atlanta
TIKTOK QUOTABLE “When I be
doing these interviews, they
always ask me, what’s my hob-
bies outside of rap? Shittin’
on bitches” — “Youngest
N Richest” (2020)

18 | PHOTOGRAPH BY Eric Hart Jr.

EXCEPTIONAL
FROM EVERY ANGLE
ISOSCELES is crafted in Paso
Robles, California, with the same
uncompromising approach as the
French masters. Hand-harvested and
aged in French oak, ISOSCELES is a
truly exceptional Bordeaux-style blend.

justinwine.com
The Mix

CALL US BY
OUR NAMES
Lil Nas X
and crew
performing
at the BET
Awards
in June

ESSAY

The Year of the

Black Queer Revolution

I
N OCTOBER, I married the love of my life at the
Penn Museum in Philadelphia. Among tower-
ing Asian statues and a replica of an Egyptian
sphinx, more than 100 people made the wed-
ding feel like a mini Met Gala. Our cake was
designed by a transgender baker who had the
Pride flag (including black and brown stripes) draped
around it. We had a mixed-gender set of “groomspeo-
ple.” The Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges deci-
The insurmountable rise
of Lil Nas X, Billy Porter, and
other artists represents a
paradigm shift in the culture
By ER NEST OWENS
civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, who had to over-
come adversity on the basis of both his sexual orien-
tation and race. Icons like James Baldwin, who had to
travel abroad to embrace his sexuality. And legends
like Langston Hughes, whose queerness remains a
mystery 100 years after the Harlem Renaissance.
“It was an absolute necessity for me to declare ho-
mosexuality, because if I didn’t, I was a part of the
prejudice,” Rustin said during an unaired interview
BENNETT RAGLIN/GETTY IMAGES FOR BET

sion legalizing gay marriage was one of the readings
during our ceremony. Our officiant was a Black queer
woman who was ordained to do inclusive ministry.
Then came the party. And the dance floor. There
was an opening hook that got the crowd going. Its tri-
umphant superhero horns summoned the sound of
a change, the dawn of something new. The track was
Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby,” which would become his
third Number One hit a few days later.
“And this one is for the champions,” the room
roared out loud. “I ain’t lost since I began, yeah.”
Here we were in a diverse crowd of family, friends,
journalists, doctors, politicians, and lawyers chant-
ing the lyrics of an unapologetically Black gay artist
— at the wedding of two unapologetically Black gay
men. What once seemed taboo now felt normal. All
my life, I had read stories about Black queer men like
with the Washington Blade before his death in 1987. “I
was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part
of the effort to destroy me.”
Decades later, we were gathered doing something
that so many of them couldn’t have fathomed during
their lives. I cried tears of joy throughout the wed-
ding like I had won an Oscar or something. This must
be the long-awaited breakthrough that had come
for men like myself, who were often told to “tone

20 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

 “Who could have
it down.” Black queer men were expected to hide
their sexuality and assimilate. This must be what
it feels like to be at a tipping point: one in which
two Black queer millennials can get married at an fathomed that
Ivy League museum while blasting another Number
One hit from Lil Nas. All of this would have felt im-
Black queer men
possible even less than a decade ago. Back then, we
didn’t have a Supreme Court ruling that made mar-
would be at the top of
riage equality the law of the land, people asking you
what your pronouns were, or homophobes being
the charts, in
“canceled” on the regular. It was still breaking news
to “come out” in pop culture. But now, at age 30, I
Congress, and on TV
feel like the world has changed, thanks to the glori-
ous insurgency of Black queer men in pop culture.
and movie screens?
We’re living in
N
EARLY A DECADE AGO, the summer of 2012
felt like progress on audition: The presi-
dent of the United States was a Black man
a world where not
running for reelection, and hip-hop whiz only is the Black
kid Frank Ocean had told his fans that his debut
album, Channel Orange, was, in part, about a boy. queer community
Contrary to popular belief, Frank didn’t come out
as queer at the time. In fact, the “Bad Religion” art- being embraced, but
ist has never self-identified outright as being a mem-
ber of the LGBTQ community at all. But that didn’t those who show us
stop the media and the rest of the world from giving
Ocean the bold title of being a Black Gay Icon that so hate are being
many of us were longing for in hip-hop. His later work
would continue on this trend of baiting without bold disgraced.”
declaration (his sophomore masterpiece, Blonde,
said the word “gay” only once, in reference to a bar).
By 2016, progress felt contentious: The first
woman to ever earn a major American political par-
ty’s presidential nomination was facing a billionaire
who had a storied history of racism and sexual
assault allegations. I had turned 25 that fall
and was two years into my relationship
with the man I would marry five years
later. Moonlight, the groundbreaking
film that would later win the Oscar
for Best Picture, had just hit screens.
It was breathtaking, beautiful, and
Black. But Moonlight wasn’t the out-
right, definitive Black queer film that I
had hoped for. Just as with Frank Ocean,
much was left to our imagination on expres-
sions of Black queerness — in which visibility was
exchanged for nuance.
While the rest of the critics and public celebrated
this, I felt a sense of dissatisfaction. Why were the
Black queer men in pop culture often vague, dis-
creet, fleeting, and/or invisible? Sure, there was
RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the Black queer
TV characters played by reality star
Karamo Brown and the late Michael K. STRIKE A POSE
Emmy, Tony, and
Williams. The hope we had for actor
Grammy winner Billy
Jussie Smollett in Empire ended in dis- Porter electrified
appointment, and it seemed like every- audiences with his
thing else was left in limbo. This wasn’t role in Pose.
it — the subtleness of Black queer mas-
culinity being treated as tolerable and respectable
rather than disruptive and inspiring. Black queer
masculinity either was something to be not seen
or heard, or despised as being something flamboy-
RICH FURY/GETTY IMAGES
ant and overtly feminine. The racist and patriarchal
limitations on how Black men are allowed to express
their sexuality dates back to slavery and was unfortu-
nately never left behind on the plantation. Little did
I know that it would take another half-decade before
a necessary paradigm shift would become a reality.
J
ANUARY 2021 was progress reemerging: For
the first time ever, Congress had two openly
Black gay men in its chambers as the nation re-
covered from a racist president who wouldn’t
leave the White House without an insurrection.
The pandemic had given a mixed bag of cultural
highs and lows: Empire had its final season with the
first-ever Black gay wedding on a prime-time TV se-
ries, and the sleeper hit of P-Valley on Starz centered
around a spicy Black queer love affair. The return of
Lil Nas X kicked off what felt like a new era of Black
queer masculinity revisited with the event that was
“Montero (Call Me by Your Name).” The viral music
video, which set off hundreds of think pieces, head-
lines, and debate, finally gave my generation the un-
apologetic Black queer pop star we had yearned for.
Lil Nas X wasn’t a musician who so happened to
be queer, but an artist who was intentional in de-
manding that his work let you know such without
a doubt. This transition from his much safer “Old
Town Road” days to the brash, sexual, and confident
Montero ones shattered the rainbow-stained-glass
ceiling that nobody saw coming. Lil Nas X was the
hip-hop queer hero I never thought we would get,
someone at the top of the industry doing everything
just like the rest of the often cis-het men who told
us his actions would be career ending. He went to
the BET Awards and made every conservative cringe
after kissing a man live, in full Egyptian-pharaoh
garb. He would later make history as the first male,
solo, gay musician to ever win the VMA for Video of
the Year for the record that had confirmed he wasn’t
a one-hit wonder.
Introducing him during the VMAs for the perfor-
mance of what would be his second Number One hit
of the year was Emmy-, Tony-, and Grammy-award-
winning actor Billy Porter, an older Black queer leg-
end who has resurged following his electrifying role
in Pose. Shortly after the final season premiered this
spring, Porter, 52, made the decision to disclose being
HIV-positive. Normally, such details would stifle
the career of a Black queer creator, or often
create a cloud of worry, stereotype, and fear.
But unlike many before him, Porter leaned
into his truth, becoming a new voice for an
epidemic that continues to disproportion-
ately impact many Black queer men who
aren’t as influential and seen as him.
Who could have ever fathomed that in this
moment Black queer men would be out loud
at the top of the charts, in Congress, on the front
covers of major magazines, and on TV and movie
screens — all at the same damn time? We’re living in
a world where not only is the Black queer commu-
nity being embraced, but those who show us hate
are being disgraced. The instant takedown of rapper
DaBaby following his anti-LGBTQ and HIV-phobic
remarks last summer, seeing Black Twitter drag rap-
per Boosie Badazz every time he attempts to troll Lil
Nas X, and the pushback Dave Chappelle continues
to get for his transphobic remarks tells me that Black
queer power isn’t going away anytime soon.
As my wedding ended on a high note (I had nearly
ripped the pants of my custom tuxedo doing a tipsy
rendition of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” with my man
of honor), I took a moment to reflect on how far my
life had come and the world around me.
This was progress reimagined: my generation
living the wildest dreams of Baldwin, Hughes, and
Rustin right before our very eyes.
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 21
 ADVERTORIAL
These Leaders Are At the Forefront of
Reimagining Sustainability and
Climate Activism for the 21st Century
By: Nathan Mattise

Presented by: Thomas Schinko, makingAchange

Jessica Levine, The Recycling Partnership

Recycling in the U.S. has undoubtedly improved since curbside collections rose to
prominence in the 1960s. Entire cities now strive to divert all materials from local
landfills, with places like San Francisco leading the way at 80 percent waste
diversion. When it comes to individuals, the desire and will to recycle is there, too. Brian Morris, Webster Forest Nurser
According to the Paper and Packaging Board, nearly all Americans (95 percent) say
they recycle. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same opportunity to recycle right
now. “We know Americans want to recycle, about nine in 10, but we know not
everyone can — about four in 10 lack equitable recycling access,” says Jessica Levine
of the Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit focused on improving recycling in the U.S.
“By equitable access, we mean everyone can recycle as easily as they can throw
something away in their home.” For context, the four-out-of-10 figure equates to
nearly 100 million Americans. So to help address this gap, Levine and her organiza-
tion started the Recycling Inclusion Fund in the fall of 2020. The new initiative
specifically addresses recycling-access disparities in the U.S. that are related to race.
The goal is “to close equity gaps, so all residents have access to the tools and
resources they need for a more sustainable life,” Levine says. Part of the fund is a
fellowship to help young leaders from diverse backgrounds in the waste-reduction
and recycling world find opportunities and mentorship in the industry. Long-term,
that can help the recycling and waste-reduction industries become more diverse
professionally and better reflect the communities they serve. The fund’s other focus
involves collaborating with specific communities to identify and fix systemic issues
hampering local recycling access. Within just one year of starting the program, the
Recycling Partnership has already found success with the city of Orlando (bringing
recycling containers and information to nearly 75,000 city-sponsored multifamily
dwellings) and Baltimore (making recycling containers free for the city’s almost
600,000 residents, who previously had to purchase those themselves).

Learn how you can be a force for nature at PaperForNature.com

 JUST BY READING THIS MAGAZINE, YOU’RE SUPPORTING THE GROWTH OF OUR FORESTS.

This holiday season, give the gift that keeps on living. Because when timber is used to make products,
including paper and packaging, we grow nearly twice the amount in its place. So make the most of our
natural resource by recycling your holiday cards, catalogs and boxes when you’re done enjoying them.
Choose paper & packaging and be a force for nature.

Learn more at howlifeunfolds.com/holiday

© 2021 and ® Paper and Packaging Board. Please recycle your paper and boxes. From the Makers of Paper and Packaging
The Mix

‘Star Wars’
Builds a New
TV Empire
WHEN IT COMES to Star Wars, it’s all about the small
screen lately. Including ongoing projects like The Manda-
lorian (coming back next year) and the animated
clone-trooper show The Bad Batch, Disney+ currently has
a whopping 10 series in the works — that’s more TV shows
than there are moons of Endor. At least five of them, pos-
sibly more, should hit the streamer before
we see the next Star Wars feature film, Patty
Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, slated for the end of
2023. Here’s a breakdown of the six shows, returning and
new, we’re most excited to see. JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: 20TH CENTURY FOX/EVERETT COLLECTION; JONATHAN OLLEY/2016 LUCASFILM LTD.; 2020 LUCASFILM LTD.; JONATHAN OLLEY/2018 LUCASFILM LTD.; 2020 LUCASFILM
‘THE BOOK OF ‘THE ‘OBI-WAN

LTD.; 20TH CENTURY FOX/EVERETT COLLECTION, 2; 2020 LUCASFILM LTD.; 20TH CENTURY FOX/EVERETT COLLECTION; 2005 LUCASFILM LTD.; 20TH CENTURY FOX/EVERETT COLLECTION
MANDALORIAN’ ‘ANDOR’ ‘LANDO’ ‘AHSOKA’
BOBA FETT’ SEASON 3
KENOBI’

What’s It This Mandalorian Continues the story Set a decade after Reprising his role as “The galaxy’s favorite The Jedi protagonist
About? spinoff is a long- of bounty hunter Din Kenobi’s battle with Rebel spy Cassian scoundrel,” Lando of 2008’s Clone Wars
awaited origin story Djarin, now that he’s Anakin Skywalker, it Andor from 2016’s Calrissian, played by animated movie and
for the legendary won the Darksaber, should shed light on Rogue One, Diego Billy Dee Williams in TV series, first intro-
bounty hunter best potentially becom- how the Jedi master Luna will star in this the first trilogy and duced in live action
known for capturing ing the ruler of all went into hiding on prequel, presumably Donald by Rosario Dawson
Han Solo in The Em- Manda- Tatooine to set during the rise of Glover in in a one-off ep of
pire Strikes Back. lorians. watch over Luke. the Galactic Empire. 2018’s Solo. The Mandalorian.

What We Temuera Morrison Pedro Pascal The six-episode Disney has described Dear White Dawson will
Know and Ming-Na Wen (Din Djarin) and limited series is the 12-episode series People’s star, and the
(Boba Fett and Giancarlo Esposito set to premiere next as a “spy thriller” Justin Simien show reportedly will
Fennec Shand in The (Moff Gideon) return, year. Hayden Chris- that will take place is scripting. feature Hayden Chris-
Mandalorian) star. the latter promising tensen will reprise five years before the Things are moving tensen as Anakin
Set post-Return of more screen time. his prequel-films role events of Rogue One. slower than a Sand- Skywalker, who
the Jedi, it will see Filming began in fall; as Anakin Skywalker. crawler, and it’s un- trained Ahsoka Tano
Fett assume Jabba premiere expected Plus: Kumail Nanjiani clear when in Lando’s before turning to the
the Hutt’s throne. some time next year. and Maya Erskine! life it’ll take place. dark side.

Will Baby Maybe, since the Almost definitely Unlikely. Very highly unlikely. Likely! Disney has
Yoda Appear? show takes place in — although, brace said Ahsoka is “inter-
the same time period yourself, possibly less connected” with The
as The Mandalorian. than last season. Highly unlikely. Mandalorian.

Why We’re Fans are hungry for There are too many Disney has already We’ll see Mon Moth- The options for This is the only series
Excited this: A stand-alone unanswered plot promised we’ll see ma and Saw Gerrera, Millennium Falcon to focus on a Jedi
Boba Fett project has questions in this a “rematch of the but with more than adventures on this largely unknown
reportedly been in series to make century” between 200 named cast show seem endless, to more casual
consideration since Season Three Kenobi and his former members so far, we’re since Lando was the fans, while being a
Disney purchased anything but Padawan turned foe also expecting scores ship’s first hardcore favorite for
Lucasfilm in 2012. thrilling. Darth Vader. of new characters. owner. lovers of Clone Wars.

Why We’re May be too similar to Esposito hinted With so many iconic Alan Tudyk, who The series With production
Worried its predeces- last year that characters, Obi-Wan voices Rogue One’s has been an- reportedly starting
sor. Boba Fe some answers is at the greatest risk fan-favorite droid nounced for a full early next year, it’s
crew have to those looming — of all the upcoming K-2SO, won’t appear, year, yet there’s still likely to drop after
called it “The questions may not shows — of succumb- though he has hinted very little info about it five other shows.
Mandalori- arrive until Season ing to nostalgia and at the possibility in a — including who will Will it be a victim of
an 2.5.” Four. fan service. second season. be playing Lando. overexposure?

24 | Rolling Stone
S
OMEWHERE BETWEEN
the election, the pan-
demic, and the looming
environmental catastrophe,
the world forgot why it was
so mad at Azealia Banks. Ten
years ago, the rapper put
out “212,” a tune that had an
instinctive grip on hip-hop’s
many contours. In the years
that followed, despite a
steady stream of equally tran-
scendent hits, Banks became
more associated with contro-
versy than with music — from
a weird encounter with Elon
Musk and Grimes to Russell
Crowe allegedly assaulting
her in his hotel room. (Crowe
denied the allegations.)
But in the past year, it’s
been hard to deny Banks’
unfiltered brashness. She
has spent the latter half
of 2021 selling out arenas,
and she isn’t even mad that
the mainstream is coming
around almost a decade late.
She’d rather let the music do
the talking.
How are you? They told
me you’re in the studio
pretty late.
Yeah. I’m always in the
studio, always working.
Is there an album on the
way?
Of course there’s an album
on the way. There’s been
actually lots of music that’s
been put out. I guess the
music journalists were
more concerned with being
tabloids than they were with
paying attention to the music.
I’ve released a lot of brilliant
music in the last 10 years.
What inspired your
recent post about Lil Nas X,
where you called out Dave
Chappelle for transphobia
and Boosie Badazz for
homophobia?
When I came out with “212,” I
was actually the first artist to
just be like: “Oh, this is gay,
this is our hip-hop” — you
hear what I’m saying? And
it’s a very deep conversation,
which I really don’t care
to have. It’s just all these
unwritten rules of Black-
ness, and the rules change
every fucking day. I was like,
“Oh, whatever, who gives a
fuck. I’m-a make this gay-ass
music, and y’all are going to
jump to it.” Because when the
music journalists really do
PHOTOGRAPH BY Griffin Lotz
Azealia Banks
The rapper opens up about her upcoming music
and cancel culture (and dunks on Kanye)
their job and they really pay
attention, they realize that I
have been smoking a lot of
these rap motherfuckers on
all types of shit.
I feel like you’re some-
body who has tapped into
house and dance music
from the start—
Which is Black music.
For a while you wanted to
name your song “Fuck Him
All Night,” after Kanye West.
What inspired that?
Because Kanye trolled me
a lot.
Q&A
By JEFF IHAZA
Can you say more about
that?
Listen to my music. Listen
to the last five years of Kanye
West’s music. I’m superior.
I don’t have to talk about
that which is beneath me.
He’s been, I guess, selling
sneakers and doing outra-
geous shit, everything but
the music. When Kanye puts
some music out that is im-
portant, then I guess we can
have that conversation. But
right now, he’s kind of just
like a cultural figure.
It seems like social media
is becoming a bigger force
in music than the art itself.
Yeah. But it’s not music.
They’re selling ideas, life-
styles, whatever comes out of
liberal academia’s ass. And it
changes. It’s almost like the
unwritten rules of Blackness,
it’s like the unwritten rules of
just how to conduct yourself.
John Lennon wrote a song
called “Woman Is the Nigger
of the World,” and here we
are years later calling it one
of the best songs of all time.
December 2021
So, what do you make of
cancel culture?
By the way, I think the Beatles
suck.
What was that?
I said, “By the way, I think the
Beatles suck.”
Oh.
I’m a Beach Boys girl.
True. So what do you
make of so-called cancel
culture?
I mean, cancel culture
doesn’t really exist. Only
God can cancel something.
Just because you don’t like
it, doesn’t mean that it’s can-
celed, it just means you don’t
fucking like it, and that’s OK.
You don’t feel like you
were canceled at any point?
No. It just seems like all of
these rules for self-expression
and identity apply to every-
body but Black women. And
[the backlash] kind of helped
me free myself from the pain
of the identity of being a Black
woman. Like, “Of course,
yes, I look in the mirror every
fucking day, I don’t need help
knowing that I’m Black. But
you’re not going to tell me
what kind of music I can and
can’t make, and you’re not
going to tell me what I can
and can’t say because I’m
Black.” Russell Crowe choked
me, spat on me, and called
me a nigger, and now he’s in
a Marvel movie.
Have you learned any-
thing during the pandemic
and this new situation?
No. I think the memes of
yesteryear were way more
intelligent, way funnier, way
brasher — they were less
censored. I think there’s a lot
of bullshit tied into this whole
being all-accepting of things,
and diversity and whatever.
Even the nature of the word
“diversity” that comes out
of corporations’ mouths
still implies that people are
“other.” People of color are
other. And who gives a fuck?
Again, I don’t need some
corporation to tell me that
I’m a person of color.
Are you optimistic about
the future?
I’m optimistic about Azealia
Banks. I love Azealia Banks. I
think she’s incredible.
What’s something that
you’ve always wanted to say
in a publication?
Larry David, call me.
| Rolling Stone | 25
The Mix
RS REPORTS
Inside the VIP Ticket Hustle
A company called
Confirmed360 sells access
to some of the world’s
biggest stars — but it
doesn’t always deliver
By SAMANTHA HISSONG
I
T’S BEEN YEARS, and Lillian
Whayne is still pissed off. In the
summer of 2017, Whayne, 55,
decided to go all-out planning a
trip for her friends to the 2018 Coach-
ella music festival. Through a compa-
ny called Confirmed360, which sup-
plies VIP experiences to superfans and
high-income clientele, the Kentucky-
based construction-industry heir-
ess ordered six “artist-level” festival
passes — the kind that get you back-
stage — to the tune of $6,500 apiece.
She dropped an additional $30,000
with Confirmed360 to get the group
a three-night stay at a grand desert
26 | Rolling Stone | December 2021
château near the event’s Indio, Cali-
fornia, grounds, which, she says, was
supposed to be stocked with a smor-
gasbord of food and alcohol, and
even come with a private driver. But
when her friends arrived after a trip in
Whayne’s private jet, the kitchen was
basically empty. “I think there was a
bag of rice, some potatoes, and a case
of Bud Light,” Whayne says. “And no
transportation. [They] were supposed
to be Cadillac’d around. C’mon, now!
Roll out the goddamn red carpet.”
Next, Whayne says, a Confirmed360
employee dropped off six lower-level
event passes that didn’t provide the
backstage access they were expect-
ing. One day of the festival, two of
the passes were actually rejected for
being inactive. Whayne squabbled
with Confirmed360 to get that snafu
fixed, but by then her friends’ trip had
already been soured. When she was
told about Confirmed360’s firm no-
refund policy, that was the last straw:
She slapped them with a legal com-
plaint — and got a settlement.
“I think they thought they could get
away with it because we all look like a
bunch of rednecks,” says Whayne, call-
ing from the parking lot of her favor-
ite Louisville bar. With her wild, un-
combed hair — dyed fuchsia during
the pandemic — and go-to wardrobe
of oversize denim button-downs, it’s
true she doesn’t seem like your aver-
age pearl-clutching, Southern-belle
multimillionaire. But while she and her
friends might not be “big-hatted Ken-
tucky Derby rock stars,” she says, “we
know how to use the right goddamn
fork, you know what I mean?”
That is, Whayne knows exactly what
VIP treatment entails, and she knows
she didn’t get it from Confirmed360.
If she did anything wrong in the whole
debacle, Whayne concedes, it may
have been spending all that money
without doing any research or really
thinking about it at all — the way reg-
ular people might order a coffeemaker
on Amazon. “I’m gullible,” she admits.
Whayne isn’t the first person to sue
and settle with Confirmed360, a small,
events-focused business based in L.A.
And she’s certainly not the first rich
person to overpay on promises in the
world of concierge companies, which
often cater to the whims and desires
of the über-wealthy. These boutique
outfits started popping up like worms
under new grass in the Nineties, when
the internet allowed for the role of an
integral hotel employee to morph into
an online business model. Entertain-
ment- and music-specific offshoots fol-
lowed in the early aughts, and soon,
the industry mushroomed: Even Live
Nation, the biggest concert promoter
in the world, launched its own con-
cierge arm, VIP Nation, in 2011.
While plenty of these businesses
operate ethically, the VIP-experience
space is poorly regulated. There’s no
designated consumer watchdog, and
ILLUSTRATION BY Andrea Ucini
there are lots of gray areas for bad ac-
tors to use to their advantage. (Remem-
ber Fyre Fest? That came courtesy of
a concierge company called NYC VIP
Access.) And when the victims are peo-
ple who can afford to blow $30,000
to meet a pop star for three minutes,
sympathy might not come easily.
Confirmed360 certainly seems un-
afraid to make big promises with hit-or-
miss payoffs for its customers. Founded
in 2011 by 35-year-old Matt Ampolsky, a
New Jersey native who started his first
concierge business while still a stu-
dent at the University of Arizona, it has
grown into an outfit of around 25 em-
ployees shopping meet-and-greets with
musicians, athletes, and actors, as well
as behind-the-scenes access to TV tap-
ings and Broadway shows. “From this
moment on, your wildest dreams will
always be confirmed,” crows the com-
pany’s website. “Our clients have the
opportunity to book exclusive experi-
ences and live these moments like true
VIPs. . . . We are the direct source for
your favorite entertainment events,
and for those exclusive experiences
that you didn’t even know existed.”
But a yearlong investigation by
ROLLING STONE suggests that Con-
firmed360 is far from a direct source to
the stars. Often, it appears, stars aren’t
knowingly providing access to fans via
Confirmed360, let alone doing one-
to-one deals with the company. “Con-
firmed360 uses any relationship it can
to gain access to the thing that they’re
trying to sell,” one former employee
tells ROLLING STONE. “I’ve seen them
use every tactic possible.”
Confirmed360 does at times work
directly with artists’ teams. But on
one recent occasion, involving Lady
Gaga’s “Jazz & Piano” show in Las
Vegas, things turned south when Ga-
ga’s representatives “became aware
of allegations that Confirmed360 was
treating customers in a manner that
was inconsistent with her team’s val-
ues and business practices,” a rep-
resentative for Lady Gaga says. The
source confirms that Gaga’s team did
indeed partner with Confirmed360
for a string of her Vegas shows, and
that onstage, drum-side tickets were
priced at $7,000 a pop. However, they
say Confirmed360 was only allowed
to charge a 10 percent markup. Per
the agreement, if significant demand
led to what’s called “dynamic pric-
ing,” Confirmed360 could go higher
than 10 percent, provided it reported
the markup to Gaga’s reps so the star
could be properly compensated. But
the source says that when Gaga’s team
caught wind earlier this year that Con-
firmed360 had priced packages above
10 percent without reporting the in-
flation, they “terminated the relation-
ship.” (Recently, an unidentified source
emailed ROLLING STONE screenshots
of what appears to be a Confirmed360
internal record, packed with informa-
tion surrounding Gaga’s tour dates.
The columns of data are labeled as
showing transaction totals, prices of
items sold, and Confirmed360’s profit.
In one entry, it appears that Con-
firmed360 paid $14,000 for a package
at Gaga’s Oct. 28 show that included
two VIP tickets and tables on the drum
side of the stage. Total charge to the cli-
ent: $24,000 — a 71 percent markup.)
Without addressing the Lady Gaga
Las Vegas show specifically, Ampol-
sky insisted in a statement to ROLL-
ING STONE that his business tactics
and relationships with artists are un-
impeachable: “Over the past decade
Confirmed360 has delivered more
than 100,000 unique and unforgetta-
ble live sports, music, and entertain-
“Sometimes the packages were real, and
sometimes they would sell it and then
figure out how to get it. If somebody pays
for front-row tickets or tickets in the first
five rows, that’s playing with [their] money.”
ment experiences for our clients while
simultaneously being a trusted part-
ner and providing a valuable source
of income for countless acclaimed art-
ists, athletes, teams, and organizations
around the world.”
But according to allegations in court
documents, information in other rec-
ords, and interviews with 17 different
associates of Confirmed360 — from
former employees to current and for-
mer clients, artists’ teams, and indus-
try players — plus communication with
other entertainment-world contacts, it
appears that Confirmed360 has en-
gaged in questionable practices for
years, remaining relatively unscathed.
W
HEN ROBERT Barnhart ar-
rived at the Rose Bowl in
Pasadena for a 2018 Taylor
Swift concert, he was riding high. The
65-year-old filmmaker had plunked
down $20,000 with Confirmed360 for
two seats within the first 15 rows, plus
meet-and-greet access. It had been his
mission for years to meet Swift, and
the moment was finally in his reach.
“I get excited,” Barnhart says. “I’m a
grown man, and Taylor Swift would
make me cry sometimes.”
Barnhart had been introduced to
Swift’s music through his daughter,
bringing her to a concert when she
was 10. Though she soon lost interest
in Swift, he became an ever bigger fan
over the years. He not only admired
Swift’s talents as a songwriter; as a can-
cer survivor whose mother had died of
the disease when he was young, he felt
a bond with Swift when her own moth-
er was struggling with the same illness.
He produced a documentary about the
effects of psilocybin on late-stage can-
cer patients, which he wanted to share
with the singer “in case it might help
her mother deal with issues of human
mortality,” he says.
The first time Barnhart had used
Confirmed360, taking his daughter to
meet John Mayer during the singer-
songwriter’s 2017 tour, the meetup
had gone exactly as planned. So he
had no reason to believe things would
be different this time around. But on
the day of the show, things got weird
quickly, as he tells it. Two people affili-
ated with Confirmed360 met him near
the venue, and “we had this huge walk
around the Rose Bowl,” Barnhart re-
calls. “We’re walking fast. And then we
get there, and there’s no [VIP check-
in] table like there was at John Mayer.”
One of the women walked him over to
a “curtained area,” where she showed
an attendant Barnhart’s pass. “He goes,
‘No, you can’t come in here!’ ” Barn-
hart says. “So then she walks me to my
seat and shows me where the securi-
ty gate is to get backstage. She says, ‘At
such-and-such time, go over there.’ ”
The woman added that “something
was going on with Taylor” and she
“may or may not be seeing people,”
according to Barnhart. “We can’t re-
ally promise anything, but you should
be able to get through.” (Barnhart
does not recall being told upon buy-
ing tickets that Confirmed360 couldn’t
make any promises.) Before the show
started, both women disappeared,
leaving Barnhart by himself. At the des-
ignated time, he headed to the security
gate. “I show my pass, and [the guard]
goes, ‘You can’t come in,’ ” he recalls.
“I tried to talk to him, and he was just
like, ‘No! No way. You don’t have clear-
ance.’ I went back and sat in my seat. I
was sad, depressed, and shocked.”
Barnhart’s invoice shows that
he paid around $6,000 for his tick-
ets and VIP credentials, but another
$14,000 was specifically set aside for
the meet-and-greet. Barnhart would
go on to buy other experiences from
Confirmed360, but even when they
worked out, he says, something felt off:
“When they would get me great tickets,
I don’t know how much of a markup
they may have been putting on them.
At some point, I realized that often-
times I could get great tickets through
Ticketmaster for much cheaper than
what I would get from 360.”
One loophole that gives Con-
firmed360 cover is its terms of service,
linked in the fine print at the bottom
of its website landing page. Tucked
into the disclaimers there, the compa-
ny states in all caps that it “makes no
warranty that . . . the services, content,
or experiences will meet your require-
ments or will be available on an unin-
terrupted, secure, or error-free basis.”
The verbiage is prefaced with a warn-
ing that visitors automatically agree to
this raw deal simply by “accessing” the
website. Furthermore, the terms out-
line, Confirmed360 passes the buck
on fulfillment to “the supplier,” who
“is responsible for honoring the pur-
chase of any experience.”
In the case of Lillian Whayne’s
Coachella fiasco, that would in theory
put festival organizer Goldenvoice,
which generates authorized wrist-
bands, on the hook. But what if the
“supplier” has no idea their goods are
going to third-party customers? Repre-
sentatives from Goldenvoice declined
to comment for this story, but pointed
to the Coachella website, which
states that all wristbands are non-
transferable, and any wristbands “ob-
tained from unauthorized sources . . .
are worthless.” An ex-employee claims
that Confirmed360 had more than
a dozen clients at Coachella the year
Whayne’s friends attended and, cit-
ing issues with inactive wristbands and
customer complaints, calls the compa-
ny’s handling of the event “an absolute
shit show.” (Ampolsky declined to com-
ment on the 2018 Coachella festival.)
According to nine former Con-
firmed360 employees, all of whom
asked to remain anonymous to protect
their privacy and professional reputa-
tions or out of fear of harassment, the
company regularly sold tickets and
passes that weren’t obtained in an au-
thorized manner, at least up until the
pandemic. It would also sell experi-
ences it didn’t yet have access to and
might not be able to secure, they say.
“Sometimes the packages were real,
and sometimes they would sell it and
then figure out how to get it,” says one
ex-employee. “If somebody [pays for]
front-row tickets, or tickets in the first
five rows, and [the company is] not
purchasing them right away, [that’s]
playing with somebody’s money.”
If Confirmed360 ultimately couldn’t
deliver, the company would often
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 27
The Mix
trumpet their no-refund policy and
push the client to accept a sort of
“store credit” instead, five former em-
ployees tell ROLLING STONE. “Are
you freaking kidding me?” says one ex-
employee. “You have to tell these peo-
ple that their 30 grand has to be used
at another time? That feels terrible.”
The source adds that they were part of
this type of scenario “all the time.”
I
F BEING A Confirmed360 client is
a mixed bag, working there could
be a minefield. Former employees
paint a picture of a frat-like culture that
revolved around the moods and morals
of Matt Ampolsky. Depending on the
day in the company’s Santa Monica
offices — at one point, a reconfigured
one-bedroom apartment with no locks
on the bathroom door — the CEO might
address a group of employees with
his hand down his pants, visibly rub-
bing his crotch, according to five peo-
ple who used to work there and con-
firmed via a photograph reviewed by
ROLLING STONE. He admitted in legal
filings to, on one occasion, squirting
sauce on a female employee’s face and
telling other employees it was semen.
Another ex-employee calls the environ-
ment “mentally draining and abusive.”
Confirmed360 tends to hire young
people who are just starting their ca-
reers, dangling big commissions and
celebrity-adjacent responsibilities that
make them feel influential. One former
employee, who says they had to go to
therapy to deal with their past experi-
ences at Confirmed360, including their
complicity in its business practices, ex-
plains that Ampolsky’s elevator pitch
made them “feel great” at first. Then,
they “started making better money
than I ever thought was possible,” and
stayed well past the point where they
began having conflicted feelings. “I’m
ashamed that I didn’t walk away when
I saw something wrong being done.”
Not that Ampolsky makes it easy to
leave — especially when someone has
gone on to work for or set up a com-
petitor. In response, he has threatened
to harm their livelihoods. Ampolsky
denies such behavior, but ROLLING
STONE has reviewed a screenshot of
one public Instagram post, since taken
down, in which Ampolsky called out
six former employees, using their so-
cial media handles or full names, for
leaving the company. In part, the post
reads: “Future employers here is my
personal reference . . . *DO NOT* hire
or invest in these people!” In one case,
Ampolsky also pursued legal action
against someone who resigned.
Confirmed360 sued a former em-
ployee named Lee Barkalow in 2019
after terminating his employment, al-
leging in a legal complaint that Barka-
28 | Rolling Stone | December 2021
low had misappropriated trade secrets,
encouraged employees to do deals out-
side the company, and “maliciously
and fraudulently accessed Confirmed’s
systems” to alter or destroy the com-
pany’s customer lists and other trade
secrets. Barkalow denied the allega-
tions and countered that Ampolsky
tried to hack his private accounts and
personal email, destroyed Barkalow’s
trade secrets, failed to pay him out-
standing wages and commissions, and
MAKING HIS MARKS Clockwise from left: Confirmed360 CEO Matt Ampolsky at a
company meeting; Robert Barnhart, who has spent about $50,000 trying to meet
Taylor Swift; Lillian Whayne, who got a settlement after an ordeal at Coachella.
sent Barkalow’s wife messages suggest-
ing Barkalow had committed embez-
zlement and adultery. No one comes
out looking great in the mudslinging
suit; in 2020, both Confirmed360 and
Barkalow agreed to drop their claims.
Early in 2020, another former em-
ployee, Danielle Granados, filed a
wrongful termination lawsuit against
Confirmed360 and Ampolsky. Grana-
dos, who worked at Confirmed360
for just shy of six months, accused the
company of “publicly humiliating fe-
male employees, including by suggest-
ing that they had sexually transmit-
ted diseases, paying female employees
money to humiliate themselves in front
of their co-workers, making offensive
and derogatory comments about the
appearance of females, including com-
pany clients who were paying thou-
sands of dollars for the Company’s
services, and vaping (smoking e-ciga-
rettes) in the Company’s offices with-
out regard for the health of the Compa-
ny’s employees.” Much of this conduct,
Granados alleged in the complaint,
was perpetrated by Ampolsky.
Granados also claimed that when, in
October 2019, she told Ampolsky that
she was pregnant, he responded, “Oh.
Now I get why you were constantly ask-
ing me to stop vaping.” She was termi-
nated a month later, an action she says
she believes was “substantially moti-
vated” by her disclosure. (After a legal
dance, Confirmed360 and Ampolsky
succeeded in striking three allegations
from Granados’ complaint, and the
parties settled in October 2020.)
One ex-employee, who says they
have been threatened with legal action
by Confirmed360, sums up their time
at the company as the “worst work-
ing environment and experience I’ve
ever had.” Referring to the generous
commissions account representatives
earned, this source claims, Ampolsky
“controlled everyone with money and
would threaten you to lose that money
anytime you brought up concerns with
the environment or your desire to do
things differently.”
Ampolsky’s hardball tactics weren’t
reserved just for his own employees. In
a 2019 cease-and-desist letter from Live
Nation obtained by ROLLING STONE,
a representative from the company’s
legal department writes to a “Mr. Am-
polsky,” informing him that Ampol-
sky’s text messages to an employee
at a Live Nation affiliate, SLO VIP, had
been forwarded for review: “Please be
advised that Live Nation finds your re-
cent text messages to SLO VIP Coordi-
nators to be harassing and inappropri-
ate and must cease immediately.” The
letter cites texts from July 2019 where-
in Ampolsky “verbally abused an SLO
employee by harassing and threaten-
ing her for not allowing [his] client to
check in on behalf of [him] for pur-
chases [he] made, which is clearly a
violation of the terms and conditions
of the VIP Packages.” (Those terms
state that “package elements are non-
transferable,” according to the letter.)
While some of Confirmed360’s tac-
tics may also violate consumer-protec-
tion laws, others simply skirt the line of
aboveboard arbitrage. Scalping rules,
for example, vary across different tick-
eting platforms and venues; often,
though, the ability to resell is limited,
and bulk buying is not allowed. How-
ever, Ampolsky would routinely in-
struct workers to “come in early to do
mass buys,” even when the platforms
where Confirmed360 was buying tick-
ets explicitly prohibited resale, accord-
ing to one ex-employee, whose claim
is backed up by several others. “So,
if Shawn Mendes was announcing a
tour,” the source explains, “he’d have
everyone come in at 7 a.m. on different
computers — well, some people would
stay at their houses, because you can’t
have too many computers with the
same IP address bulk-buying tickets.
But he would just resell them and mark
up the price on his website by a lot.”
(Another ex-employee tells ROLLING
STONE that Confirmed360 also took
steps to bounce IP addresses. Ampo-
lsky did not comment on this claim.)
Buying and reselling product at a
higher price tag is one thing; hawk-
ing a product you don’t have, or aren’t
supposed to have, is a whole different
beast. Some of the VIP experiences
Confirmed360 sold were allegedly of
the latter sort. Multiple ex-employee
sources claim Confirmed360 would
obtain friends-and-family passes for
shows like The Voice and SNL, and sell
them to Confirmed360 clients. (A rep-
resentative for Saturday Night Live tells
ROLLING STONE that the show has
“never partnered with Confirmed360
in any way.” A rep for The Voice echoes
that statement and adds that they are
unaware of any allegations of passes
being sold.) Even when Confirmed360
obtained such passes through legiti-
mate means, it couldn’t necessarily de-
liver the VIP access promised.
In 2017, the Daily Beast wrote a story
about a Texas man named Charles COURTESY OF ROBERT BARNHART, COURTESY OF LILLIAN WHAYNE
Evans, who sued Confirmed360 over
a $32,400 VIP-experience package —
which included tickets to tapings of
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fal-
lon and SNL, as well as backstage ac-
cess to the Broadway sensation Ham-
ilton — that he claimed fell far short of
what was promised. (The case appar-
ently settled, and Evans declined to
comment for this story.) A ticket scalp-
er named Don Shano took note of the
story and tweeted that Ampolsky’s
“bogus tickets” were hurting the rep of
the legitimate ticket-resale market. The
article itself was later removed without
explanation, but the tweet remains,
despite Ampolsky’s efforts to get Shano
to delete it. According to screenshots
that Shano shared on Twitter, Ampol-
sky messaged Shano, “I am asking
what I need to do to have you delete
the tweet. it doesn’t effect [sic] you in
anyway [ . . . ] make an offer.” Shano
messaged Ampolsky that he should de-
fend himself if he had been wronged,
before publicly tweeting, “[Scalpers]
get enough heat in the press. Matt Am-
polsky’s response was to bribe me to
erase facts. That says a lot about Matt.”
Shano tells ROLLING STONE that Am-
polsky has since blocked him.
ROLLING STONE found no short-
age of tales from people who’ve felt
wronged by Confirmed360. In May
2019, Frederic Jouhet, a French entre-
preneur who lives in Michigan, paid for
an experience at a Shawn Mendes con-
cert at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.
For $1,715 per person, he was supposed
to get four seats in the first 10 rows,
meet-and-greet and buffet access, and
the ability to take individual photos
with Mendes. Close to the Aug. 5 con-
cert, Jouhet, a CEO of multiple medi-
cal companies, remembers thinking,
“Why don’t I have those tickets?” When
he inquired, he says, he was told he’d
receive them the morning of the show.
Less than an hour before the event’s
start time, Jouhet was still empty-
handed. That’s when — despite Ampol-
sky’s insistence to ROLLING STONE
that Jouhet did not procure tickets via
Confirmed360 — he found himself in
a text exchange with Ampolsky. The
Frenchman believes Ampolsky was
“scrambling to find” the tickets Jouhet
had paid for months in advance — a
sentiment reflected in the texts, which
were reviewed by ROLLING STONE.
Jouhet didn’t receive the tickets until
after he’d already finagled his way into
the venue without Confirmed360’s
help, he says — and when he finally did,
the seats were not in the first 10 rows.
Another client, an attorney named
Damian Waldman, sued Confirmed360
in 2019 for allegedly undelivered prom-
ises related to a U2 concert in late
2017. Waldman and his wife claimed
in their complaint that they were “co-
erced and induced by Defendant to
purchase tickets to attend a Meet &
Greet with U2, the rock band, for a
total of $20,000.00,” but there was
“zero ‘Meeting’ and/or ‘Greeting’ at
the event.” The Waldmans did partic-
ipate in a group photo, which ROLL-
ING STONE has reviewed, with lead
singer Bono and guitarist the Edge —
alongside roughly 75 other fans, includ-
ing radio-contest winners who’d gained
access to the event for free, per the
Waldmans’ complaint. But, the cou-
ple alleged in their suit, they did not
“get within ten yards of the band mem-
bers who were in attendance, let alone
take an individual, personal picture
with the band members as promised.”
In conversation, Waldman calls Ampol-
sky a “really nice guy” who claimed to
have fired the employee who messed
up. A lawyer for Waldman confirmed
via email that the parties settled.
People within the VIP industry say
they have been burned too. Megan
Gross, who specializes in selling VIP
experiences at another concierge com-
pany, which was called IfOnly before it
was acquired by MasterCard, worries
about the effect certain Confirmed360
practices will have on the business as
a whole. IfOnly worked directly with
talent, as well as philanthropic organi-
zations. When Confirmed360 started
snatching up their inventory and re-
selling it — against IfOnly’s terms and
“We’re not doing meet-and-greets so Matt
can make a profit. . . . My problem is that he
doesn’t implement things properly. It’s no
skin off his back; he’s getting the money, but
he’s ruining these people’s experiences.”
conditions — it “created havoc,” Gross
says. Not only did IfOnly have to eat
thousands of dollars in refunds when it
couldn’t fulfill promises made by Con-
firmed360, Gross believes that IfOnly’s
good standing in the marketplace was
damaged. “It was a terrible experience
for both the customer and the talent,”
Gross says, pointing to one “massive,
brand-name artist” who she claims be-
came “furious” about Confirmed360
having marked up package prices
without the charity’s permission. She
adds, “It jeopardized our relationship
in working with that artist.”
ROLLING STONE got ahold of one ex-
ecutive who works on a famous artist’s
team and has dealt with Confirmed360
clients appearing at their philanthropic
meet-and-greets on multiple occasions.
“We’re not doing these meet-and-
greets so Matt can make a profit,” says
the source, who asked to remain anon-
ymous. “[They] are to raise money
for charitable causes. With all these
shows, we have to have the person’s
name who is attending, we have to do
a background check, and that person
has to have a valid ID.” The source tells
ROLLING STONE that all too often they
had to refuse entry to pass holders be-
cause Confirmed360 hadn’t provided
Mendes
clients’ names in time for the team to
and Gaga
complete background checks.
The executive tells ROLLING STONE
that people would sometimes show up
and try to use Ampolsky’s name, say-
ing that he greenlit a transfer — even
though such transfers were not al-
lowed. “And then Matt would phone ei-
ther me or our VIP rep screaming and
yelling,” the source says. “My big prob-
lem with him is that he doesn’t imple-
ment things properly. It’s no skin off his
back; he’s getting the money, but he’s
ruining these people’s experiences.”
W
ITH CONCERTS returning
after a long pause, Con-
firmed360 is still advertis-
ing musical packages. At press time,
the company’s Instagram page features
posts for upcoming shows by Chris Sta-
pleton, the Eagles, and the Kid Laroi.
It’s big names like these that keep cus-
tomers coming back to Confirmed360
— even some who say they were once
wronged. Lisa Carline, for example,
paid Confirmed360 $35,000 for tick-
ets to the 2019 U.S. Open and a meet-
and-greet with tennis champ Caroline
Wozniacki that never happened. Still,
she turned around weeks later to buy
a VIP package to see Elton John in New
York. (In the past, Carline had good ex-
periences with Confirmed360, includ-
ing Cher tickets that she says worked
“perfectly.”) The company charged her
$11,330 for two VIP tickets and another
$6,180 for cocktail-party access, but
John ended up postponing his show
— indefinitely, at the time — due to
the Covid-19 pandemic. Going toe-to-
toe with a Confirmed360 representa-
tive in a thread of Better Business Bu-
reau complaints that reads like its own
he-said-she-said tennis match, Carline
stated that she wants “never to do busi-
ness with them again.”
And then there’s Robert Barnhart.
In December 2019, just prior to the
pandemic, he says a representative of
Confirmed360 persuaded him to fly
from California to New York for the
2019 Jingle Ball, Z100’s annual radio
show at Madison Square Garden, to fi-
nally fulfill his dream of meeting Taylor
Swift. He bought his ticket to the show
on his own, via StubHub, for approxi-
mately $2,000. Confirmed360, he says,
then charged him about $30,000 for
VIP access to the backstage area. “They
really pumped it up,” he says.
According to Barnhart, Confirmed-
360 promised him an all-access pass
and the ability to “hang out backstage.”
While they couldn’t guarantee that
Swift would be doing a proper meet-
and-greet, they said he would be “es-
sentially” the “personal guest” of Con-
firmed360’s “contact,” who is “very
high at iHeart,” according to text mes-
sages reviewed by ROLLING STONE.
(iHeartMedia is Z100’s parent compa-
ny.) The text continues: “She also per-
sonally knows Taylor and should Tay-
lor walk by she will introduce you. But
it would have to happen naturally and
no promises! Also, she can put you in
other official meet and greets ( Jonas
Brother, Halsey, or anyone else) while
you are back there.”
Instead, Barnhart says, the iHeart
executive came and got him from the
main floor, escorted him backstage,
and walked him from one end to the
other for about 15 minutes or so before
taking him back to the general-admis-
sion area. He says he asked if she had
an all-access pass for him, and she al-
legedly replied, “No, there’s no pass.
We can’t just let people come back
here and walk around on their own.”
“That one really miffed me a lot,” he
says. “You know, I make mistakes, but
what happened in New York . . . ” His
voice trails off. “I walked out of MSG
and back to my hotel, through the
rain, by myself. It was almost devastat-
ing.” Barnhart says Confirmed360 said
they’d “make it up to [him],” but the
pandemic soon arrived and he never
got any money back — nor did he try
to retrieve it. Throughout all this, what
Barnhart didn’t know is that Swift
never charges fans for meeting her.
An iHeart representative insists that
the company has never worked direct-
ly with Confirmed360. iHeart, they say,
sometimes donates backstage tours to
charitable auctions via third-party com-
panies, adding that it’s possible Ampol-
sky’s team acquired access that way
but described the offering incorrectly.
For his part, Ampolsky addressed cus-
tomer experiences like Barnhart’s in a
statement to ROLLING STONE: “In the
extremely rare instances when some-
thing doesn’t go exactly as planned,
our number one priority is doing right
by our clients. That’s why the over-
whelming majority of our business
comes from return customers who
trust us time and time again to come
through for them. And no false allega-
tions can change that reality.”
In total, Barnhart has coughed up
at least $50,000 to get close to Swift —
but his memory is foggy and he admits
that the amount may be even higher.
He has yet to meet her, but he’s still
hopeful. In a follow-up conversation
months later, Barnhart told ROLLING
STONE that he recently bought a pack-
age through Confirmed360.
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 29
 AVAILABLE NOW
COLOR VINYL / PICTURE DISC VINYL / 2CD / STREAMING / DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

theSPICEGIRLS.COM
 HOLIDAY
MUST-HAVES
W ock
Made from Italian leather, AMIRI’s unisex crossbody
guitar bag is a luxe pickup with a vintage punk-rock
look, whether you’re heading to a gig or going to
brunch. AMIRI.com $2,190
Upping Your Game
IMAGES COURTESY OF THE COMPANIES
The Nintendo Switch OLED
is the ultimate portable
video-game system with a
bigger, sharper-looking screen
and upgraded speakers.
Amazon.com $349.99
The coolest tech,
music, books,
fashion, and
more this season
LUXURY Your New Best Bud
ROCK & ROLL Bowers & Wilkins pulled out all the
DESIGN stops with these sleek, modern
PI7 earbuds. Active-noise-
cancellation technology makes
these ideal for city dwellers
and frequent travelers.
Amazon.com $399
TINY SIZE
WITH MIGHTY
SOUND
’Stone’ Style
Rolling Stone’s new merch
collection offers an array
of T-shirts, hoodies, and For more suggestions
hats emblazoned with the
from the ‘Rolling Stone’
magazine’s iconic logo.
2021 Holiday Gift Guide,
Shop.RollingStone.com $40+
visit RollingStone.com
31
Gift Guide

FOR THE The Right Track

STYLISH These days no one has time to wander around the house
ADVENTURER looking for a lost set of car keys. Which is why Apple
AirTags make such a great gift. These compact trackers
come with an app that allows you to view the last-known
location of a misplaced item. Apple.com $29

Psychedelic Tees
Founded by designers who’ve worked
with everyone from Beyoncé to
Maluma, fashion house BruceGlen
All-Weather Vans
offers a 21st-century spin on classic
The Destruct Mid MTE-1 men’s surf shoes are built for psychedelic looks, while also
outdoorsy types as well as everyday commuters, with emphasizing the importance of
great traction, weather-repellent materials, and cozy sustainable and ethical sourcing.
Primaloft insulation. Vans.com $110 BruceGlen.com $150

Pint-Size Player
THROW-
The best wireless speaker of 2021, the
Sonos Roam is the brand’s latest Bluetooth-
BACK
compatible smart device. At just over six THREADS
inches tall, it’s uniquely portable. And
it’s powerful, too: The Roam can pump
out premium sound and run for up
to 10 hours without needing a new
charge. Sonos.com $179

The Top Table

Treat your precious vinyl with the respect
it deserves with the Pro-Ject Debut PRO
record player. This minimalist turntable
combines audiophile-grade parts with a
simple, elegant design, so it sounds just as
good as it looks. AudioAdvice.com $999

Comfortable Cans
Wear It Like It’s Hot
Headphones shouldn’t hurt your ears, which
Dutch denim brand G-Star RAW teamed
is why B&O’s Beoplay HX’s really stand out.
up with Snoop Dogg for its “Say It
They’re specifically built with comfort in
Witcha Booty” campaign, inspired by
mind, feature active noise cancellation, and
the rapper’s laid-back California style.
have a 35-hour battery life, so they’re equally
Our favorite is this Seventies-inspired
great for long flights and relaxing hikes.
hoodie. G-Star.com $120
Bang-Olufsen.com $499

32
 Hip-Hop Heaven
The epic nine-CD Smithsonian Anthology of
Hip-Hop and Rap covers the entire history of
rap — from old-school classics to modern hits.
And it comes with a beautiful 300-page book.
SmithsonianStore.com $159.98

‘Famous’ at 20
Celebrate the 20th anniversary
of Almost Famous with this
Uber Box edition, containing
103 tracks on five CDs and

THE BEST
seven LPs, a seven-inch of
Stillwater’s “Fever Dog,” and the
Rolling Stone cover story on the

BOOKS OF 2021
band. Amazon.com $132

TK
THIS Renegades: Apocalypse Now:
STUFF IS Born in the USA The Lost Photo Archive
BANANAS BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BY CHAS GERRETSEN
AND BARACK OBAMA In 1976, combat
Expanding on their photographer Gerretsen
excellent Higher Ground was hired by Francis
podcast, Springsteen Ford Coppola as the
and Obama discuss still photographer for
life, music, and their his classic Vietnam
continued belief in the film Apocalypse
enduring power of the Now, and this is the
American experience. fascinating record of
that experience.
Rap Is Risen:
New York Photographs American Protest:
1998-2008 Photos 2020-2021
BY SUE KWON BY MEL D. COLE
A visual love letter New York nightlife
Forbidden Fruit to NYC hip-hop photographer Cole
These sculptural pipes from New York- from award-winning turned his lens on the
based Edie Parker will blow away the photographer Kwon, city’s streets during
cannabis lover on your list this year. Made featuring candid images the Covid-19 pandemic
with borosilicate glass, it’s high-end, of Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb and George Floyd
functional, and worth displaying in your Deep, Biggie Smalls, protests of 2020 and
living room. EdieParkerFlower.com $115 Jay-Z, and many others. 2021, creating what he
calls a visual “collective
Metallica: The Black memory” of those
Album in Black & White tumultuous moments.
BY ROSS HALFIN
For the 30th I Can’t Stand
anniversary of the Black to See You Cry
Album, Metallica and BY RAHIM FORTUNE
photographer Halfin Photographer Fortune
offer a fascinating look traveled back to his
at the creation of a native Texas to help
hard-rock classic. care for his dying father.
He ended up staying to
Depeche Mode chronicle his family’s
BY ANTON CORBIJN
healing process, as well
Legendary Axe as to document the
Artist Corbijn’s
Based on Bob Marley’s own acoustic guitar, the lives of the people and
aesthetic has been a
Guild A-20 Marley is a worthy tribute to the reggae the landscapes of the
key element of Depeche
legend. It includes a Marley X Guild gig bag made from South he grew up in.
Mode’s synth-goth
recycled nylon, and to honor Marley’s dedication to image since the 1980s,
the planet, Guild has arranged for a tree to be planted and this pocket-size
for every guitar made. GuildGuitars.com $555 book chronicles that
rich collaboration.
CONTRIBUTORS: SAGE ANDERSON, TIM CHAN, JON DOLAN, JOHN LONSDALE, BRANDT RANJ, KYLE RICE

33
 How Adele
turned
heartache
over

It
divorce
into a
personal
journey
and her

Fucking
most
honest
album yet

Devastated
Me
By Brittany Spanos
PHO T O GR A PH Y BY T H E O W E N N E R

34 / ROLLING STONE / DECEMBER 2021

PRODUCED BY BRITTANY BROOKS AND WALAA ELSIDDIG. FASHION
DIRECTION BY ALEX BADIA. MARKET EDITORS: EMILY MERCER,
LUIS CAMPUZANO, AND THOMAS WALLER. SITTINGS EDITOR: LUIS
CAMPUZANO. LOCATION: WALDORF ASTORIA BEVERLY HILLS. HAIR BY
SAMI KNIGHT AT A-FRAME AGENCY. MAKEUP BY ANTHONY NGUYEN
AT THE WALL GROUP. NAILS BY KIMMIE KYEES AT THE WALL GROUP.
STYLING BY JAMIE MIZRAHI WITH FORWARD ARTISTS. TAILORING BY
FARAH BASHIZ. PREVIOUS SPREAD: SWEATER BY TOTÊME. THIS SPREAD:
T-SHIRT BY HANES. PAGES 40-41: SHIRT BY THE ROW. JEANS BY LEVI’S
VINTAGE. SHOES BY MANOLO BLAHNIK. VINTAGE SWEATER.

‘It’s fine, Mama. Just chill out.’ ”

nine-year-old. He’s a Libra, so he’s like,
Much of 30 is an open letter
to Adele’s son. “He’s quite the understanding
DELE THOUGHT THAT MAYBE, just maybe, she could quietly slip news of her and her
husband’s separation into the world without much notice. It was Good Friday 2019,
and their marriage had been over for some time. A holiday weekend, she figured,
might deflect some of the attention she had been dreading. ¶ “Fucking idiot,” she says
of her plan. ¶ Adele and her husband, Simon Konecki, had been together since 2011.
Their relationship was remarkably under the radar given Adele’s growing stardom,
partly because she really only emerged from her life as a wife and mother to their son,
Angelo, to release record-shattering albums. Their wedding was so private there aren’t
even pictures online. ¶ Adele’s dread only intensified after a press release went out
that Good Friday evening. A close friend flew out from England to Los Angeles to make
sure the then-30-year-old wasn’t on her own as the news spread. Tweets and memes
 ADELE
flooded social media, expressing not just shock
that the relationship had ended, but also excite-
ment at the idea that Adele’s heartbreak would in-
spire new music.
You can understand where the fans were
coming from. Adele built her empire on heart-
ache: moving reflections of pain and its after-
math, like finding “Someone Like You,” or
ROLLING STONE
merely saying “Hello” to an ex after years have
passed. At the time Adele and Konecki an-
nounced their breakup, nearly four years had
passed since her last album, 25, and her au-
dience was hungry for something new. And
what’s a better album prompt than a high-
profile divorce?
3
9
For Adele, the fan reaction was bewildering.
“During something like that, that kind of signif-
icant thing to happen in life, your mind sort of
goes to those places: ‘Why don’t they like me?
Why would they write that if they’ve followed
me for 10 years?’ But in reality, that’s not their
responsibility. In reality, their responsibility as a
fan is to want a good record and to hope I deliver.
So I took it with a pinch of salt, and it was fine.”
(Adele knows a thing or two about waiting for-
ever for a favorite artist to release new music,
like her friend Kendrick Lamar. “Fucking hell!”
she says of her anticipation for the rapper’s next
LP. Unlike her fans, she’s already had the priv-
ilege of hearing a few of Lamar’s new songs in
the interim.)
Adele had enough to worry about besides Twit-
ter and the expectation of new music. Rumors
and assumptions spread like wildfire, but the re-
ality is that there were no heroes or villains in her
divorce. Konecki was a good husband and contin-
ues to be a great father to Angelo. He’s still one
of Adele’s best friends, even texting her memes
while she and I are together. Instead, the end
Adele let slip the release
date for 30 onstage at
a friend’s wedding. “[Laura] was
like, ‘I was not expecting you to
really run it like that,’ ” she says.
came with the heartbreaking, if less dramatic,
feeling that she was getting further from the per-
son she hoped to be.
“I didn’t really know myself,” she says. “I
thought I did. I don’t know if it was because of
my Saturn return or if it was because I was well
and truly sort of heading into my thirties, but I
just didn’t like who I was.”
Adele wanted to be settled and happy, in a
home full of loving, organized chaos. She never
really felt that, or at least she never felt truly pres-
ent in it. “It made me really sad,” she recalls.
“Then having so many people that I don’t know
know that I didn’t make that work . . . it fucking
devastated me. I was embarrassed. No one made
me feel embarrassed, but you feel like you didn’t
do a good job.”
Adele had already started writing the album
everyone was waiting for. She began 30 in early
2019 and had it completely written by early 2020,
though the pandemic would have something to
Senior writer BRITTANY SPANOS wrote the Billie
Eilish cover story in the July-August issue.
say about the eventual release date. Sure, it’s an
album about “divorce, babe,” as she stated re-
cently in her first-ever Instagram Live. But it’s not
the collection of scorched-earth power ballads
everyone may have been expecting.
Instead, Adele wrote an open letter to Angelo,
in hopes that one day he’ll hear the album and
really, truly understand who his mom was and
how her life changed during this time. The only
song specifically about her marriage is “Easy on
Me,” the gorgeous, very typically Adele first sin-
gle that introduced everyone to her new era.
Across 30, Adele assesses the most important re-
lationship of her life: the one with herself. Sat-
urn returns are periods of major upheaval at
the turn of one’s thirties, and Adele just went
through hers, coming out on the other side of a
turbulent period ready to reckon with who she
is and what she wants, even if it meant upend-
ing her own life.
She embarked on a spiritual journey, her own
Eat, Pray, Love, if you will. It’s the kind of thing
the acerbic Brit might once have rolled her eyes
at. It was exactly what she needed.
THE GOOD FRIDAY announce-
ment sent Adele off on an in-
tense few weeks of bed-bound
anxiety. She was spending more
nights on her own now that she
and Konecki shared custody of
Angelo. It was the most time she
had ever spent away from her
son in his life.
But when she celebrated
her 31st birthday with friends
in May 2019, eating a home-
cooked dinner and watching
a movie, something clicked. “I
remember going upstairs, and
doing my face, and getting into bed,” she says.
Her birthday fell a few weeks after that depress-
ing Easter weekend. “I felt quite hopeful,” she
says. “It was the first time I felt I’d had a really
nice evening and I was OK being in the house and
going to bed on my own. I was not excited, but I
was looking forward to the next day.”
The next day, she woke up to the California
sun pouring through her curtains and “saw this
tsunami of emotions” coming toward her. She
thought that maybe she would try to be busy. In-
stead, she stayed in bed and started watching
The Sopranos.
“I was like, ‘This is going to be really fucking
up-and-down,’ ” she says. And it was. But after the
great birthday and rough comedown of a morn-
ing after, she decided to spend 2019 trying new
things. She took recommendations from anyone
— her lifelong London crew, industry allies, other
moms at Angelo’s school, even her eyelash girl.
She entered her “sound bath era” and began hik-
ing regularly. That July, she climbed a mountain
in Idaho with friends, where they wrote their in-
tentions and buried them in the dirt. She gave up
 ADELE
drinking for about six months, tired of the con-
stant “hangxiety.”
“Anything that could soothe my anxiety, I
threw myself in headfirst,” she explains. She trav-
eled “anywhere where there’s meant to be bril-
liant energy.” Jamaica, Greece, even a desert in
Arizona, where she had done a similar intention-
setting ritual. Adele’s diet and body were chang-
ing, too. She had found out she’s allergic to most
forms of gluten when she moved to Los Angeles
three years earlier, and later learned that a symp-
tom of gluten sensitivity is feeling depressed. “So,
I was like, ‘Oh, great. Thanks, guys. Could have
had a really fun twenties.’ ”
She got a bit addicted to the gym; it was another
place where she didn’t feel anxious. Going to the
gym felt like a metaphor for all the other work
she was doing on herself. She was learning she
was stronger than she thought and healing parts
of her body, like the back that had given her trou-
ble for years. She also learned she is surprisingly
athletic. “If I can transform my strength and my
body like this, surely I can do it to my emotions
and to my brain and to my inner well-being,” she
surmised. “That was what drove me. It just coin-
cided with all of the emotional work that I was
doing with myself as a visual for it, basically.”
All the while, she was writing. Most of her new
songs were penned during a trip to London that
summer. The producers and songwriters Greg
Kurstin, Tobias Jesso Jr., Max Martin, and Shell-
back all returned after contributing to 25. New
to the squad was Inflo, a North London produc-
er who helped her get back to some of her writ-
ing roots.
“He really taught me to chill out,” she explains.
After having Angelo, she’d become a bit of a “con-
trol freak,” which showed when she was making
25. It was more polished than 19 and 21, albums
on which she was “just throwing everything at
the wall.” Inflo made her take a closer listen to
some of her favorite albums — Donny Hathaway,
the Carpenters, Al Green, Marvin Gaye. Their
albums sound perfect because they technically
aren’t. “He was like, ‘If you really listen, this is a
mess. If you really listen, people are playing the
wrong notes. They’re coming in at the wrong
time. It’s all about the energy and the atmosphere
that that creates. Why would you want anyone to
do another take if you’ve just got the most perfect
take that there is?’ ”
Their time in the studio would begin with a
“six-hour therapy session,” Adele says, when the
“You can’t set me up on pair would unpack what she was going through
at the moment and then spend two or three days
a fucking blind date! pulling out a song that cut to the heart of her
emotional tsunami.
Someone will call [gossip site] Deuxmoi,
ROLLING STONE

The album’s track list is almost a chronologi-

cal chain of events. It begins with a Judy Garland
or whatever it’s fucking called! homage titled “Strangers by Nature,” which opens

It ain’t happening.” with Adele “taking flowers to the cemetery of my

heart” and wondering if she’ll ever learn “to nur-
ture what I’ve done.” She made that one with
Ludwig Göransson, the Oscar-winning Swedish

4
1
 ADELE
composer who worked on Black Panther and with
Childish Gambino (whom, by the way, Adele’s
been into for “donkey’s years”).
“I met Göransson at a party, and I was like,
‘He’s definitely European, that guy,’ ” she recalls.
As a Brit in L.A., she finds herself seeking out
other Europeans because of their often similar
dry sense of humor.
They worked on “Strangers” after she had
watched the Renée Zellweger-led Garland bio-
pic, Judy, and wondered why no one wrote songs
like that anymore. She calls the track her Death
Becomes Her moment, alluding to the camp clas-
sic starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as two
vengeful, youth-obsessed frenemies. Through
“Strangers,” Adele acknowledges being a bit of a
“hot mess.”
The song — short and whimsical, not at all like
the typical gut punch of her tracks — is so un-
like anything she’s done before that she almost
thought about giving it to someone else to sing or
sample. “You know in the old movies when some-
one’s having a flashback or a memory to some-
thing else, and it’s almost like they’ll shoot a river
or a pond and the water goes all ripply?” she asks.
“It reminds me of that.”
On “My Little Love,” Adele sings an R&B lulla-
by to Angelo. She admits that “Mama’s got a lot
to learn” and that she’s just barely holding on.
Strikingly, it includes voice memos of Angelo ask-
ing tough questions she tries her best to answer.
“I love your dad because he gave you to me,” she
says to him during bedtime conversations she’d
begun to record in a period of severe anxiety. “It
was unbearable,” she explains now, “and so if I
started getting anxious about something I might
or might not have said, I could just listen back to
this and be like, ‘OK, I’m fine.’”
Adele has started to wonder about society’s ex-
pectations for mothers, how they’re always just
moms while dads can be many things at once.
Much of that is what reinforced her feelings of
failing Angelo after leaving Konecki. “I might not
have been emotionally there all the time, but I
never wasn’t there for him,” she says, defending
herself against her own fears. “My Little Love”
— and, really, all of 30 — is about showing Ange-
lo who his mother really is: a layered and com-
plicated woman with an identity outside of their
relationship, who’s struggled and cried and hurt.
“He needs to know everyone goes through it,”
she continues. So far, and as heard on the voice
memos, he is quite the understanding nine-year-
old. “He’s a Libra, so he is, like, ‘Chill. It’s fine,
Mama. Just chill out.’ ”
I
N FEBRUARY 2020, Adele’s best
ROLLING STONE
friend Laura invited Adele to come
to her wedding. “I’d been so sad and
reclusive,” Adele says. “She was like,
‘Listen, I need you to show up for me. I need you
to come and run the party.’ ”
Since becoming famous, Adele often felt she
had to skip things like weddings and birthday par-
4
3
ties for her friends. Turning 30 when she did, fol-
lowing the immense success of 25 and the single
“Hello,” meant she was getting more famous than
ever just as her closest friends were getting mar-
ried and reaching new milestones, most of which
she chose to excuse herself from.
She worried her presence would cause pa-
parazzi disruptions for the guests or invasions
of her own privacy. It’s not like she could ask
to have all the phones removed from someone
else’s big day. “I took it to an incredibly isolating
level,” she says.
Adele hadn’t prepared for a life of fame be-
fore it knocked on her door. She lost the ability to
move about her life freely. But in the process of
regaining herself outside of her marriage, Adele
began showing up for friends like Laura.
And in showing up, she managed to leak news
of her own album. A couple of glasses of wine
in, she took the stage at Laura’s wedding to an-
nounce that her fourth LP would arrive in Sep-
tember 2020, a date that would of course slide
back, thanks to a worldwide pandemic. “[Laura]
was like, ‘I was not expecting you to really run it
like that,’ ” she says.
Fast-forward to this September, a full year after
the original release date. Adele is enjoying a poke
bowl in a Burbank rehearsal space and relishing a
Her final conversation
with her dad set her free
from years of pain. “I don’t think I
understood the true deepness of
how I felt about my dad,” she says.
different kind of tweetstorm than the one she wit-
nessed after her separation announcement. Her
name had been trending after a radio host spread
a rumor that she was about to drop her album im-
minently. A fake track list started to spread, in-
cluding imaginary duets with Beyoncé and Ari-
ana Grande. Adele isn’t active online when she’s
not promoting an album or tour, but she is a “full-
blown millennial.” Meaning she’s an NSA-level on-
line sleuth.
“I know how to trace something online, like
no one’s business, back to the original source or
leak, more than anyone on my team,” she claims.
She has a “finsta” — fake Instagram — she uses to
check out cat and interior-design content, and
a fake Twitter for checking on what’s come out
about her. She’s been keeping tabs on informa-
tion leaking about the real 30, free from any duets
outside of a deluxe-edition version of “Easy on
Me” featuring Chris Stapleton.
Adele pulls out her phone to find her favor-
ite Tweet from the fervor over the fake album
announcement. She searches the user @keyon,
whose display name is “HOOD VOGUE is tired of
poverty.” He called bullshit on the information
quickly, noting that Adele famously does not do
features. “He is so funny. I was like, ‘See, that’s
a fan,’ ” she says, scrolling through her phone.
“If anything’s blowing up on Twitter, I always go
straight to that account because I know he’ll ei-
ther be like, ‘Oh, this could be real,’ or he’s like,
‘This is fake.’ ”
A couple of hours after we part ways, she’ll for-
ward another tweet to me, with her name in bold
from the search she pulled up on Twitter. “Can
someone wake Adele up and tell her she’s coming
Friday I don’t think she knows,” it reads, a sly ref-
erence to the fact that maybe, just maybe, the in-
ternet sleuths have it wrong and 30 is not, in fact,
coming out that week.
The radio person wasn’t totally off about some-
thing coming. That Friday, projections and bill-
boards would pop up across the world with just
the number 30 on them. Given her predilection
for age-based album titles, and the timing of her
marriage ending, the name of Adele’s fourth
album was the worst-kept secret she had.
Following the confirmation of new music a
few days later, her album rollout
snowballed from there. Soon,
the actual, final date was an-
nounced: Adele’s first album in
six years would be out Nov. 19.
She could delay the album
only so long. “If it wasn’t com-
ing out now, I think I probably
would never put it out,” she ad-
mits. Given the very specific
point of her life she’s singing
about, she reckoned with the
fact that an album has as much
of a shelf life for the artist as it
does for the audience. “I know
I would’ve changed my mind
and been like, ‘It’s moved on. Let’s start the next
album.’ And I couldn’t do that to this album. I feel
like it deserves to come out.
“I had that conversation with Drake because he
kept having to push his album back,” she adds, re-
ferring to his Certified Lover Boy. “Suddenly he just
announced that it was out and was like, ‘I feel like
I’ve been working on it for so long because I’ve
been sitting on it.’ I feel a bit like that.”
Albums, tours, and movies have been sched-
uled and rescheduled across the industry in an
ongoing search for when things will feel “nor-
mal.” But like Adele and Drake, many have con-
cluded that that time may not come for a long
while. “No one wants to remember this period of
time,” she says. “Obviously, it’s way better than
last year, but the day my album comes out, some-
one’s loved one will have died from Covid. For
them, it’s going to be a reminder every time they
hear ‘Easy on Me’ on the radio.” [Cont. on 79]
44 | Rolling Stone | March 2021
WELCOMETO
Inside the
twisted mind
of Hollywood’s
horror auteur

GUILLERMO
by David
Fear

DEL TORO’S
Illustration
by Paul Mann

NIGHTMARE 45
G
GUILLERMO DEL TORO

UILLERMO DEL TORO HAS TWO first movies to reflect the Trump era. It also marks a DEL TORO FIRST heard of Nightmare Alley back in the
smiles. The first one is an open- serious break from the writer-director’s usual super- early 1990s, after he’d already had a few TV direct-
mouthed, midlaugh, 100-watt grin natural thrillers, exquisite fantasies, and portraits ing gigs in Mexico under his belt. The way del Toro’s
that smacks of pure, childlike en- of beautiful monsters, which peaked when his 2017 longtime collaborator Ron Perlman — who became a
thusiasm. Spend any time with the woman-meets-fish-man romance The Shape of Water good friend after del Toro cast him in his 1993 direc-
Oscar-winning 57-year-old Mexi- took home four Oscars, including Best Director and torial-debut film, Cronos, about a mysterious object
can filmmaker and you’ll see that Best Picture. The closest thing in Nightmare to a typi- that turns an antiques dealer into a vampire — remem-
smile again and again. It’s there cal del Toro touch of the macabre is a deformed fetus bers it, the whole thing was his suggestion.
when the chef-owner of a Toron- in a jar named Enoch, whose forehead is split down “We were having dinner, and I was on my high
to restaurant is telling him about the middle and houses a giant eyeball. “Had I made horse, saying that remakes are an act of cowardice,”
the secret, off-menu specials that this earlier in my career,” del Toro jokes, “the baby Perlman says with a laugh. “It’s lazy to remake some-
evening, or when del Toro re- probably would have been the hero.” thing, especially if the movie is a masterpiece.
members catching a rare 1930s You can easily picture the kid from Guadalajara “ ‘Having said that, Guillermo,’ ” he recounts say-
movie late one night on TV, or who taught himself English just so he could read ing, “ ‘there is one movie that should be remade, and
when he’s recommending some Hollywood horror-movie magazines, who asked for that’s Nightmare Alley. Not only should it be remade,
obscure 19th-century horror au- a mandrake root for Christmas (all the but it should be done by somebody who
thor you just have to read. It’s the better to practice black magic, he told understands there’s both a man and a
smile del Toro has when he’s gen- his parents), who would read his father’s monster at the center of it.’ ”
tly issuing orders to his postpro- health textbooks and declare that he had
duction team behind a mixing every malady known to man — trichino- “I MAKE Intrigued, del Toro managed to track
down a copy of the 1947 movie, as well
board (“That thunder needs to go
up two decibels on the left, the
sis, cirrhosis, a brain hemorrhage — and
who was “raised in a very morbid Cathol- MOVIES as Gresham’s novel, which came with a
torrid backstory: The author had been
footsteps down a decibel on the icism,” crafting intricate stories about
right”) and then everything on- the eyeball baby in the jar in his note- WITH drinking with a companion who regaled
him with tales of carnival geeks and the
screen suddenly looks and sounds exactly how he
imagined it in his head.
books. You could imagine the teenage del
Toro, traumatized by seeing violence on MONSTERS, depths to which an alcoholic sad sack
would sink in the name of addiction.
But there’s a second del Toro smile that occasion-
ally comes out: The corners of his mouth still point
the streets around him growing up, seek-
ing refuge in making Super 8 films about
BUT THE The story so haunted Gresham that he
wrote Nightmare Alley as a sort of exor-
up, but the lips are tight. It’s a smile with a shad-
ow lurking over it. That’s the look he gets when he
the whole carny menagerie; or, much
later, finding solace among fictional vil-
WORST cism. He also added several personal ob-
sessions into the story, including tarot-
talks about the past five years, which were marked lains when real-life criminals kidnapped
with love and death, some extreme highs, and sev- his father in 1998 and threatened to kill
MONSTERS card reading and psychoanalysis. The
book was briefly banned, and subsequent
eral subterranean lows. Del Toro was in the midst him over 72 days. Freak shows have been
of starting a new chapter of his life. But he was also del Toro’s comfort zone, whether he was
IN THEM editions were heavily censored. Gresham
would eventually take his own life at age
looking around, seeing a lot of despair, and feeling a
little broken.
starting his own creature-features make-
up/special-effects company, Necropia, or
ARE THE 53, in the same Manhattan hotel where
he’d worked on the novel.
“I’ve jokingly said every movie I make is an auto- including a life-size replica of a charac-
biography,” he says. “But I actually do mean that. ter from the cult film Freaks in one of his
HUMANS.” The filmmaker found the movie’s
source material and Gresham’s story to
When I did The Shape of Water, I wanted to make it three “Bleak House” movie-memorabilia be as deeply moving as they were disturb-
a love song. I wanted to sing it in a way that was an personal museums. This is a man who’s ing. (And having learned to read tarot
affirmation of life. And then, it’s like . . .” Del Toro never met a monster he didn’t love. But when it cards as a kid in Mexico, del Toro shared the writer’s
puts his elbows on the table and leans in. “You know came to processing everything that America and that fascination with readings: “I don’t advocate it being
what the flip side of the American dream is, right? he, personally, had been through over the past few magical, but I do advocate that there’s a connection
It’s a nightmare. I felt a complete sense of doom. years, he knew he needed to tackle the beast within. between the cards and your subconscious.”) When
So, when people ask, ‘Well, what about your new “I always say, ‘Yeah, I make movies with monsters,’ ” he started to make inquiries about adapting it, how-
[movie]?’ It was: This is where I was at.” del Toro admits, his smile tightening. “‘But the worst ever, he immediately ran into obstacles. Fox wasn’t
Say what you will about the perverse pleasures monsters in them are the humans.’ ” interested in a remake. The film was mired in rights
of del Toro’s new film, Nightmare Alley, issues. “And number three,” del Toro says,
it is definitely not a love song. An adap- “no one knew who I was yet.”

PREVIOUS SPREAD, PHOTOGRAPH USED IN ILLUSTRATION: CHARLEY GALLAY/WIREIMAGE;

tation of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 So he moved on, fashioning a career that
pulp novel about a carnival worker named would turn a former kid obsessed with comic

KERRY HAYES/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES; THIS PAGE: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE

Stanton Carlisle who learns the tricks of
the mentalist trade — which he parlays
into a nightclub act and the chance to bilk
high-society swells — it’s a sordid, seedy
movie that prefers to walk on the darker
side of the street. Not even a photogenic
A-list cast (Bradley Cooper is Stanton;
Rooney Mara is his romantic interest; Cate
Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, and Toni Col-
lette are also along for the ride) can keep a
bone-deep sense of pessimism from seep-
ing in. The most sympathetic character
is arguably the resident freak-show geek,
who bites the heads off of chickens for his
daily bottle of hooch.
Retro-stylized or not, Nightmare Al-
ley’s ecosphere of con artists and narcis-
sistic grifters makes it feel like one of the
A NEW START Del Toro with Kim Morgan on the Oscars red carpet in 2018
books, Frankenstein, and things that go bump
in your psyche into a critically acclaimed
moviemaker. His 2001 ghost story, The Dev-
il’s Backbone, and 2006 fairy tale, Pan’s Lab-
yrinth, both set in the time of the Spanish
Civil War, established him as someone who
knew how to blend the horrific, the fantas-
tic, and the folkloric in unique ways. He made
a Marvel movie (Blade II) long before it was
fashionable. He lent his taste for so-called dis-
reputable pop art to everything from gothic ro-
mances (Crimson Peak) to giant-robots-versus-
monsters movies (Pacific Rim). He added
“producer” and “published novelist” to his
résumé. And Nightmare Alley languished in
the back of del Toro’s crowded brain. Until he
happened to meet another person who recog-
nized how perfect he would be to do it.

46 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

 FREAKS AND GEEKS
Del Toro, masked, directing the
cast of Nightmare Alley: Perlman,
Cooper, Collette, Mara, and Mark
Povinelli (from left)
A
CCORDING TO DEL TORO, it was near the end
of working on his “love song,” The Shape of
Water, that his 30-year marriage was coming
to a close as well. Del Toro had met Lorenza
Newton when they were both at college in
Guadalajara, and they were married in 1986.
Having parented two daughters and shared
three decades of history with Newton, he’s
extremely selective in what he’s willing to say
on the matter. The second smile is very much pres-
ent and accounted for. “I feel like I have permission
to talk about myself,” he says, choosing his words
carefully. “But . . . I don’t think I have the right to talk
about anybody else. Sometimes your own history in-
volves the history of other people.”
The couple formally separated around March 2017,
del Toro says, and finalized their divorce that Sep-
tember, three months before The Shape of Water’s re-
lease. The following March, del Toro brought a date
to the Oscars. “I can say this, because I have a good
friendship with my ex-wife,” del Toro says, “but I
was a homebody, and then, suddenly, that changed.
Without qualifying anything . . . the important break
was with myself, saying, ‘This is not all I am.’ I always
believe that in life, you experience what you need.
Maybe not what you want. But what you need.”
When del Toro’s name was announced as the win-
ner of the Best Director award, he spoke about being
an immigrant and how art erases boundaries. He
also thanked “Kimmy” — veteran film writer Kim
Morgan, the date who’d caused a stir on the red car-
pet. Del Toro had reached out to Morgan several
months prior about a piece she’d written. “It was ei-
ther something about Badlands or Barry Lyndon,”
KERRY HAYES/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
Morgan says. “Those are both movies we love a lot.”
They began corresponding, and eventually, when
del Toro learned she lived in Los Angeles, decided
to meet downtown, at the Last Bookstore. “We start-
ed talking about books that we liked,” he says. “She
said, ‘Have you read Essays on American Literature by
D.H. Lawrence?’ And I said, ‘Have you seen this par-
ticular book of designs?’ We had an intersection with
literature that was pretty dark.” And they were both
impressed that the other not only knew Nightmare
Alley — the film and the book — but also were equally
crazy about it.
By December 2017, the two had started a relation-
ship. They had also been throwing around the idea
of a project they could work on together. Morgan
asked, “What about Nightmare Alley?” Del Toro now
had an in at Fox — it suddenly seemed possible. The
film would also help him channel what he was seeing
happen in a country he’d long called home, where a
blatantly racist president was calling Mexicans “rap-
ists” and stoking the flames of hate.
“As a Mexican man, I felt particularly vulnera-
ble,” del Toro says. “I woke up every morning say-
ing, ‘What is going to be the headline today? Are we
at war?’ I mean, for a lot of those four years, I felt like
I was under a dark cloud. There’s a line in Nightmare
we ended up cutting: ‘I know when there’s a right
and I know there’s a wrong, and I see a lot of one and
none of the other.’ That’s where I was at.”
Morgan and del Toro had already started work-
ing on a draft when the two went to the Oscars. He’d
been recognized by the Academy, gone public with
a new romance, and found a project he could use as
a vehicle to get despair out of his system. And then,
shortly after the ceremony, del Toro’s father died.
The filmmaker has long talked about the huge role
his father played in his life, how he’d inherited his
dad’s hypochondria as a kid, and how, during his
dad’s long trips to Houston to get checked out by doc-
tors, he’d bring the young Guillermo to translate and
reward him with “100 bucks’ worth” of comic books.
He’s also spoken of having to pay the ransom to his
father’s kidnappers in order to save his life. Guiller-
mo was with his father when he died. It was, he ad-
mits, a life-changing moment.
“Because it’s one thing to think about your father
dying, and another thing to experience it,” del Toro
says. “When you find yourself fatherless in the world,
you reflect on what it means for you to be a father,
a son — a man. And then, how do you express a loss
through what you do? It’s the same question I’ve
been asking since doing Hellboy: What makes a man
a man? Is it how they start? How they end? That was
something we were wrestling with in Nightmare, too.
“But the urgency for that answer increased after
my dad went,” he notes. “And the answer is, there
is no answer.”
Instead of becoming nihilistic, however, del Toro
found this notion gave him hope. Your time here is
your time here, period. You can only control how
you treat other people, and what you put out in
the world. It is partially why, after years of being a
recluse, del Toro decided to become more social; he
says he now goes out more with fellow filmmakers
and enjoys talking for hours with them about their
craft, something he never really indulged in much
before. It is why, after years of throwing himself into
his work because “I don’t do well with rest,” he’s try-
ing to enjoy nonwork things a little more. “I’m really
intrigued by life now, in a way that I haven’t been the
rest of my life.” Morgan and del Toro quietly married
in May 2021.
It’s also partially why he decided to try changing
his filmmaking style going into Nightmare, why his
mantra for what could have been a pulp-fiction-by-
numbers was: “ ‘I want to do what I don’t do.’ I want-
ed to change my instincts as a filmmaker. Could I
move the camera without being intrusive? Or not do
beauty that looks self-consciously ‘beautiful,’ and do
murkiness and grime without overdirecting it?”
Or make a movie that plumbs the depths the way
Nightmare Alley does, that channels a sense of cyni-
cism without giving in to it altogether. “It’s not a cyn-
ical movie,” he says, correcting me. “It’s dark. It’s a
little bleak. . . . But it’s not a movie that’s cruel for cru-
elty’s sake. I don’t think Gresham’s novel is like that.
You have to be detached to be cynical. I wanted to go
for something closer to a broken romanticism.” Then
del Toro smiles that first smile, the one that radiates
joy and a profound sense of happiness, and you feel
that whatever was broken when he was making this
film may have been fixed along the way.
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 47
WHERE

THE

TALIBAN

RULE
The conquering militants
govern by fear. Poverty
deepens, and behind closed
doors journalists are beaten
and rumors of executions
spread. A portrait of
a country on the edge

TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHS

BY ANDREW QUILTY

48 ROLLING STONE DECEMBER 2021

The Children of War

Elham, a boy from Wardak

province, plays on the
burnt husk of an Afghan
National Police car.
According to Elham’s
older brother, the vehicle
had been commandeered
by the Taliban and
destroyed by one of the
last U.S. airstrikes, just as
neighboring Kabul was
overrun by the insurgents,
an ignominious end to
America’s longest war.
W H E R E T H E TA L I B A N R U L E

A
T THE FOOT OF THE mountains separating the
city of Kabul from the farmland plains to the
north, the plyboard coffins are laid on the
ground in the shape of a fan. Four of them are
so small, child-size, that only one man is needed
to carry them.
It’s Aug. 30, two weeks after the Afghan gov-
ernment and its security forces collapsed and
the Taliban had seized control of Kabul, and
around 200 men gather for a burial. The men
from the immediate family are delirious with
course of the war that were never investigated
and for which justice was never served but that
had, in part, helped turn much of rural Afghan-
istan away from the government in Kabul and
toward the Taliban.
Above the cemetery, American F-16s tear
across the sky. Mourners try to spot the jets as the
father of three of the dead children breaks down
over their coffins. “We’re so frightened today,”
says Ahmad, one of Zamarai’s colleagues who’d
come to pay his respects. “It’s beyond shock.”
er of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, took off
six hours later. The U.S. had left Afghanistan.
In Kabul, news of the departure of the Amer-
icans broke with the sound of gunfire. Taliban
fighters emptied magazine after magazine of am-
munition into the night. The crescendo also her-
alded the end of the two-week maelstrom at the
airport which, for Kabulis and international au-
diences watching via the media, overshadowed
the Taliban’s victory over the world’s greatest su-
perpower. The city began to bustle with street
grief, struggling at times to stand. Friends and Further down the slope, beyond the rooftops of vendors and taxis. Kabulis grew used to the sight
family walk in stunned silence, moving about the an apartment complex, bulbous American mil- of long-haired fighters wearing camouflage mili-
cemetery slowly and purposelessly. itary planes lumber skyward from the airport, tary jackets over traditional clothes, and a new
Ten members of an extended family had been carrying the last of 120,000 evacuees airlifted normal began to reveal itself for longtime resi-
torn apart or incinerated when an American since the Taliban entered Kabul. The final plane, dents and Taliban alike. For the handful of for-
Hellfire missile launched from a drone struck ferrying the top U.S. diplomat and the command- eigners who had remained during the takeover
a car near Kabul’s international airport the day
before. At the time, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called it a
“righteous strike” on the Islamic State. In fact,
the Toyota Corolla station wagon was driven
by a man, Zamarai Ahmadi, who worked for an
American NGO and had just arrived home from
its Kabul office. Three of his own children and
four nieces and nephews were also inside or
near the car. They’d met Ahmadi, some clam-
bering aboard, in a narrow driveway to welcome
him home. “There is no flesh on their bodies,”
says Emal, whose two-year-old daughter Malika
was among the dead. “What is there to bury?”
The American airstrike was likely the last in
the country’s longest war. Because it occurred
in the Afghan capital, just a few miles from the
five-star Kabul Serena Hotel, on which scores
of foreign journalists had descended follow-
ing the city’s fall to the Taliban, it also received
more scrutiny — and a subsequent admission of
error by the Pentagon — than any other U.S. air-
strike since the beginning of the war. In fact,
there were hundreds of errant airstrikes over the

Photographer and writer ANDREW QUILTY has

lived in Kabul for the past eight years.

50 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

and for others who arrived soon after, any bit-
terness Taliban fighters held for the war seemed
all but forgotten. For fighters who hadn’t forgot-
ten, orders prevented them from acting on their
instincts. At one of Kabul’s four entry points, a
Talib from Helmand told me, “If it wasn’t for my
orders, I’d shoot you.”
The withdrawal of international forces, an
overdue acknowledgment of defeat after 20
years at war in Afghanistan, collided spectacu-
larly with the victors taking control of the capital
before the defeated had even managed to depart.
That a civilian airlift could cause more deaths
and turmoil than the coming together of thou-
sands of opposing armed combatants marked a
fitting final chapter in a 20-year war long gone
awry. “Can you believe this is happening?” one
Marine corporal asked another as their platoon
tried to push a crowd of Afghans attempting to
board aircraft off the runway. “This is insane.”
The chaotic scenes at the airport, however,
were in stark contrast to what appeared to be an
unfamiliar calm across the rest of Kabul. When
the planes stopped flying that night, and once
gunfire fell silent, Kabul’s 6 million residents
were able to stop and contemplate the future in The Return of the Taliban
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The absurd honeymoon period that followed Above: Taliban fighters pray at an amusement
saw Taliban fighters touring the country’s capital park on the outskirts of Kabul. Many of the
— many for the first time — wide-eyed, like chil- fighters hail from the rural countryside and
dren on their first trip to the sea. They wandered have never set foot in the capital before. Left:
Fighters nap in the luxury of the mansion of
into an amusement park and enjoyed the rides
former Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid
for free; encircled by strings of fluorescent pink Dostum. Dostum, also a former warlord, fled
and green bulbs, with American-made assault ri- the country as provinces in the north, where
fles resting between their legs, they ate ice cream his influence is strongest, fell to the Taliban.
before piling into a commandeered police truck;
at Kabul Zoo, southern Taliban threw stones at
unflinching lions and marveled at a tired dio-
rama of scorpions, commonplace in their desert
home; from the 10-meter diving board above a
Soviet-era Olympic pool dug into a hilltop, they
admired panoramic views through rifle scopes
and lounged on the artificial-turf carpeting in the
gaudy mansion of a former vice president and
alleged war criminal.
In spite of their intimidating disposition —
which is at least partly skewed by the media’s
20-year portrayal of them as the enemy — Tali-
ban fighters are overwhelmingly courteous and
disciplined. One evening in September, I began
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 51
School Days

A nominally segregated
grade-school class in Kabul
meets after the Taliban
takeover. Girls in and above
sixth grade have been
prevented from returning
to school under the new
regime. The militants claim
the ban on older girls’
education is temporary, but
historically the Taliban have
never allowed female high
school students.

52 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 53
W H E R E T H E TA L I B A N R U L E

talking with a small group of fighters from Hel-

mand province enjoying the views from a hill-
top in central Kabul. They asked to interview
me and I gladly agreed. Gladly, that is, until one
started recording video on his smartphone, as
the others, all holding assault rifles, crowded
around, oblivious to their unintentionally intim-
idating presence: “Do you feel safer here now
or during the previous government?” “Now,” I
reply, truthfully. (Petty crime has plummeted.)
“Are you a Muslim?” “I love God,” I lie. (Being
non-Muslim isn’t officially illegal, but one is still
vigilant around young zealots.) The young Talibs
take in their capital from the platform above the
pool, where one can see to all corners of the
city, to the nearby U.S. Embassy, the airport, the
ancient fort of Bala Hissar, and the tombs of war-
lords past; the fighters are most curious about a
place off to the east called Pul-e-Charkhi. Of all
Kabul’s landmarks, the infamous prison of the
same name is the one with which they seem
most familiar, and from which at least one taking
in the view had recently been freed.
Before we part, the Talibs ask for my phone
number so I can send them the photos I’d taken
earlier, upon their request. “Feel safe,” one im-
plores. “There is nothing to worry about.”

T
HE TALIBAN are fiercely protective of
the way they, as a group, are portrayed.
Methods of controlling their image are
crude and little different from those of
other dictatorial regimes worldwide.
The difference in Kabul, for the moment, is
that neither the enforcers nor the enforced have
worked out the rules. Protests have been permit-
ted, but few, if any, have proceeded to conclu-
sion without journalists being beaten, detained,
or both, and protesters themselves being dis-
persed with blunt force or intimidation.
During the largest protest since the Taliban
took power, a small group of fighters dutifully
escorted a group of pro-resistance activists that
grew to several hundred after a couple of miles.
The noisy mass — which included a large propor-
tion of women — turned onto a street where Tal-
iban fighters guarded the entrance to a foreign
embassy. Caught off guard, the Talibs on the
street first scattered the photographers and vid-
eographers, swinging electric cables and Kalash-
nikovs and confiscating cameras. When the pro-
testers marched on, dozens of fighters fired their
weapons, in a deafening chorus, into the air.
The Taliban’s own embrace of the media in re-
cent years — placing opinion pieces in The New
York Times and a cuddly representative in Doha
during talks with the U.S. government — while no
more self-serving than any other government’s,
extends as far as it can benefit the group’s cause
but not to independent outlets inside Afghani-
stan that threaten to challenge it.
The crude crowd-control measures at the
early September protest were one of few public
displays in Kabul of the Taliban’s limited toler-
ance of dissent. Behind closed doors, the crack-
down is more targeted and brutal. Nematullah
Naqdi, a journalist for the Afghan outlet Eti-
laatroz, was one of three laid facedown on the
floor in a former police station by Taliban intel-
ligence officers and beaten unconscious for cov-

54 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

ering another protest. Naqdi tells me later he
was told by his torturers that they were being
“merciful.” “You’re lucky,” they said, “we’re not
beheading you.”
The rise of the Taliban has much to do with
the neglect of rural Afghanistan by the former
government, but depictions of the dire econom-
ic circumstances in the capital that arose in the
wake of their takeover are nonetheless discour-
aged. With Afghanistan’s financial reserves fro-
zen by the U.S. and international monetary bod-
ies, cash shortages, and government salaries
going unpaid since two months prior to the Tal-
iban’s takeover, thousands of residents are sell-
ing their household items on the streets. Many
are warned by the Taliban not to provide inter-
views or to allow their photographs to be taken.
The Taliban’s obsession with the superficial,
however, does not yet pertain to rules regard-
ing the strict Islamic dress codes or unaccompa-
nied women in public the group was known for
enforcing when they last ruled Kabul. Although
there is a noticeable shift toward the tradition-
al, women still walk the streets without male
guardians, bereft of the all-covering burqa, while Days of Grief, Rage, and Fear
men continue to shave and wear Western-style
clothes. Female university students deliberately Top left: The burial of 10 family members,
walk by groups of Taliban with their faces un- including seven children, slaughtered in a U.S.
covered, an attempted provocation that the Tal- drone strike. Middle left: Nematullah Naqdi,
a journalist, was beaten by the Taliban for
ibs barely register. Billboards depicting made-
covering a protest by female students. Bottom
up brides on beauty-parlor facades have been left: Anti-Pakistan protesters take to the streets
stripped or hastily painted over, in anticipation of Kabul. Without Pakistan’s support, the Taliban
of orders to do so rather than because of them. could not have waged a successful war. Above:
Taliban fighters who have stepped into police The money exchange in Kabul; since the Taliban
work have co-opted the vehicles and uniforms of victory there have been cash shortages.
their predecessors from the Afghan National Po-
lice. Conversely, motorists who once decorated
their vehicles with bumper stickers and wind-
screen decals of pro-government icons have re-
placed them with Taliban flags or the Islamic
declaration of faith, the Kalima. Superficial pub-
lic displays of fealty reflect attempts to conform
rather than actual loyalty.
But beneath the public veneer a depression
has fallen over Kabul. The desperation at the
airport in late August was an indication of the
public’s distrust of the Taliban’s reassuring pro-
nouncements. Those of us who hadn’t lived
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 55
W H E R E T H E TA L I B A N R U L E

One journalist says

he was laid
facedown on the
floor in a police
station by the
Taliban and beaten
unconscious for
covering a protest.
His torturers told
him they were being
“merciful.” “You’re
lucky,” they said,
“we’re not
beheading you.”

Hard Times

Already one of the poorest countries in the world,

Afghanistan has seen international aid dry up since
the Taliban victory, plunging many into dire need.
Out of desperation, scores have taken to the streets
to sell their household goods.

56 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 57
W H E R E T H E TA L I B A N R U L E

No Representation

Images of women on billboard advertisements have been scrubbed away or painted over to accommodate the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of
Islam. These beauty parlors in Kabul, once humming with activity, have been altered and are mostly dormant as many fear to open. A 17-year-old
girl, barred from returning to finish high school, spends almost all of her time inside. “I feel like a prisoner at home,” she says. “Nothing else.”

58 | Rolling Stone | December 2021

“After they’ve formed their government,”
a Kabul resident whose house had been
commandeered by the Taliban tells me,
“they’ll go after their enemies, one by one.”
under their rule before — including me — were
charmed by the hospitality of the city’s new
overlords. Early on, foreign journalists were in-
vited to off-the-record lunches and provided with
letters permitting us to continue our work. Those
who knew them better warned of the subter-
fuge. “After they’ve formed their government,” a
Kabul resident, close to tears and whose house
had been commandeered by the Taliban, tells
me, “they’ll go after their enemies, one by one.”
The universal relief brought by the drop in vi-
olence after the Taliban’s victory was short-lived.
Already, the long-sought desire for security has
been usurped by an even greater, more urgent,
and more widespread threat to survival: poverty.
Afghanistan’s dire economic situation is the re-
sult of the United States’ oft-deployed tactics of
crushing its enemies financially more than Tali-
ban ineptitude; but regardless, according to re-
cent assessments by the United Nations, without
massive international intervention, the current
poverty rate (surviving on 94 cents or less, per
person per day) of 72 percent of the population
could balloon to 97 percent by mid-2022. As yet
there are no noticeable food shortages, but with
border closures, the cost of basic items is in-
creasing (cooking oil by 100 percent and wheat
by 28 percent). Coupled with soaring unemploy-
ment, a drop in the value of the currency, and
strict limits on bank withdrawals because of cash
shortages, it is not only the subsistence-farming
families in the provinces struggling to feed them-
selves but educated urbanites as well.
While few Kabul residents were ever accus-
tomed to 24-hour electricity, the country’s new
government, now in its fourth month, hasn’t yet
paid a power bill to its northern neighbors — who
provide half of Afghanistan’s power. The thought
of Kabul, whose residents are now suffering from
the results of food insecurity, plunged into dark-
ness as the fierce Afghan winter approaches fills
many with anxiety.
While the public brutality that the Taliban
wielded ensured compliance from Afghans in
the 1990s, this time around, the use of system-
atic physical violence has so far been more re-
strained. Instead, a sinister, invisible repression
lurks in the corners of every day.
High schools for girls in most provinces —
including Kabul — have been prevented from
opening; university attendance has plummeted;
former government staffers are staying home, dis-
trusting Taliban pleas for them to return to work;
journalists, judges, and activists are lying low
and waiting — hoping — to be evacuated. Former
interpreters for international militaries, officers,
and members of special units from the former
national defense forces are sheltering in small
groups of trusted friends and colleagues, mutu-
ally assured destruction ensuring everyone stays
mum. They say they’re hiding from the enemies
that promised them amnesty, because former
soldier colleagues are disappearing and turning
up dead. “When I called Obaidullah recently,” a
former member of an elite Afghan army unit tells
me, “his brother answered the phone and told
me what had happened.” Obaidullah, his brother
said, had been executed by the Taliban in Nan-
garhar province three days earlier. In October, a
former university lecturer who assisted me with
translations for this article was detained, accused
of spying for the U.S., and beaten. Before releas-
ing him, his captors offered a warning: “Soon,”
one said, “you’ll be sent to the other world.”
Even victims of non-Taliban violence are seen
as potential public-relations problems by the
Taliban. One family showed me the letter they
received after having lost three members to an
Islamic State bombing. It warned them against
speaking to the media about their losses. Earlier,
at the burial, an unknown and unwanted Taliban
mullah was sent to preside.
Whether because of dwindling finances, fear
of reprisal, or both, Kabulis are despairing. A
shopkeeper tells me that when Taliban fighters
come to his store he greets them as heroes, as
liberators. But it’s all a show, he says. “They’re
uneducated idiots.” A supermarket owner tells
me he’s trading at 20 percent in comparison to a
few months ago. His stock is slowly going out-of-
date. “The situation is not good,” he says. Liquor
bottles amassed during the slightly more lenient
days of the republic are being sunk into septic
tanks. A 17-year-old girl, barred from returning
to finish high school, fills her days drawing and
painting on the floor of her home. “I feel like a
prisoner at home,” she says. “Nothing else.”
Taliban fighters are restless too. Several ask
me whether I can help them leave the coun-
try. On a trip to Wardak province, neighboring
Kabul to the south, more than one Talib jokes
whether I can arrange for foreigners to invade
again. They’re bored, they say, and without war
and its spoils they have nothing to bring home to
their families. But “building a government,” they
say, without conviction, “is also part of jihad.”
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 59
THE
MONSTER
HIDING
IN PLAIN
SIGHT
Marilyn Manson was a provocative media darling for
decades. Offstage, exes allege, he was a cruel abuser who
made their lives hell BY KORY GROW AND JASON NEWMAN

ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN MCCABE

60
March 2021 | Rolling Stone | 61
M A R I LY N M A N S O N
IT STARTED
AS A VOCAL
BOOTH.
A DECADE OR SO before Marilyn Manson rented
the apartment above a West Hollywood liquor
store circa 2010, a former tenant — a label and re-
cording studio specializing in electronic music —
had built the cramped glass enclosure in the cor-
ner of a room with the goal of making uptempo,
life-affirming house music. The only adornment
was some foam for soundproofing on the walls.
Manson, whose real name is Brian War-
ner, soon converted the booth into what sev-
eral people who dated and worked with him
now describe as a solitary-confinement cell
used to psychologically torture women. They
say Warner frequently banished his girlfriends
there, keeping them inside for hours on end
to punish them for the tiniest perceived trans-
gressions. He called it the “Bad Girls’ Room.”
Ashley Walters, a former assistant suing War-
ner for sexual assault and other charges, says he
enjoyed telling people about the chamber. “He
always had a joking, bragging tone,” she remem-
bers. (Another former assistant, Ryan Brown,
who worked with Warner for eight years, denies
ever seeing any women confined in the so-called
Bad Girls’ Room, but says, “It was common
knowledge that’s what everybody had called it.”)
In interviews, it was an open secret. “If anyone’s
bad, I can lock them in it, and it’s soundproof,”
Warner boasted to a magazine in 2012.
Ashley Morgan Smithline, who is suing him
for sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment,
among other charges, tells ROLLING STONE that
Warner repeatedly forced her to stay in the space
— which was about the size of a department-store
dressing room — for hours at a time when they
were dating.
“At first, he made it sound cool,” Smithline
says. “Then, he made it sound very punitive.
Even if I was screaming, no one would hear me.”
As she tells it, “First you fight, and he enjoys
the struggle. I learned to not fight it, because
that was giving him what he wanted. I just went
somewhere else in my head.”
The rest of Warner’s apartment was decorat-
ed with blood, swastikas, and clipped photos
from porno mags. “There were vaginas every-
where,” says one person who visited the place.
Others recall a spray-painted message above his
bed reading “AIDS.” The carpets, furniture, and
decorations were black, as were the curtains he
used to blot the light out of every window nearly
24 hours a day. The temperature was kept frigid;
if anyone adjusted the thermostat above 65 de-
grees, Warner allegedly threw temper tantrums
and destroyed furniture.
One ex-girlfriend has referred to the apart-
ment as a “black refrigerator.” Another has
called it a “meat locker.” It was here, multiple
exes allege, that Warner inflicted repeated acts
of mental, physical, and sexual abuse that have
left them with crippling bouts of anxiety, depres-
sion, panic attacks, and PTSD.
Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco alleges
that Warner frequently abused her verbally; de-
MAKING OF A MONSTER Above: War-
ner in his early days on the Florida club
circuit. Right: Testing the limits of taste
in the mid-Nineties, on his way to be-
coming America’s favorite shock rocker.
ROLLING STONE
prived her of sleep and food; bit, cut, electrocut-
ed, and whipped her without her consent; and
raped her during their two years together. Bian-
co alleges that, in one horrifying episode, War-
ner wielded an ax and chased her around the
apartment smashing holes in the walls after say-
ing she was “crowding him.”
“That was a final-straw moment for me,” Bian-
co, who has sued Warner for sexual assault and
sex trafficking, tells ROLLING STONE. She says
she felt “in imminent danger for [her] life.” Leav-
ing, she says, “was my best attempt to survive.”
In October 2020, in the living room of a Los
Angeles home, Bianco’s body shook and her eyes
welled as she recounted that moment to about
a half-dozen other women, including Walters,
Smithline, actress Evan Rachel Wood, and model
Sarah McNeilly. Some of the women knew one
another; others were strangers. Yet the group
shared a reluctant bond: Each of them said that
Warner had abused them.
Walters felt stunned that day. “I just thought,
‘I can’t believe this happened to so many girls,’ ”
she says. “Once we started talking . . . you could
see the blood drain out of everyone’s faces, like,
‘I thought I was the only one.’ ”
In the past year, more than a dozen women
have come forward accusing Warner of psycho-
logical or sexual abuse, several in interviews
with outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and
People; four have filed civil lawsuits. The accus-
ers who spoke with ROLLING STONE say that
Warner was able to hide his abuses in plain sight
behind the Marilyn Manson character he creat-
ed and the music industry that supported, and
profited from, his living-demon shtick. To his ac-
cusers, some of whom have not spoken publicly
or in depth about this before, he is a serial sexu-
al predator who has been telling the world who
IMAGES. THIS PAGE, FROM LEFT: LAURA KOKUS; MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY
PREVIOUS PAGE: IMAGE USED IN ILLUSTRATION BY KURT KRIEGER/CORBIS/GETTY
IMAGES. OPPOSITE PAGE: BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES

he is for more than 25 years. This investigation
is based on nine months of research, court doc-
uments, and interviews with more than 55 peo-
ple who have known Warner at various points
throughout his life.
According to a statement from his attorney,
Warner “vehemently denies any and all claims
of sexual assault or abuse of anyone.” The state-
ment — which echoes a July court filing that
sought to dismiss claims in a lawsuit filed by Bi-
anco — goes on to denounce the accusers’ allega-
tions as “part of a coordinated attack by former
partners and associates of Mr. Warner who have
weaponized the otherwise mundane details of
his personal life and their consensual relation-
ships.” Warner has further argued in court fil-
ings that his accusers “are desperately trying to
conflate the imagery and artistry of [his] ‘shock
rock’ stage persona, ‘Marilyn Manson,’ with fab-
ricated accounts of abuse.”
“He has a way of getting in your brain,” Mc-
Neilly says. “I didn’t tell that many people what
had happened to me, because so many people
saw it happening and didn’t care.”
OR THE PAST three decades, the
defining quality of Warner’s art
has been his total rejection of con-
ventional morality. Initially, his
career was an assault on Christian
values. He led chants of “We hate
love, we love hate” at concerts
and scored hits with lyrics like
“There’s no time to discriminate/Hate every
motherfucker that’s in your way.” The music and
the band’s outrageous T-shirts were perfect fod-
der for hard-rocking goths who wanted to worry
their parents.
That impish Marilyn Manson is the one that
Halsey got tattooed on her rib cage and the
one whose visage Lil Uzi Vert reportedly paid
$220,000 to have turned into a bejeweled pen-
dant. But former friends of Warner tell ROLLING
STONE that at some point he got caught in a state
of arrested development and embraced “Marilyn
Manson” as a lifestyle. It was this Manson who al-
legedly bragged about having a “rape room” in
his apartment to a teenage Phoebe Bridgers — “I
thought it was just his horrible frat boy sense of
humor,” she tweeted this year — and whose scan-
dalous public image has been increasingly mir-
rored in accusations of real-life abuse.
Warner has often joked in interviews about
abusing women. For decades, the media has
amplified and glamorized his voice — including
ROLLING STONE, which put him on the cover
in 1997 with the headline SYMPATHY FOR THE
DEVIL. (Former contributing editor Neil Strauss,
who wrote that story and co-authored War-
ner’s bestselling 1998 memoir, The Long Hard
Senior writer KORY GROW interviewed Jeff
Goldblum in November. News director JASON
NEWMAN interviewed Lionel Richie in 2020.
63
“In the beginning, he was
charming, and I never
thought he would hurt me.
He moved very fast, telling
me I was his soulmate just
after we started dating.”
EVAN RACHEL WOOD
In testimony to the Connecticut Assembly
Road Out of Hell, declined to comment for this
article.) Warner established himself early on
as a defender of free speech, proclaiming his
right to offend. His eloquence, coupled with his
freak-show Prince of Darkness look, made him a
media darling whose most shocking statements
were normalized.
That all changed this year, when Wood, Bian-
co, and others came forward. Interviews with
and legal filings by Warner’s accusers paint a
picture of someone who conditioned women
through flattery and dark humor before intro-
ducing a pattern of sexual and physical abuse.
Accusers allege that he plied them with drugs
and alcohol, controlled their eating and sleep-
ing habits, and held them captive emotionally
and physically until they submitted to his will. If
they wanted to leave him, they say, he’d threat-
en to kill himself or, worse, them. They describe
him as employing a cult-leader mentality that al-
lowed him to hold complete power over them.
“It was Brainwashing 101,” Smithline says.
Within months of the July 1994 release of Por-
trait of an American Family, Marilyn Manson’s
first middle finger to the world, an ardent fan
base was clamoring to embrace the band’s soph-
omoric darkness. The cutting industrial-metal
backdrops made Warner’s rancorous words
(Sample lyric: “Who says date rape isn’t kind?”)
all the catchier.
Letters sent to the group’s fan club, Sa-
tan’s Bake Sale, include declarations of devo-
tion and demands for merchandise, especial-
DECEMBER 2021
ly a T-shirt that framed the message
“Kill God . . . Kill Your Mom & Dad . . . Kill
Yourself” in a sarcastic disclaimer. Man-
son’s devotees connected with his ma-
cabre affectations and provocative
stage spectacles — aspects of the per-
sona that Warner had been cultivating
for years by then. “Having people con-
gregate and feel accepted, that was his
big thing,” says one source close to War-
ner. “The cultlike mentality was to cul-
tivate a mass market of disenfranchised
people.”
Warner grew up in Canton, Ohio,
where he was raised by helicopter me-
chanic turned furniture salesman Hugh
Warner and nurse Barbara Wyer. Hugh
had a violent temper, according to his
son, and an oddball personality. “When
I was in the fifth grade, the first time I
had friends over from Christian school,
my dad would always like to tell his
favorite joke,” Warner claimed in 2012.
“He’d say, ‘Hey, have you ever sucked
a sweeter dick than mine?’ . . . Wheth-
er you say yes or no, you’re admit-
ting to something.” According to one
of Brian’s ex-girlfriends, Missi Romero,
in the 2000 documentary Demystifying
the Devil, “Hugh always had a thing for
younger girls at Brian’s show.” (Rome-
ro, who was 17 when she started dat-
ing a 23-year-old Warner, did not return ROLL-
ING STONE’s requests for comment for this story.)
In 1997, Warner described himself as “kind of
a mama’s boy.” “I had a weird relationship with
my mom as a kid,” he added, “because it was
kind of abusive — but on my part.” He wrote in
his memoir that he once assaulted her with a
perfume bottle, scarring her, when he thought
she had cheated on his dad.
Tim Vaughn, who says he was friends with
Warner in the early 1990s, remembers Warner
frequently cursing and screaming at Barbara.
Once, Vaughn recalls, “He chased her down the
hallway with a microphone stand. I asked him,
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ He’s like, ‘The
bitch is always coming in at the worst times.’ ”
In Warner’s first known interview, in 1990,
he defined Marilyn Manson’s music with a term
that foreshadowed the glib way he’d flirt with mi-
sogyny for the rest of his career: “What we have
come to call it is ‘beat up your mom’ music.” The
group would later christen their music-publish-
ing company Beat Up Your Mom Music. (Barbara
died in 2014 after being diagnosed with demen-
tia. Hugh died three years later.)
Warner gained an appreciation for the finer
aspects of satanic panic at Canton’s fundamen-
talist-leaning Heritage Christian School. “There
was a lot of shaming,” says a Heritage classmate
who requested anonymity. (The school did not
reply to a request for comment.)
One class dealt with the dangers of rock music,
which led Warner to adore Black Sabbath, David
M A R I LY N M A N S O N
Bowie, and Queen. In 1979, when Brian
was 10, Hugh dressed up like Gene Sim-
mons and brought him to see Kiss for his
first rock concert.
Warner’s family moved to Fort Lau-
derdale, Florida, when he was 18, and
he enrolled in Broward Community Col-
lege, where he became interested in
journalism and got a gig covering music
at a local publication, 25th Parallel. “The
first thing that I thought about him was
that he probably got beaten up a lot as a
kid,” former 25th Parallel editor Paul Gal-
lotta said in Demystifying the Devil. “He
had a lot of anger and hostility, but he
was a very quiet person; you know, the
kind that you expect was going to be a
serial killer someday.”
People who knew him in his early
Florida days remember an awkward
blond young adult who wanted to learn
all he could about rock music. One for-
mer friend remembers Warner bring-
ing a pen and notebook to Lollapalooza
’91, where he took notes on Perry Far-
rell’s stage act. “When I met him, he was
wearing a pair of brown corduroy pants
and a long surfer shirt,” says Nancy Mar-
zulli, another person who knew him
around this time. “He was a square kid
from Ohio. Scared of his own shadow.
He was quiet like a mouse. Wouldn’t say
a word.”
“Did I want to make him my best friend? No,”
says Paige Harvey, former frontwoman for local
band the Livid Kittens. “I always thought there
was something a little dark about him, but I
didn’t know exactly what.”
Somewhere between selling CDs at the rec-
ord store he managed and interviewing Deb-
bie Harry, Malcolm McLaren, and the Red Hot
Chili Peppers for 25th Parallel, Warner decid-
ed that he could give better interviews than his
subjects. All he needed was a band and an act,
which evolved from a character he’d developed
for a short story named Marilyn Manson — a
moniker that combined the names of America’s
most beloved sex symbol with America’s bogey-
man. “He was a character who, because of his
contempt for the world around him and, more
so, himself, does everything he can to trick peo-
ple into liking him,” Warner wrote in his mem-
oir. “And then, once he wins their confidence, he
uses it to destroy them.”
“He named himself after a serial killer and a
woman who had a very tragic life,” adds a source
who has known Warner for decades. “He told us
who he was.”
A fan of industrial pioneers Ministry and My
Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Warner sought
out like-minded musicians for his anti-society
screeds. The first lineup of what would soon be
known as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids
featured Warner singing alongside bassist Brian
Tutunick, a.k.a. Olivia Newton Bundy, and gui-
“First you fight, and he
enjoys the struggle. I
learned to not fight it,
because that was giving him
what he wanted. I just went
somewhere in my head.”
ASHLEY MORGAN SMITHLINE
tarist Scott Putesky, who called himself Daisy
Berkowitz. Like the industrial groups Big Black
and Rapeman, they played to a drum machine at
their first gigs in late 1989 and early 1990.
At their first gig, Warner recalled in his book
that he wore a T-shirt showing Marilyn Monroe
with a Charles Manson swastika scribbled on
her forehead. Other band members dressed in
bright, flowery clothing raided from local thrift
stores. “They were basically burlesque,” says
Rick Myers, who taught Warner broadcasting in
school. “It was kind of a goof. One time, they had
a duffel bag sitting beside the drums all night. Be-
fore the last song, they dragged it out and put it
in front of the mic stand. They start playing the
song, and a guy got out of the bag and stood up
and recited a Captain Beefheart poem and then
got back in the bag and closed it up.”
In his memoir, Warner wrote about abusing
a woman he called “Nancy” as part of his early
stage act, describing how he would hold her
by a leash and beat her onstage — “to make a
point about our patriarchal society, of course,
not because it turned me on to drag a scanti-
ly clad woman around the stage,” he wrote. He
also claimed in the book that he and a bandmate
plotted murdering Nancy before changing their
minds. (When reached by phone, “Nancy” de-
clined to comment for this article.)
Harvey, the local musician, remembers feel-
ing unsettled when she saw a woman “locked
in a cage” at Manson shows. “He would hit her
or kick the cage,” she says. “It was part of the
ROLLING STONE
shtick, I guess. I’m not a prude or anything. I just
remember thinking, ‘That’s not cool.’ ”
Friends of Warner’s from that time say that
he taped sexual encounters and showed them to
other people. Russell Vaughn recalls hanging out
one night with his brother Tim Vaughn, a female
friend, and Warner. “Brian popped in a compila-
tion tape of every girl he had ever taken into his
closet for a blowjob,” he says. “He was proud of
it.” Both Vaughn’s brother and the friend, who
asked to remain anonymous, confirm seeing the
tape to ROLLING STONE.
After Warner befriended Jeordie White, later
known as Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez, the
pair started prank-calling a woman who worked
at their local mall. They’d threaten her, telling
her they were watching her, and Warner claimed
in his book that they once told her, “We’re going
to rape you in the parking lot and then crush you
underneath your own car.”
“I thought he was a bully,” says a source who
met Warner in his Spooky Kids days and stayed
friends with him for the next two decades. “He
was charismatic and talented, but from the be-
ginning it was his way or the highway.”
Laura Werder, who took some of the first pho-
tographs of the band, ended up running the Sa-
tan’s Bake Sale fan club on and off until 1994.
“There were underage girls sending nude pic-
tures of themselves, people writing letters in
blood,” she says. Warner referred to the club’s
members as “the Family” (another nod to
Charles Manson), and Werder remembers a
newsletter urging those followers to break the
law. “They were like, ‘We are having a contest to
see who can send us a Polaroid with the most de-
viant usage of our logo,’ ” she recalls. “For exam-
ple, ‘Your father’s passed out drunk and naked,
you carve “Marilyn Manson” on his bald fore-
head and snap a picture.’ . . . He was pushing peo-
ple’s buttons. How far will people go?”
In 1993, the band signed with a label run by
Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, an artist Warner
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY BRITTNEY YARBOROUGH WITH ALLEN EDWARDS SALON, WOODLAND HILLS, CA
had interviewed in his pre-Manson days, and dis-
tributed by Interscope Records. With the pres-
sure on, some of Warner’s former friends ques-
tioned whether he could live up to his own act.
“I think when Trent signed him, it was, ‘I need to
become everything that I’m singing about,’ ” says
Tutunick, who had left the band a few years ear-
lier. “I don’t remember any drugs when we were
hanging out; he didn’t even drink. He was will-
ing to sacrifice who he was to become this char-
acter he created.”
RO L L I N G S T O N E described the band’s
Reznor-produced 1994 major-label debut, Por-
trait of an American Family, as a “splatter-glam
album . . . that includes a song about child mo-
lestation that could be seen as not entirely dis-
approving.” (“As a kid I experienced many dif-
ferent types of sexual abuse from all different
directions,” Warner claimed in an interview the
following year.)
If the lyrics about sex abuse didn’t attract an
audience, Marilyn Manson’s blasphemous antics,
PHOTOGRAPH BY NOLWEN CIFUENTES
64

such as tearing up Bibles onstage, did — along
with protests and show cancellations. “The ani-
mosity is what springboarded him to fame, and
he rode it,” Werder says.
The band gained traction by opening for
Nine Inch Nails on a 1994 tour that featured de-
bauched aftershow parties. In an interview with
photographer Richard Kern the following year,
Warner joked that he couldn’t discuss groupies
“because of the statute of limitations.” He also
unpacked the “Sweet Tooth” lyric “I want you
more when you’re afraid.” “I’ve grown accus-
tomed to getting sexual excitement out of a girl’s
screaming,” Warner said. “There’s something
about a terrified girl that I find exciting.”
The next year, on a tour supporting Danzig,
Warner befriended bus driver Tony Wiggins,
who joined Warner and White in humiliating and
abusing young women and men backstage, ac-
cording to Warner’s book. In The Long Hard Road
Out of Hell, Manson recounts a time that Wiggins
supposedly affixed a nude male fan, who had
agreed to be tied up, to a device that spread his
legs apart in a way that if he moved, ropes would
tighten around his neck, choking him. “In order
to keep from strangling himself, he had to work
to keep himself in this awkward, vulnerable po-
sition,” Warner wrote. “Tony stood over him
with a video camera, capturing his struggle from
every angle.” (Wiggins declined to comment for
this article.)
1995’s Smells Like Children EP marked a rare
instance where Manson’s label told him he had
crossed the line. The initial track list contained
two terrifying audio vignettes titled “Abuse”
culled from their recordings with Wiggins. In
one, a young woman whimpers and screams in
apparent agony as the bus driver asks, “You like
it, don’t you?” while whipping her and rattling
chains; in the other, a young woman describes
molesting a six-year-old boy.
“That was the point when Interscope said,
‘Yeah, this is too much for us,’ ” says one person
who worked on the EP.
“Everybody was like, ‘There’s no fucking way
— we have to change this,’ ” another person in-
volved in the EP launch adds.
But Marilyn Manson kept getting bigger. With
the thumping, anthemic single “The Beautiful
People,” the band’s second album, Antichrist Su-
perstar, became a surprise hit in 1996, earning
Warner his first ROLLING STONE cover.
Like the murderers in Natural Born Killers, a
box-office smash the year of Manson’s debut,
the hints of danger in his persona seemed to
make Warner an irresistible media sensation.
With his over-the-top act, he was a hit with talk-
show hosts who bemoaned the future of Ameri-
ca’s youth. He even appeared on The Phil Dona-
hue Show, trotted out like a sideshow attraction
to defend moshing. And when the U.S. Senate
held a hearing in 1997 related to a 15-year-old
Marilyn Manson fan’s death by suicide — future
vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman called
the music “reprehensible,” singling out the lyrics
PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIN KIRKLAND
65
“He has a way of getting
in your brain. I didn’t tell
that many people what had
happened to me, because
so many people saw it
happening and didn’t care.”
SARAH MCNEILLY
as “some of the worst thoughts I’ve ever heard”
— it only made Warner more of a rebellious alt-
rock icon to his fans.
Many of Warner’s accusers charge that the me-
dia’s embrace of an act full of barely concealed
hateful aggression enabled him to abuse behind
the scenes — and sometimes in plain sight — with-
out scrutiny. “We give an awful lot of slack to
men like this, and especially in the music indus-
try,” Esmé Bianco says. “If you’re not a woman-
izer and a complete misogynist, are you really a
rock star at all?”
EHIND THE SCENES, tensions in the
band were mounting. A 1996 label
showcase devolved into violence
when Warner vaulted his micro-
phone stand into drummer Ken-
neth Wilson, sending him to the
hospital. “[I’m] playing the drums,
and also trying to read Manson’s
mind,” Wilson said in an interview the following
year. “If I miss a cue, I’m liable to get a mic stand
thrown at my skull.” (Wilson did not reply to re-
quests for comment.)
Around the same time, Warner linked up with
manager Tony Ciulla, who would go on to over-
see his career for the next 25 years. “Tony was
the only dude who could tame the beast when
shit was going down,” says a former Marilyn
Manson band member. “When Manson would
fucking destroy a venue or a hotel, Tony would
DECEMBER 2021
be there with a checkbook and a smile.”
(Ciulla did not reply to repeated re-
quests for comment.)
In 1997, Warner fell for Rose Mc-
Gowan, an actress in her mid-twenties
who had starred in the art-house black
comedy The Doom Generation a few
years earlier. He proposed marriage,
but McGowan called off their engage-
ment in 2001. After the abuse allega-
tions came out, she released a state-
ment on Instagram: “When he was
with me, he was not [abusive] like that,
but that has no bearing on whether
he was like that with others, before or
after . . . I’m proud of these women and
anybody who stands against an abuser.”
(McGowan did not reply to a request for
comment.)
Throughout this time, Warner con-
tinued making art imbued with intense
misogyny. In 1998, he released Dead
to the World, a concert video that in-
cludes a short clip of Groupie, a longer
film Warner had made in which he ver-
bally abuses a woman. The clip shows
a woman screaming “Stop” as Warner
tells her to “Sit down” and “Shut the
fuck up.” (“It was acting,” Pola Weiss, a
longtime friend who starred in Groupie,
tells ROLLING STONE. “It was hamming
it up.”) Of the full film Groupie, Warner
once said, “When I showed it to my manager, he
said, ‘Please hide the masters. If anyone sees this
you’ll go to jail and your career will be over.’ ”
Several ex-girlfriends have alleged that Warner
nevertheless showed it to them with pride.
The moral panic around Warner heightened
toward the end of the Nineties, with press re-
ports tenuously tying his fans to school shoot-
ings in Mississippi and Oregon and a supposed
gang in Michigan. None of it stopped Warner — in
fact, it likely helped boost sales of his 1998 mem-
oir. One of his friends from Florida recalls this
as the point in which the Marilyn Manson perso-
na overtook Warner; if this person, who wished
to remain anonymous, were to call him “Brian,”
he’d insist on being called “Marilyn.”
“Manson is the kind of person who looks for
weakness in people,” says a source who was
present during the sessions for 1998’s Mechan-
ical Animals. “He’d find something that would
wind someone up so hard that they were get-
ting visibly shaken and upset. And that would
be the thing that he would use any time he ad-
dressed them. It was very manipulative and it
was unpleasant.”
Mechanical Animals spun off a hit with “The
Dope Show,” but the album underperformed
sales projections. That fall, then-Spin editor Craig
Marks took Warner off the magazine’s cover and
replaced him with a more buzzworthy Manson:
Garbage’s Shirley Manson. In a legal complaint,
the editor described a chilling scene when he
went backstage at one of Warner’s shows in
M A R I LY N M A N S O N
“I fully intend to pursue
New York: “Manson . . . began to threat-
en Marks by shouting that he could kill
Marks, his whole family, and everyone
he knew,” the complaint alleged. “Before
Marks could respond, [Warner’s body-
guards] physically attacked him. . . . Man-
son approvingly exclaimed, ‘That’s what
you get when you disrespect me.’ ”
‘No, you don’t get to just
“I walked into the dressing room, and
everybody was just frozen, just dead
still,” remembers an eyewitness who
wishes to remain anonymous. “Man-
son’s security guy was holding this kid
up against the wall.” (The case was set-
tled out of court.)
The biggest challenge yet to Manson’s
career at that point came on April 20,
1999, when two teenagers gunned down
12 of their fellow pupils and one teacher
at Columbine High School in the Denver
suburb of Littleton. Early reports sug-
gested the killers were Marilyn Manson
obsessives; it later became clear that
they had been fans of industrial groups
like KMFDM and Rammstein. Within
days of the shooting, Warner called the
assailants’ act “tragic and disgusting.”
Far-right religious groups picketed his
concerts, stoking his fan base, and he
was slowly able to turn public opinion
in his favor.
When he appeared in Michael Moore’s
documentary Bowling for Columbine, which
came out in 2002 amid Manson’s foundering
album sales, Warner spoke intelligently and con-
cisely. “I think it’s easy to throw my face on the
TV because I’m, in the end, sort of a poster boy
for fear,” he said. When Moore asked what he’d
say to the kids at Columbine “if they were here
right now,” Warner replied: “I wouldn’t say a
single word to them. I would listen to what they
have to say, and that’s what no one did.”
Years later, his tone was more flippant. “I got
blamed for Columbine, and I had absolutely
nothing to do with it,” he said in 2012. “At least
[the killers] had their kicks before the whole shit-
house went down in flames.”
Warner’s career recovered after Columbine,
but his image shifted as the public began to view
him as more of a caricature. In 2001, the satiri-
cal newspaper The Onion ran the headline MARI-
LYN MANSON NOW GOING DOOR-TO-DOOR TRYING
TO SHOCK PEOPLE.
Offstage, Warner worked to distance himself
from his past. He checked into hotels under the
pseudonym “Patrick Bateman,” the murderer
in American Psycho, and he had trouble main-
taining relationships with band members. His
former mentor Reznor was long gone by now:
“[Warner] is a malicious guy and will step on
anybody’s face to succeed and cross any line of
decency,” the Nine Inch Nails frontman said in a
2009 interview. “Drugs and alcohol now rule his
life, and he’s become a dopey clown.” (Reznor
declined an interview for this story.)
every avenue I have. That’s
how I take my agency back.
I’m standing up and saying,
walk away from that.’ ”
ESMÉ BIANCO
Warner was also getting a reputation for using
racial slurs. “He said the n-word quite a bit,” re-
calls an associate from later in his life, who felt
that Warner “almost reveled in being able to say
it in front of Black people.”
In 2001, Warner faced criminal and civil
charges brought by Joshua Keasler, an Ozzfest se-
curity guard who accused Warner of grinding his
crotch against him at a Detroit show. The lawsuit
was settled out of court, and Warner ended up
pleading no contest to disorderly conduct after
a sexual-assault charge was dropped.
Keasler says now that he’s been upset to read
of more recent assault allegations against War-
ner, and he wonders if his legal case 20 years ago
could have done more to protect women: “Had
he been a registered sex offender, maybe one of
those young ladies would have considered a lit-
tle longer before they thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t
the guy I want to hang out with.’ ”
THE NEXT DECADE and a half went by in a blur
of misogyny and boundary pushing. “Whatever
I do, whatever I say, I am Marilyn Manson now,”
Warner said in 2003. “I can’t turn it off.”
A yearlong marriage to burlesque performer
Dita Von Teese ended in 2007 after she accused
him of infidelity and drug abuse. “I was trying
to get him help for his problems, and eventual-
ly I realized that he didn’t want help,” she said at
the time. (Von Teese did not reply to a request
for comment.)
ROLLING STONE
He moved on with Wood, who met Warner at
Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont when she was
18 and he was twice her age; in interviews, he
described her as a Lolita-like muse. “In the be-
ginning, he was nice, charming, and I never
thought he would hurt me,” she wrote, with-
out naming Warner, in a letter to the Connecti-
cut General Assembly on coercive control earlier
this year. “He moved very fast in our relation-
ship, telling me I was his soulmate and that we
should move in together just shortly after we
started dating.”
Within a year, Warner and Wood had broken
up for the first time, inspiring the song “I Want
to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies,” on his
2009 album The High End of Low. The video for
another song on that album features a man re-
peatedly punching a Wood look-alike in her un-
derwear. Warner told Spin that year that he had
“fantasies every day about smashing her skull in
with a sledgehammer.”
Bianco, who dated him later on, is haunted by
quotes like that now. “Everyone passed it off as
theatrical, like, ‘There goes Marilyn Manson,’ ”
she tells ROLLING STONE. “But when he start-
ed turning ugly against me, I was like, ‘Oh, he
wasn’t kidding.’ ”
In 2009, when The Guardian asked Warner
what his greatest fear was, he responded, “Fear
is something I instill in other people, mostly
young girls.” At a concert the same year, Warner
told the crowd, “When you laugh after you fuck
her, it is not rape.” “He would joke about rape all
the time,” says a source who knew him around
that time, echoing multiple people who spoke
for this story. “He loved the idea of rape — talking
about rape, seeing it in the movies.”
This lines up with Bianco’s allegations. “Before
I was even in a relationship with him, he talked
about raping me,” she claims. “[I thought], ‘I
guess that’s just how he rolls and everyone is
cool with it, so who am I to not laugh along?’ ”
Warner and Wood split for good in 2010, with
Wood keeping the abuse she allegedly suffered
a secret for years. The same summer they split,
Warner began speaking frequently to Smithline,
a model who was working in Thailand.
Smithline describes her personality at the
time as “bubbly and effervescent,” immersing
herself in local cultures, mingling with anyone,
and practicing bikram yoga. “I look for the good
in everyone and want to believe that everyone
has good intentions,” Smithline tells ROLLING
STONE. “I was very vulnerable and suscepti-
ble to anyone showing care, love, and a feeling
of safety.”
Soon after they met online, Warner told her
she “was the perfect girl for him,” according to
Smithline’s lawsuit. “[He’d say], ‘I’m the only
one who understands you,’ ” she tells ROLLING
STONE. “There’s a lot of things that should’ve
been huge warning signs, but when you’re naive,
you just think it’s ‘kindred spirits.’ ” Warner flew
her to Los Angeles, and Smithline quickly found
herself moving into his apartment.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NOLWEN CIFUENTES
66

According to a statement by Warner, who has
denounced her accusations as lies, their relation-
ship, “to the limited extent it was a relationship,
lasted less than a week in 2010” and was con-
sensual. Smithline, however, claims that the two
had a consensual sexual relationship that lasted
until November 2010, when, she alleges in the
suit, she “awoke from unconsciousness with her
ankles and wrists tied together behind her back
and Mr. Warner sexually penetrating her. Ms.
Smithline told Mr. Warner to stop and said ‘No’
multiple times, and Mr. Warner told her to ‘Shut
the fuck up’ and ‘Be quiet.’ ”
According to the lawsuit, Warner choked,
strangled, bit, and burned Smithline without
consent “for [his] sexual gratification,” and
raped her “several times.” Over the course of
their time together, the suit claims, Warner,
without Smithline’s consent, carved the initials
“MM” on her thigh, “threw a Nazi knife at Ms.
Smithline, only barely missing her face,” “cut Ms.
Smithline while she was raped” with “a knife em-
blazoned with a swastika,” and elbowed her in
the nose, causing a hairline fracture. (In his own
court filing this June, Warner denied virtually all
of the claims made in Smithline’s suit.)
EARS BEFORE Game of Thrones fans
knew her as Ros, Esmé Bianco was
an aspiring actress and burlesque
performer who was friends with
Warner’s then-fiancée, Von Teese.
Warner told Bianco he was inter-
ested in casting her in a Lewis
Carroll-themed horror film called
Phantasmagoria.
What she characterizes as love bombing —
showering someone with praise and gifts to ma-
nipulate them for future control — began imme-
diately. “I was flattered,” says Bianco, who had
liked his music as a teen. “Literally the first words
out of his mouth were, ‘I’ve been a fan of you for
years.’. . . Now I look back and call bullshit.”
Bianco and Warner were friends for four years
before their relationship turned romantic. “My
relationship with him started out glorious,” she
says now. “There’s a lot of glamour that comes
with dating somebody like that, and at first it
feels fantastic. You don’t realize that it’s not fan-
tastic until it’s way too late.”
According to Bianco’s suit accusing Warner
of rape, sexual battery, and sex trafficking, War-
ner flew her from the U.K. to Los Angeles in Feb-
ruary 2009 for a never-released music video for
“I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies.”
Among other alleged horrors, the suit claims he
plied her with drugs and alcohol while withhold-
ing food, “beat her with a whip that Mr. War-
ner said was utilized by the Nazis,” and “electro-
CHRISTOPHER LANIER
cuted her.” Their relationship, according to the
suit, included a nightmarish pattern of drugs,
constant monitoring, physical abuse, and sexu-
al assault. (Warner, in response, has dismissed
“each and every” allegation from Bianco as “un-
67
“Once we started talking . . .
you could see the blood
drain out of everyone’s
faces, like, ‘That happened
to me too. I thought I was
the only one.’ ”
ASHLEY WALTERS
true and meritless.” He has also moved to throw
two of her claims out of court due to the statute
of limitations.)
By 2011, Bianco had secretly started to look
for apartments to move into. “I thought that if I
physically left, that magically all our problems
would go away,” she says. Even when the alleged
ax incident occurred shortly before their break-
up, Bianco still blamed herself for Warner’s be-
havior. “You truly think that everything is your
fault,” she says. “So even if someone is trying to
kill you, you’re like, ‘What did I do to make them
so mad?’ ”
SARAH MCNEILLY met Warner that same month.
The Los Angeles model was upset over a break-
up, and her roommate at the time had encour-
aged her to go to a party at the Chateau Marmont
and find someone new. She met Warner that
night, and when she woke up the next morning,
she saw numerous messages from him asking her
out. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I’m never drinking
tequila again,’ ” she says. “ ‘No, thank you. I’m
sure you’re a wonderful guy, but I don’t want to
date any more musicians.’ And he replied: ‘I’m
not a musician. I’m a magician.’ ”
She acquiesced, and Warner invited her over
to his home to watch a movie for their first date
a week later, she says. “He was super-charismat-
ic, warm, and inviting,” McNeilly tells ROLLING
STONE. “He went the extra mile to try to get you
to trust him. He seemed very vulnerable. But it
DECEMBER 2021
was also learning about me, what made
me tick and where he could pull the
strings out later.”
McNeilly says she first noticed some-
thing was off when Warner told her he
loved her during sex shortly after they
met. “I stopped and I was like, ‘What
the fuck did you just say to me?’ ” she
recalls. “Like, we’ve been dating a
week. . . . He wanted me to start pick-
ing out wedding dresses. He wanted to
have a baby. I’ve never experienced a
relationship like this — because it was
fucking fake.”
Soon, McNeilly says, Warner began
isolating her from her loved ones,
threatening and verbally berating her
for hours on end. (McNeilly’s friend
Brittany Leigh confirms that McNeilly
told her about the alleged abuse and
isolation at the time.) McNeilly’s voice
quivers as she describes the time when,
she says, he sent her to the “Bad Girls’
Room” after he heard the name of an-
other musician she’d dated in the past
and “flipped the fuck out.” “That was
absolutely terrifying, because by then,
the mask is off and you can see what
he’s capable of,” she says.
The most violent incident, she al-
leges, occurred during the singer’s
video shoot for 2011’s “Born Villain,”
directed by Shia LaBeouf. McNeilly says that she
had been helping Warner pick out pants for the
shoot when he became enraged. “He threw me
up against the wall, and he had a baseball bat in
his hand, and he said he’s gonna fucking smash
my face in,” McNeilly says. “The physical vio-
lence was almost a relief. Like, the mental shit
that he puts you through, that he infects your
brain with, that he brainwashes you, you just
want it to stop.”
IKE MANY OF WARNER’S ACCUSERS,
Ashley Walters says her initial con-
tact with him was positive, begin-
ning when he reached out to her
on Myspace in the spring of 2010
to praise her photography. Her
legal filing states he invited her to
his West Hollywood home for a
photo session that turned ugly when he alleged-
ly “pushed her onto his bed and pinned down
her arms” and “bit her ear while grabbing her
hand and placing it in his underwear.”
Walters has said she tried to block out the in-
cident, and that Warner deluged her with ador-
ing text messages soon afterward. That August,
she became his personal assistant. At industry
events, Walters’ lawsuit alleges, Warner would
“offer her up” to his friends, encouraging her
to “please his friends in whatever way they de-
sired.” He allegedly threw dishes at her, pushed
her into a wall, and at one point, [Cont. on 80]
Music

ABBA’S
BRAVE NEW
VOYAGE
The Swedish pop
super troupers
ride again with
their first new
album in 40 years
By ROB SHEFFIELD

ABBA
Voyage
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

N
EARLY 40 YEARS AGO,
ABBA were in the
studio for one last
time, to cut a tragic ballad
called “The Day Before You
Came.” They knew this was
goodbye; both couples in the
group had divorced. Agnetha
Fältskog recited a bleak tale
of emotional isolation, words
scripted by her ex-husband,
doing her vocals in a dark-
ened studio with all the lights
out. It was the last thing they
ever recorded. A splendidly
melodramatic finale for this
most melodramatic of pop
groups. And that — as far as
the world knew — was that
for ABBA. Until now.
So how the hell did this
happen? The Swedish super
troupers ride again with Voy-
age, and there’s never been a
comeback story like this

ILLUSTRATION BY
Bijou Karman
Reviews Music

ABBA
one: all four original members of a great pop
BARNETT’S SLOW WONDER
band, reuniting after 40 years apart, with all One of the world’s sharpest songwriters turns
their powers intact. This album would be a
one-of-a-kind historic event even if the songs
inward, thinks deep, and blisses out By JON DOL AN
blew — but it’s vintage ABBA, on par with their

C
classic 1970s run. It evokes the days when the OURTNEY BARNETT’S Melbourne, Australia; over
Norse gods ruled the radio, combining two of 2015 debut, Sometimes deliberate guitar strumming,
the Seventies’ hottest trends: heartbreak and I Sit and Think, and she connects images of
sequin-studded pantsuits. Sometimes I Just Sit, was the people muddling through
For Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid, and Agnetha, sound of a young artist with life (noisy neighbors, parents
their last album was the 1981 synth-pop gem the melodic chops of a pow- teaching a kid to ride a bike)
The Visitors. But since then, the ABBA legacy er-pop whiz, the storytelling to bigger concerns (“light a
has just kept booming. If the pop-star scale skills of a good novelist, and candle for the suffering”),
goes from “obscure” to “legendary,” ABBA the wit of a highbrow sitcom landing on a joking assess-
zoom right off the chart and land on “Cher writer. Barnett could’ve ment of her own ambiguous
tribute album, right after the scene in Mamma Courtney Barnett place in all this: “Hope
Mia 2 when she steps out of a helicopter to and prayers, though well-
belt ‘Fernando.’ ”
Things Take Time, meaning, they don’t mean
Voyage piles on the tragic drama — it’s a Take Time a thing/Unless we see some
whole album of “The Winner Takes It All,” MOM + POP change/I think I’ll change my
without any “Take a Chance on Me.” Now that 4 sheets today,” she deadpans.
they’re all past 70, they haven’t exactly lost As the album title suggests,
their appetite for emotional-crisis soundtracks. the repetition of life feels
Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote real in these songs. “Turn-
the songs, leaving the singing to the ladies, ing Green” appreciates the
Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They put change in the seasons; on
Voyage together while plotting their 2022 “If I Don’t Hear From You
“virtual” live residency in London. These con- Tonight,” she sings about
certs won’t have mere holograms — instead, reading the Bible (“from left
they’ve got what they call “ABBA-tars.” to write”). On “Write a List of
“Don’t Shut Me Down” is the prize of the Things to Look Forward To,”
new tunes: Fältskog prowls outside her ex’s her list includes a letter from
home, waiting for the right moment to knock a friend, waiting for a day
on his door for the first time in years and when they can hang out and
seduce him. It’s a completely over-the-top “watch the world burn.”
scenario — ABBA’s specialty — in the style of Barnett’s gently revealed
their Seventies disco bangers, complete with guitar playing is all soft
“Dancing Queen” piano frills. “No Doubt late-night jangle, à la Yo La
About It” goes for Eighties synth glitz, while Tengo and the Velvet Under-
“Just a Notion” is a frisky Seventies leftover, ground — from the hypnot-
with vocals recorded in 1978. ically undulating “Before
It wouldn’t be an authentic ABBA album You Gotta Go” to the watery
without some filler, so beware before you built a career coasting on Her brilliant third album, swirls of “Here’s the Thing.”
brave the Christmas ditty “Little Things.” But cleverness, but she’s also an Things Take Time, Take Time, Her musical partner is ace
Voyage reflects where ABBA have traveled, empath who’s genuinely in- is her most reserved and drummer Stella Mozgawa,
musically and emotionally. There’s no terested in finding her place thoughtful yet, full of every- creating beats that match
attempt to get up to date with the bops the in a brutal world; her second day observation and wry and enhance Barnett’s every
kids are into these days. Instead, they stick album, the equally great Tell wisdom — it grows slowly, restrained nuance.
to their classic sound. It’s a surprise to have Me How You Really Feel, had a but pay attention and you’ll Obviously, this album is
these Swedes back in the game. But a bigger, self-questioning rocker about grow with it. touched by the downtime
sweeter surprise that they returned so full of her modest stardom and a She opens with “Rae of Covid, but its sense of
musical vitality. All these years after “Water- searing song about trying to Street,” processing the wonder and worry, bored
loo,” ABBA still refuse to surrender. be patient with creepy fans. world out her window in longing and faint hope,
is utterly eternal. So is its
sense of humor, always one
of Barnett’s most effective
BREAKING weapons against torpor and
FROM TOP: MALA-MCDONALD; ERICK QUITUIZACA

dread. Sure, the daily grind

can get weird, capitalism
Nicki Nicole’s Elegant Argentine Trap enslaves us, the world burns.
ARGENTINE SINGER Nicki Nicole first found success at 19, when she started uploading But as she tells a friend on
tracks onto YouTube that built off Argentina’s huge trap scene and displayed a delicate sing- “Take It Day by Day,” the
ing voice that got her compared to Billie Eilish. Now, she’s making her debut on Sony Music record’s quickest, catchiest
Latin with Parte de Mi, showing her versatility as she continues to find her voice. On “Sabe” song, “Don’t stick that knife
she teams up with Rauw Alejandro, and on “Toa la Vide,” she joins forces with Puerto Rican in the toaster/Baby, life is
rapper Mora. She’s at her best highlighting her unique delivery and phrasing, whether she’s like a roller coaster.” It’s a
belting big choruses, exploring understated prettiness, or delving into full-on rap. JULYSSA LOPEZ ride she takes at her own
sweet pace.

70 | Rolling Stone +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE.
 ADVERTISEMENT

THE
2021 HOLIDAY Gift
Guide!
The Perfect Gift
The BlendJet 2 Portable Blender crushes ice
& frozen fruit. It’s quiet, water-resistant &
self-cleaning! Comes in 20 colors. Free 2-Day S&H.
Save up to 20% during our Holiday Sale at
BlendJet.com/RollingStone

Easily keep an eye on your front porch with the Arlo

Essential Wireless Video Doorbell. An industry-leading
field of view makes it easy to view packages on the
ground, or visitors from head-to-toe for a complete Your downtime deserves an upgrade.
picture and total protection. arlo.com Introducing Lahgo, a gateway to luxury lounging, featuring intuitive,
comfort-first design, and advanced fabrics, such as Washable Silk and
Restorative Pima Cotton. Your search for better loungewear ends here.
lahgo.co

UberLight™ Flex 3200TL JURA Z10

The perfect addition to any A world first, the groundbreaking Z10 prepares
turntable setup. The UberLight™ both hot and cold brew coffee specialties – freshly
Flex is a must-have accessory ground, not capsuled. jura.com
for vinyl enthusiasts.
reliablecorporation.com

Switch it Up!
Tackle tasks better & faster with the
WORX Switchdriver 2-in-1 drill &
driver with dual- quick release rotating Desktop PC Soundbar
chucks. worx.com | @WorxTools with Bluetooth
Big Sound, Small Footprint
Mackie.com | @mackiegear

Cell Alpha: the Super Spatial

WiFi speaker from Syng
Its sound is bigger, richer, clearer and more When Love Speaks
immersive than anything you’ve heard before. When Love Speaks is a collection
Syngspace.com | @syngspace of inspiring stories, curated by
best-selling author Maya Comerota,
to ignite your heart and feed your soul.
whenlovespeaksbook.com

Take Care of Your Smile!

TheraBreath Healthy Smile Oral Rinse
THE COOL CARDIGAN is dentist-formulated to help your teeth
Liverpool Los Angeles’s new take shine brighter, fight cavities longer, and
on this shawl-collared icon has a smile a little easier. Don’t neglect your
trimmer fit. In cotton blend, perfect smile when you’re taking care of your self.
for winter layering. therabreath.com
Liverpooljeans.com | $98
 ADVERTISEMENT

Instantly Add 2 Screens VIKING ARM

To Any Laptop The Ultimate Gift
The Xebec Tri-Screen 2 enables
for the DIY Enthusiast
you to maximize productivity
without sacrificing portability. Extra helping hand lifts up to 330 lbs. with
xebec.com | @thexebec millimetreprecision. Pressing and clamping
function included. A must-have high quality
tool from Norway – made with passion.
homedepot.com

Grateful Dead Steal Your Face

Canvas Backpack
A bag every Grateful Dead fan should carry. This
The First Smart Countertop
exclusive backpack from Ripple Junction will hold
a laptop or tablet. Microwave Oven by Sharp
The SHARP Smart Carousel microwave
Shop RippleJunction.com
ovens come in a mid- and family-size.
Follow us on Instagram @RippleJunction Certified Works with Alexa compatibility
makes things that may seem challenging
from the control panel easier, such as
Keep the music defrosting seafood. Just say, "Alexa,
defrost seafood." and walk away. It's
KICKn’on the ride
that easy. Echo device not included.
KICKER, the kings of mobile
shop.sharpusa.com | @SharpHomeUSA
sound, puts your music in an
air-tight Bag Lid Kit, making
your motorcycle sound better
than ever.
kicker.com
MUST-HAVE: Upgrade Your
Wine Instantly with the
Vintorio Wine Aerator
Amazon #1 best-seller with over 12,000 5-star reviews.
Transform good wine into GREAT wine with a little
aeration magic.
The Ascender™ by Ciari Guitars Coupon Code: 20% off with code ROLLINGSTONE
A stage-worthy, full-size axe with a mighty secret: with the pull vintorio.com | @vintoriowine
of a lever, it folds mid-neck to fit in a backpack. Not your Dad’s
travel guitar.
Use ROLLINGSTONE to get theCiari Backpack free with purchase.
ciariguitars.com | @ciariguitars

Envoy Pro Elektron is the fastest, toughest

SSD hard drive. It’s crushproof and
waterproof for keeping your data safe.
THE MAGIC STRIPS eshop.macsales.com
BY SNOW
Introducing: dissolving whitening
strips that work like magic. No
mess, no stress, just whiter,
brighter teeth. Simply apply,
Chill with the Beast!
dissolve, and smile! Appearing on every Iron Maiden
album cover and at every live
Get yours at trysnow.com today!
show, Eddie takes center stage on
this special-edition Iron Maiden
Playmate Classic cooler.
igloocoolers.com
@igloocoolers

Electric bikes built for everything

and priced for everyone. Get Lifted!
The Cloudlifter CL-1 Mic Activator
Shop Rad Power Bikes, America's #1 electric bike brand. boosts yourmicrophone’s signal with
Get out. Go further. Ride Rad. ultra-clean gain. Perfect for recording
radpowerbikes.com | 800.939.0310 music, podcasting, streaming and more.
cloudmicrophones.com
H2O Media inc. | H2Omedia.com | info@h2omedia.com
 ADVERTISEMENT

THE
2021 HOLIDAY Over 20 years, BikesDirect.com:
Gift
Guide!
Top-rated bike shop quality bikes, Up to 60% Off*
Full Suspension Sale, Shop Now: BikesDirect.com/fsx

Experience Jimi Hendrix™

Official Gear Collection for the Spark Guitar Amp
Unleash Jimi’s revolutionary sound with this officially licensed collection,
including gear and interactive guitar features for Positive Grid's Spark amp.
positivegrid.com/jimi-hendrix

The $59.90 Cashmere Sweater Give the gift of presence

You read that right. 100% Grade A cashmere. this season.
4.9 / 5.0 stars. 10 colors. And, less than $60. Premium CBD. Personalized Service.
Because you deserve it.
Use code RS20 for 20% off.
onequince.com/rs | care@onequince.com
MYEQ.COM

Iconic Clarks Originals

Classic Wallabee Boots are the style staple
for everyone on your list. Clean lines, supreme
comfort, and Clarks' signature crepe sole hit
Robert Hall Winery
right year after year.
ClarksUSA.com
Essentials Collection
This five-bottle collection
will delight any wine drinker.
Robert Hall's premium wines
from California's Paso Robles
region are sure to impress.
roberthallwinery.com
100% Recycled Sherpa Blanket
in Winter Star Light
Made in partnership with Indigenous
designer, Doug Good Feather, this plush Mad Viking uses all
sherpa blanket is a must have this season. natural ingredients in
fahertybrand.com | @fahertybrand its Thor's Pack that gives
you everything you need
to conquer beard care
once and for all.
Discount code: RS20
for 20% off.
madvikingbeard.com

The Machir
Portable RFID Safe
Is perfect in its small size
making it ideal for travel or
as a bedside handgun safe. The Session Designer Bong by Session Goods
machir.com | Walmart.com This beautiful, discreet, designer Bong from Session Goods is
the perfect flower consumption accessory for the adult smoker.
sessiongoods.com

Too smart
to get stuck.
The award-winning
DEEBOT T8AIVI uses
the newest technologies,
including artificial
intelligence, to keep Cozy AF K-Pod Cocktails
your home clean. Warm, boozy Cask & Kettle k-pods
Available at offer a well-crafted decaf coffee
Amazon | ecovacs.com cocktail experience to wind down
your day. Enough said, right?
caskandkettleusa.com
 ADVERTISEMENT

Razer BlackShark V2 Pro

Gaming Headset
This definitive esports wireless gaming
headset is a triple threat of ultimate mic
Taylor Guitars’ sister company, Stella Falone, clarity, amazing audio, and sound isolation.
creates beautiful, durable kitchenware – like
Razer.com
these unique paddle/tongs – from responsibly
sourced ebony.
stellafalone.com

The World's First Floating Grill!

Grill food wherever there's water - The Float'N'Grill
is portable, lightweight, and durable. It's perfect for
sandbars, lazy rivers, or basically anywhere! CURL®
Discount Code: HOLIDAY20 Classic and capable, the Leatherman
Save $20 instantly when you apply the code at checkout. Curl packs 15 handy tools for everyone
Discount code valid starting on 12/7 on your gift list. Leatherman.com
floatngrill.com

RALLY PRO
The Perfect Vegan Meal! Exceptional Audio
Our newest turmeric protein bar is vegan, for Mobile Video Calls
gluten-free, non-GMO, nutritionally Portable and powerful, Rayz Rally Pro
balanced, & delicious while promoting turns your smartphone into the perfect
relief from inflammation associated w/ exercise. 10% off with code RS10 | NIRVANABARS.com mobile conferencing solution.
rayzaudio.com

Nextbase
622GW Dash Cam
With Best-in-Class awards and
industry-leading innovation including
Image Stabilization, what3words
and 4K image quality, the 622GW
Gift something fun...
dash cam redefines standards. Your drink has never looked
so dashing and yet stayed
nextbase.com
so cool. Bring the fun with
this insulated drinkwear.
puffindrinkwear.com

Story Electric Bikes

Are light-weight and affordable
e-bikes that have a philanthropic
mission providing bikes to students
in developing countries.
storybicycles.com
@StoryBikes
Sizzler Flagship
The Flagship Series is the pinnacle of
our line, built to highlight the renewable,
crafted, natural style of our signature
wood finish since 1995.
arborcollective.com

Stand Out. Be Seen.

Bold Styles. Unique Designs. Handcrafted in Europe.
Our products are as unique and stylish as our customers. Men's Meteorite
Your shoes will look beautiful right out of the box, and for and Whiskey Barrel Ring
years to come.
Men’s Stainless Steel Comfort Band
RollingStone10 for 10% off all full priced shoes, boots, Ring with Genuine Muonionalusta
and sneakers. Meteorite surrounded by whiskey
Can’t be combined with other discount codes. barrel wood to make the coolest ring.
taftclothing.com | @taft inoxjewelry.com/meteorite
H2O Media inc. | H2Omedia.com | info@h2omedia.com
TV MEET THE
MURDERERS
NEXT DOOR
Landscapers
NETWORK HBO
AIR DATE Dec. 6
3
IN THIS TRUE-CRIME mini-
series, Olivia Colman and
David Thewlis play Susan and
Chris Edwards, who were
convicted of murdering her
parents and burying them in a
back garden, even as the cou-
ple insisted the circumstances
were far more complex. Their
lives before and after the
crime are depicted as largely
sad and unremarkable, which
is why Susan devotes so much
of her inner life to the movies
of Gary Cooper and other
Davis clings to
classic film stars, while Chris’
her favorite book.
primary source of joy comes
from being pen pals with
Station Eleven French actor Gérard Depar-

A PLAGUE ON ALL OUR HOUSES

In a post-pandemic dystopian future, survivors
debate the role of art in sustaining the human race
masks. But the majority
of the series — adapted by
Patrick Somerville (The
Leftovers) and primarily
directed by Atlanta’s Hiro
Murai — takes place 20
years in the future, when
Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis)
tours the Midwest with
ALAN SEPINWALL a company of actors and
musicians who perform
Shakespeare for survivors
tion Eleven, given to her by
her mentor Arthur (Gael
García Bernal) right before
his death. Events of her
life keep echoing the plot
of the comic book, just
as almost everyone she
encounters — including
a charismatic cult leader
(Daniel Zovatto), Arthur’s
widow, Elizabeth (Caitlin
FitzGerald), and his best
NETWORK HBO Max dieu. So Landscapers alter-
AIR DATE Dec. 16 nates between grim police
STARRING procedural and CinemaScope
Mackenzie Davis fantasy. Susan envisions
Himesh Patel
Daniel Zovatto herself and Chris as Wild West
Matilda Lawler
Danielle Deadwyler
outlaws, and director Will
Sharpe and screenwriter Ed
4 Sinclair periodically shatter
the barrier between the plot
and the production. We see
and other forms of non-
linear storytelling is also
by far the smartest and
most effective use of those
devices that TV has seen
in quite a while. Dan
Romer’s score is a knock-
out, elevating potent mo-
ments to the point where Colman
they almost feel unfair.

T
HE TIMING OF
Station Eleven is
either unfortunate
or spectacular, depending
on how you look at it.
eager to experience any
bit of culture from the
world they once knew.
And the exploration of
what art can and cannot
friend, Clark (David Wil-
mot) — matches up with
a character in Hamlet,
the play Kirsten and her
colleagues are performing.
And whenever the show
seems at risk of getting
high on its own supply,
Jeevan or another char-
acter will point out how
gets lost
in classic
films.
Colman and Thewlis moving
around the Landscapers
FROM TOP: IAN WATSON/HBO MAX; STEFANIA ROSINI/HBO

The 10-part adaptation
of Emily St. John Mandel’s
acclaimed novel, about the
aftermath of a flu pandem-
ic that wipes out most of
humanity, arrives while we
are still enduring the ef-
fects of Covid. Many view-
ers may simply not have
the tolerance for scenes
where people cough in
public, hoard groceries,
or debate the efficacy of
heal, as well as what
pieces of society could —
and should — survive such
an apocalypse, feels even
more relevant and cathar-
tic than when the book
was published in 2014.
This is also a proudly idi-
osyncratic piece of work.
Kirsten was a child actress
when the plague hit, and
she’s obsessed with a
graphic novel, called Sta-
Kirsten theorizes that the
comic’s main character is
caught in a time loop, and
it begins to feel as if she
and everyone she knows
are similarly trapped.
The show’s reliance on
flashbacks — particularly
to a young Kirsten (Matilda
Lawler) riding out the
early days of the pandemic
with directionless writer
Jeevan (Himesh Patel) —
pretentious the Station
Eleven comic is.
When Kirsten suggests
that her acting troupe’s
version of Hamlet might
help heal some rifts, Clark
scoffs, “It isn’t fucking art
therapy; it is civilization!”
This beautiful, haunting,
and ultimately uplifting
show convincingly argues
that you can’t have one
without the other.
soundstage past members of
the crew as the action shifts
from an interrogation room to
a version of the killings that’s
being stage-managed by the
cops. Colman and Thewlis are
predictably great. But Land-
scapers, like Susan, seems far
more invested in depicting
her imaginary world than her
real one, letting the actual
story drag until Susan finds
another mental escape. A.S.

76 | Rolling Stone | December 2021 +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor

 How ‘The Matrix’ Predicted the Future
As ‘The Matrix Resurrections’
takes on the red-pill era,
a look back at the way the
series saw what was coming
By K. AUSTIN COLLINS
A
CLASSICAL hero’s journey. An oracle.
A hovercraft called Nebuchadnezzar.
An underground city — the last rem-
PHOTOGRAPHS USED IN ILLUSTRATION: WARNER BROS./EVERETT
COLLECTION, 11; VOLKER SCHLICHTING/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES
nants of humanity — called Zion.
For all the ways that we’re nowadays prone
to calling the Wachowski sisters’ Matrix trilogy
prescient — especially when talking about
its flung-out-of-space 1999 phenomenon of a
debut — to watch it now is to be reminded of
how backward-looking the whole ordeal is.
How rooted it is in the mythologies, genres,
traditions of the past. It isn’t that this totally
escaped us when that first movie dropped.
We could see the signs of its influences, worn
quite apparently, in its mix of Hong Kong
action à la John Woo with older-school wuxia
and more than a few cues ripped from the
ILLUSTRATION BY Miles Donovan
increasingly internationally known canon of
anime; its nods to not only Western but also
Eastern philosophy, the latter creeping up in
images as brash as the newly enlightened Neo
being rigged up to machines by a thicket of
what look like acupuncture needles.
It was the late Nineties. The Quentin
Tarantino and David Foster Wallace era; the
epically postmodern, late-capitalist last sigh
of the 20th century. By the time Keanu Reeves
donned the dual role of Thomas Anderson,
a.k.a. Neo — office drone by day, hacker by
night — we’d been primed for all levels of pas-
tiche, had been conditioned to expect mixes
of high and low, new and old, techno bumping
heads with Lewis Carroll and Theodor Ador-
no. The Matrix made the bold case for bringing
it all to the multiplex.
But even though the movie was set in some
nebulous time frame, its slick urban gothicism
and leatherbound cyber-savvy nevertheless
looked like the future. We just didn’t imagine
that this future would play out in quite the
way that it actually would. And we didn’t
know that the language we used to describe
NEO-GENESIS
The Matrix
the movie’s head-scratching mix of blatant
philosophizing and simplistically pleasurable
trilogy
ass-kicking would in a way come to define
imagined a
world in which the future of moviegoing. The New York Times
could, without irony, call The Matrix a “comic
complicated
movies looked book of ideas” in 1999 — before comic-book
like comic movies and Christopher Nolan-ish Big Idea
books and
computers puzzle epics would come to stand for so much
controlled us, of Hollywood’s financial bottom line.
i.e., the 21st And the decade that would give us this
century. vision had already gotten a head start on the
future in the one-year span of 1992 alone, with
the L.A. riots raging, on the one hand, and
a Black trans woman at the movies (by way
of The Crying Game) on the other. It was The
Matrix — directed by a pair of trans women,
even if we didn’t know this yet, and featuring
a Black, godlike hero of the undercommons,
named Morpheus — that capped off the era.
It makes eerie, fluid sense that 20 years later
we’d see unprecedented numbers of protest-
ers proclaiming that Black Lives Matter, that
Black trans lives matter. We’d see those earlier
glimpses of representation and protest spilling
out into the mainstream in every corner of
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 77
 Reviews Movies
IT HAIL TO THE KING
kinky The Tragedy of
Macbeth
STARRING
A N OT H E R Mac-
beth adaptation?
Yes, another Mac-
beth adaptation.
Denzel Washington But this time, with
Frances McDormand Denzel Washing-
Kathryn Hunter
ton and Frances
DIRECTED BY
Joel Coen
McDormand at the
helm as Lord and
Lady Macbeth, with
images shot in an unnervingly crisp black and
white that only grows more ominous for the
dashes of fire and fog creeping into the pro-
ceedings. The script — furnished by Joel Coen,
who is making his debut here as a solo director
— has had its screws tightened just so, such that
the delirious inner dramas of Shakespeare’s
original play feel unmoored from anything like
reality, playing out with a ferocity that verges
into outright spookiness. His is a Macbeth in
which the swarthy tragic hero (Washington,
predictably a joy to watch) gets to show off his
physical prowess. The iconic trio of witches get
played by one actor: the spindly, discomfiting
Kathryn Hunter, whose contorted performance
is more overwhelming than any number of
action movies’ fearsome special effects.
The Tragedy of Macbeth has the unmistakable
feel of a thriller: taut, nimble, and quick. The
play, with all its conspiracy and witchery, war-
ring egos and violent turns, already lends itself
to this kind of treatment. But Coen, hardly a
director to sit on his hands, has given us a play
T H E M AT R I X
media writ large, with our real social world
and the fantasies of Hollywood oddly, briefly
aligned in minor yet undeniable ways.
The Matrix franchise, it shouldn’t need to be
said, did not play a direct role in these social
evolutions. But as time capsules go, it is an
awfully rich testament to its ongoing moment.
Awfully, that is, in both senses of that term.
In the original, Neo is forced to confront the
quandary of fate and wonder, like many a hero
before him, whether his is at all within the
scope of his control. Whether his fate is at all
a matter of his will. Here, reality sinks in. And
we remember that the film’s influence on the
world around it was immediate and direct.
We remember that only three weeks after
its release, a pair of young men from Littleton,
Colorado, walked into their high school with
semi-automatics, knives, and bombs. That they
Discover your new erotic
donned long trench coats which, though they
luxury product. don’t seem to have been directly inspired by
liberator.com The Matrix — films like The Basketball Diaries,
with its school-shooting scene, or David Lynch’s
Lost Highway came up in the boys’ journals —
Publicly traded under the
proved a chilling echo. These were boys who
symbol LUVU took solace in online identities, like Neo, whose
virtual name becomes his identity, whose path
78 | Rolling Stone | December 2021
Washington
and McDormand
bring the sound
and fury.
about a Scotland burnished with a creeping
sense of mystery. The movie was filmed entirely
on a soundstage, and you can tell: The vast
landscapes of Scotland are not present here,
only a hemmed-in, horizonless feeling, with
the world of Macbeth’s home rendered sharply,
all angularly contrived space and shadow and
hard edges, hallmarks of German Expression-
ism that make for a nice backdrop here. Does
the movie have much to say about the materi-
al? Less, maybe, than you’d hope from a mind
as rich and reflexive as that of a Coen brother.
But when the flames erupt, when the swords
are drawn, when Washington’s line readings
begin to shred the text apart, the movie — and
its contrivances — proves their worth. K.A.C.
toward becoming a messiah is riddled with
gorgeous, terrifying showers of bullets.
If we’re to believe in the heady games of re-
ality and fate that define the world within The
Matrix, then the line drawn from those violent
loners to the present day — from the red pill
that Neo takes to the red pill of contemporary
discourse — has a certain despairing logic. In
the end, it doesn’t need to make sense: It’s the
story, the presiding narrative, the superstruc-
ture governing our contemporary lives that,
like Neo unplugging himself from the illusions
of the world as he previously knew it, has been
made painfully clear to us now.
Suffice it to say, this new entry, Lana Wa-
chowski’s The Matrix Resurrections, has its work
cut out for it. It’s inconceivable that this new
film — in which the flip phones of 1999 have
been upgraded to iPhones, and what previously
looked like a mere hero’s journey now bears the
stench of terroristic radicalism — wouldn’t try to
wrestle with its legacy. Resurrections: Even this
word, descriptive of problems that never left,
seems uncomfortably ironic. No one can rea-
sonably blame these films for the world we now
live in. But the new film seems poised to take
stock of the franchise’s place in the world. “The
choice is yours,” says the poster. Red pills, blue
A24 FILMS
pills. Tilt your head just so and, from a certain
angle, there is almost no difference.

ADELE
[Cont. from 43] The week 30 was announced,
Adele gathered her band in Burbank to start going
over songs old and new. It had been years since they
were together, so they celebrated their reunion that
week with a game of rounders (a kind of British chil-
dren’s baseball) at the Rose Bowl with a catered In-
N-Out lunch. The band wore matching shirts, and
Adele’s goldendoodle puppies, Freddie and Bob,
ran around the field. In a stirring battle of Ameri-
cans versus Brits (and Australians), the Americans
(with help from one athletically challenged journal-
ist) won by a hair, even though we had no idea how
to play the game.
In October, the crew filmed two live specials, one
for CBS stateside and the other for ITV in the U.K.
They’ll prep again next year for a few big shows, in-
cluding two in Hyde Park in London. For now, don’t
expect a marathon tour like the one Adele embarked
on for 25. “It’s too unpredictable, with all the rules
and stuff,” she says. “I don’t want anyone coming
to my show scared. And I don’t want to get Covid,
either.” She shoots down the rumors of a Las Vegas
residency, which she hasn’t signed up to do “because
there’s fucking nothing available.”
In rehearsal, Adele and her band test out the up-
coming single “I Drink Wine,” a standout from 30
that’s already gone viral on Twitter, based off the
name alone. It’s a song about shedding one’s ego,
complete with a bit of a Seventies Elton John and
Bernie Taupin flair. “I took everything so person-
ally at that period of time in my life,” she explains,
“so the lyric ‘I hope I learn to get over myself ’ is like
[me saying] ‘Once I’ve done that, then maybe I can
let you love me.’ ”
The song is conversational, with Adele pulling a
“Barry Manilow trick,” where every chorus is sung
differently. She put on different characters while re-
cording the background vocals, too, to give it a sar-
castic Sixties vibe (also present on the cheeky “Cry
Your Heart Out” and “Love Is a Game”). “It made it
less intimidating,” she continues, “because some of
the things I’m talking about really hit home for a lot
of people.”
I
T’S HARD TO DATE when you’re Adele. After her
divorce, she was back on the market for the first
time in nearly a decade, years of which were
spent becoming one of the bestselling artists of all
time. She’s jealous of her friends who are on apps.
L.A. never really felt conducive to finding love in
the limited ways she could seek it out. “Everyone
is someone or everyone wants to be someone,” she
says. “I’ve been so lucky that no one I’ve been with
has ever sold a story on me. I feel like that could re-
ally be a possibility.”
She wrote the 30 track “Can I Get It” about want-
ing to be in a real relationship instead of one that
would devolve into casual sex, which seemed to
be the only thing the Los Angeles dating pool was
good for. “I lasted five seconds [dating here],” she
jokes. The song “Oh My God” explores wanting to
put herself out there but having trouble doing so as
a superstar.
Her friends tried to set her up with people they
knew, but she hated that, too. “You can’t set me up
on a fucking blind date! I’m like, ‘How’s that going to
work?’ There’ll be paparazzi outside and someone
will call [gossip site] Deuxmoi, or whatever it’s fuck-
ing called! It ain’t happening.”
She was able to find love in private. There are a
few songs on the album about the first relationship
after her separation. The Errol Garner-sampling “All
Night Parking” is an ode to the intoxicating feeling of
falling for someone new. “When I’m out at a party/
I’m just excited to get home/And dream about you/
All night long,” she sings. Unfortunately, the romance
was long-distance and doomed from the start. “[It]
was a great learning curve and nice to feel loved, but
it was never going to work,” she admits.
The track immediately after “All Night Parking,”
titled “Woman Like Me,” jumps toward the end of
the courtship. A diss song through and through, it
finds Adele chiding her ex for being complacent,
lazy, and insecure, wasting the potential of their re-
lationship. She delivers the message clearly and calm-
ly, less pissed off than completely over the situation.
“Even though I’m directing all the things I’m saying
at someone else, they’re also things I’ve learned on
this journey,” she explains. “The storyline of what
I’m saying, I wouldn’t have been able to write before
because it was something that I was experiencing my-
self.” (Some fans have wondered whether any songs
on 30 are about British grime star Skepta, but Adele
was already done with the album before rumors of
their romance even surfaced.)
When you’re an A-lister, dates tend to be sterile —
NDAs, hiring out the whole restaurant. Still, she’s re-
cently found ease, stability, and security with boy-
friend Rich Paul, an agent for prominent athletes
like LeBron James. Paul and Adele met on a dance
floor at a mutual friend’s birthday party years ago.
She doesn’t remember which song they danced to,
but she assumes it was something by her close friend
Drake. Mostly because the DJ was playing too much
Drake that night: “I was like, ‘You should play some-
thing else. I love Drake. But you should play some-
thing else.’ ”
It was, in fact, Deuxmoi that broke the news of
their relationship, telling the world before she was
even able to tell the people in her life. “I didn’t re-
ally tell many of my friends at the beginning be-
cause I wanted to keep it to myself,” she admits. The
first photos of them were at a discount mall. “None
of them believed it!” For the record, she made a
good sweep of the store that day. “Woo! I got loads
in there,” she exclaims, with that signature open-
throated cackle.
Just as she’s learned to date, Adele has also come
to find her way in her adopted hometown. Until
Adele had Angelo, she never liked Los Angeles. “It
felt like I was only ever here for work. I felt like I
never met anyone that was from here,” she explains.
She thought of L.A. as a ghost town. But when she
was in town for the Oscars in 2013, the year she won
a statue for her James Bond song, “Skyfall,” Adele,
Konecki, and an infant Angelo rented a house and
she fell in love. “That sun every morning,” Adele
says. “[You can] always see the sky because it’s not
high-rises here.”
The family bought a house during the American
leg of her tour, settling down in a celebrity-filled,
gated enclave in Beverly Hills. The home is cozy
and kind, with plush red sofas and sage-green cab-
inets. There’s a huge room dedicated to toys and in-
struments for her son, though he’s more into video
games and TikTok lately. Eventually, they bought two
more houses in the same area, including one across
the street, where Konecki now lives. “We do normal,
normal things on the weekends,” Adele says of their
life. “I’ll take him to the parties, all of that. We’ll do
school drop-off.”
As Angelo started attending school, Adele began
befriending the other moms. In her neighborhood,
she finally caved and made industry friends, like
her neighbors Nicole Richie and Jennifer Lawrence,
a practice she had consciously avoided for years.
“They humanized me because I had avoided talking
to anyone that was ever famous in any capacity, be-
cause I was like, ‘Well, I’m not famous.’ I’m very Brit-
ish like that,” she explains. “We never spoke about
work, which was amazing, because most of the time
when I catch up with someone, they want to know
all about my work, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to talk
about that. Can we talk about something else? I’m
knackered.’ ”
Adele has “chilled out” in Los Angeles, with her
core group of friends helping her find a life that feels
both private and full. In fact, she has come to love
the city so much that she even got it tattooed on her
arm, the L.A. skyline in the middle of a ringed plan-
et, to represent the Saturn return she experienced
while living there.
A
DELE STILL HAD one more stop on her jour-
ney of personal reckoning. It was back in the
U.K., where her father was losing an eight-
year battle with cancer.
Adele’s parents split when she was three, a few
years younger than Angelo was when she and Ko-
necki parted ways. Following the separation and a
string of other losses, her father, Mark Evans, began
to slip deeper into alcoholism and became estranged
from his young daughter. Their relationship remained
tense as her fame ballooned.
When Evans’ cancer returned earlier this year,
Adele wasn’t sure whether she should go to see him.
She credits her friend India with persuading her to
do so. It turned out her dad was receptive to having
an honest conversation about their relationship and
the pain she’s felt her entire life. She even played
Evans the new songs. In fact, he was the first person
to hear them.
Their final conversation set her free from a lifetime
of pain, feelings of abandonment, and being unloved,
set off by a seeming lack of effort on his part. “I don’t
think I understood the true deepness of how I felt
about my dad until we spoke,” she says.
There were parts of her father that she had never
quite understood and was now ready to forgive. The
same types of things she hopes to explain to Angelo
about herself. “I think I’ve never been fully in any of
my relationships,” she reflects, with Konecki as the
closest exception. “I always had this fear from a re-
ally young age that you’re going to leave me anyway,
so I’m going to leave or I’m not going to invest my-
self in anything.”
When Evans died in May, she found herself having
a “physical reaction,” comparing the experience to
the scene in The Green Mile where people’s illnesses
are sucked out of them and spat out. “It was like I
let out one wail and something left,” Adele explains.
“I’ve felt so calm ever since then. It really did set lit-
tle me free.”
A week later, she reconnected with Paul and em-
barked on the most “incredible, openhearted, and
easiest” relationship she’s ever been in. A relation-
ship she finally felt comfortable enough to tell the
world about, with a man she was proud to introduce
to her son.
After a four-album journey, a woman has found
love, and it turned out to be as much with another
person as it was with herself. “I’m not frightened of
loneliness anymore,” she says.
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 79

M A R I LY N M A N S O N
[Cont. from 67] according to the suit, broke down a
door when she refused to come out of a room. (In
court, Warner’s lawyers have said he “categorically
denies each and every allegation.”)
In the weeks after Bianco’s and Walters’ lawsuits,
one of Warner’s ex-girlfriends, identified in court pa-
pers only as a musician named Jane Doe, filed yet an-
other lawsuit for sexual assault and sexual battery,
accusing Warner of subjecting her to “further de-
grading acts of sexual exploitation, manipulation,
and psychological abuse.”
Doe’s complaint alleges that she met Warner in
February 2011 at a pre-Grammy party. Two weeks
later, he allegedly told Doe he loved her and want-
ed a “serious, monogamous relationship.” This led
to incessant texts and calls, demands that she be
nude, and food deprivation, according to her court
filings. “Warner told Plaintiff that because she was
his girlfriend, she needed to lose weight because her
weight embarrassed him,” Doe’s suit says. (A judge
dismissed Doe’s suit due to the statute of limitations
but allowed her to file an amended complaint. The
case is currently pending. A lawyer for Doe declined
further comment.)
“Coercive control cannot be underestimated,”
Bianco says. “There is no consent when you think you
might be killed or raped if you don’t do what you’re
told and you’re locked in somebody’s bedroom.”
In her suit, Doe details claims that “Warner began
demanding [she] not move a muscle during sex. He
ordered her to lie on top of him and stay perfect-
ly still, or else he would scream at her.” Their sexu-
al encounters, she alleges, became “increasingly vio-
lent.” “He would grab her extremely forcefully,” the
suit says. “At one point, Warner bit Plaintiff on her
neck exceedingly hard. . . . One time after seeing War-
ner, Plaintiff remembers that the left side of her chest
and neck had turned completely black with bruises
he had inflicted on her.”
Doe claims in the suit that Warner once “forced
[her] to perform oral sex on him” while she cried.
On a subsequent visit to his apartment, Warner “forc-
ibly pushed her to the ground,” the suit says. “With
her face down on the carpet, and his hands on top of
her, Warner raped Ms. Doe,” the court filing states.
“He was saying that she had driven him crazy, and
she was making him do this to her. Warner was wear-
ing black jeans under a kimono, and Plaintiff remem-
bers seeing them around his ankles as she looked
back during the rape. Afterward, while standing in
the doorway, he said to her: ‘Don’t you ever fucking
make me do that to you again.’ ”
Following the alleged assault, Doe says, Warner
threatened to kill her, saying he would “bash her
head in” and boasted that he could “get away with”
murdering her “because she was a ‘nobody’ and he
was a celebrity who had contacts with the police.”
(Warner’s lawyers have denied all of Doe’s claims
in court.)
Multiple people who knew him say Warner was
a master of cult-like mind-control techniques, such
as asking his employees, girlfriends, and hangers-on
to monitor one another and report any dirt back to
him. “You couldn’t trust anyone,” says one source.
Drugs were everywhere: “Anybody that was in his
inner circle knew that he was probably doing, like,
an eight-ball a day and drinking absinthe and vari-
ous pills,” the source adds. “He offered [cocaine] like
hors d’oeuvres.”
80 | Rolling Stone | December 2021
His accusers claim that the drugs, far from being
recreational, were often used as another means of
control, evoking interrogation methods that have
been denounced as torture by human rights groups.
Both Smithline’s and Walters’ legal complaints ac-
cuse the musician of forcing them to stay awake by
giving them cocaine and, according to Smithline’s
suit, “depriv[ing] her of sleep and food in order to
weaken her physically and mentally and decrease
her ability to refuse him. . . . Between the sleep depri-
vation, drug use, and malnourishment, Ms. Smith-
line’s weight dropped to approximately 80 pounds.”
On tour, sources say, he was just as erratic. War-
ner attacked bassist Fred Sablan, threw his mic stand
into Jason Sutter’s drums, and treated his own crew
recklessly. “One time in Vegas, he had this prop mir-
ror,” remembers a source who was on tour with Man-
son around 2012. “It didn’t work the way he wanted
it to, and he took the microphone stand that weighed
60, 70 pounds, and he tried to smash through it. The
stage manager was standing behind it, and it knocked
him out; he had to go to the hospital.”
During one show circa Warner’s Rape of the World
Tour in 2008, former keyboard/guitar tech and as-
sistant Dan Cleary says Warner punched him in the
back of the head with no explanation or apology. “He
hit me hard. He was just laughing after it,” Cleary
says. “It knocked me off my stool, and I see him scur-
rying away to get back onstage.” (A spokesperson for
Warner did not deny the incident, but said: “It’s im-
portant to note that the events in question happened
onstage during a rock & roll show.”)
Many of his associates, including his employ-
ees, say that Warner attempted to wear them down
through intimidation. “Everybody received a text
from him at some point that was like, ‘Do not fuck
with me,’ ” says one source. “He would tell [a former
assistant], ‘Do not look at me. I will fucking kill you.
I will kick you out of the circle, and no one will care
about you.’ ”
A
ROUND THE TIME of 2015’s The Pale Emperor,
Marilyn Manson’s critically acclaimed come-
back album, Warner invited ROLLING STONE
to his home, which he then shared with model and
photographer Lindsay Usich (whom he went on to
marry in 2020). He was no longer living above the li-
quor store, but he still kept the thermostat at a chilly
65 degrees; a wall sported a painting by murderer
and rapist John Wayne Gacy, and he displayed an un-
used canister of Zyklon B, the gas Nazis used to mur-
der Jews during the Holocaust. “It was weird,” one
source remembers. “I saw him show it off to Jewish
friends of his, like, ‘Check this out.’ ”
In 2017, Jessicka Addams, of the provocative alt-
rock group Jack Off Jill, accused former Marilyn Man-
son band member Jeordie White of physical abuse
and rape when they were in a relationship two dec-
ades earlier. (“I do not condone nonconsensual sex
of any kind,” White said in a statement at the time.)
That same year, a reporter asked Warner for his
thoughts on the #MeToo movement, which had
begun to bring down men like Harvey Weinstein. “If
you have something to say, you should say it to the
police, not to the press,” Warner said. “That’s what I
would do.” The movement, he warned, “could ruin
a lot of people’s lives that don’t need to be ruined.”
By 2018, Wood was ready to share her tale of
abuse with the world. That February, she spoke to
the House Judiciary Committee in support of the Sur-
vivors’ Bill of Rights Act. “My experience with domes-
tic violence was this,” Wood testified without naming
Warner. “Toxic mental, physical, and sexual abuse,
which started slow, but escalated over time, includ-
ing threats against my life, severe gaslighting and
brainwashing, waking up to the man that claimed
to love me raping what he believed to be my uncon-
scious body, and the worst part, sick rituals of bind-
ing me up by my hands and feet to be mentally and
physically tortured until my abuser felt I had ‘prov-
en my love for them.’
“In this moment, while I was tied up and being
beaten and being told unspeakable things, I truly felt
like I could die, not just because my abuser said to
me, ‘I could kill you right now,’ ” she continued, “but
because in that moment, I felt like I left my body and
I was too afraid to run — he would find me.”
Wood’s testimony made her a prominent advocate
for survivors of sexual assault, and in 2019, she spoke
before the California Senate Public Safety commit-
tee on behalf of the Phoenix Act, a bill she co-creat-
ed with Bianco that extends the statute of limitations
for domestic-violence survivors to pursue charges
against their abusers.
“When Evan and I first realized that very similar
things had happened to both of us, we went to seek
justice and were told it was too late,” Bianco says.
“We decided to write a law. . . . I think I called every
single member of the California Legislature and told
them my story.”
When Bianco testified before the California As-
sembly in 2019 in support of the Phoenix Act, she de-
tailed her allegations without naming Warner. “The
physical violence was most often disguised in acts of
intimacy, and was not consented to,” Bianco testified.
“I was bitten until my body was covered in bruises;
on another occasion cut with a knife during sex. He
took photos of my naked, mutilated body and post-
ed them online without my knowledge.”
“When it comes to the criminal justice system, sur-
vivors have practically no control over the process,”
Bianco tells ROLLING STONE. “I fully intend to pur-
sue every avenue I have, because that’s how I take my
agency back. I’m standing up and saying, ‘No, you
don’t get to just walk away from that.’ ”
S
OME OF WARNER’S recent band members re-
main loyal to the musician. “I never witnessed
any kind of abuse in any setting,” claims guitar-
ist Rob Holliday. “Manson is a sweet, misunderstood
outcast.” Tim Skold, who is currently writing new
music with Warner, says the allegations don’t reflect
the man he worked with in the mid-2000s or now: “If
you’re asking me if I saw any aggression or abusive
behavior, I did not.”
Warner’s publicist offered ROLLING STONE inter-
views with five defenders of Warner — including peo-
ple like Manzin, a performance artist who befriend-
ed the singer in the mid-2000s. “He’s always been a
supportive, wonderful friend,” he says. Greta Aurora,
who says she had a consensual sexual encounter with
Warner in 2011, says that she received an email from
a friend of the accusers — whom she calls “self-pro-
claimed victims” — asking if she wanted to listen in on
last year’s support group. She declined.
Even as speculation grew online that Warner
was Wood’s alleged abuser, the traditional media
remained largely silent. Virtually no major outlets
prior to 2020 directly referenced or alluded to the
accusations against him in their profiles, interviews,
or album reviews.
In September 2020, U.K. metal magazine Metal
Hammer became the first outlet to ask Warner what
it was like to be implicated in Wood’s testimony. He
hung up on them. Two months later, his U.K. repre-
sentative issued a broad denial: “Unfortunately, we
live in a time where people believe what they read on
the internet, and feel free to say what they want with
no actual evidence.”
Wood ended the years of speculation on Feb. 1,
2021. “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also
known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” she wrote
on Instagram. “He started grooming me when I was
a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was
brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am
done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or black-
mail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and
call out the many industries that have enabled him,
before he ruins any more lives.” Walters, Smithline,
and McNeilly were among several women who went
public with abuse allegations against Warner the
same day as Wood’s post.
Warner attempted a rebuttal that evening. “Ob-
viously, my art and life have long been magnets for
controversy, but these recent claims about me are
horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote in his own
Instagram post. “My intimate relationships have al-
ways been entirely consensual with like-minded part-
ners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now
choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
Later that week, stylist Love Bailey recalled her
own traumatic experience with Warner on Insta-
gram. Bailey was in her early twenties in 2011, when
she says she was invited to Warner’s home for a
photo shoot. Bailey, who is trans, said that Warner
took out an unloaded gun, put it to her forehead,
and said, “I don’t like faggots,” then laughed before
pulling the trigger. “The thought that crossed my
mind was ‘Am I going to die?’ ” Bailey tells ROLLING
STONE. “ ‘He’s too famous to kill me, right?’” (War-
ner has denied Bailey’s allegations.)
The retribution that followed for Warner was swift,
if partial. Loma Vista, the record label that distrib-
uted 2017’s Heaven Upside Down and last year’s We
Are Chaos, stopped working with Warner, as did his
booking agency, CAA. TV shows American Gods and
Creepshow removed his planned appearances, while
Ciulla, Warner’s longtime manager, finally dropped
the musician as a client.
On Feb. 19, the Los Angeles Sheriff ’s Department
opened up a domestic-violence investigation against
Warner covering the years 2009 through 2011. (A
representative for the department declined to com-
ment on the status of the investigation.) But despite
radio stations significantly reducing his airplay since
the accusations hit, his streaming numbers have re-
mained steady at about 5 million per week.
Warner has kept a low profile in recent months,
responding to court documents but rarely showing
up at events. In August, however, he made a surprise
appearance at Kanye West’s Chicago listening party
for his album Donda alongside rapper DaBaby (who
was widely condemned for homophobic remarks at
a show weeks earlier). Dressed in all black with a hor-
izontal line of dark makeup under his eyes, Warner
paced around a replica of West’s home while nodding
along to the music.
Now 52 and embroiled in multiple sexual-assault
lawsuits, the musician seemed to view the appear-
ance as a comeback, aligning himself with West, hip-
hop’s biggest provocateur. When West released the
album two days later, Warner appeared on “Jail, Pt.
2,” singing “Guess who’s goin’ to jail tonight?/God
gon’ post my bail tonight” alongside West. Weeks
later, Warner — once famous for rejecting Christian-
ity — appeared again with West at the devoutly reli-
gious rapper’s “Sunday Service” livestream, this time
with Justin Bieber by their side.
Smithline watched Warner’s appearance at the
album launch with disgust, and says it helped drive
her to an eating-disorder relapse. “It was just such a
kick in the teeth,” she says.
S
ARAH MCNEILLY thought Warner would have
to be dead before she publicly accused him of
abuse. “This is the most terrifying thing I’ve
ever done,” she says. Years after their relationship
ended, she still wonders: If she posts something on-
line, will it get back to him? Could he retaliate? “I’ve
been afraid for 10 years,” she says. “Some of these
girls who came out and it happened to them five
years ago, God bless them. Because five years after Dr. Winnifred Cutler
[our relationship ended], I was a shell of a person.
He took everything from me and then spit me out. BIOLOGIST’S FRAGRANCE
“I don’t know what kind of pain he’s in,” she adds.
“But he just wants to make people feel that pain over
ADDITIVES INCREASE
and over again.” AFFECTION FROM OTHERS
Smithline says she started mentally suppressing These cosmetics increase your attractive-
what she’d experienced in the relationship after leav- ness. Created by the co-discoverer of human
ing Warner. “It’s all I could do to survive.” She felt pheromones. Dr. Cutler has authored 8 books
on wellness and 50 scientific papers.
“powerless and disgusting.” She’d curl up in a ball
to cope. Her weight plummeted; she eventually re-
quired an IV and feeding tubes. She went through
“radical, ’round-the-clock therapy.”
“I started to [feel] smaller and smaller and quieter
and quieter,” Smithline says. “When you’re silenced
or locked in a box where no one can hear you, you
really start to think about how small and unimport- ATHENA PHEROMONE
ant you are. I just didn’t want to speak anymore.”
Like other Warner accusers, she says, she suf-
fers from post-traumatic stress disorder and still has for women tm for men
panic attacks. But she’s trying to find strength and re- unscented fragrance additives
lief in other people who tell her she’s given them the ♥ Liza (MN) “My honey doesn't know. It keeps
power to leave an abusive relationship. She’s thought him going. It makes him think he just met me
about someday going to schools and teaching stu- tonight. It's great stuff.-- it is so bizarre; I don’t
dents about sexual assault and abuse. “If any good know why the whole world isn’t using 10:13. It’s
my little secret; no one knows.”
can come of this horrific thing,” she says, “I hope I
can help other people.” ♥ Jack (CA) “IT WORKS! I am in the film business
and so I am around a lot of attractive women. A lot of
Bianco, too, says she deals with the aftereffects of
them are touchy-feely, but even those who weren’t
her relationship with Warner on a daily basis. “By far, normally, became touchy-feely. Becky, for example,
the psychological abuse has been the hardest to re- shocked me. She came up behind me and put her
cover from,” Bianco says. “I blamed myself for every- arms around me and said into my ear: ‘What is
thing. Getting past the guilt and the shame and gas- it about you?!’ Thank you for the 10X.”
lighting has been incredibly difficult.”
She says she’s had to deal with death threats from
Manson fans, people showing up at her home, and
a car waiting outside her house for days. On some
days, she still asks herself, “Why have I done this?” a t hen ai nst itut e. c o m
“I really just have to hold onto the fact that if no- Vial of 1/6 oz. added to 2-4 oz. of your
body speaks up, then nothing changes,” Bianco says. fragrance lasts 4 to 6 mos., or use straight
And while Warner is not currently facing any crim- Contains human synthesized pheromones.
inal charges for his alleged sex crimes, she adds, Works for most, but not all. NOT SOLD IN STORES.
Free US Shipping Cosmetics; not aphrodisiacs.
“nothing could be a better outcome for me than him
spending the rest of his life in jail.” Call: 610-827-2200
Other people in Warner’s orbit have declined to or send to Athena Institute,
Dept RS, 1211 Brafield Rd.
participate in this story, citing their fear of Warner Chester Springs, PA 19425
and the need to protect their own mental health.
“That’s in part why he got away with it for so long: SAVE $100: 6-Pak special
Because victims of his felt completely ashamed that Please send me__vials of 10:13 for women@$98.50
they still didn’t realize what was happening to them and/or___ vials of 10X for men @$99.50
until it was way too late,” Bianco says. “He told the for a *total _______ by: ❑ money order, ❑ check
❑ Visa,M/C,Disc._______-________-________-_______
whole world and nobody tried to stop him.”
Exp._____ CVV:____ Sign: __________________
to: Name______________________________
If you or someone you know is experiencing Address_______________________________
relationship abuse, help is available. The National City/State_________________zip__________
Domestic Violence Hotline provides free, confidential Tel:______________ email___________________
support 24/7/365. Text “START” to 88788, call 1-800- (*PA add 6% tax, Canada add US $13 per vial) RS
799-SAFE (7233), or chat online at TheHotline.org.
December 2021 | Rolling Stone | 81
LeVar Burton
The actor on losing the ‘Jeopardy!’
gig and what ‘Star Trek’ gave him
You’ve been an icon
to several different gen-
erations. When a fan ap-
proaches you, can you tell
right away if they want to
talk about Star Trek: The
Next Generation, Reading
Rainbow, or Roots?
Ninety-five percent of the
time. More often than not,
I am absolutely able to tell
what’s their entry point to
LeVar and the work I do. It’s
cool. I am very proud of the
way my career has been able
to speak to different gener-
ations simultaneously. If it
were easy, everybody would
do it.
Is there any downside to
living so much of your life
in the public eye?
Most recently I discovered
that one of the downsides to
fame is vulnerability. I put
myself out there and publicly
stated that I wanted the job
on Jeopardy! — when I didn’t
get the job, there was a lot of
unnecessary concern that I
was devastated, when in fact
I wasn’t. I was disappointed,
but I wasn’t devastated.
As a public personality,
who you are is commented
on and subject to the whims
of people who don’t know
you. In the age of social
media, you have access to the
good, the bad, and the ugly
of what people think about
you, [like] seeing on my Twit-
ter “Oh, he was terrible!” “He
was the worst of all the guest
hosts.” “He shit the bed!” Shit
the bed? I don’t think I was
that bad! You gotta have thick
skin. As Forrest Gump would
say, “That’s all I’m gonna say
about that.”
Still, it is pretty amaz-
ing that grown-up Reading
Rainbow fans came togeth-
82 | Rolling Stone | December 2021
er to root for you to be-
come the host. What was
that like?
I felt the love. I can hardly
speak about the experience.
It was overwhelming, and it
came from all quarters of the
fandom. People who are
casual fans reached out and
said, “This makes so much
sense. You were done dirty.”
In the midst of all of that, one
of the best things to come out
of it was the love.
Guest-hosting brought
you a resurgence of fame
that you haven’t had since
you were 19. What advice
would you give your
younger self?
Oh, my goodness: Relax.
It’s all going to work out.
There was so much angst
and anxiety that was a
constant part of my life
back then. When I look
back on that kid, I marvel at
his ability to be as present
as he was. I also know that
inside that calm, present
exterior was a young soul
who was really at times
quaking, struggling to hold
it all together [and] survive
becoming famous in the late
Seventies.
It was a pretty rock & roll
time, let’s just say. It really
was. Having access to every-
thing that my heart desired, I
survived the natural tenden-
cy of human beings to over-
indulge in everything. I am
really grateful that I had peo-
ple around me that helped
me survive that period of my
life, and all of the uncertainty
that went along with it.
I’ll say this: I wouldn’t want
to be a young and emerging
talent in today’s environment
of the 24-hour news cycle
and social media and a
ILLUSTRATION BY Mark
camera in everyone’s hand.
I can’t imagine how much
that adds to the burden of the
journey. I’m just so glad that
my rise to fame happened in
the Neanderthal age.
You’ve portrayed vari-
ous aspects of Black life
throughout your career —
from slavery on Roots all
the way to the future as
Geordi La Forge.
How many people get to say
that about their lives? I don’t
take any of it for granted. I
am grateful for everything
in my life — the tragedy as
well as the triumphs. That’s
the stuff that life is made
of. That’s the human condi-
tion. We have no resilience
if there’s nothing to bounce
back from, right?
What’s the most special
thing about attending Star
Trek conventions?
You have to understand that
[in my] family, we watched
Star Trek religiously. If I
wasn’t appearing at these
conventions as part of the
storytelling, I’d be on the
other side as a fan in those
rooms. Star Trek was really
important to me growing up,
because what Gene Rodden-
berry was saying to me was,
“When the future comes,
there’s a place for you.”
That’s huge. Representa-
tion fucking matters. It does.
Me being able to see myself
in [original cast member]
Nichelle Nichols was not sim-
ply inspiration, it was valida-
tion. That’s how powerful the
medium can be.
If The Next Generation
was a current show, would
you want anything to be
different about Geordi?
Yeah. He’d get laid.
ANGIE MARTOCCIO
Summers
Daydream believer.
We are what childhood dreams are made of, as young and vivid as they were on
day one. We are that priceless feeling and our hearts beat to the same rhythm.
Porsche is committed to you as a caretaker of dreams. Start your journey.
Make your dream come true. Scan the QR code at right to begin.

Porsche Classic.

©2021 Porsche Cars North America, Inc. Porsche recommends seat belt usage and observance of all traffic laws at all times. Contact us at 1-800-PORSCHE or porscheusa.com.