Marilyn Manson (born Brian Hugh Warner on January 5 1969) is an American musician and the lead vocalist of the band Marilyn Manson. His current name is formed from the names Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson.

He attended Heritage Christian School, but was soon turned off from Christianity, which he viewed as hypocritical and more concerned with instilling fear than virtue. He has stated that the Christian vision of the Apocalypse in particular had a lasting effect upon his outlook

At the age of 18, he relocated to Tampa Bay, Florida, working there as a music journalist. In 1989, he became friends with guitarist and fellow outsider Scott Mitchell; they decided to form a band, with Mitchell rechristening himself Daisy Berkowitz and Warner adopting the name Marilyn Manson.

While some onlookers dismissed Manson's behavior as crass audience manipulation, his cult following -- comprised almost entirely of disaffected white suburban teens -- continued to swell, and with the release of the 1995's Smells Like Children EP the band broke into the mainstream, propelled by their hit cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)."

Manson has been linked to or involved with Melissa "Missi" Romero, Traci Lords, and Jenna Jameson. Jameson wrote about her sexual encounter with Manson in her autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale in which she noted him as being "enormously endowed". Manson was engaged to Rose McGowan, but their relationship ended around the time he became involved with burlesque dancer and fetish model Dita Von Teese.

Manson bears the title of "Reverend" in Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, though how closely he follows the dogma is questionable. Nonetheless, the controversy associated with the affiliation has garnered him notable commercial success.