Keyboardist sues Manson for $20m

Marilyn Manson's hits include Mob Scene and The Beautiful People

Rock star Marilyn Manson is being sued by a former band member who says he is owed $20m (£9.8m) in shared profits.

Stephen Bier, who played keyboards under the stage name Madonna Wayne Gacy, claims he was not paid properly over a period of almost two decades.

He says Manson instead spent the band's profits on a house, drug treatment and collecting Nazi paraphernalia.

Manson, whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner, told MTV the accusations were "really ridiculous".

"It just seems like another ex-band member suing me and trying to assassinate my personality as a means to financial gain," he said.

Spending spree

In legal papers filed in Los Angeles, Bier claims Manson falsely told him the band was not making much money, before embarking on a two-year spending spree.

From 2004 to 2006, he claims, the gothic rocker used band money to buy a $2m (£980,000) home and collect Nazi memorabilia, including coat hangers used by Adolf Hitler.

Manson also bought "African masks made of human skin, the full skeleton of a four-year-old Chinese girl, and the full skeleton of a 17th Century male in a wheelchair," according to the legal papers.

Dita Von Teese was married to Manson for a year

Other items included $450,000 (£221,000) for an engagement ring and wedding to burlesque performer Dita Von Teese.

Bier says Manson, along with the band's lawyer and business managers, cut off his salary and band credit card access and refused to pay his medical bills for work-related problems.

"Because of Manson and others' fraudulent conduct, Bier has spent almost two decades working for one of the world's most popular rock bands that has made millions of dollars in profit and now has almost nothing to show for it," the papers conclude.

Divorce

"The fact that he's claiming that I've treated him unfairly, financially, is really ridiculous," said Manson.

"And I would never spend my money on a Chinese girl skeleton. That would be crossing the line.

"It's a Chinese boy, for the record."

Manson has had transatlantic hits including The Dope Show, Mob Scene and The Beautiful People and has directed his own music videos.

The 38-year-old married Dita Von Teese in December 2005 in a ceremony at a castle in Ireland. Von Teese - real name Heather Sweet - filed for divorce last December.