Last Monday Manson wrote the following message on his MySpace and Facebook pages, linking to the Facebook post on his Twitter page:
“So I have officially been diagnosed, by a real doctor, with THE SWINE FLU. I know everyone will suggest that f***ing a pig is how this disease was obtained. However, the doctor said my past choices in women have in no way contributed to me acquiring this mysterious sickness. Unfortunately, I am going to survive.”
Fans and critics wondered if Manson really did have a case of the H1N1 virus because his so-called diagnosis didn’t stop the singer from performing at the Bell Centre in Montreal the following day and then again Sept. 23 at L’Agora Du Vieux Port in Quebec City in Quebec, Canada.
Symptoms of H1N1 include a fever above 100.4 °F, chills, muscle aches, headache, sore throat and a cough – not exactly a good combination for putting on one of Manson’s typically outrageous shows.
On Friday, prior to Manson’s show at Halifax Metro Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the promoters for the singer’s Canadian shows released the following statement:
"The Gillett Entertainment Group and Live Nation confirmed today that contrary to rumours circulating, Marilyn Manson is not suffering from swine flu," according to PR-Inside.com.
Manson deleted the swine flu post on Facebook and replaced it with a Sept. 25 post that simply said, “MARILYN MANSON has a clean bill of health and has fully recovered.” He also wrote a MySpace blog post entitled “I am no longer sick.”
He then went on to play Halifax Friday night and a Saturday show at Moncton Coliseum Complex in Moncton, New Brunswick.
What a lame publicity stunt. A joke about swine flu? Really? It seems like if Manson was going to poke fun at the hysterics over the virus, he would have make the joke back in April when the pandemic first broke out. But I guess his little stunt accomplished what Manson was going for, in that it got people talking about him. It’s kind of amusing that he deleted the posts though. Or maybe that was all part of his plan. Get people talking about Manson having swine flu … and then get even more people talking about how Manson deleted his posts about swine flu. Dangit, I’ve fallen into his trap! But I’d like to believe that Live Nation and Gillett Entertainment Group forced Manson to delete the posts after they received one too many inquiries about whether the Canadian shows were going to happen.
Manson’s next show on the books is an Oct. 5 gig at Challenge Stadium in Perth, Australia. After playing Australia, he has shows lined up in Japan, the U.K. and Europe with dates through late December.
Click here for Manson’s Facebook page.
Click here for his MySpace page.