Feared in America as the Satan-worshipper who inspired the Columbine massacre, but widely regarded elsewhere as a camp standard-bearer for goth culture, Marilyn Manson talks about marriage breakups, murder and makeup

Marilyn Manson sits in semidarkness and profound air-conditioned chilliness in a suite in London's otherwise bright and temperate Metropolitan Hotel.

He has made his room as tomb-like as he can, for two reasons: 1) It allows Manson to wear head-to-toe leather, even though it's an unseasonably warm week in April (outside, the streets are filled with breezy, Cornetto-eating young things swishing around in summer dresses, flashing limbs coated in tanning lotion); and 2) It builds on Manson's undead, crypt-frequenting myth.