The Manson Family planned to kill Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and more
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The Nine Inch Nails connection to the Sharon Tate murders
The entertainment industry has long romanticised the crimes of the Manson Family, and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was guilty of falling into this trap in 1994. Horrifyingly, he chose to record an album at 10050 Cielo Drive, more commonly referred to as ‘The Tate House’.
The property was where Tate lost her life at the hands of the Manson Family in 1969. The Hollywood star rented the property with her husband, Roman Polanski, who understandably moved out after the murder of his wife. Their landlord, Rudolph Altobelli, lived in the mansion for almost twenty years until selling it to a real estate investor in 1988, who sold it once more before Reznor rented the property in 1992.
Reznor attempted to claim his decision wasn’t a publicity stunt, and his attraction to the property was due to the vast space rather than its dark history that aligned with his band’s murky image. However, he did refer to the studio as ‘Le Pig’, which was a reference to a message written in Tate’s blood on the front door of the house.
At first, the history of the building didn’t quite dawn on Reznor, but the longer he spent at 10050 Cielo Drive, the more he felt uncomfortable. However, while most people would have only lasted days or weeks at the residence, the Nine Inch Nails mastermind lasted until December 1993 until finally moving out.
During his time in Benedict Canyon, Reznor recorded Nine Inch Nails’ EP, Broken, and the majority of their era-defining album, The Downward Spiral. Marilyn Manson also used the in-house studio during the creation of 1994’s Portrait of an American Family.
Reflecting on that time with Rolling Stone in 1997, Reznor said: “While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: ‘Are you exploiting my sister’s death by living in her house?’ For the first time the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, ‘No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.'”
He continued: “I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don’t want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, ‘What if it was my sister?’ I thought, ‘Fuck Charlie Manson. I don’t want to be looked at as a guy who supports serial-killer bullshit.’
“I went home and cried that night. It made me see there’s another side to things, you know? It’s one thing to go around with your dick swinging in the wind, acting like it doesn’t matter. But when you understand the repercussions that are felt … that’s what sobered me up: realizing that what balances out the appeal of the lawlessness and the lack of morality and that whole thing is the other end of it, the victims who don’t deserve that.”
Truthfully, it shouldn’t have taken Reznor to meet Tate’s sister to realize recording at 10050 Cielo Drive was in severely bad taste. While she was a Hollywood A-lister, Tate was also a real person who left behind a loving family. Tragically, Nine Inch Nails’ regrettable decision only added to the mythology surrounding the murderous Manson Family.
