Marilyn Manson

Brian Hugh Warner was born in Canton, Ohio, on January 5, 1969, the son of Barbara J. Wyer (died 2014) and Hugh Angus Warner (died 2017). He is of English, German, Irish, and Polish descent, and has also claimed that his mother's family (who hailed from the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia) had Sioux heritage.

As a child, he attended his mother's Episcopal church, though his father was a Catholic. He attended Heritage Christian School from first to tenth grade. In that school, his instructors tried to show children what music they were not supposed to listen to; he thus fell in love with what he "wasn't supposed to". He later transferred to GlenOak High School and graduated in 1987.

After relocating with his parents, he enrolled at Broward Community College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1990. He was working toward a degree in journalism, gaining experience in the field by writing articles for the music magazine 25th Parallel. He also interviewed musicians and soon met several of the musicians to whom his own work was later compared, including Groovie Mann from My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The latter became his mentor and produced his debut album.