dpA new documentary digs into a young filmmaker’s revelation that she’s the granddaughter of convicted murderer and former cult leader Charles Manson.
Sophia Maddox’s new Hulu documentary, “My Grandfather Charles Manson,” dropping next Wednesday on the streamer and Disney+, explores how she came to terms with the disturbing information, which her father learned from a DNA test.
“I was interested in hearing from people who knew him — not the media’s interpretation, not a prosecutor’s interpretation. I’ve gathered my own opinions on him,” 26-year-old Maddox, also an actress, told People of the interviews with former Manson family members.
Among those interviews was Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, who was portrayed by Dakota Fanning in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”
Maddox’s father, Daniel, didn’t confirm his connection to Manson until a DNA test followed his discovery of Michael Brunner — a known son of Manson, with whom Maddox has since formed a bond — on Ancestry.com in 2022.
Per family lore, Daniel’s mother — who died in 2022 — never made a peep about her son’s biological father, though she realized in the late 1960s that Charles Manson was the same Charlie Dear with whom she’d had a fateful fling.
Maddox said, despite the bombshell paving the way for a sort of estrangement with her father, she’s grateful to have uncovered “my family’s truth, not just … the sensational ones.”
Manson — who orchestrated nine slayings in 1969 — was 83 when he died behind bars in Nov. 2017. At the time, he’d served over 40 years in prison. Victims of Manson’s included Roman Polanski’s then-expectant wife, actress Sharon Tate, celebrity hairstylist and Tate’s friend Jay Sebring, Steven Parent, Wojciech Frykowski and his girlfriend, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, as well as Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.
