Satanic singer Marilyn Manson has dismissed rumours he is abandoning rock in favour of a career as a full-time film-maker - but he admits he did consider retirement.

But the TAINTED LOVE hitmaker was happy to fuel speculation he was leaving the music industry, because he needed to buy time to find inspiration for his latest, as-yet-untitled album.

He says, "I might have had to defuse people with a smoke screen of weakness and the idea that I was going to run away from music when I was really just trying to find the bullets for my gun - metaphorically, of course.

"But I was contemplating giving up entirely. It's a sort of philosophy that I find to be true that if your life is collapsing around you, sometimes you have to be willing to let go."