For years, a rumor has circulated online that actress Angela Lansbury moved her family to Ireland to protect her daughter, Deidre Shaw, from "falling under the spell of a Hollywood deadbeat": infamous 1960s cult leader Charles Manson, whose followers committed at least nine murders.
A popular October 2025 Facebook post, for example, claimed Manson introduced Shaw to drugs and "would get her to steal food and money from her parents for him." The rumor has also spread on Reddit, X and Instagram.
As we previously reported, the alleged story told by Lansbury originated from news reports with varying degrees of credibility. However, Lansbury died in 2022 and it was not possible to reach Shaw, who reportedly became a chef who owned an Italian restaurant that was closed as of this writing. Shaw seemed to have no social media presence;
Origin of rumor
In a 2014 interview with the tabloid Daily Mail, Lansbury — best known for starring in the long-running television series "Murder She Wrote" — described concerns she and her husband, Peter Shaw, had about their children, Deidre and Anthony Shaw, both of whom allegedly used drugs as teenagers.
That interview included a mention about Manson, and the quote attributed to Lansbury implies that Manson was at least in part one of the reasons why Lansbury's family moved to County Cook, in southwestern Ireland (emphasis ours):
Tragedy struck in the 60s when Angela and Peter discovered Anthony and Deidre had fallen in with an unsuitable crowd and become heavily involved with drugs - despite being barely in their teens.
"It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin. There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson. She was one of many youngsters who knew him — and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it."
Something had to be done. "I said to Peter, 'We have to leave.' So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork. I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences. I still have a house there which I try and visit at least once a year. So I refused all work for a year and simply kept house. I bought Elizabeth David's books and learnt how to cook properly. It was a wonderful time in my life."
The effect on the children was just as she and Peter had hoped. 'Anthony pulled right out of his bad habits quite quickly. It took Deidre (now aged 60) a little longer but she finally got married and she and her husband now live in Los Angeles, where they run their own Italian restaurant.'
It is worth noting that the Daily Mail does not directly quote Lansbury explicitly saying Manson primarily influenced the family's move; c
Reports from the time period
The Daily Mail does not have a reputation as a reliable source. However, other reports from the 1970s and '90s indicated that Lansbury's family did move to Ireland — by all accounts, in an attempt to avoid bad influences and drug use — but they differ on when, exactly, the family moved.
The Sydney Morning Herald, for example, reported in 1979 that Lansbury's family home in Malibu was destroyed in a fire in 1969, spurring the move to Ireland. The story quoted David Shaw, Lansbury's stepson:
Charles Manson, now serving a life sentence over the grotesque Hollywood murders of actress Sharon Tate and her friends at their house in 1969, was a frequent caller at the Lansbury-Shaw Malibu home — asking for Deidre.
"Thank God she never went to them," said stepson David. "But I think she looked at it and discarded it. And it was before the murders."
But an Anchorage Daily News article, also from 1979, said "Angela gave up her career in 1971 and moved the children to Ireland, 'to give them a fresh start away from destructive peer pressure.'"
Manson, who died in a California prison in 2017, led the "Manson Family" in the 1960s and was convicted of murder in 1971. The killings in Hollywood orchestrated by the Manson Family occurred in 1969, starting with actress Sharon Tate, who was pregnant at the time. Thus, if Lansbury moved her family in 1971, Manson would have already been in custody.
A 1972 gossip column, which ran in several regional newspapers — such as the Sapulpa Daily Herald in Oklahoma — also suggested that Deidre Shaw "was involved on the fringes of the notorious Charles Manson 'family' who murdered Sharon Tate." The 1979 Anchorage Daily News story quoted Lansbury as saying, "Charles Manson and his friends were always hanging around and yes, Deidre got to know them."
Shaw's relationship with Manson's 'family'
As for the claim that Deidre Shaw stole money for Manson from her parents, Manson
Guinn tells PEOPLE that Shaw "never formally joined" Manson's group.
Echoing her mother, Guinn says Shaw, who went by DiDi, "was one of a number of impressionable young people who had her parents' credit cards, and what they would do is they would pick up these kids after school and then they would head off [to shop]."
Guinn says Shaw's Manson connection ended when her credit cards were cut off. "To Manson, this meant that, 'Hey, we need more of those [kinds of kids], and he soon moved on, as we will see, to another one. But [Shaw] was the first one."
Thus, while it's difficult to pin down the exact details and nothing has been independently verified, corroborating news reports suggest Lansbury moved to Ireland around the time of the Manson murders and that her daughter had connections to Manson, although she did not appear to have been a full member of his group at any point. It's not clear whether Lansbury moved because of Manson, but it's certainly possible, given Lansbury's mentions of Manson in stories about her family's move.