Actor Bethany Joy Lenz said she was in a cult while at the height of her fame as a cast member alongside Chad Michael, Sophia Bush, and Hilarie Burton in the hit 2000s show, One Tree Hill.
“I had always been looking for a place to belong,” said Lenz in a People magazine interview to promote her upcoming memoir, Dinner for Vampires Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!), out Oct. 22.
Lenz, who grew up Evangelical Christian and an only child, said her faith became her social anchor when she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting at 20 years old. Then she met a pastor, Les, during bible study who slowly started convincing her and other members to move to a big house in Idaho to live in a commune-like environment.
“It still looked normal,” said Lenz. “And then it just morphed. But by the time it started morphing, I was too far into the relationships to notice.” She added, “Plus, I was so young.”
However, her co-stars did notice, according to Lenz.
“I could see it on their faces,” she said. “But I’d justify it, ‘I couldn’t possibly be in a cult. It’s just that I’ve got access to a relationship with God and people in a way that everybody else wants, but they don’t know how to get it.’”
Looking back on her experience, Lez said she doesn’t consider it to be “brave” to tell her story but more as “the right thing to do.”
“Living silently in the suffering I experienced, I don’t know if that helps anyone,” she added.
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