Aaron Ashmore recalls learning of Smallville costar Allison Mack’s sex cult scandal: ‘My jaw was on the floor’
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Despite playing her Smallville love interest across several seasons, Aaron Ashmore was just as shocked as the rest of the world by Allison Mack’s NXIVM scandal.
The actor, who starred as Jimmy Olsen in the hit CW series, recently reunited with fellow Smallville alum Michael Rosenbaum for the latest episode of his Inside of You podcast, where the duo reflected on the scandal surrounding their former costar.
“She was lovely. She was very welcoming and inviting,” said Ashmore. “And even her boyfriend Chad [Krowchuk], they would invite me out to go for hikes and stuff. She was super cool and she is a very, very good actor.”
He added that Mack made for a “solid” scene partner and brought “a lot to the character,” making their work together feel “really easy.” So naturally, it came as a shock to Ashmore when she was convicted for her involvement in NXIVM, a cult and multi-level marketing scheme that involved sex crimes and the physical branding of female members.
Ashmore said he had no prior inkling of her involvement with the group and confirmed that he was “shocked” to hear the news: “Dude, my jaw was on the floor.”
He continued, “I knew Alison really well for those three years. We worked together and nothing in her personality would have led me to believe that any of this was possible. It seemed like an alternate reality, it seemed like a ‘What are you talking about?’ type scenario.”
In 2018, Mack was arrested by federal authorities after it was revealed that she recruited women to be sex slaves for alleged self-help group NXIVM’s founder, Keith Raniere. Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges and reportedly wept as she admitted her crimes, telling a judge, “I believed Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and I was wrong.”
Prior to the scandal, Mack starred opposite Ashmore’s Jimmy Olsen as Chloe Sullivan, best friend to Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and cousin to Lois Lane (Erica Durance).
Rosenbaum recalled learning the full story from a documentary about the organization, noting how easy it was to get swept up by NXIVM’s claims.
“In the beginning, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is a good thing. They’re helping people with their confidence and finding purpose and all these things.’ And you’re thinking, ‘Hey, I could use some of that,'” he recalled.
“But then you see where it goes and you see what the craziness — it obviously got really intense and crazy — and you’re like, ‘How does it become that? Why can’t something just be good? Why does it always have to become something horrible?'”
Content retrieved from: https://ew.com/smallville-actor-reacts-to-costar-allison-mack-sex-cult-scandal-11703353.
