How One Tree Hill Star Bethany Joy Lenz Got Lured Into a Cult for a Decade— and How She Got Out of It
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In the early 2000s, actress Bethany Joy Lenz was enjoying life as one of the stars of One Tree Hill, the popular teen drama that also starred Sophia Bush, Chad Michael Murray, and Hilarie Burton.
But throughout filming, she tells PEOPLE, she led a double life: At the same time, she was also deeply devoted to a small, ultra-Christian group led by a shady pastor in Idaho, who controlled her career, life choices and, eventually, her bank account.
By the time she got out a decade later, she had to start over with hardly anything to show for the nearly nine years she spent on the series — and a feeling of regret and shame for not realizing she was in a cult.
In her memoir Dinner for Vampires Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!) (out Oct. 22), Lenz tells the whole story for the first time.
“I don’t think of it as brave,” she says, of why she’s finally opening up. “I think of it as important. Living silently in the suffering I experienced, I don’t know if that helps anyone.” She hopes her book will empower others in similar situations: “I think of this more as the right thing to do.”
Lenz first met the pastor through a bible study she’d joined when she moved to L.A. at 20 to further her acting career.
“I had always been looking for a place to belong,” she explains. She’d grown up an Evangelical Christian, the only child of parents who married young and moved around a lot before divorcing when Lenz was 16. Acting and her church group were her anchors and a great way to meet like-minded people.
At first, she loved her bible study. They’d sing, worship and have philosophical conversations about God and life’s meaning. Finding that group felt like “water in a desert” to the young actress, who says she had never before had that kind of connection.
“We crave that kind of intimacy,” she says. “The idea that someone out there says, ‘No matter what you do or how badly you might behave or what dumb choices you make, I still love you, and I’m here for you.’”
Content retrieved from: https://people.com/how-one-tree-hill-star-bethany-joy-lenz-got-lured-into-a-cult-and-how-she-got-out-of-it-8727791.
