Fans of One Tree Hill will remember Bethany Joy Lenz best as Haley James Scott on the cult TV show, but few – if any – knew that what filming the series she was also in a ultra-controlling religious cult.
Now Lenz has opened up about the “double life” she led during the 2000s and confessed she didn’t realise she had been lured into a cult for years.
Her One Tree Hill co-stars, on the other hand, knew something was wrong early in the piece.
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“I could see it on their faces,” she told People of her colleagues’ reactions when she spoke about her situation.
“But I’d justify it, like, ‘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.'”
When Craig Sheffer, who played Keith Scott, confronted Lenz and told her outright that it was a cult, she insisted he was wrong.
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“I was like, ‘No, no, no. Cults are weird. Cults are people in robes chanting crazy things and drinking Kool-Aid,” she said. “That’s not what we do!'”
Lenz became involved with the ultra-Christian group after joining a bible study group in Los Angeles when she moved there to further her acting career.
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Having grown up as an Evangelical Christian, she found a sense of belonging with the group. Then a travelling pastor she called ‘Les’ started coming to the group.
Things began “morphing” when he encouraged members to move to a house in Idaho, where they lived in an insulated, commune-like environment.
Even then, Lenz didn’t realise something wasn’t right.
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It wasn’t until 2012, one year after she welcomed daughter Rosie with her then-husband, who was also part of the cult, that Lenz decided she had to get out.
Leaving the marriage and the cult was a life-changing moment and one that left her having to rebuild her life from the ground up.
Now she’s sharing her story her memoir Dinner for Vampires Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!) in the hopes of helping other people in similar situations.
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