Bethany Joy Lenz has not forgotten the cult that lured her in and changed her life. Now, she’s sharing the details.
Though it’s been many years since the cast of One Tree Hill went their separate ways, that time remains indelible.
In part because they were The CW stars during that now fallen network’s prime. But, for Bethany Joy Lenz, there is another reason.
She spent a decade of her life in a cult. That grim stretch of her life coincided with One Tree Hill. One of the cast even tried to help her see things for how they were to save her.
Now, she’s coming clean about the whole experience.
‘One Tree Hill’ alum Bethany Joy Lenz is a cult survivor
In the 2000s, Bethany Joy Lenz starred on One Tree Hill alongside Sophia Bush, Chad Michael Murray, and Hilarie Burton.
Lenz has come out with a memoir, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!).
The book, which hits store shelves on October 22, explains how the controlling, ultra-Cristian cult left Bethany Joy Lenz with little to show for her 9 years of TV stardom. She did, at least, escape the cult itself.
Speaking to People ahead of her memoir’s publication, Bethany Joy Lenz explained that she first connected to the cult through a bible study. She had joined the group after first moving to Los Angeles at the tender age of 20.
“I had always been looking for a place to belong,” Lenz explained. She had grown up in the world of Evangelical Christianity, born to parents who married young and moved around a lot. Acting was a major outlet for her, and attending church had always been a social anchor for her.
At first, the bible study seemed like a natural fit. Lenz described how “We crave that kind of intimacy. 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.’”
When did things take a turn for the worse?
According to Lez, a visiting pastor named “Les” began attending and leading conversations.
Even when he convinced some members of the group to uproot and live in a small, commune-like “Big House” in Idaho, alarm bells didn’t go off for the actress.
“It still looked normal. And then it just morphed,” Lenz characterized. “But by the time it started morphing, I was too far into the relationships to notice. Plus, I was so young.”
But others in her life could tell that Bethany Joy Lenz was in a cult. Including her One Tree Hill costars.
“I could see it on their faces,” she recalled. “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.’”
Costar Craig Cheffer spoke to her directly about the cult early into filming together, but Lenz wasn’t ready to hear it. She admitted: “I was like, ‘No, no, no. Cults are weird. Cults are people in robes chanting crazy things and drinking Kool-Aid. That’s not what we do!’”
Eventually, Bethany Joy Lenz saw the cult for what it was
By that point, Lenz wasn’t sure how to leave. By this point, she had married a fellow cultist — considered a “family” member. They’d had Rosie together. Lenz wanted to leave her cult and her cult-connected marriage.
“The stakes were so high,” Bethany Joy Lenz recalled. “They were my only friends. I was married into this group. I had built my entire life around it. If I admitted that I was wrong … everything else would come crumbling down.”
All of this is very textbook. From starting out as a simple gathering of like-minded Christians to slowly boiling the frog to binding people through marriage, children, and finances … this is how these organizations find and keep members. We are so glad that Lenz was able to escape.