An actor who was convicted of being one of the leaders of a cult which operated with ‘slave and master’ dynamics has spoken out for the first time about her experience, including the moment she was convinced to join.
Allison Mack, best known for her time on the TV show Smallville, was a major leader in the cult NXIVM while using her celebrity status to recruit people into the group. NXIVM had many sick practices, including branding many of the women of the cult and forcing them into being intimate with its leader Keith Raniere.
While Mack was sentenced to three years for her part in the cult, Raniere was sentenced to 120 years for a litany of charges.
Prior to the crimes she would go on to commit as a senior leader within NXIVM, Mack first became involved in the cult under the pretences that it was simply a self-help ‘class’ she could take.
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Speaking on a new CBC podcast titled Allison after NXIVM, Mack opened up about how she was convinced to join the cult.
Mack spoke about how her career as a child actor meant that she grew up with a mentality where she would ‘create a hierarchy’ of people in every room she walked into.
Whilst filming Smallville Mack became close friends with her co-star Kristin Kreuk, with Kreuk reportedly taking a NXIVM course and encouraging Mack to join.
At the end of a weekend course, Mack ended up attending she would be invited back to Albany to meet Raniere, something she took up.
Upon first meeting her at a late night volleyball game she was taken to in order to meet him, he opened by asking if she had a question for him.
When she stated she hadn’t prepared any and 'just thought [she'd] come and smile and cheer [them] on and it would be OK', he apparently responded by saying: “Is that how you do life?”
Mack recounts how this entranced her, leading her to turn her car around at 3am once she realised the question she wanted to ask him: “What is art?”
In the second episode of the podcast, Mack would go on to explain that, following several months of taking Raniere’s courses, she would move to Albany to live with him.
The podcast however has been incredibly controversial for its framing of Mack’s involvement as that of a victim, though the actor admits to many of her wrongdoings in the podcast.
Victims of the cult have described how Mack was ‘the most charismatic co-leader anyone could ask for’, with others stating she was key to Raniere’s recruitment of young women for him to sleep with and brand his initials on.
Addressing the allegations, she said: "I was harsh, and I was callous, and I was aggressive and forceful in ways that were painful for people and did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people, traumatic for people."
She went on to add however that she is 'someone who cares deeply and wanted very much to grow and wanted very much for everybody that I was involved with to grow'.
She added: "Both of those things are true about me… I definitely recognise and admit that I was abusing my power.
“But I also can’t negate the fact that there was a part of me that was altruistic and was desperate to help people. I wanted to be better, and I was willing to do anything to be better in myself and to help other people be better."
The podcast has faced major backlash on social media, with one comment on the podcast’s first episode saying that ‘her pain and suffering is nothing compared to that which you inflicted on other people'.
LADbible Group has contacted representatives for Kristin Kreuk for comment.
Topics: Celebrity, Crime, Podcast, TV, TV and Film, Allison Mack
Michael Slavin