Six A-listers trapped in Hollywood's most notorious cults — and how they each got out
Cults have a habit of finding their way to money and power – so it’s no surprise to learn that Hollywood has long been haunted by stories of people falling under the spell of cult leaders.
Most famously the murderous Charles Manson rocked the tight knit Hollywood community in 1969 by using his followers to carry out a spate of murders that culminated in the killing of director Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate.
Other notorious cult leaders included the WW2 vet turned stuntman James Edward Baker aka ‘Father Yod’ who recruited local actors and musicians into his spiritual commune until he died in a hang-gliding accident in 1975.
There was also L. Ron Hubbard, the sci-fi writer who established the Church of Scientology in 1952, and Jaime Gomez whose Buddhafield group featured in the 2016 documentary Holy Hell.
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So much for the leaders – what about their followers?
Here we break down six household names who you might be surprised to learn have spoken openly about their cult experiences.
1. Game of Thrones Actress Hannah Murray
Murray was on the set of the 2017 film Detroit when she met a man who convinced her he was an “energy healer” willing to support her through emotional turmoil she was experiencing with the movie. Through group therapy she eventually met a man she called “Steve” in her memoir, The Make Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness, reported the Guardian.
“He exuded power in a way I had never known anyone to exude it. Magical power,” she says. “I knew I was in the presence of a magician.”
She was to become obsessed with Steve but had the presence of mind to warn others of her suspicions she was in a cult. However, by then it was too late. She suffered a nervous breakdown in a London retreat while teachers recited ‘Be gone, evil spirit in Hannah’.
“It felt really important to say, ‘I went through this,’” she says. “Lots of people go through this. That doesn’t mean they are bad or f---ed up forever.”
2. One Tree Hill Actress Bethany Joy Lenz
During 2003-2012 Lenz starred as the character Haley James Scott. However, during this period she was also part of an ultra-Christian group led by an Idaho pastor who was to dominate her life.
Writing in her book, Dinner for Vampires Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult) – she described how the pastor controlled her career and bank account.
When fellow cast members confronted her about being in a cult, she admitted she pretended all was well.
“I was like, ‘No, no, no. Cults are weird,” she recalled telling Craig Sheffer when he asked if he was in one, adding, “Cults are people in robes chanting crazy things and drinking Kool-Aid. That’s not what we do!’”
She eventually married another member of the cult, whom Lenz had a daughter with. The marriage, and her life in the cult, were not to last.
She described what it was like to finally admit she was in fact part of a cult: “I don’t think of it as brave,” she told PEOPLE about her decision to share her story. “I think of it as important. Living silently in the suffering I experienced, I don’t know if that helps anyone.”
3. Joaquin Phoenix
Phoenix’s parents were elite members of the Children of God cult, venerated as ‘archbishops’ according to a 2019 interview he took part in with Vanity Fair.
He described his parents’ involvement in a 2014 interview with Playboy as ‘really innocent’ and once they realised the truth, when Phoenix was just three years old, they acted.
“They got some letter, or however it came, some suggestion of that, and they were like, ‘F--- this, we’re outta here,’” referring to the group’s sex recruitment tactics. “I think they were idealists, and believed that they were with a group who shared their beliefs, and their values. I think they probably were looking for safety, and family.”
4. The Doom Generation actress Rose McGowen
McGowen was another childhood member of the Children of God cult.
She told PEOPLE, “Like in most cults, you were cut off from your [outside] family. There were no newspapers, no television. You were kept in the dark so you would obey.”
She explained, “I remember watching how the [cult’s] men were with the women, and at a very early age I decided I did not want to be like those women.” She added, “They were basically there to serve the men sexually; [men] were allowed to have more than one wife.”
Rose’s father fled with her after a shocking revelation where he “got wind that the group was starting to advocate child/adult sex.”
5. Glenn Close
Close’s father joined the Moral Re-Armament religious group when she was just 7 years old, moving his family to the HQ in Switzerland.
She lived there for 15 years: “It was basically a cult,” she explained in an episode of the series The Me You Can’t See. She added “Everybody spouted the same things and there was a lot of rules, a lot of control. It was really awful.”
She described how, because of the devastation, emotional and psychological of the cult, she was not successful in her relationships or finding a permanent partner.
“I am sorry about that,” she said. “I think it is our natural state to be connected like that. I don’t think you ever change your trigger points, but at least you can be aware of them and maybe avoid situations that might make you vulnerable, especially in relationships.”
6. Michelle Pfeiffer
Pfeiffer was just 20 when she met a ‘controlling’ couple who followed breatharianism – the belief in surviving without food or water, reported CBS.
They became her ‘kind of personal trainers’ who she did not live with, but she was ‘always there a lot.’ The couple told her she had to come more often but they were charging her for their time, so it became ‘financially very draining.’
Pfeiffer only realised she was being controlled by the couple when her first husband Peter Horton described research he was conducting about the Moonies, also called the Unification Church.
“We were talking with an ex-Moonie, and he was describing the psychological manipulation, and I just clicked,” she said.
Topics: Mental Health, True Crime
Michael D. Carroll