Bethany Pleasure Lenz has not forgotten the cult that lured her in and altered her life. Now, she’s sharing the small print.
Although it’s been a few years for the reason that solid of One Tree Hill went their separate methods, that point stays indelible.
Partly as a result of they had been The CW stars throughout that now fallen community’s prime. However, for Bethany Pleasure Lenz, there may be another excuse.
She spent a decade of her life in a cult. That grim stretch of her life coincided with One Tree Hill. One of many solid even tried to assist her see issues for a way they had been to save lots of her.
Now, she’s coming clear about the entire expertise.
Bethany Pleasure Lenz attends the Lionsgate’s “Ordinary Angels” New York Premiere at SVA Theater on February 19, 2024. (Picture Credit score: Michael Loccisano/Getty Photographs,)
‘One Tree Hill’ alum Bethany Pleasure Lenz is a cult survivor
Within the 2000s, Bethany Pleasure 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 Present (Whereas additionally in an Precise Cult!).
The e-book, which hits retailer cabinets on October 22, explains how the controlling, ultra-Cristian cult left Bethany Pleasure Lenz with little to indicate for her 9 years of TV stardom. She did, at the very least, escape the cult itself.
Bethany Pleasure Lenz attends the forty seventh annual Gracie Awards Gala at Beverly Wilshire, A 4 Seasons Resort on Could 24, 2022. (Picture Credit score: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Photographs)
Talking to Individuals forward of her memoir’s publication, Bethany Pleasure Lenz defined that she first linked to the cult by means of a bible research. She had joined the group after first shifting to Los Angeles on the tender age of 20.
“I had always been looking for a place to belong,” Lenz defined. She had grown up on this planet of Evangelical Christianity, born to folks who married younger and moved round rather a lot. Performing was a serious outlet for her, and attending church had at all times been a social anchor for her.
At first, the bible research appeared like a pure match. 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 issues take a flip for the more serious?
In line with Lez, a visiting pastor named “Les” started attending and main conversations.
Even when he satisfied some members of the group to uproot and stay 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 characterised. “But by the time it started morphing, I was too far into the relationships to notice. Plus, I was so young.”
Bethany Pleasure Lenz attends Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s New Movie “Blonde” at TCL Chinese language Theatre on September 13, 2022. (Picture Credit score: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Photographs)
However others in her life may inform that Bethany Pleasure Lenz was in a cult. Together with 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 instantly in regards to the cult early into filming collectively, however Lenz wasn’t prepared to listen to 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!’”
Bethany Pleasure Lenz attends a pre-CMA listening lounge occasion that includes CMA-nominee Megan Moroney hosted by PEOPLE x IHG Resorts & Resorts at Resort Indigo Nashville- the Countrypolitan on November 06, 2023. (Picture Credit score: Jason Kempin/Getty Photographs for PEOPLE x IHG Resorts and Resorts)
Finally, Bethany Pleasure Lenz noticed the cult for what it was
By that time, Lenz wasn’t positive the right way to go away. By this level, she had married a fellow cultist — thought of a “family” member. They’d had Rosie collectively. Lenz needed to go away her cult and her cult-connected marriage.
“The stakes were so high,” Bethany Pleasure 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 that is very textbook. From beginning out as a easy gathering of like-minded Christians to slowly boiling the frog to binding individuals by means of marriage, youngsters, and funds … that is how these organizations discover and maintain members. We’re so glad that Lenz was capable of escape.
