At the height of her fame, Bethany Joy Lenz was most recognizable for her role in teen drama, One Tree Hill. Playing the brainy Haley who falls for jock Nathan (James Lafferty), Lenz starred in the series for almost 10 years.
One Tree Hill follows adversarial half-brothers in a small North Carolina town and it became one of the prides of The CW network — formerly The WB. But despite this success, Lenz was conflicted with a private struggle. During her tenure on the series, Lenz was in denial about the fact that she was involved in a religious cult. The actor goes into detail about her realization and getting out of the restrictive group in her new memoir, Dinner For Vampires: Life On a Cult TV Show.
Lenz was raised in an evangelist household and finding a religious group was important to her. She contacted the group’s pastor when joining a bible study group in LA. At only 20 years old, she wanted to advance her career, and the unnamed cult leader took advantage. He would later move her and others into a house in Idaho where he would control all aspects of her life. Meanwhile, on the television set, her plight had not gone unnoticed by her One Tree Hill co-stars, as Lenz told People Magazine.
“I could see it on their faces. 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.'”
Lenz recalled how Craig Sheffer, who played the compassionate Keith Scott in the series, was the one to use the word “cult” when expressing concern for her. At the time, Lenz insisted that her group didn’t fall into the typical narrative of what a cult looked like, but this was just part of her denial phase.
Bethan Lenz Joy’s experience mirrors other Hollywood experiences
Hollywood industry cults are more common than perhaps many are comfortable with. Bethany Joy Lenz’s experience is close to one such cult, NXIVM, run by Keith Raniere. While NXIVM marketed itself more as a self-help group and less as a religion, the results were the same. Many actors such as Smallville’s Allison Mack and Bonnie Piesse felt stagnant in their careers and looked to Raniere for guidance and meaning. NXIVM would go on to control the women of the organization by restricting their calorie intake and imposing sexual demands on them. Mack was at the top of this pinnacle as a master of sex slaves and would eventually serve time in prison for her role.
Lenz was unfortunately familiar with unhealthy sexual relationships. The One Tree Hill actor revealed that she had saved herself for marriage and married the son of the cult leader out of necessity. She was restricted from marrying outside of her faith and even outside of their location. This meant that he was the only option and she was horrified to learn that she and her husband had no sexual chemistry. They had nothing in common and consumating their marriage only gave her the stark realization that they were not supposed to be together. Her lack of interest in sex with her husband made him go to extreme lengths, as Lenz recalled on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
“Because I was so disinterested in sex, I was then asked to go on a schedule, basically, of, like, ‘You just have to do it. Just do it. This is your duty. This is your job as a wife. Your emotions will fall in line. If you do it enough, then eventually, you will find a way to enjoy it.’”
Sex is regretfully one way to utilize control in these situations and Lenz eventually came to terms with the fact that she had to escape. She left the cult in 2012, which fans can read more about in her book, Dinner For Vampires: Life On a Cult TV Show, which hits shelves on Oct. 22.
