These 12 Famous People Actually Spent Years In Cults, And Their Stories Are Absolutely Wild

Content warning: this station mentions intersexual abuse.

People from each walks of beingness tin get caught up successful cults – adjacent erstwhile they're mega-famous. Here are immoderate celebs who person been associated with cults, and what they had to accidental astir them...

1. Hannah Murray was starring successful Skins astatine property 17, was successful Game of Thrones successful her 20s, and by 27 was successful a wellness cult. Now 36, Hannah has released a memoir called The Make-Believe astir her experiences and the gateway "drug" that is wellness culture. Hannah said she was drawn into "the organization" done an "energy healer" her idiosyncratic trainer recommended to her.

"It’s casual to go, ‘Well, that would ne'er hap to me’, but we bash ourselves a disservice erstwhile we commencement saying that, due to the fact that you don’t know," Hannah said. "I thought, 'I’m smart. I marque bully choices.' Well, I made unspeakable choices."

2. Another Game of Thrones star, Maisie Williams, said that erstwhile she was a child, her begetter "indoctrinated" her into an abusive cult. While she hasn't shared overmuch astir the specifics of the concern successful bid to support different members of her family, she has opened up astir its effect connected her, saying a batch of "traumatic things" happened.

"I was successful a kid cult against my mother. So I was truly warring it astatine the beginning, but fundamentally my full satellite flipped connected its head,” Maisie said of being removed from her father. “And adjacent though each these things I was feeling — 'Oh, my God, I’m truthful gladsome I don’t person to spot my dada anymore' — it inactive was against everything I knew to beryllium true."

3. One Tree Hill prima Bethany Joy Lenz has been unfastened astir her years spent successful a Christian cult, chiefly successful her memoir Dinner for Vampires. It was during the clip she was moving connected One Tree Hill, and she said the cult took power of her vocation and her wealth – she adjacent joined a chap subordinate and had a babe with him.

"For a while, they were each trying to prevention maine and rescue me," she said of her OTH costars. "But I was precise stubborn. I was truly committed to what I believed were the champion choices I could make."

4. Michelle Pfeiffer said that aft moving to LA erstwhile she was 20 years old, she fell successful with a mates who were supposedly idiosyncratic trainers but believed successful "breatharianism" — the (impossible) thought that humans tin unrecorded without nutrient oregon water. Michelle said it was being with her archetypal husband, Peter Horton, that "saved" her aft helium was formed successful a movie astir the Unification Church. While helping him probe the role, it clicked to Michelle that she could subordinate to the intelligence manipulation a cult unfortunate described.

"They were precise controlling," Michelle said of the cult-like mates she was progressive with. "I wasn’t surviving with them, but I was determination a lot, and they were ever telling maine I needed to travel more. I had to wage for each the clip I was there, truthful it was financially precise draining."

5. When Glenn Close was a child, her begetter joined the radical Moral Re-Armament and moved his household to Switzerland to beryllium person to it. Glenn didn't officially permission the radical until she was 22 and studying acting successful college. She described being furious with her begetter afterward, and frustrated with her parent for enabling him, and having to enactment towards forgiveness.

"I’ve learned much and much astir [my parents] and much astir what their concern was and however susceptible they were astatine definite times," Glenn said. "I deliberation I truly recognize wherefore they were truthful susceptible to a radical similar that. Not knowing the devastation that it would origin their children."

6. Joaquin Phoenix's parents were successful a cult, the Children of God, erstwhile helium was born, and helium grew up successful it for the archetypal 3 years of his life. He said his parents' involvement successful the enactment was "really innocent," and that they believed they had recovered a beardown spiritual assemblage of like-minded people, adding that they near and got their children retired erstwhile they realized it was sinister.

"Cults seldom advertise themselves arsenic such," helium told Playboy. "It's usually idiosyncratic saying, 'We're like-minded people. This is simply a community,' but I deliberation the infinitesimal my parents realized determination was thing much to it, they got out."

7. Scream and Charmed prima Rose McGowan besides spent her formative years successful Children of God until she was 9 years old, erstwhile she said her begetter removed her and her siblings due to the fact that helium began to fearfulness they would beryllium sexually abused.

"I retrieve watching however the men were with the women, and astatine a precise aboriginal property I decided I did not privation to beryllium similar those women," she told People. "They were fundamentally determination to service the men sexually; [men] were allowed to person much than 1 wife."

8. Musician Christopher Owens, erstwhile frontman of the set Girls, besides grew up successful Children of God. He's spoken astir how, earlier helium was born, helium had a member who seemingly died owed to the cult's refusal to let accepted aesculapian treatment. Later, helium was chopped disconnected from his sister and begetter for a fig of years erstwhile they near the cult, but his sister past helped him escape, leaving their parent behind.

"I benignant of grew up being precise indoctrinated by these beliefs that were precise important to the radical successful my mother's procreation that joined this group, and it wasn't needfully the lawsuit for the 2nd generation," Christopher told NPR. "We kids benignant of had a hard clip conscionable accepting blindly that we were expected to unrecorded successful the aforesaid mode they had [chosen] to unrecorded in."

9. Christa B. Allen, champion known for her roles in13 Going connected 30 and Revenge, has said she's "rebuilding" her beingness "after being successful emotion with a charismatic affluent cult person who burned it to the ground." In since-deleted TikToks, she shared that she had moved successful with this antheral 3 days aft gathering him and took "responsibility" for her actions portion acknowledging his extended "lying, cheating, and manipulating."

"I’ve sat with the hardest questions: wherefore did I spot him? Why did I manus implicit my power? Why did I soundlessness my ain interior knowing? The information is, helium was selling fairytales and from luxurious penthouses and backstage jets, I foolishly bought in," Christa wrote connected TikTok.

10. Smallville and Beauty and the Beast prima Kristin Kreuk was a subordinate of NXIVM for respective years, though she maintains she lone knew it arsenic a self-help enactment and near successful 2013 without immoderate cognition of "illegal oregon nefarious activity."

In 2018, aft accusations surfaced that NXIVM was a cult and its enactment forced women into intersexual slavery, Kristin released a statement saying, "I americium profoundly disturbed and embarrassed to person been associated with NXIVM."

11. Kristin's Smallville costar Allison Mack joined NXIVM aft she did, but remained a subordinate erstwhile Kristin near and roseate successful the ranks of the enactment to go a elder member. This meant, among different things, that she recruited different members and subjected them to abuse. In 2021, she was sentenced to 3 years successful situation for racketeering and enactment trafficking offenses, yet serving 21 months of that condemnation earlier being released successful 2023.

In a 2025 podcast called Allison aft NXIVM, Allison said, "I don't spot myself arsenic innocent," portion describing her years of wilful ignorance successful the cult: "If I recognized that Keith [Raniere, the leader] was manipulating each of us, and that this was a strategy for his ain perversion, I had to admit what I had chosen and that I had wounded people."

12. Slaughterhouse-Five prima Sharon Gans, who died successful 2021, was accused of being a cult leader. In the '70s, unneurotic with her precocious hubby Alex Horn, she founded a spiritual "school" and ran a theatre institution that was allegedly a halfway for cult-like behaviors and abuses.

A former member of Sharon's radical wrote successful 2019, "It has taken maine galore years to retrieve from this 23-year trauma and onslaught connected my precise dignity. I didn’t conscionable portion the Kool-Aid, I mainlined it."

What are your thoughts connected this? Have you person your ain experiences with cults? Tell america successful the comments oregon anonymous signifier below.