Bethany Joy Lenz’s cult sent someone to watch over her while she was filming “One Tree Hill.”
Lenz first revealed she was in a cult during her time on the hit TV show in 2023. Due to the high interest in her story, she chose to open up about her experience in a book, “Dinner for Vampires.”
While starring as Haley in “One Tree Hill,” Lenz was also a member of the Big House Family. The cult was based in Idaho and led by a pastor.
It was hard for Lenz to fully be herself on set with co-stars Chad Michael Murray, Sophia Bush, James Lafferty and Hilarie Burton. Toward the end of her tenure on the teen drama, the cult sent a “minder” to watch over her as she became “more independent.”
“One of the reasons why it was extra hard later in the series was because I felt so much of that tug of war, and I was so unhappy in my whole life and situation,” Lenz told The Hollywood Reporter. “They sent a minder to live with me, and so even though my husband was living back in Idaho, someone from the group was living with me as my roommate on set. You say there’s always this feeling like they’re the big brothers in the background, but during a few years, there was quite literally someone who was there watching me making sure because I was becoming more independent.”
“I was becoming fed up with the depression and the exhaustion of living life the way I had been, and they sensed it,” she added. “I think the leader specifically sent this person out to watch me and keep reminding me that I belong back in Idaho.”
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At one point, Lenz’s co-stars attempted to “rescue” her from the cult she was a part of for 10 years and the alleged “spiritual abuse” she faced.
“It was open with them. It was the whisper behind the scenes, like, ‘You know, she’s in a cult,'” Lenz told Variety in 2023. “For a while, they were all trying to save me and rescue me, which is lovely and so amazing to be cared about in that way.”
“But I was very stubborn,” she noted. “I was really committed to what I believed were the best choices I could make.”
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Lenz fully believes that filming “One Tree Hill” ultimately saved her. The drama series was filmed from 2003 until 2011.
“I was there nine months out of the year in North Carolina,” she explained. “I had a lot of flying back and forth, a lot of people visiting and things like that, but my life was really built in North Carolina. And I think that spatial separation made a big difference when it was time for me to wake up.”
Lenz also lost family during this time in her life.
“Family members who expressed concern or who were like, ‘What are you saying? This is crazy,’ – anyone who kind of went against what I was experiencing in my reality – became a bit of the enemy.”
