Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on from Mamma may I'm Maya Friedman. You're
Speaker 1: listening to No Filter and this is an episode about
Speaker 1: cults and Bethany Joy Lentz, who has been in two
Speaker 1: different kinds of cults, a good cult and a really
Speaker 1: really bad one. The good kind is the television show
Speaker 1: One Tree Hill, where she played the iconic character Hayley
Speaker 1: for nearly a decade.
Speaker 2: We made our decision, we got married and were happy,
Speaker 2: and if you're not here to celebrate with us, then.
Speaker 3: You should just go home, because I don't want you here.
Speaker 1: And which even today has what we would colloquially call
Speaker 1: a cult following, because when we use that word to
Speaker 1: talk about a TV show or a band, what we're
Speaker 1: so is that it's captivated a particular type of very
Speaker 1: committed audience, and that it has a devoted following, and
Speaker 1: that it's something that's become almost a part of the
Speaker 1: fabric of who those people are. And those are the
Speaker 1: features of the more sinister and truer meaning of the
Speaker 1: word cult as well. And Bethany Joy Lentz, who prefers
Speaker 1: to go by the name Joy, was in that kind
Speaker 1: of cult. At the same time, she was in a bad, toxic,
Speaker 1: abusive kind of cult. The kind of cult that isolates
Speaker 1: you from your friends and family, that controls every facet
Speaker 1: of your life, that demands your utter loyalty and Enjoy's case,
Speaker 1: your hard earned money millions of dollars. The kind of
Speaker 1: cult that puts you in emotional and physical danger and
Speaker 1: makes you too scared to ask for help, let alone
Speaker 1: get away. But eventually, when something unthinkable and intolerable began
Speaker 1: to happen, Joy did ask for help, and eventually she
Speaker 1: did get out. She's written a memoir about her experience
Speaker 1: called Dinner for Vampires. She spent a really long time
Speaker 1: coming to terms with what happened to her, and she's
Speaker 1: finally ready to talk about it, especially how she escaped
Speaker 1: and recovered. It's an incredible story that was even more
Speaker 1: incredible because it was happening under the noses of everybody
Speaker 1: who watched and loved One Tree Hill for all those years.
Speaker 1: Because the years that Joy was in that cult are
Speaker 1: the same years that she was incredibly famous on one
Speaker 1: of the most successful TV shows in the world. Here's
Speaker 1: Joy with her story. The title of the book Dinner
Speaker 1: for Vampires. Where did that come from?
Speaker 2: You know, that is as much my guess as it
Speaker 2: is yours. It flew out of my pen. I was, well,
Speaker 2: you know, my metaphor pen meaning my keyboard. I was
Speaker 2: typing this paragraph that was just something about how I
Speaker 2: never could have known in that moment that I would
Speaker 2: eventually end up becoming dinner for these vampires. And as
Speaker 2: it came out, I went, oh, yeah, that's actually exactly
Speaker 2: what it was. That really encompasses the book. And I
Speaker 2: like the tone of it being a little, a little
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek because I wanted that tone for the
Speaker 2: book overall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're the dinner and the vampires are essentially
Speaker 1: the big House family.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's it's a term that's I think commonly
Speaker 2: used for a narcissists.
Speaker 3: That's that's what they are.
Speaker 2: They you know, they can't they don't have an identity
Speaker 2: of their own, so they have to suck yours out.
Speaker 3: They have to suck the life out of you.
Speaker 1: You quote something from the series The Vow, and you said,
Speaker 1: nobody joins a cult, you join a good thing. Nobody
Speaker 1: walks into a seat and says, sign me up, I
Speaker 1: want to fuck up the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: That's Mark Vincent Davy. Yeah, that's such a great quote.
Speaker 1: That's the name I was looking for. Very smart man,
Speaker 1: And I want to start with a bit about your
Speaker 1: life before you walked into that situation. Yeah, you grew
Speaker 1: up in Texas. When did you decide that you wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actor?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I mean I didn't. I wasn't aware that
Speaker 2: that could really be something you do as a career
Speaker 2: until I was probably ten or eleven. I think I
Speaker 2: started to become really more aware that, oh, this is
Speaker 2: something people actually do with their lives. But I did
Speaker 2: begin doing local theater when I was about seven, and
Speaker 2: it was probably just a way of my parents being
Speaker 2: like this, she can't sit still, she's always singing, she's
Speaker 2: always writing songs and making up stories and just be
Speaker 2: you know, she's got this huge imagination. And my father
Speaker 2: was no stranger to this, having grown up with two
Speaker 2: parents in musical theater.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he was like, I know exactly what this is.
Speaker 1: Is that your grandmother Doris, because she was, Yes, my
Speaker 1: grandma Doush.
Speaker 2: I write about in the book and the impact that
Speaker 2: she had in my artistic life. And his father, George Lenz,
Speaker 2: who is I mean, playbill dot com. Go check it out,
Speaker 2: you'll see his resume. So he definitely recognized the signs.
Speaker 2: And my mom was also really creative, and so I
Speaker 2: think they both just went, let's just put her in
Speaker 2: some theater and see if that helps her get her
Speaker 2: energy out.
Speaker 1: And it worked because you started getting jobs as a kid,
Speaker 1: and you traveled to LA and you built up your resume.
Speaker 1: You got some pretty big gigs alongside people like Paul
Speaker 1: Savino and James Franco, and eventually you got a regular
Speaker 1: role on a really big soap opera, Guiding Light. What
Speaker 1: was it like being a teenage girl navigating Hollywood and
Speaker 1: then back home navigating a pretty religious family and community,
Speaker 1: which is how you grew up?
Speaker 2: Great question, You know, I never considered New York to
Speaker 2: be Hollywood. There was so much more serious in New
Speaker 2: York than it was whenever I would go to LA
Speaker 2: and go audition for pilots, you know, with the wide
Speaker 2: roads and the sun and the palm trees and the
Speaker 2: very sort of glamorous feeling in the air driving onto
Speaker 2: these big studios, and so I would go and do
Speaker 2: some of those pilots for a few weeks. But I
Speaker 2: lived in New Jersey, and I was in New York
Speaker 2: City for you know, three or four days out of
Speaker 2: the week for my voice lessons and dance lessons and
Speaker 2: auditions for films and things. So in New York, living
Speaker 2: in that environment, I didn't feel really like I was
Speaker 2: a part of that Hollywood experience as much as just
Speaker 2: the very serious actory artist community in New York.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask about how the church reacted
Speaker 1: because as soap opera, you know, apart from the idea
Speaker 1: of show business, the content on the soap opera itself,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not raunchy, but you know, soaps on
Speaker 1: are they godly? I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Well. The community I was a part of at the
Speaker 2: time certainly didn't think. So. I was a part of
Speaker 2: the worship team, which is just the people who sing
Speaker 2: music on stage when you go to a church where
Speaker 2: they have music. Some churches do choirs and some have
Speaker 2: a band on stage, and ours was kind of the band,
Speaker 2: and it was called the worship team, and I was
Speaker 2: on it, and they asked me to step down after
Speaker 2: I got this job on a soap opera, which was
Speaker 2: so confusing to me because to your original question, navigating
Speaker 2: this spiritual life and also navigating being in the entertainment
Speaker 2: industry was never terribly conflicting for me because to me,
Speaker 2: like I was raised on the Bible, Like, how do
Speaker 2: you get better bigger stories than the Bible? And I'm
Speaker 2: a storyteller, so it went hand in hand to me.
Speaker 2: I was just like, yeah, we're just making art, we're
Speaker 2: telling stories, and I mean, you want to talk about
Speaker 2: some really racy stuff, Like I could direct you to
Speaker 2: several books in the Bible and have a lot.
Speaker 3: Of really controversial things in them. So it just was
Speaker 3: not on my radar.
Speaker 2: And I was really surprised when I started to get
Speaker 2: older and realized that a lot of people didn't view art.
Speaker 3: In the same way that I did.
Speaker 2: They felt like it was a very anti god, anti
Speaker 2: religious thing, and I'm still baffled by that.
Speaker 1: That contradiction must have been sort of hard to navigate.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting to me is how you describe sort
Speaker 1: of living at different times. You live alone in New
Speaker 1: York and then eventually you moved to La. Your faith
Speaker 1: remains really important to you and you always seek out
Speaker 1: those subcultures of you know, artists who are also Christian.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just you that was feeling that contradiction.
Speaker 2: And the thing is it didn't feel like a contradiction
Speaker 2: to us. It seemed to be that way to so
Speaker 2: many other people in the religious communities that we were in,
Speaker 2: which was confusing. But yeah, so we would really seek
Speaker 2: each other out, like, where are the other storytellers in
Speaker 2: the world who believe in God, who have a sense
Speaker 2: of morality? And that looks a specific way, I guess
Speaker 2: is what I felt when I was young, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to be surrounded by like minded people, as anyone
Speaker 2: with any set of beliefs I think looks for you
Speaker 2: want to have people around you that support what you
Speaker 2: believe and who can encourage you when you're feeling down
Speaker 2: and things like that. So it seemed like a very
Speaker 2: natural thing to look for.
Speaker 1: You talk about floating around a little bit, but finding
Speaker 1: your community. And then the night everything changed. What happened
Speaker 1: on that night.
Speaker 2: I yeah, so I had found this really lovely group
Speaker 2: of people through my roommate in LA I was feeling sorry.
Speaker 3: If you guys hear my dog's park sometimes I loved them.
Speaker 2: I had moved to LA I was feeling really lonely.
Speaker 2: I missed my New York community, and my roommate invited
Speaker 2: me to come to a Bible study that she was
Speaker 2: a part of with other young artists and entertainment industry professionals,
Speaker 2: and we all just became really good friends and got
Speaker 2: to know each other very well. It was an easy
Speaker 2: community to slip into, and there wasn't anything that gave
Speaker 2: me red flags. In fact, I didn't write about this
Speaker 2: in the book, but I remember once when I was
Speaker 2: probably around the age of twelve, my parents took us
Speaker 2: that we were visiting churches, and my parents took me
Speaker 2: to this one church. We started going for like three months,
Speaker 2: and I just loved it. I was so close, it
Speaker 2: was artists, it was all this great thing. And then
Speaker 2: one day my dad said, we're not going there anymore.
Speaker 3: After a church service.
Speaker 2: He came and picked me up after the Sunday school
Speaker 2: youth group thing, and I said, why he goes it's
Speaker 2: a cult. It's like, what are you talking about, Dad,
Speaker 2: And he was like, no, no, it's a cult.
Speaker 3: We got to go.
Speaker 2: This is not right, and I was devastated. I missed
Speaker 2: this group of friends that I had built. So it's funny,
Speaker 2: how you know, it can take a while to notice
Speaker 2: things sometimes. And it felt really benign, and I think
Speaker 2: it was. But then two of the young men who
Speaker 2: were running the group, and they had invited a pastor
Speaker 2: from another state to come down and speak to the group,
Speaker 2: and he himself had been going through a hard time
Speaker 2: leaving the church that he had previously been associated with,
Speaker 2: And we were so young, and we felt really empathetic
Speaker 2: toward him and his family and wanted to greet him
Speaker 2: with open arms, and we were happy to have a real, older,
Speaker 2: actual pastor in our midst and wanted to listen for
Speaker 2: his wisdom. I mean, it was just a perfect storm.
Speaker 2: I think he looked around and saw a bunch of
Speaker 2: young entertainment professionals and got dollar signs in his eyes
Speaker 2: and went, oh, I know what I can do here.
Speaker 2: But we were none the wiser.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's a sort of cost of characters who
Speaker 1: went to your life at this point. Can you set
Speaker 1: the stage a little bit and explain who Les and
Speaker 1: Martin and Ed and pam Ah.
Speaker 2: Yes, So in the book I start to explain when
Speaker 2: I meet this pastor whose name is Les and his
Speaker 2: wife is Martin. He's got three sons, He's got good
Speaker 2: friends who he's met through these younger gentlemen in the group.
Speaker 2: Their parents are from the same state where the pastor
Speaker 2: is from. Less and that's Ed and Pam.
Speaker 3: They all have this.
Speaker 2: History in Seventh day Adventism, which I really knew nothing about.
Speaker 2: It was not I was always raised in the non
Speaker 2: denominational charismatic Christian Church and didn't know anything really about
Speaker 2: the other denominations, and so it was interesting. I was curious.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know more about their history and why
Speaker 2: they had grown disaffected with their branch of Christianity. You know,
Speaker 2: I just felt like a nice community to be a
Speaker 2: part of when I didn't have my parents around or
Speaker 2: any of my friends from the East coast.
Speaker 1: You refer to Less and Pam even though they weren't
Speaker 1: a couple, that they sort of become your spiritual parents.
Speaker 1: Is that how you felt being away from your own family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think anytime we're longing for pieces of community that
Speaker 2: are not there's like gaps in our in our heart
Speaker 2: for different people in community.
Speaker 3: We seek that out.
Speaker 2: And I grew up as an only child. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of tempestuousness in the air in my home
Speaker 2: with my parents and what they were going through among themselves,
Speaker 2: and I just really wanted to feel like I was
Speaker 2: a part of a family, like a real family, and
Speaker 2: so less was this you know, sort of jovial, sweet, funny,
Speaker 2: irreverend character who was very warm in a way that
Speaker 2: my father I think is really deep down he's a
Speaker 2: big puppy dog, but he's got a harder exterior. And
Speaker 2: I was craving that open, masculine, warm energy that I
Speaker 2: didn't receive a lot of as a child. And Pam
Speaker 2: came in with the same type of motherly, gentle kind, sweet,
Speaker 2: soft spoken, good listener, really encouraging and all these things
Speaker 2: that I also believe my mother feels underneath her exterior.
Speaker 2: But I you know, as a child, we only see
Speaker 2: what we see, and so without understanding the complexity of
Speaker 2: who people are and how we develop and what's really
Speaker 2: going on behind the surface, it's hard to see those things.
Speaker 2: And you know, again I was young, so I just
Speaker 2: was like, oh, warm, open dad figure, gentle kind, encouraging
Speaker 2: mother figure, this is what I need in my life.
Speaker 2: And I adopted them as much as they adopted me metaphorically.
Speaker 1: I want to understand how you know it seems so inocuous.
Speaker 1: It's you go to a Bible study group, there's this
Speaker 1: guest speaker. One night, you're auditioning, you're getting roles, You're
Speaker 1: twenty two years old, living in la How does it
Speaker 1: escalate like in the actual the next week? Do you
Speaker 1: go again? And then how do things get to get
Speaker 1: to the point, yeah, where you start coming. I imagine
Speaker 1: it's like frog and boiling water. Right, it doesn't start
Speaker 1: out boiling.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely what it is. It's the frog and boiling water.
Speaker 2: It happens so slowly and so many of the things
Speaker 2: are innocuous and look totally fine. And that's how That's
Speaker 2: how narcissists get you, whether it's in a group dynamic
Speaker 2: or whether it's in an individual personal relationship dynamic. There's
Speaker 2: this love bombing phase where everything seems great and there's
Speaker 2: only a couple of red flags like here and there,
Speaker 2: but the good far outweighs the bad, or the things
Speaker 2: that make sense far outweigh the couple of things that
Speaker 2: you're like, I don't know about that, but I guess
Speaker 2: everything else makes sense.
Speaker 3: So I'm sure, it's fine. It must be me.
Speaker 2: I'm so young, I'm so naive, they're so wise. I
Speaker 2: really should just like listen and learn and trust, which
Speaker 2: is a beautiful place to be and for anyone to
Speaker 2: be curious and to be trusting people around you and
Speaker 2: to be interested in people who are who have been
Speaker 2: through different things in life, Like I think that's an
Speaker 2: admirable quality. But of course when you're so young, it's
Speaker 2: easy to be taking advantage of when you're in that
Speaker 2: place as well. So I mean, really, to answer your question,
Speaker 2: the whole book is that story, and why I wanted
Speaker 2: to tell it that way was so that people could
Speaker 2: see how slow and insidious it is a long time.
Speaker 2: It's a slow burn, and you've got to be able
Speaker 2: to start to trust your instinct pretty early on if
Speaker 2: you're not going to get sucked into something. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know that's that's got a narcissistic abuse agenda behind it.
Speaker 1: More of my conversation with Joy after this short break,
Speaker 1: you talk about some words that Less said to you
Speaker 1: that sort of hooked you. He said, Joy, it's time
Speaker 1: for you to come out of agreement with the idea
Speaker 1: that you'll runner up and release the spirit of performance
Speaker 1: for love. Why did those words hit so hard for you?
Speaker 2: I was a needy kid, emotionally really needy kid. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to be I wanted to feel safe and loved,
Speaker 2: and I think that could That's something so many people
Speaker 2: can relate to, being a child in a home where
Speaker 2: there are loving parents who have a lot of their
Speaker 2: own complications going on. Parents had me when they were
Speaker 2: twenty two years old. I mean, and they came from
Speaker 2: broken homes. They came from homes with addiction and patterns
Speaker 2: of behavioral abuse and patterns of fear, and I mean
Speaker 2: there's just so much that they were carrying in and
Speaker 2: then trying to raise a little girl with no money
Speaker 2: and you know, bouncing around from job to job and
Speaker 2: doing their best. I mean, how difficult must that have
Speaker 2: been for them? And I adopted very early on the
Speaker 2: I've got me Like you guys clearly have a lot
Speaker 2: going on. Don't worry about me. I'll stay out of
Speaker 2: the way. I don't want to take up space and
Speaker 2: the one but of course I did want to take
Speaker 2: up space, because everyone inherently deserves to take up space
Speaker 2: on the planet. So you know, you're never going to
Speaker 2: get away from that. And so the way that I
Speaker 2: found to take up space was on stage, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, just put me on a stage. I can
Speaker 2: take up all the space on an entire stage. Just
Speaker 2: put me there on a spotlight and we'll be golden and.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And that's so I felt so free and I felt
Speaker 2: so like, oh, that's my identity is here. But you
Speaker 2: have to work hard and you have to prove it.
Speaker 2: And if you make a joke and the audience doesn't laugh,
Speaker 2: you're failing at taking.
Speaker 3: Up the space properly.
Speaker 2: You feel like you don't deserve to take up that
Speaker 2: space because you're not doing a good enough job. And
Speaker 2: so that mindset then carried for me into so many
Speaker 2: realms beyond entertainment, but just in my relationships at school,
Speaker 2: my friendships, in my relationship at home with my parents,
Speaker 2: and trying to earn you do things everything the right way,
Speaker 2: my relationship with God, really trying to get everything right
Speaker 2: and do the things on the checklist and make sure
Speaker 2: that I was earning my way. And it was an
Speaker 2: absolutely true observation that also in retrospect, is just such
Speaker 2: a cheap trick, because it's like going to see a
Speaker 2: psychic on a corner and they're like, oh, I'm feeling
Speaker 2: like you have a dog, but there's your jackets covered
Speaker 2: in dog hair, you know what I mean. Yeah, But
Speaker 2: you know, when you're twenty, you're like, oh my.
Speaker 3: God, I feel so sane.
Speaker 1: I was thinking so much about I want to ask
Speaker 1: about where your acting career was at this time, because
Speaker 1: the vulnerability of actors and creative people who need to
Speaker 1: audition and be rejected, and audition and be rejected and
Speaker 1: try and be rejected, and then if you get a gig,
Speaker 1: you get this massive attention, so that the whiplash of
Speaker 1: that must leave you kind of emotionally vulnerable to someone
Speaker 1: who says you're amazing, you're loved, you're the main event.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: It definitely leaves you feeling like it well left me
Speaker 2: feeling like, see, this is what's to continue answering your question,
Speaker 2: Like this is what's so insidious about it to take
Speaker 2: something that is absolutely true. You as a human being
Speaker 2: have value. You don't have to earn it. You're not
Speaker 2: second place, you are always the first place. You're never
Speaker 2: runner up, because this is your life and your story
Speaker 2: and your relationship with the God of your understanding. All
Speaker 2: of those things.
Speaker 3: But this is what the narcissist will do.
Speaker 2: They get you into a position of vulnerability with something
Speaker 2: that is absolutely true and cracks you open and pours
Speaker 2: this love and positivity into you so that you feel
Speaker 2: attached to them and you feel a sense of loyalty
Speaker 2: to them, and then when they start saying really terrible
Speaker 2: things about you, you really believe those things as well,
Speaker 2: because obviously they can see what's really you know, in
Speaker 2: your mind, they can see what's really going on. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that exactly ends your question.
Speaker 1: No, it does. One of the things that is so
Speaker 1: endemic in abuse and cults is isolation. And yes, who
Speaker 1: did the Big Family which is what this group called itself.
Speaker 3: Right, the Big House House family?
Speaker 1: Who was in the Big House? Well, and wasn't an
Speaker 1: actual house.
Speaker 2: It was an actual house. It was in my story
Speaker 2: Pam and Ed's house. Ed was a doctor and you know,
Speaker 2: well respected in the community. So it was their house,
Speaker 2: and they, out of the goodness of their hearts, offered
Speaker 2: their home to Les and Martine who were being displaced
Speaker 2: from their pastoral home at a previous church. If you're
Speaker 2: not involved in any kind of religious community, I will
Speaker 2: give you a basic rundown, which is that when oftentimes
Speaker 2: pastors are brought in from other states and their family
Speaker 2: is given a home to live in that the church owns.
Speaker 2: So it was some sort of a little mental gymnastics
Speaker 2: because there was no actual church. We didn't have an
Speaker 2: actual five oh one c three, we didn't have any
Speaker 2: kind of service times that's a central meeting place, none
Speaker 2: of those things that qualified as a church. But because
Speaker 2: he was a pastor, and because Pam and Ed had
Speaker 2: this home that their kids had left, and it was
Speaker 2: this great, big house, and they just said, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to move into a smaller We'll move into the
Speaker 2: garage and convert it into an apartment and you can
Speaker 2: take our home and this will be like your pastoral
Speaker 2: home as it were. So again, mental gymnastics, but I'm
Speaker 2: sure he convinced them to do it on some level.
Speaker 2: I was not a part of that conversation, so I
Speaker 2: can't say for sure. But living in the big house
Speaker 2: was in the garage we had Pam and Ed, and
Speaker 2: then in the big house itself there was Less and Martine,
Speaker 2: their three boys. There were three girls, me Jasmine and Gretchen,
Speaker 2: and then in the basement there was another family of
Speaker 2: people who knew Less and Pam, and that was Kurt
Speaker 2: and his wife Lucy and their son Brandon, And so
Speaker 2: it was just like a little commune and then neighboring
Speaker 2: we had several other people who were a part of
Speaker 2: the group that all lived in homes within you know,
Speaker 2: to mile radius.
Speaker 1: Who did they teach that the enemy were?
Speaker 2: The enemy is a very common term in Christian circles
Speaker 2: to refer to Satan or the devil.
Speaker 3: So that was the explicit.
Speaker 2: Verbiage used around a dark spiritual enemy, the implicit youth
Speaker 2: or well, I guess, how do I explain this? The
Speaker 2: enemy was really anyone who just disagreed with the group
Speaker 2: any less, anyone who disagreed with Less, anyone who had
Speaker 2: questions about the group. But that was never flat out said,
Speaker 2: because that sounds too crazy, Like you would hear that
Speaker 2: and be like, well, you can't call my mom the enemy,
Speaker 2: but you could say the enemies attacking her working through her.
Speaker 2: You know, pray for your mom because she doesn't know that,
Speaker 2: you know, the enemy's really attacking her right now.
Speaker 1: So in scientology they call them suppressive persons.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's kind of anyone who threatens or challenges the ideology.
Speaker 1: And your parents, who were divorced by this point and
Speaker 1: are very religious themselves. I was suspicious of this whole situation.
Speaker 1: What were the early red flags for them?
Speaker 2: Well, as I said, my dad was onto it. He
Speaker 2: was onto it pretty early. I think my mom was too.
Speaker 2: I think she was more concerned just that I wasn't
Speaker 2: visiting her as much. I had moved to California and
Speaker 2: we were on the same coast again, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: visiting as much. And I really thought of that more
Speaker 2: as just natural independence from a parent at a young age.
Speaker 3: But I think my dad just saw the signs.
Speaker 2: He was hearing me talk about things like I write
Speaker 2: about in the book. This conversation my dad and I
Speaker 2: had where I was trying to explain to him how
Speaker 2: I was asking God, like what should I wear today,
Speaker 2: you know, just any little thing.
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 2: I was being really humble and open and just like
Speaker 2: I just want God, I just want you to tell
Speaker 2: me what to do in every area of my life. Ever,
Speaker 2: and my Dad's like, God gave you a brain, like
Speaker 2: you're supposed to be using your brain.
Speaker 3: This is not just you just wait and see.
Speaker 2: And so and then how can you tell that God
Speaker 2: is speaking to you? I mean, that's quite a thing
Speaker 2: to clean. Yeah, God's speaking to you, like, that's a
Speaker 2: very serious thing to clean, I think, and my dad
Speaker 2: thought so too, But at the time I didn't. I
Speaker 2: just thought it was very sort of whimsical and fun.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they caught on.
Speaker 1: In this exchange that Joy tells from the audiobook version
Speaker 1: of her memoir, she illustrates the dangerous gender ideology that
Speaker 1: the cult promoted and some of the ways that it
Speaker 1: had gotten right under her skin.
Speaker 2: Lucy interjected, Now, you're not married, but if you were,
Speaker 2: your husband would be your spiritual authority.
Speaker 4: She rubbed Kurt's leg. My chest tightened instantly. In spite
Speaker 4: of hearing this statement. My whole life in church, gender
Speaker 4: roles in American Christianity never sat right with me, or
Speaker 4: my mother, or either of my grandmother's. But in the
Speaker 4: context of this Jezebel conversation, it occurred to me that
Speaker 4: perhaps that was exactly the point. I came from a
Speaker 4: long line of independent, dominant women, and just maybe the
Speaker 4: Jezebel's spirit had already infiltrated my family my mind. Maybe
Speaker 4: that was why I could never get on board with
Speaker 4: the whole submissive wife idea. Was I being attacked by
Speaker 4: an ancient spirit of control? Was being a woman in
Speaker 4: submission the key I had been missing all along.
Speaker 1: So as you're drawing closer to the Big House family,
Speaker 1: what was going on in your career around this time?
Speaker 2: I was continuing to work as an actress in LA
Speaker 2: I was getting great jobs. I got a job on
Speaker 2: Felicity Charmed and I did a to bring it On
Speaker 2: called Bring It On Again, which my daughter.
Speaker 3: Still has yet to see.
Speaker 2: She's going to see that sometimes. Soon.
Speaker 3: I was doing theater.
Speaker 2: I got cast in Gary Marshall and Carol King's production
Speaker 2: of Happy Days the Musical. I did The Outsiders of
Speaker 2: Musical with Adam Lambert and Alison Munn who ended up
Speaker 2: being on Onntree Hill later. That was by Arthur Allen Seelman.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was really things were working. It was
Speaker 2: going really well.
Speaker 1: Tell me about One Tree Hill? How did that come about?
Speaker 2: This is one of the fun things that I wrote
Speaker 2: about in the book, is how I it originally came
Speaker 2: around and I said no, and then it came back
Speaker 2: around again, and I'd get really into detail about why
Speaker 2: I said no and what that time in my life
Speaker 2: looked like in the book. But for now, I'll just
Speaker 2: tell you that it came around. I said, no, it
Speaker 2: came back around about two weeks before they started filming
Speaker 2: the first episode, and they were going to reshoot a
Speaker 2: couple scenes from the pilot that I would be in,
Speaker 2: and I said yes, I said, okay, let's give it
Speaker 2: a try. Why not, I'll just leave it up to
Speaker 2: God and see if you want me to move to
Speaker 2: North Carolina. And when I got the job, it was
Speaker 2: within days of auditioning, probably four days. I mean, it
Speaker 2: all happened very quickly.
Speaker 1: It's funny. The tagline of your book is so brilliant
Speaker 1: life on a cult TV show while also in an
Speaker 1: actual cult. If I met you during that time when
Speaker 1: you were on One Tree Hill, if I was among
Speaker 1: the cast or crew, what would I have noticed about
Speaker 1: you that would have made me go, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: bit weird.
Speaker 2: I think it really was mostly that I talked about
Speaker 2: my family, and then the more people would ask me
Speaker 2: questions about it, they would realize, oh, this isn't your
Speaker 2: actual family. And I detail this in the book. There's
Speaker 2: you know, there would be a moment where somebody might say,
Speaker 2: so your mom's in California and your dad's in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: but you spend all your time in Idaho with your
Speaker 2: family who's not are you related to them? And the
Speaker 2: more that I would explain, well, no, it's like a
Speaker 2: spiritual family. It's like my chosen family, you know. And
Speaker 2: then I think those were kind of key moments where
Speaker 2: people were like, yeah, they do exactly what you just did, Like.
Speaker 1: Okay, like backing slowly away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: And what do you guys do together? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, was part of the Big House family and that family.
Speaker 1: Cults are about recruiting new people usually, So did you
Speaker 1: like proselytize and sort of we were evangelical and try
Speaker 1: to get people to join this family or was it
Speaker 1: very much a closed gait?
Speaker 2: I think because we had well, I think because it
Speaker 2: became the Bank of Joy, like I just funded everything.
Speaker 2: So I don't think that there was a need for
Speaker 2: recruiting in Less's mind because he was able to. It's funny,
Speaker 2: he's kind of the worst cult leader ever because he
Speaker 2: just like I don't know if he was just lazy,
Speaker 2: like he definitely was lazy. I don't know if he
Speaker 2: just didn't want to work that hard, like it's just
Speaker 2: so much work to go out and recruit people, and
Speaker 2: he was already managing the twenty four of us that
Speaker 2: were in the group. I also heard many years later,
Speaker 2: when I was speaking to the DA's office and presenting
Speaker 2: them with my financial case and everything that had gone
Speaker 2: down and money that had crossed state lines, and we
Speaker 2: were like, is the FBI need to get involved? The
Speaker 2: DA said, yeah, I don't think we can really prosecute
Speaker 2: this because it's less than seventy people, and anything less
Speaker 2: than that isn't really considered a danger to society.
Speaker 3: It's just like a little club that's gone back like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And maybe he knew that. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he knew that and tried to keep it small
Speaker 2: on purpose, or if it was just too much work
Speaker 2: and he just was happy to rest on his laurels
Speaker 2: and whatever he had around, which was us.
Speaker 1: When did he start taking money from you?
Speaker 2: Well, the first pitch was it was a low ball,
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars. You're on a TV series, that's nothing
Speaker 2: for you. We want to open up a hotel. It's
Speaker 2: going to be a ministry. We're going to bring people
Speaker 2: in and help them fall in love with God and
Speaker 2: let them know how loved they are. And we're just
Speaker 2: going to be hospitable and it'll be a place where
Speaker 2: we can have meetings and conferences and just really bless
Speaker 2: the community. And I'm thinking I would love to be
Speaker 2: a part of something that encourages the community. That sounds great.
Speaker 2: A motel isn't really my idea of that dream, but
Speaker 2: it's yours, and I care about you and I want
Speaker 2: to support you. Yes, Sure, here's the check. And I
Speaker 2: think that was the first like doorcrack open, Like how
Speaker 2: much is she willing? What is she willing to do? Oh,
Speaker 2: she'll give us money too. Oh, you know, we also
Speaker 2: really need a new we need a swamp cooler, we
Speaker 2: need to you know what else we need you know.
Speaker 2: And it's just like all the little things started to
Speaker 2: in the same way that they sort of latched on
Speaker 2: and were sucking out my life emotionally. Then they started
Speaker 2: siphoning off financially as well, once the testing proved to
Speaker 2: be fruitful.
Speaker 1: The rest of my conversation with Joy after this, did
Speaker 1: you still have friends? What about dating? Like friends? Relationships?
Speaker 1: You were engaged at one point to someone who wasn't
Speaker 1: part of the group.
Speaker 2: Yeah I was. I was definitely still wanted to date,
Speaker 2: still wanted to get I was obsessed with getting married.
Speaker 2: I just really wanted to have a partner. And I
Speaker 2: was engaged to someone after probably three months of dating
Speaker 2: and knowing each other. It was so fast, and it
Speaker 2: was a very I do write about this in the
Speaker 2: book sweet Man, But we both just really wanted to
Speaker 2: get married, really wanted to have a companion. And it
Speaker 2: didn't matter that we weren't combatible, and it didn't matter
Speaker 2: that we had only known each other for a little while,
Speaker 2: or that there were red flags from other friends of ours.
Speaker 3: We just were like, let's do it. But I had
Speaker 3: this sort.
Speaker 2: Of contingency in my mind of my family up here
Speaker 2: that I've become so tight with. These are my people,
Speaker 2: this is my tribe, This is who I want to
Speaker 2: do life with. If they disapprove of you as a
Speaker 2: spouse for me, then I probably am not going to
Speaker 2: marry you because I want them more than I want you,
Speaker 2: which in and up itself should have been a huge
Speaker 2: clue as to why not to get married to somebody? Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know again, you're so young, So yeah, I did.
Speaker 2: I did really want a date, but because I felt
Speaker 2: like I had these confines of the family and location,
Speaker 2: because the man that I had been engaged to was
Speaker 2: a local in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: How was that going to work?
Speaker 2: How was I going to build a life there when
Speaker 2: I had this family back?
Speaker 3: Idahow you did end up.
Speaker 1: Marrying Les's son, one of his sons. Was that like
Speaker 1: an arranged situation or with a spots and the developing
Speaker 1: of feelings.
Speaker 2: Natural, there were absolutely the beginning sparks of something that
Speaker 2: felt fun and playful and a friendship. I did explain
Speaker 2: to Less privately that I felt like I was having
Speaker 2: these feelings mostly just because I wanted to have them,
Speaker 2: because they were there for me to have with. I mean,
Speaker 2: I had them for like any boy that I was
Speaker 2: interacting with that was single. I was hoping that I
Speaker 2: might be able to let this part of myself out,
Speaker 2: and as a concern that I was just doing that
Speaker 2: because I felt like I was stuck with having to
Speaker 2: marry somebody within the group. And as sweet as he
Speaker 2: was and as much as I enjoyed his friendship, I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure if it was really authentically Roman. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: so I was really confused about my own emotions, of course,
Speaker 2: and then it was certainly manipulated from there, and he
Speaker 2: manipulated several relationships within the group. So I don't know
Speaker 2: what the specific definition of arranged marriage is, but in
Speaker 2: many ways I think that categorized.
Speaker 1: And also, you were you know, you committed to save
Speaker 1: your virginity for marriage, So you're a young woman, and
Speaker 1: I imagine that played a part too in terms of
Speaker 1: you wanted to have a full life experience and the
Speaker 1: marriage was the gatekeeping for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, you know when you're a
Speaker 2: young woman and you're prime and thriving, well, I would
Speaker 2: say in my prime, but you know then I felt
Speaker 2: so alive and vibranton. I really absolutely just wanted to
Speaker 2: experience the fullness of my femininity and my womanhood. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just that's that's it. In so many religious circles,
Speaker 2: that is the gait that you just I know so
Speaker 2: many people that compromised on a partner because they just
Speaker 2: wanted to because they were a r that's it.
Speaker 3: I know, you're right, it's biology.
Speaker 1: What was your honey movie life?
Speaker 2: Well, I do talk about this a lot in the book,
Speaker 2: and so I want to save a lot of that
Speaker 2: for people just to be able to experience on their own.
Speaker 2: But it did become clear that we were really not
Speaker 2: well suited for each other, and it was difficult. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of depression that set in for me
Speaker 2: upon realizing that I had made a choice that was
Speaker 2: going to take my life in a completely different direction
Speaker 2: than I wanted or planned. And of course so hard
Speaker 2: to regret any of that though, because I have my amazing,
Speaker 2: beautiful daughter who is just like the light of my life.
Speaker 2: I'd go through all of it again and again if
Speaker 2: I had to, just for her, because she's the best.
Speaker 1: As your fame started to climb around this time, you're
Speaker 1: on this cultiv show. You had a record dale because
Speaker 1: you're also an incredible singer. Were rumors starting to spread
Speaker 1: that perhaps you were in a cult and did that
Speaker 1: affect the opportunities that you were given and was it
Speaker 1: starting to impact on your career?
Speaker 3: That was the impression I was given.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm not in anybody else's office or
Speaker 2: head or conversations, but what I was hearing from managers, agents,
Speaker 2: from conversations with producers and things, it was like this
Speaker 2: subtle unfurling of information that she's involved in some kind
Speaker 2: of religious something. I don't know, maybe it's a cult,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it was enough to be off
Speaker 2: putting for people. You know, if you're casting a project,
Speaker 2: you don't want to have any extra random stuff to
Speaker 2: deal with, Like I just want you to show up
Speaker 2: to work and do your job. And as a director
Speaker 2: or producer, you think, I don't want to have to
Speaker 2: deal with somebody that's got this bizarre personal life that's
Speaker 2: a liability, Like what if they start losing their mind,
Speaker 2: what if they start doing something crazy. I don't know
Speaker 2: how to anticipate or what to expect. And I think
Speaker 2: it absolutely locked down my career into One Tree Hill
Speaker 2: as the only thing that was stable and everything else
Speaker 2: kind of went away.
Speaker 1: Were there things that like career opportunities and jobs that
Speaker 1: you were turning down? Like was the cult impacting on
Speaker 1: your choices? Like how was it showing up at work?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, Yeah. There were so many auditions that I
Speaker 2: got that I was really primed for. I was in
Speaker 2: such a good position because I was a singer, My
Speaker 2: character was singing on the show. The show was really
Speaker 2: it was like right in that sweet spot for the
Speaker 2: show when it had broken past the Middle America a
Speaker 2: secret like, oh are you watching this show? And it
Speaker 2: was really now it was trl and we're everywhere and
Speaker 2: everybody was talking about us, and I that was that's
Speaker 2: the moment. You know, you've got to capitalize career wise,
Speaker 2: when when the momentum is happening. And I just every
Speaker 2: audition I would take to the group to take a
Speaker 2: look at and let's read the script together and let's
Speaker 2: talk about if this is a story that I should
Speaker 2: be participating in, if God really wants me to, you know,
Speaker 2: tell this story, or if it's going to do damage
Speaker 2: in the world or something, you know. I mean, I
Speaker 2: remember getting the script from Mama Mia and having a
Speaker 2: phone call with the Mina character who said, oh, this
Speaker 2: is got to be a huge no, you.
Speaker 3: Can't do this.
Speaker 2: There's a dance of a pearl necklace and well, you know,
Speaker 2: because I mean, obviously you know the sexual connotation of
Speaker 2: a pearl necklace. And then there's that's the name of
Speaker 2: one of the songs that was in the show, was
Speaker 2: like the dance of the necklace, and it's just like
Speaker 2: it was just about this woman who was fornicating with
Speaker 2: all these men, and you know, you can't be a
Speaker 2: part of telling a story like that. And I mean,
Speaker 2: I watched that movie with my daughter now, it's like
Speaker 2: one of our favorites, and I just such a great
Speaker 2: I just kick myself all the time because there were
Speaker 2: so many opportunities like that that I just said no
Speaker 2: to because I didn't have the.
Speaker 1: Your poor agent and manager like, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they were just exhausted beside themselves. Yeah that
Speaker 2: was It's really rough. It's so sad, but I just
Speaker 2: didn't have the maturity to know how to. I was
Speaker 2: getting bad advice, you know, I was just getting.
Speaker 1: Bout and it was mind control, mind control.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Joy story is a complicated one, and it's one that
Speaker 1: she's taken a long time to untangle and make sense of.
Speaker 3: And there is.
Speaker 1: Still so much of it to hear because in part
Speaker 1: two of this conversation, we find out why and how
Speaker 1: Joy finally decided to leave the Big House Family cult,
Speaker 1: how she picked up the pieces of her life when
Speaker 1: she walked away, and how she's going now when it
Speaker 1: comes to trust, faith, and relationships. Here's a bit of
Speaker 1: our chat.
Speaker 2: I remember her saying, are we ready to call it
Speaker 2: a cult? And I just was shocked, and I was
Speaker 2: angry because how humiliating, how embarrassing. I'm that stupid, I'm
Speaker 2: that weak. I got into a cult.
Speaker 1: Meet me in Part two. For the rest of Joy's story,
Speaker 1: there's a link in the show notes.