under the influence of a sect for ten years, the actress confides in her ordeal

Bethany Joy Lenz, former star of the series “The Scott Brothers” tells for the first time how she managed to free herself from a cult.

The other actors noticed it but she refused to open her eyes. “Scott Brothers” star Bethany Joy Lenz, 43, explains that, at the time of the 2000s teen series, she led a double life between film sets and a small ultra-Christian group led by a pastor from Idaho who controlled his career, his life choices and his bank account, as reported this Tuesday by People magazine which was able to read a preview of his memoirs “Dinner for Vampires Life on a Cult TV Show ( While also in an Actual Cult!)” (to be released October 22).

After nearly ten years in what can be called “a cult,” the actress had to start her life from scratch, she explains. Her life was turned upside down after meeting a pastor after arriving in Los Angeles at age 20 to pursue her acting career.

Growing up in an evangelical Christian family, she says that at first she loved her Bible studies and was not suspicious of the pastor who little by little convinced her to move with other people to a “big house” in Idaho. “Everything seemed normal,” she said. “And then it changed. But when it started, I was too far along in my relationships to realize it.”

Denial

Her partners in the series “The Scott Brothers” were not fooled, remembers Bethany Joy. “I could see it in their faces,” she says of their reactions. “But I justified it by saying, ‘I can’t be part of a cult. It’s just that I have access to a relationship with God and with people in a way that everyone wants, but they don’t know how to achieve it.’

She says she finally gradually became aware but got trapped, having married another member of the sect with whom she had a daughter in 2012. “They were my only friends. I was married to this group. I had built my whole life around it. If I admitted I was wrong…everything else would fall apart.”

Now divorced, and her life rebuilt, she wants to share her experience to help other people in similar situations. “I don’t find it courageous,” about recounting the hell she went through. “I think it’s important. Living in silence in suffering, I don’t know if that would help anyone.”