Actress Bethany Joy Lenz became a household name when she starred as Haley James in the hit "One Tree Hill."
While on the show, Lenz kept a secret: She was a part of a small ultra-Christian cult. Lenz is now opening up about that decade-long experience in a new memoir called "Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)."
The actress explained to KTLA 5's Dayna Devon that she got pulled into the cult because she was "very young" and "was longing for community."
"That was sort of my blind spot," she continued. "So I got involved in a very innocuous Bible study that a pastor came in from another state and kind of took over and transformed it within a few years. It's a slow burn. It takes a long time to coerce someone in a meaningful way."
Lenz touched on narcissistic abuse and how it can "look like a lot of different things."
"It doesn't necessarily have to be a religious environment. This happens in toxic workplaces. It happens in an individual relationship between two people. It happens in family dynamic," she explained. "The top notes for narcissistic behavior are the same, and the way that it affects the people who are coerced by it is also the same."
She explained that she kept this part of her life a secret, but some figured it out.
"At some point when you're talking to someone and they're looking at you, going, 'Okay, so your mom lives in California, and your dad's in New Jersey, but you spend all your time in the Pacific Northwest with a group of people you call your family, but you're not related to' and you're going, 'You think this is weird, don't you? Well, it's not weird. You're just not as spiritual.'"
Some straight-up asked if she was in a cult, but she denied it because he didn't feel like she was.
When Lenz decided to finally leave the cult, she called it "one of the hardest things."
"You're really wrapped up in some kind of narcissistic abuse, you feel like you don't have anybody else except your abuser. That was one of the hardest things, to leave and feel like I don't know if there's going to be anybody waiting for me on the other side when I do walk away," she said.
She also noted that the group "started to dismantle" and others were "coming to their own realizations at the same time."
Lenz said motherhood had essentially saved her.
"Becoming a mother, I think, getting in touch with my gut instinct in a way that I had abdicated a lot of my agency and authority to other people telling me how to live. But when you're a mom, nobody else can tell you what your kid needs. You have this sixth sense, and that awakened a part of me that I was suddenly in touch with my gut again and starting to look around at other things in my life and go, 'Maybe it's not all me. Maybe I'm not the complete problem. Maybe there are other things involved here, right?'"
During those 10 years, Lenz maintained her relationship with her mother but was estranged from her father for six of those years.
"There was a lot of isolation and even though I was in a relationship with my mother during that time, I still pushed her away because you can't trust anyone other than the people that your abuser tells you you can trust," she continued.
Lenz successfully made it out to the other side and her loved ones welcomed her back with open arms.
"That was the biggest surprise, the grace that was displayed by the other people in my life who I had pushed away like they were able to see past their hurt feelings and see past the time that it felt like I wasn't calling or wasn't trusting them or whatever, and just be there with open arms and say, 'We all make mistakes. We all get caught up in things based on different blind spots that we have in life, and let's continue being friends.'"
"Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)" is available wherever books are sold.