Once I first obtained Bethany Pleasure Lenz’s memoir within the mail, three ideas instantly struck me: improbable colour; lovely headshot; *distinctive* title. I turned the intense pink guide over in my arms, staring on the picture-perfect face of somebody I felt like I knew, because of her time on the beloved teen sequence One Tree Hill. Then I reread the title and was gobsmacked by the conclusion that Lenz endured a double life for her whole tenure as Tree Hill’s Haley James Scott.
Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Present (Whereas Additionally in an Precise Cult!) — that’s the bite-y title of Lenz’s memoir, which, for the report, I tore via in a day.
True to the title, the guide covers a time period in Lenz’s life that the majority of us are conscious of: the 9 years she spent on OTH. Solely, we get to see a behind-the-scenes model of Lenz we didn’t actually know existed. We meet the hopeful, if not naive, younger actor who acquired snarled in a “high-demand group” (also referred to as a cult) that she identifies in her guide because the Large Home Household.
It wasn’t till 2012, shortly after OTH ended, that Lenz managed to un-enmesh herself from the ultra-religious group. She spent a decade within the cult. Now she’s a decade-plus on the opposite aspect of it with one hell of a narrative to inform.
After making an informal touch upon the Drama Queens podcast, which she presently co-hosts alongside Sophia Bush and Robert Buckley, Lenz determined in 2023 to go public about her time as a part of the “Household” and why she left the group for her daughter, Rosie, the one silver lining of her marriage with the group chief’s son, Michael Galeotti.
So, armed with journals she’d saved all through the years, Lenz packed her decade-long double life neatly between the intense pink cowl of her now-bestselling memoir. She’s 43, and in some ways, far faraway from the ingenue who had greater than $2 million “siphoned” from her financial institution by a cult. However as I discover out once we sit down over Zoom to catch up, Lenz is, in some methods, the very same as followers have at all times seen her: good, humorous, heat, and actual.
In spite of everything, if there’s one massive takeaway that Lenz’s memoir actually reinforces, it’s that two issues — or two lives, because it have been — will be true directly.
Scary Mommy: What did the behind-the-scenes buildup to writing the guide seem like? Did you attain out to pals, household, your OTH costars forward of this?
BJL: The very first thing I needed to do was take into consideration the way it was going to have an effect on my daughter, and if no matter she must take care of round this was price it. Both manner, how many individuals will this assist, and can it actually assist? Or am I simply doing this as a result of I desire a guide deal and I’ve at all times needed to put in writing, and so that will be cool? It is a possibility. Am I doing this as a result of I would like revenge in a roundabout way? Am I doing this as a result of I would like justice?
I kind of needed to undergo my very own emotional inner stock and wrestle with my very own wishes … So once I got here to phrases with that, and once I had some good discussions with my daughter, it appeared like this is able to be one thing that might doubtlessly actually assist individuals and transfer ahead from there. Then I began, as you say, reaching out to former members of the group and simply making an attempt to catalog. I went via all my outdated journals, and that is actually how the journey started — discovering journals and speaking to outdated pals.
SM: The group chief, Les, framed your independence as a managed trauma response — you didn’t have management as a baby, so that is your manner of making an attempt to regain management. Do you’re feeling just like the kind of remedy communicate that individuals are a lot extra accustomed to now nearly makes it simpler for them to fall into these cult dynamics?
BJL: Language is a big a part of any high-demand group dynamic since you really feel such as you’re within the membership. We expertise it in sixth grade. We expertise it with the bullies in school, or the group that you just need to get in on it. They’ve all acquired an inside joke, or they’re utilizing cool lingo that solely they use and everyone else tries to connect on. It is a quite common social dynamic that we grew up with. Or in case you’re in church, there are particular buzzwords and phrases.
It occurs in self-help teams; buzzwords, phrases, issues that you just begin to connect your self to in language to determine as new or different or one thing that you just need to be part of and be related to. I believe, sociologically, we have seen that all through historical past. I am not a historical past instructor, however evidently manner, and that is an enormous a part of what occurs while you become involved in certainly one of these teams.
SM: Your daughter continues to be younger, however how do you begin the method of getting ready her to learn between the strains for that type of language?
BJL: As a mother or father, my philosophy is… OK, here is a buzzword, proper? Free-range parenting. It is a new buzzword. It is acquired a variety of completely different assumptions round it. To me, that is similar to ‘80s parenting, the place you really need your child to be unbiased. You need them to have the ability to critically assume and take a look at the world round them, take a look at their environment, assess, calculate, and make sensible selections based mostly on their assessments.
What I do with my daughter — and I do not know that it is any completely different whether or not I had been in a cult or not — I believe as a philosophy in parenting, I simply need her to have the ability to learn between the strains. So we simply have conversations … she’ll come house from faculty and speak about one thing that any person mentioned or one thing a instructor taught her.
She’s at a non-public Christian faculty and within the South, so I do know there are going to be some issues that she’s being taught that I do not personally agree with. She comes house and we sit down. Properly, so this was the interpretation of this Bible verse that was given to you, or perhaps in Sunday faculty or no matter. What do you consider that? What are another meanings that might have? Properly, really, let me offer you some cultural context for what was happening on the time that was written. Now that that, what do you assume that verse means?
It is simply extra dialogue that you would be able to interact your children in, and the extra that you would be able to, as a substitute of answering questions for them, ask them to unravel it themselves. It may be as benign as cooking one thing. Wow, you do not have eggs. I’m wondering what else we might use apart from eggs. How can we discover that out? Let the child determine it out.
SM: Even these days, it seems like there are such a lot of echo chambers. I had a variety of beliefs rising up that I didn’t escape of till I left for school, just because I didn’t hear any beliefs apart from these round me. So, I like the thought of being the one who disrupts that.
BJL: Yeah, I believe it is so necessary. I believe enjoying satan’s advocate is a extremely massive deal, particularly if your child is being raised in an surroundings that is not tremendous gentrified. Should you’re fortunate sufficient to reside in a metropolis the place there’s a variety of variety, you most likely do not must do as a lot heavy lifting there.
However in case you do not, gosh, with the ability to bear in mind sufficient to say, ‘You understand how another individuals reside. Properly, you understand how this group of individuals thinks about that subject. Have you ever ever heard that that is how they imagine about that on this nation? What do you consider that? Does that make roughly sense to you and why?’ They might not have a solution, however getting them used to asking these questions, and understanding there’s no disgrace round asking questions and that it’s very welcome, is what we’re speculated to be doing. I believe that is actually beneficial as you are elevating children.
My mother and father have been fairly good at that, however I want a variety of different adults in my life had additionally been very actively engaged in drawing that out. I attempt to do it with my children’ pals after they’re within the automobile.
SM: Sure, crucial. Properly, considering of One Tree Hill, teen dramas will at all times have rumors about forged not getting alongside — individuals like to pit ladies in opposition to one another, particularly. Now, within the context of your guide, it’s very clear to see that perhaps individuals have been selecting up on distance, sure, nevertheless it wasn’t even your selection. I do know we will’t reside up to now, however how do you assume issues would have seemed completely different regarding the relationships you fashioned then?
BJL: I imply, gosh, if solely we might all return to our twenties and alter … There are such a lot of issues I might’ve completed in a different way, however you may’t since you’re 20 — you simply haven’t got the breadth of understanding. Your mind is not absolutely developed.
I do want that I had felt a freedom to discover and to play. And that for all the religion that I grew up feeling, having and likewise being taught that the precise level of what I now perceive the Christian message and gospel to be, that you’re anticipated to make errors since you’re a human being and there is no worry round making errors.
You possibly can’t utterly fuck up your life except you are making an attempt to. And typically even then it will not work. There aren’t any ensures in life. I want that I had been taught that actual sense of precise grace — precise house to play and be and check out issues and make a complete idiot out of your self — and that the duty of saving humanity is just not on my shoulders.
If I had identified that, I might’ve completed issues a lot in a different way, I might’ve felt way more free to befriend those who felt completely different from me or that I used to be intimidated by. I might’ve felt extra comfy experiencing my feelings. And that really has most likely much less to do with my religion and extra to do with simply being a girl rising up on this world, and being so younger rising up in Hollywood and a society that [tells you] ladies cannot get indignant. They are not allowed to be bizarre or have ADHD, particularly not fairly actresses. You possibly can’t have ADHD as a result of then you definately’re simply labeled a bitch. You are not really understood as simply being neurodivergent.
So, there have been so many layers. If I had been capable of actually really feel my feelings and have the liberty to take action and be simply forgiven and inspired and seen as a child looking for my manner via life — and even see myself that manner — I believe issues would’ve been higher. However I do not know that I even imagine within the idea of higher as a result of no matter, we’re all simply messing up, falling on our faces, and getting again up.
SM: Yep, figuring it out always! As you’ve rebuilt these relationships, do you’re feeling such as you nonetheless have bother absolutely trusting individuals?
BJL: I do. I completely do … I am a truster by nature. I need to imagine one of the best about individuals. I see potential. I’m an optimist about humanity. However I’ve seen an excessive amount of and know an excessive amount of now to stroll via life considering that everyone feels the identical manner that I do or has the identical philosophy that I do, is making an attempt to do the proper factor or is looking for his or her fellow man.
There’s integrity: Even when it is at the price of my delight or embarrassment or funds or no matter it’s, you simply do the proper factor. Not everybody subscribes to that philosophy, although, and that was a extremely impolite awakening. So now once I meet new individuals, it takes me some time. I watch so much earlier than I belief. There are pals that I’ve who, really, I might contemplate my finest pals, that I nonetheless am somewhat bit, “I’m wondering. If this goes bitter… I knew all of it alongside.” It is onerous. It is actually onerous to belief.
I am unable to learn anyone else’s thoughts or know their motives for positive. However I do know that I am sorted and cared for by a loving God, and that is the place my belief is. It isn’t in these individuals. So, I can use my knowledge and discernment as I construct relationships or transfer via neighborhood interactions, however in the end, they do not maintain my belief in whether or not I will be OK or not.
SM: The best way you share your story is so uncooked and sincere and weak. Hopefully it may assist lots of people, particularly with the place we’re at now.
BJL: Yeah, there’s a lot us versus them … that is one of many explanation why I believed this story really would possibly actually assist individuals proper now, whether or not you are secular or spiritual, the concepts, the highest notes of gaslighting of a bunch, assume the dearth of important considering. It is all there. And we’re seeing it in every single place in our society proper now. All people desires to belong someplace, after all. So I hope that individuals will assume previous the preliminary emotional connections that they’ve with individuals or teams or concepts simply because they need to belong someplace and actually contemplate the implications of all the pieces that they are subscribing to.
SM: Yeah, that is sensible. OK, I do know it’s extremely early and you may’t actually say a lot…
BJL: Actually, earlier than you even ask your query, I have no idea one single factor about this.
SM: Truthful, I completely respect that. However in your world, the place would #Naley be now?
BJL: The place would they be in 15 years? Properly, man, I don’t know. I imply, I believe for the sake of excellent storytelling … I might most likely begin with them cut up up in order that that they had time to search out their manner again to one another, as a result of everyone at all times turns up for a redemption story, proper?
This interview has been edited for readability.
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