Bethany Joy Lenz says she spent a decade in a cult.
The “One Tree Hill” star made the revelation on the July 10 episode of her “Drama Queens” podcast with former co-stars Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton, while noting she has been writing about her life.
“I would love to write about my experience,” she said. “I was in a cult for 10 years. That would be a really valuable experience to write about, and the recovery — 10 years of recovery after that. So there’s a lot to tell.”
Lenz did not elaborate on any specifics regarding the cult, but did say she feels weighed down by being accurate in how she tells the story, noting “the pressure of getting it right and everything having to be exactly real and all the people that are involved.”
Lenz also said she’s concerned about what she can and cannot reveal.
“Also, I don’t know how much I can say because there are still people and legal things in place that make it more complicated for the timing of that,” she said. “But I do write. I mean, I write all the time.”
“There’s some things in the works. There’s some projects coming out,” she added, while noting she also writes songs.
In 2021, Lenz chided the Mosaic church in Los Angeles in an Instagram post, calling out pastor Erwin McManus.
“I went to Mosaic on and off for 2 years,” Lenz wrote, in part. “The level of control displayed, particularly by McManus was deeply characteristic to me of a high-demand group and was disturbing to me and to many other people who have left Mosaic for that very reason.”
Later in the caption, she wrote: “The hierarchy in this ‘church,’ the level of abuse that I’ve consistently heard goes on behind the scenes and how everything centers around the Leader is textbook 101 of cults."