Allison Mack initially joined the notorious cult NXIVM because she believed that co-founder Keith Raniere might help her “become a great actor again.”
In a 2017 interview with Vanessa Grigoriadis, which was unearthed on Monday in the journalist and Gabriel Sherman’s new podcast, “Infamous: Inside America’s Biggest Scandals,” she explained: “I moved to Albany (NXIVM headquarters) to fill that emptiness and find the soul of myself again, if that makes sense, as it had fizzled.”
Because I felt like a phony, I asked Keith for assistance in regaining my status as a brilliant actress.
In 1998, Raniere, 62, and Nancy Salzman, 68, formed NXIVM, a personal development organization that provided “Executive Success Programs” and a variety of approaches promising self-improvement with a focus on bringing “greater joy” to people’s lives.
Clare and Sara Bronfman, the daughters of the late benefactor and Seagrams heir Edgar Bronfman, Sr., lent their support to the group, which subsequently made headlines.
Former members alleged that they had been indoctrinated into a sick sex-slave cult in which women were compelled to have sex with Raniere and branded with his initials. This caused the company severe problems.
In 2019, Raniere was given a prison term of 120 years, which was recently upheld by an appeals court earlier this month.
Two years later, Mack, age 40, was sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to manipulating women into becoming Raniere’s sex slaves.
While speaking with Grigoriadis, the actress asserted her innocence forcefully.
Mack said that Raniere was “not the head of a harem,” adding, “I am not recruiting young, virginal women to serve as his sex slaves… It’s like ‘The Crucible’ or the McCarthy trials; allegations are being hurled and spreading like wildfire.”
Keith Raniere, co-founder of NXIVM, was given a 120-year prison sentence.
The “Honey We Shrunk Ourselves” actress disclosed to Grigoriadis, 49, that she felt pressured to leave the group by concerned friends who believed she was involved in a cult.
“I’m like, ‘Spend a few minutes conversing with me. Let me explain what we’re doing,” she said, adding that her pals would respond, “No, you’re brainwashed and ill.”
“I was literally wandering by myself and wondering, ‘Am I insane? Am I one of these nasty people you read about who commit atrocities and believe they are serving God?’ “I had several similar dialogues with myself,” she noted.
Mack chose to remain with NXIVM despite the opinions of her closest friends.
“Finally, I just sat down and reflected about my life, my relationships, and the things I had recorded in my journals over the course of the previous years. And the quality was so consistent,” she explained.
Grigoriadis also met with Raniere, who angrily denied that women had been branded with his initials and compared the practice to that of historically black fraternities.
“You might relate it to the Omega Psi fraternity, of which we had a chapter on my undergraduate campus,” he remarked. “African-American. They use an Omega as their logo. Michael Jordan’s brand also includes the Omega. They brand these items to make them very apparent and create them until they blow up. And similar items.
“A group of 10 to 15 women in the suburbs, with an average age of about 40, decide to form a small, fashionable company. If it were men, it would not be newsworthy. I believe that the fact that it involves women and that it is newsworthy reinforces a negative stereotype of women.
Salzman was sentenced to three and a half years in jail in September 2021 for her unrelenting support of Raniere and savage attacks on his critics and opponents.
The court threw the book at Clare and sentenced her to more than six years in jail, despite the fact that federal sentencing guidelines called for the heiress to receive up to 27 months in prison.
The heiress pled guilty to conspiracy, false use of identification, and credit card fraud offenses.
The NXIVM episodes of “Infamous,” produced by Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, will be released on December 29.
»Allison Mack joined NXIVM sex cult to become a great actress«