00s TV actress reveals moment co-star confronted her about being in a cult-Ruth Lawes-Entertainment – Metro

A One Tree Hill star was trapped in a cult for a decade (Picture: Warner Br/Everett/Shutterstock)

A 00s TV star has spoken about being confronted ‘point black’ by a co-star who realised she was in a cult.

While starring as Haley in One Tree Hill, Bethany Joy Lenz, 43, led a double life in a small ultra-Christian group led by a corrupt pastor in Idaho.

The cult’s leader controlled her career, life choices and her bank account – which her co-stars, among them Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray, were aware of.

‘I could see it on their faces,’ Bethany told People. ‘But I’d justify it, like, “I couldn’t possibly be in a cult. It’s just that I’ve got access to a relationship with God and people in a way that everybody else wants, but they don’t know how to get it.”‘

The Dexter actress said during filming Craig Sheffer, who played Keith in One Tree Hill for three seasons before he was killed off, warned her she was in a cult.

Bethany said she told him: ‘I was like, “No, no, no. Cults are weird. Cults are people in robes chanting crazy things and drinking Kool-Aid. That’s not what we do”.’

Bethany was in the cult while starring as Haley in One Tree Hill (Picture: Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection)

She said the cult began to control every aspect of her life (Picture: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Craig told Bethany while filming One Tree Hill that she was in a cult (Picture: Bobby Bank/Getty Images)

Bethany said she wanted to leave the cult in 2012 which she first joined aged 20 via a bible study group in LA.

On her exit, she said: ‘The stakes were so high. They were my only friends. I was married into this group. I had built my entire life around it. If I admitted that I was wrong … everything else would come crumbling down.’

Bethany has now written her experience of being in a cult in memoir Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!) released on October 22.

Last year, fellow 00s TV star Allison Mack was released from prison after serving two years of a three year prison sentence.

Bethany starred in One Tree Hill for nearly a decade (Picture: Channel 4/The CW)

The Smallville star was jailed for her role in a sex-trafficking case tied to NXIVM, a cult-like group. She had pleaded guilty to manipulating women into becoming sex slaves for Keith Raniere, NXIVM’s leader.

Days before her sentencing, the star issued an apology to her victims.

‘It is now of paramount importance for me to say, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry,’ Mack wrote in her letter to the judge days after she handed prosecutors a tape of Raniere discussing a branding ritual.

‘I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had. I believed, whole-heartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself.’

Bethany hosts a podcast along with Hilarie and Sophia (Picture: Ramona Diaconescu/CBS via Getty Images)

Mack added in the letter obtained by E! News: ‘I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life.’

Set in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina, One Tree Hill initially followed the lives of two half-brothers, Lucas (Chad) and Nathan Scott (James Lafferty), who compete for positions on their school’s basketball team and their romantic entanglements.

Bethany starred in One Tree Hill for its entire nine season run from 2003 until 2012.

She then went on to star in TV shows including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dexter, Agents of SHIELD, and Grey’s Anatomy.

Since 2021 she has also been a co-host of the Drama Queens podcast along with her former One Tree Hill co-stars, Sophia and Hilarie Burton Morgan.

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