Bethany Joy Lenz. Robby Klein/Getty Images for American Heart Association
One Tree Hill fans and cast members alike may be surprised when they read Bethany Joy Lenz’s new book, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!).
“When I left [the cult], there was still so much of a haze. There was so much confusion. I didn’t know how to even speak about it in a way that was clear and chronological,” the 43-year-old actress told Us Weekly in an exclusive interview about her decade in a cult, which is explored in her memoir. “It was just a mess. The biggest bombshell that I could explain was the money. And that was the thing that sort of cues [most people] in like, ‘Oh, this isn’t just a Bible study that’s too zealous.’”
Lenz lost more than $2 million to The Big House Family, the group she belonged to during the entire nine-season run of One Tree Hill, which aired on The WB (and later The CW) from 2003 to 2012.
“It took this long to write it all out,” Lenz continued. “Paul [Johansson] is gonna be doing our talk back in Raleigh at the book signing, so I know he’s reading it right now. I’m sure he’ll be surprised by a lot of it. None of them really know what happened.”
Lenz noted that it’s “terrifying” for her to know that her story is now out in the world.
“It’s really nerve-wracking. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited. Excited is not quite the right word,” she told Us. “But I am really proud of my work. I am really, really grateful for the opportunity to take something bad and turn it into something good. I think there’s a lot of people out there who have encountered narcissistic abuse and spiritual abuse and have been brought into situations like that and don’t really know how to make heads or tails of it. And so I just wanted to raise my hand and be like, ‘Hey, I’m on the journey with you too. You’re not alone. You’re not a freak. You’re not crazy. It can happen to the best of us.’ I’m really hoping that I can do some good.”
Dinner for Vampires is available now. Keep reading for more from Lenz, including some of the biggest takeaways from her book:
How It Started
Lenz was 20 years old when she was introduced to a Bible study group by a fellow actress in Los Angeles. The head members were musicians who had been Seventh-day Adventists “but grew disaffected with the church a couple years earlier and left,” Lenz wrote. With the exception of an excessive amount of hugging, Lenz felt like she was at a normal Bible study until she met the leader of the group, Les. (She changed people’s names for the book).
“Les put his hand on my shoulder and it felt comforting. ‘You don’t need to do anything to earn your place here. Not with God and not with us,’” she wrote of Les calling her out for feeling like she’s “second best” in her own life. “I broke. The sharp exhales and gasps of a choking sob overtook my body. … A colossal wave of relief hit. They saw me need … and still loved me.”
Isolated from Her Family
Lenz was raised Christian by her parents, who got divorced during her childhood. As she got closer to the Bible study group, she began asking God for “guidance on everything,” including what to wear in the morning. When she informed her dad, he had concerns. Lenz subsequently went to Les, which marked the beginning of him encouraging her to isolate from her family.
She wrote, “[Les told me], ‘Some people just don’t have spiritual ears to hear. … Especially people stuck in a certain religious routine with God. It’s hard to see people you love resist the movements of the Holy Spirit. I’m proud of you, baby girl. It takes a lot of courage at your age to stick to your guns. … And we just get to pray for your dad.’”
During her first trip to Idaho (where the group was based) for Christmas, Lenz heard Les use the term “bio-family” for the first time: “'[God’s] brought us together for a purpose. We’re on this ship, and we commit to never letting each other go. And that’s gonna ruffle some feathers’ — he laughed — ’cause it’s not the way the world does it! But we’re not here to please man. We’re here to please God.’”
She also noted that Camille, her friend in the group, wasn’t invited for the holidays. Looking back, she thinks it is because Camille was too close to her actual family.
“Les sensed Camille was not someone with the vulnerabilities he needed in a victim. Her family was intact, she had a strong base of love and support in her life outside of the group, and even with all her supernatural experiences, faith was something she approached more with logic than emotion,” she wrote.
Bethany Joy Lenz. Emily Assiran/Getty Images for That’s 4 Entertainment
The Cough Medicine
During that same visit, Lenz felt sick and was offered cough medicine by a member named “Kurt” and slept for 36 hours. Years later, when she was out of the cult, she heard a story from a group member’s foster daughter named “Alice” that reminded her of the medicine.
“She’d passed out for an unknown number of hours. She only remembered waking up naked in a bathtub with Kurt over her. All I could think about was that red bottle of hydrocodone on my first visit to the Big House and how I had been knocked out for more than 24 hours,” she wrote, noting that she is “pretty confident” that Kurt hadn’t assaulted her as she was sharing a room with two other members. She wrote that after Alice confided in Les, he sent her back to live with Kurt and Lucy as “it was decided that Kurt had a repentant heart.”
Isolated From ‘OTH’ Cast
In the book, Lenz detailed getting her role as Haley James on One Tree Hill, writing about how well her chemistry test with Chad Michael Murray (who played Lucas Scott) went and her first impressions of James Lafferty (Nathan Scott), Hilarie Burton Morgan (Peyton Sawyer), Sophia Bush (Brooke Davis) and more. She was complimentary of her costars, but Lenz reflected on how her role in The Big House Family prevented her from really connecting with them.
“I wanted to join in with the cast and crew in all their bonding adventures, but I was afraid of being what Les had called ‘double-minded,’” she wrote. “How could I bond with them and keep my deepest inner self a secret? I’d be lying to everyone just to get a false feeling of belonging. I feared my lifelong desire for approval would take over and I’d lose all the spiritual ground I’d gained.”
Following advice from Les, Lenz opted to live by herself by the beach instead of near her costars in the city of Wilmington. Lenz recalled Tyler Hilton, who joined the show during season 2 as Chris Keller, once coming out and asking her if she was in a cult after his publicist heard rumors.
Johansson also raised his eyebrows when he met Les and a member named “Pam,” who Johansson described as “very intentional with what she does and doesn’t say” and like “an actor who was well rehearsed.”
During her interview with Us, Lenz said that she is making up for lost time with her castmates by attending the fan conventions. “I just want to soak in Wilmington and be here and do anything I missed,” she said. “I’ll show up this time.”
Lenz wrote specifically about regrets she had regarding her friendship with Bush.
“Frequently favored and constantly underestimated in life because of her beauty, Sophia worked obsessively at proving her value, a character trait that made her perfect to play Brooke Davis but clashed with my own insecurities and militant beliefs about how one should go about proving their value. I missed the irony that I was doing exactly the same thing, only I was using religion as my benchmark,” she wrote. “My budding friendship with sweet Sophia became a casualty of this and, instead of sitting shiva for my ego, I really f—ing wish I could turn back time, walk into her trailer, and give her a long, hard hug.”
Giving Up Roles
In the book, Lenz wrote about her dream of playing Belle on Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. When she got the offer, however, Les convinced her that moving to New York would have a negative impact on her spiritual journey.
“You can’t out-give God,’ Les said. … ‘He’s the giver of all good things. So, if you make this sacrifice for Him, He’s just gonna turn it around and give you something bigger and better,’” she recalled.
The Meetings
Lenz wrote about several “meetings” called by Les to discuss any of her actions that he didn’t agree with. One example was when Lenz decided to move from the beach in Wilmington without asking for advice from the group. During that meeting, Les asked Lenz to read from her journal — and scolded her for her entry in her own diary being solely about herself.
He told her that she had been asking “illegal questions” as she questioned whether she “belongs in the family” as she balanced life in Wilmington and Idaho. “[Les told me], ‘I would just say that perhaps the reason you’re feeling more distant from your Family here at home is that you’re filling up your thought life with yourself, rather than with God and others.’”
During her interview with Us, Lenz detailed her lowest moment in the group — she collapsed on the bathroom floor after an entire day sobbing in her Wilmington apartment.
“I felt trapped in my own mind,” she told Us of “brainwashing” herself to suppress any doubts about the group. “‘Oh my God, my life is a disaster,’” she recalled thinking.
The Marriage
After a whirlwind romance with a man she met during season 1 of OTH ended because Les deemed him unfit for Lenz, she felt left out as the only single member of the group at 23 years old. In fall 2004, she convinced herself she had feelings for one of Les’ sons, whom she refers to as “Quiet Boy” a.k.a. “QB” in the book. He proposed shortly after they started dating when Les caught them making out. They were set to wed eight weeks later.
“I was depressed the entire time,” she wrote. “We had called my mother from the car the afternoon of the proposal, and I did my best to sound excited. So did she, but neither of us managed to be all that convincing. My dad’s reaction wasn’t any better, and he tried multiple times over the following weeks to attempt to convince me to abandon this arrangement.”
When Lenz tried to back out of the wedding, Les and Pam reminded her about giving up Belle. “[Pam told me], ’If you had taken that role, you never would have fallen in love and you wouldn’t be getting married!’ But I hadn’t fallen in love,” she wrote. “I just needed enough faith to believe that God would make it good.”
Of her New Year’s Eve wedding, which was attended by her mother but none of her costars or father, Lenz wrote: “I felt absolutely nothing.” When the twosome had sex for the first time on their honeymoon (Lenz saved herself for marriage), she felt even worse. ”I was angry with him for suddenly showing no interest in me besides my body, and he was angry that everything he’d been promised about wives being a personal blow-up doll was false,” she wrote. (Les later counseled the pair and put them on a “sex schedule.”)
Lenz’s relationship with QB turned toxic quickly, with her spouse attempting to control her ex by monitoring her clothes, career and relationships. “On set, he managed his fear by smiling and feigning sweetness and docility. Later at home, he’d wax on about what frauds they all were,” she wrote. Lenz also recalled getting dropped by her music label because of QB’s involvement. He eventually moved back to Idaho as she stayed in Wilmington to film the remaining seasons of OTH.
The Money
Lenz’s OTH salary was of use to the leader, who encouraged her to invest in a “piece of s—” motel and later a money pit restaurant.
Of the motel, she wrote, “Old carpet. Bad fluorescent lighting. The fact that it was so close to the highway meant never-dissipating smog and a just as constant stream of shady drifters loitering in the parking lot. The Big House wasn’t in much better shape. When I walked in, I noticed several piles of dried cat s—t in the formal dining room. Maybe it was vomit.”
She estimates the group (including a member who confessed to gambling some of the funds) took more than $2 million from her. “They have to live with it,” she told Us of how she copes with the financial blow. “It’s horrendous [but] I can make more money, [which is] an extreme privilege. Most people who are removing themselves from an abusive situation do not have that luxury.”
Getting Out
Lenz gave birth to daughter Rosie in 2012. “I thought the lack of constant external conflict meant QB and I were doing well enough to try to have a baby,” she wrote. “It was pure delusion. I had never been less healthy and happy or further from God. It was hell.”
Around the same time, the tempers of the male members, including her ex, worsened. “My husband’s father had encouraged his three sons from a young age to take out their aggression against women on the drywall and furniture,” she wrote.
After OTH wrapped in 2012, Lenz was given permission to go to L.A., which she now believes is because Les needed her to make money. She began going to therapy outside of the Big House Family and started to see the light. When she found the strength to leave, a three-year and $360,000 court battle followed before she was granted custody of her daughter with visitation rights for her ex. “If I had to go through that 10 more times in my life in order to have her,” Lenz told Us of her daughter, “I would do it because she’s worth it and she belongs here.”
Lenz concluded to Us that spiritual abuse was the worst thing she experienced: “When you screw with someone’s ability to trust God — to trust that there’s a greater force out there that loves you and can contain you and hold you — then you’re left flailing in your humanity.”
Years later, Lenz recalled seeing Camille at a party with Katharine McPhee. When Camille asked if anything was new, Lenz replied that she wasn’t in a cult anymore.
“Camille gasped and choked on her champagne, then threw her arms around me in a real hug. It felt great to be honest. Kat was bewildered. She put her hand on my arm. ‘Wait, you were in a cult?’” Lenz wrote. ‘”Yeah,’ I said. ‘Bible study went sideways.’ Camille laughed. ‘Sure did,’ she said.”
