When I first received Bethany Joy Lenz’s memoir in the mail, three thoughts immediately struck me: fantastic color; beautiful headshot; *exceptional* title. I turned the bright pink book over in my hands, staring at the picture-perfect face of someone I felt like I knew, thanks to her time on the beloved teen series One Tree Hill. Then I reread the title and was gobsmacked by the realization that Lenz endured a double life for her entire tenure as Tree Hill’s Haley James Scott.
Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!) — that’s the bite-y title of Lenz’s memoir, which, for the record, I tore through in a day.
True to the title, the book covers a period of time in Lenz’s life that most of us are aware of: the nine years she spent on OTH. Only, we get to see a behind-the-scenes version of Lenz we didn’t really know existed. We meet the hopeful, if not naive, young actor who got tangled up in a “high-demand group” (also known as a cult) that she identifies in her book as the Big House Family.
It wasn’t until 2012, shortly after OTH ended, that Lenz managed to un-enmesh herself from the ultra-religious group. She spent a decade in the cult. Now she’s a decade-plus on the other side of it with one hell of a story to tell.
After making an off-the-cuff comment on the Drama Queens podcast, which she currently co-hosts alongside Sophia Bush and Robert Buckley, Lenz decided in 2023 to go public about her time as part of the “Family” and why she left the group for her daughter, Rosie, the one silver lining of her marriage with the group leader’s son, Michael Galeotti.
So, armed with journals she’d kept throughout the years, Lenz packed her decade-long double life neatly between the bright pink cover of her now-bestselling memoir. She’s 43, and in many ways, far removed from the ingenue who had more than $2 million “siphoned” from her bank by a cult. But as I find out when we sit down over Zoom to catch up, Lenz is, in some ways, the exact same as fans have always seen her: smart, funny, warm, and real.
After all, if there’s one big takeaway that Lenz’s memoir really reinforces, it’s that two things — or two lives, as it were — can be true at once.
Scary Mommy: What did the behind-the-scenes buildup to writing the book look like? Did you reach out to friends, family, your OTH costars ahead of this?
BJL: The first thing I had to do was think about how it was going to affect my daughter, and if whatever she would have to deal with around this was worth it. Either way, how many people will this help, and can it really help? Or am I just doing this because I want a book deal and I’ve always wanted to write, and so that would be cool? It’s an opportunity. Am I doing this because I want revenge in some way? Am I doing this because I want justice?
I sort of had to go through my own emotional internal inventory and wrestle with my own desires … So when I came to terms with that, and when I had some good discussions with my daughter, it seemed like this would be something that could potentially really help people and move forward from there. Then I started, as you say, reaching out to former members of the group and just trying to catalog. I went through all my old journals, and that’s really how the journey began — finding journals and talking to old friends.
SM: The group leader, Les, framed your independence as a controlled trauma response — you didn’t have control as a child, so this is your way of trying to regain control. Do you feel like the sort of therapy speak that people are so much more accustomed to now almost makes it easier for them to fall into these cult dynamics?
BJL: Language is a huge part of any high-demand group dynamic because you feel like you’re in the club. We experience it in sixth grade. We experience it with the bullies at school, or the group that you want to get in on it. They’ve all got an inside joke, or they’re using cool lingo that only they use and everybody else tries to attach on. It’s a very common social dynamic that we grew up with. Or if you’re in church, there are certain buzzwords and phrases.
It happens in self-help groups; buzzwords, phrases, things that you start to attach yourself to in language to identify as new or other or something that you want to be a part of and be associated with. I think, sociologically, we’ve seen that throughout history. I’m not a history teacher, but it seems that way, and that’s a huge part of what happens when you get involved in one of these groups.
SM: Your daughter is still young, but how do you start the process of preparing her to read between the lines for that kind of language?
BJL: As a parent, my philosophy is… OK, here’s a buzzword, right? Free-range parenting. This is a new buzzword. It’s got a lot of different assumptions around it. To me, that’s just like ‘80s parenting, where you really want your kid to be independent. You want them to be able to critically think and look at the world around them, look at their surroundings, assess, calculate, and make wise choices based on their assessments.
What I do with my daughter — and I don’t know that it’s any different whether I had been in a cult or not — I think as a philosophy in parenting, I just want her to be able to read between the lines. So we just have conversations … she’ll come home from school and talk about something that somebody said or something a teacher taught her.
She’s at a private Christian school and in the South, so I know there are going to be some things that she’s being taught that I don’t personally agree with. She comes home and we sit down. Well, so this was the interpretation of this Bible verse that was given to you, or maybe in Sunday school or whatever. What do you think about that? What are some other meanings that could have? Well, actually, let me give you some cultural context for what was going on at the time that was written. Now that you know that, what do you think that verse means?
It’s just more dialogue that you can engage your kids in, and the more that you can, instead of answering questions for them, ask them to solve it themselves. It can be as benign as cooking something. Wow, you don’t have eggs. I wonder what else we could use besides eggs. How can we find that out? Let the kid figure it out.
SM: Even in this day and age, it feels like there are so many echo chambers. I had a lot of beliefs growing up that I didn’t break out of until I left for college, simply because I didn’t hear any beliefs other than those around me. So, I like the idea of being the one who disrupts that.
BJL: Yeah, I think it’s so important. I think playing devil’s advocate is a really big deal, especially if you know your kid is being raised in an environment that’s not super gentrified. If you’re lucky enough to live in a city where there’s a lot of diversity, you probably don’t have to do as much heavy lifting there.
But if you don’t, gosh, being able to be aware enough to say, ‘You know how some other people live. Well, you know how this group of people thinks about that topic. Have you ever heard that this is how they believe about that in this country? What do you think about that? Does that make more or less sense to you and why?’ They may not have an answer, but getting them used to asking those questions, and knowing there’s no shame around asking questions and that it’s totally welcome, is what we’re supposed to be doing. I think that’s really valuable as you’re raising kids.
My parents were pretty good at that, but I wish a lot of other adults in my life had also been very actively engaged in drawing that out. I try and do it with my kids’ friends when they’re in the car.
SM: Yes, very important. Well, thinking of One Tree Hill, teen dramas will always have rumors about cast not getting along — people love to pit women against each other, especially. Now, in the context of your book, it’s very clear to see that maybe people were picking up on distance, yes, but it wasn’t even your choice. I know we can’t live in the past, but how do you think things would have looked different in regards to the relationships you formed then?
BJL: I mean, gosh, if only we could all go back to our twenties and change … There are so many things I would’ve done differently, but you can’t because you’re 20 — you just don’t have the breadth of understanding. Your brain isn’t fully developed.
I do wish that I had felt a freedom to explore and to play. And that for all of the faith that I grew up feeling, having and also being taught that the actual point of what I now understand the Christian message and gospel to be, that you are expected to make mistakes because you’re a human being and there’s no fear around making mistakes.
You can’t completely fuck up your life unless you’re trying to. And sometimes even then it won’t work. There are no guarantees in life. I wish that I had been taught that real sense of actual grace — actual space to play and be and try things and make a total fool out of yourself — and that the responsibility of saving humanity is not on my shoulders.
If I had known that, I would’ve done things much differently, I would’ve felt much more free to befriend people that felt different from me or that I was intimidated by. I would’ve felt more comfortable experiencing my emotions. And that actually has probably less to do with my faith and more to do with just being a woman growing up in this world, and being so young growing up in Hollywood and a society that [tells you] women can’t get angry. They’re not allowed to be weird or have ADHD, especially not pretty actresses. You can’t have ADHD because then you’re just labeled a bitch. You’re not actually understood as just being neurodivergent.
So, there were so many layers. If I had been able to really feel my emotions and have the freedom to do so and be just forgiven and encouraged and seen as a kid trying to find my way through life — and even see myself that way — I think things would’ve been better. But I don’t know that I even believe in the concept of better because whatever, we’re all just messing up, falling on our faces, and getting back up.
SM: Yep, figuring it out constantly! As you’ve rebuilt these relationships, do you feel like you still have trouble fully trusting people?
BJL: I do. I absolutely do … I’m a truster by nature. I want to believe the best about people. I see potential. I am an optimist about humanity. But I’ve seen too much and know too much now to walk through life thinking that everybody feels the same way that I do or has the same philosophy that I do, is trying to do the right thing or is looking out for their fellow man.
There’s integrity: Even if it’s at the cost of my pride or embarrassment or finances or whatever it is, you just do the right thing. Not everyone subscribes to that philosophy, though, and that was a really rude awakening. So now when I meet new people, it takes me a while. I watch a lot before I trust. There are friends that I have who, actually, I would consider my best friends, that I still am a little bit, “I wonder. If this goes sour… I knew it all along.” It’s hard. It’s really hard to trust.
I can’t read anybody else’s mind or know their motives for sure. But I know that I’m looked after and cared for by a loving God, and that’s where my trust is. It’s not in these people. So, I can use my wisdom and discernment as I build relationships or move through community interactions, but ultimately, they don’t hold my trust in whether I’m going to be OK or not.
SM: The way you share your story is so raw and honest and vulnerable. Hopefully it can help a lot of people, especially with where we’re at now.
BJL: Yeah, there’s so much us versus them … that’s one of the reasons why I thought this story actually might really help people right now, whether you’re secular or religious, the ideas, the top notes of gaslighting of a group, think the lack of critical thinking. It’s all there. And we’re seeing it everywhere in our society right now. Everybody wants to belong somewhere, of course. So I hope that people will think past the initial emotional connections that they have with people or groups or ideas just because they want to belong somewhere and really consider the implications of everything that they’re subscribing to.
SM: Yeah, that makes sense. OK, I know it’s very early and you can’t really say much…
BJL: Honestly, before you even ask your question, I do not know one single thing about this.
SM: Fair, I totally respect that. But in your world, where would #Naley be now?
BJL: Where would they be in 15 years? Well, man, I have no idea. I mean, I think for the sake of good storytelling … I would probably start with them split up so that they had time to find their way back to each other, because everybody always turns up for a redemption story, right?
This interview has been edited for clarity.
