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- These Are the Celebrities Known For Being Involved With NXIVM
These Are the Celebrities Known For Being Involved With NXIVM
HBO’s 2020 documentary, “The Vow,” is a true-crime project at its core, taking on the chilling scandals of the NXIVM organization. Because the group recruited wealthy women, the sex cult and pyramid scheme underlying the self-help dogma of NXIVM also intersected with celebrity culture. Yes, cofounder Keith Raniere was at the center of it all, and he had a reputation for coercing women into sex and free labor for the organization. But Raniere’s second hand was none other than Allison Mack, who’s best known for her decade-long run in “Smallville” as Chloe Sullivan.
On July 5, The New York Times reported that Mack was released early from prison, serving two years of her three-year sentence. Meanwhile, Raniere is still serving his 120-year prison sentence. But Mack certainly wasn’t the only Hollywood star tied to NXIVM. Ahead, we’ve compiled a list of celebrities with links to the infamous cult.
Allison Mack
Mack was known to be Raniere’s second-in-command. While working on “Smallville,” she became involved with Raniere’s company Jness, which was formed to “promote the furtherance and empowerment of women throughout the world,” per CNN. According to the New York Times, “Smallville” costar Kristin Kreuk first brought Mack along to a Jness meeting in 2006, around the time she met Raniere and his co-conspirators. Mack eventually became a recruiter for Raniere’s inner circle, DOS, a “sisterhood” in which women were coerced to have sex with Raniere. In fact, Mack, in a New York Times interview, claimed to have come up with the idea for branding people during the DOS initiation process.
In NXIVM’s inner circle, “masters” recruited “slaves” who could become masters when they recruited more members. Mack was arrested in April 2018. A year later, she pleaded guilty to racketeering charges relating to her role in NXIVM’s sex-trafficking case. In July 2023, Mack was released early from prison after serving two years of her three-year sentence.
Kristin Kreuk
Mack’s “Smallville” costar Kreuk, who portrayed Lana Lang, was also involved with NXIVM, though, according to her, to a lesser extent. Around the time abuse allegations surfaced, Kreuk published a statement on Twitter. She said that at age 23, she had taken the organization’s self-help courses to overcome her shyness. Kreuk asserted that she was never in the organization’s inner circle and “never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity.” Fellow actor Sarah Edmondson, a top NXIVM recruiter who became a whistleblower, backed Kreuk’s claim on Twitter. Kreuk most recently starred in the 2022 TV series “Reacher.”
Sarah Edmondson
Known for her work on “Stargate SG-1,” Canadian actor Sarah Edmondson was recruited in 2005 and left in 2017. A star recruiter who originally joined for the self-help courses, she brought over 2,000 members to the organization. Deeply involved in the organization, she even started a branch in Vancouver, per Refinery29.
Edmondson finally left NXIVM when she learned about DOS and became branded, per CBC. She became a key whistleblower regarding the cult’s dark realities, publishing details in her 2019 memoir, “Scarred.” In recent years, she’s had parts in series and TV movies, such as the role of Nora in “Salvation,” and voicing Muriel in 2022’s “Young George 2 No Dragons Allowed!”
Nicki Clyne
“Battlestar Galactica” actor Nicki Clyne married Mack in 2017. Personally recruited by Edmondson, per Vice, Clyne had been an NXIVM member for well over a decade, and it’s been said that she quit her TV gig to join Raniere, according to People. She’s considered a part of Raniere’s inner circle but has not been named as a co-conspirator. Speaking to Page Six in 2022, Clyne defended Raniere, saying, “Contrary to what most people might believe, Keith is a very joyful and kind and humorous person.”
“I miss just being able to have conversations with him about life, about philosophy, about deeper existential issues of why we’re here,” she added. “I really always valued his opinions and his thoughts on things. I just think he’s a very misunderstood person.”
Catherine Oxenberg
“Dynasty” actor Catherine Oxenberg heard about NXIVM from a friend and recommended it to her daughter, India, who was about to start her own business in 2011. Oxenberg believed that NXIVM was a leadership organization, but eventually noticed that something was off with India when she got more deeply involved with the cult. Following Raniere’s arrest in 2018, Oxenberg’s daughter left NXIVM. Later that year, Oxenberg released a book, “Captive: A Mother’s Crusade to Save Her Daughter From a Terrifying Cult.”
“First, she seemed more distant, more distracted, more serious, kind of burdened,” she said in an interview with California Live. “But it was slow and I wouldn’t see her and she would pretend that she could come and go as she pleased, but the truth is they had her on a very tight rein and they had a lot of control and the control became absolute.”
Grace Park
Known for her roles in “Battlestar Galactica” and “Hawaii Five-0,” Park has been connected to NXIVM, but not much is known about her involvement in the organization. She reportedly left the group in 2017 around the time news about DOS broke, per Vice. According to the outlet, former members said that Park and Kreuk had significant roles in the organization before they left. Park most recently starred in “A Million Little Things.”