Bethany Joy Lenz is an actress, Singer, and philanthropist. For three decades, she has radiated as an embodiment of vulnerability and steely resilience. She ultimately began her career in Hollywood in 1998. Finding her calling in the limelight early, Lenz charged down a path to stardom paved with the melodies of her own making, etching her name in the halls of the entertainment industry.
Starting as a child, Bethany’s taste for music bore overwhelming significance to the carpenter’s church; being a Christian by birth, her connection to this aspect of religion paved the way for the rise of her musical career and the onset of the darkest stage of her life.
Aside from her illustrious career riddled with awards and glam. Bethany counts her daughter’s presence as one of her biggest achievements, as it had anchored her in a role ever more profound than any she had portrayed.
Bethany’s growth was paralleled by a career that soared on the wings of her character, Haley James Scott, through the nine seasons of “One Tree Hill.”
Interestingly, the content of this character had shared various pages of the life of Bethany Lenz, being that both Hayley and she were musically inclined and were saved from soul-crushing realities by childbirth, with her real self escaping the tendrils of occult activities while the latter, depression.
It is almost like a more subtitled action version of Bojack Horseman, S4-5, where Bojack stars in a movie that parasites on the events of his life.
Lenz’s career has remained a multifaceted endeavor. Still, it also bears the unique mark of a grim entanglement with an organization that, under the guise of spirituality, possessed the machinations of a cult. This chapter imprinted upon her an understanding and a reservoir of strength that would enforce her artistry and advocacy in unspoken ways.
As the next act of Bethany Joy Lenz’s life remains behind closed doors, one is left to imagine: what narratives, what song yet to be composed, does the future hold for this artist whose life, as rich and complex as her performances, remains in motion?
Controversy: Dark Side of Bethany Lenz
Bethany Joy Lenz has a story to tell! She confessed that she was in a cult called The Mosaic Chruch for ten years!!!
While she still plans to write a book about her decades of indulgence in a cult, this fraction of her story perhaps bears the weight of her biography, almost a cutting-edge blockbuster, severed into ten parts harboring enough redefining harrowing moments.
In an interview with Variety, Bethany Lenz opened up about the dark side of her career, which coincided with the production of One Hill Tree. At the same time, she leaves out the actual activities of the cult, opening up on the psychologically draining aspect of the aftermath; Lenz takes us through an eerie sight, recalling that it was her devotion to Christendom that threaded her down this dark path.
Lenz says that this 10-year journey started after joining a bible study group in Los Angeles; she moved to a new city where she began accommodating such gatherings. It was a Wednesday, and to her, it was only a familiar Christian gathering; little did she know that such a society would contain a depth never explored by her before.
“I moved to a new state, moved to a new city, and I went to another Wednesday night Bible study, and that’s all it was to me,” she said. Since Bethany had grown up in a “Christian home,” this kind of fellowship was familiar. But, “the friendships seemed deeper, more vulnerable somehow.”
Comparing the leader of this group to a sociopath and Keith Raniere, the leader of NXIVM, a society that claims to promote personal development and well-being through a range of programs and workshops. However, it was the subject of controversy and legal issues panning from allegations of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and other criminal activity.
Lenz also told Variety that the cast and crew of One Tree Hill were aware of her indulgence in cult activities. Still, though she acknowledged their attempt to save her, such at the time did not dissuade her from continuing in the cult; she was headstrong, she was unmoved, and she was fully committed. She said:
“Oh, yeah. It was open with them — it was the whisper behind the scenes, like ‘You know, she’s in a cult.'”…. “For a while, they were all trying to save me and rescue me, which is lovely and so amazing to be cared about in that way. But I was very stubborn.”
As it is customary for every cult headed by unrealistic dogmas and ideologies to manipulate its members, this one wasn’t any different; its activities, so far Lenz had pointed, created a sense of isolation and distrust; it had inhibited a wall around its members, psychologically honing them to detach from the outside world.
She said that while creating a high-soaring career and a life of glam, she had been battling a secret life.
“I mean, it was like a secret life. I’m on this TV show. I’m living this glamorous, celebrity life — as people see it — and I have a total secret life going on. It was so painful,”
She said that what generally had helped her leave the cult was motherhood and that the spatial separation of onset shooting had also contributed.
“I think that spatial separation made a big difference when it was time for me to wake up…It’s been a very hard lesson, and it put me in a place where I really stopped trusting a lot of people,” “I’m sure it affected my work. I’m sure I had strange tendencies. I have overreactions to not trusting people in scenarios that are trivial.”
She finally added that it took ten years for her to recover
“It took 10 years so far of unwinding and following the guideposts that I see and studying, researching, being thoughtful,” she said. “I feel so much more free now, so much happier, so much more authentic in my life.”
Paving the way for many women whose lives have been negatively impacted by cult activities in the industry, Lenz has stood as a beacon of hope, aspiration, and strength