A closer look at the relationship between Hollywood and cults, exposing a few famous figures and those merely linked to the disturbing organizations.
Michelle Pfeiffer at Paramount+'s"The Madison" New York Premiere held at Jazz at Lincoln Center on March 09, 2026 in New York, New York. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission.
, a cult is simply defined as a small group run by a self-appointed leader who controls its members in rather disturbing ways. These ways can range from taking drugs to drastic forms of showing devotion to the cult. For centuries, people have created and been a part of cults — including some of your favorite celebrities.
There are a lot more cults than people want to acknowledge, with people thinking there are only a few out there, like thewith some explaining how they had to go to great lengths to escape the cult and how others were in them until they were in their 20s. Along with that, there have been plenty of celebrities merely linked to cults but managed to avoid becoming too deeply immersed.member, it seems cults and Hollywood go together more than people may have originally thought.
So whether they were born into these cults or were linked to past members, we have it all here.in 2026 that she became involved in a cult that triggered a psychotic episode. She met an “energy healer” on the set ofalum Christa B. Allen revealed in Aug 2025 that she was in a relationship with a cult leader, and has gotten away from them.
Allen wrote onto Chappell Roan’s “The Subway:” “How it feels rebuilding your life after being in love with a charismatic wealthy cult leader who burned it to the ground. ” “So I’ve sat with the hardest questions: why did I trust him? Why did I hand over my power? Why did I silence my own inner knowing?
” she added.
“The truth is, he was selling fairytales and from luxurious penthouses and private jets, I foolishly bought in. ” She added, “What I learned is that even if you spend every waking moment with someone— studying, eating, traveling, working, building, dreaming— you still may not KNOW them. Especially when you’re dealing with someone who lies as easily as they breathe. That realization shattered me, but it also forced me to rebuild from the ground up.
And fire is also cleansing. ”Kyoko Chan Cox, daughter of Yoko Ono, revealed in May 2025 that her father Anthony Cox, who was Ono’s second husband, kidnapped her during their custody battle. He then raised her in Iowa.
Then, Cox and his new wife Melinda Kendall took Kyoko to Spain to enroll her in a meditation preschool in Majorca. They moved around some more after the judge ruled in favor of Cox having custody, until they landed in the arms of The Living Word Fellowship, a cult that was dismembered in 2018 due to sexual misconduct allegations.
“Today, as an adult, the biggest irony to me is we left a cult, in a way, when we left the Beatles and John and Yoko. People are fanatical on the level of being cult members,” explained Kyoko.alum Bethany Joy Lenz first revealed that she was in a cult for 10 years in a July 2023 podcast before opening up about it more the following month in an She revealed that what started as a Hollywood-based Bible study group progressed to something much more sinister during her time on “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,” she told the outlet.
“It was so painful. ”She identified the name of the group as a church covenant called The Big Family House and revealed that the book will recount her move to the group’s Pacific Northwest compound and her experiences with a “domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons” and, she alleges, “steadily drained millions of her TV income,” per Lenz confirmed that her ex-husband, Michael Galeotti, was a fellow member.
The couple married in 2005 and, in 2011, welcomed a daughter, Rosie. The following year is when she decided to leave. ,” she said.
“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.
”Javaughn Young-White filed for full custody of daughter Adeya, who was born in a 2019 home birth which Young-White claims was orchestrated by “what I would describe as a cult. ” He claimed that the leader of the alleged cult has “numerous accusations of committing sexual assault” against women and young girls. He also alleged that his daughter is often left to sleep in a bed with and by bathed by “random” members of the cult.
He further claimed that the leader, a woman Kehlani allegedly calls the “Messiah” has taken baths with his daughter while under the influence of drugs.article. The article revealed details about Full Circle, a California-based group Keegan helped form in an abandoned church in Venice.
“ was kind of looking back, was insane. I was putting down thousands of, tens of thousands of dollars, and we opened it up, and we spent three years and we did build an amazing friend group,” he added.
“We really just got together, and we did a Sunday thing and did almost a thousand events in three years and it was actually really hard, and it was really beneficial to a lot of people. ”A theory that Miley Cyrus was a member of alleged cult Modern Mystery School originated on social media in August 2023.
Surfacing first on Twitter after Cyrus was repeatedly pictured with alleged members of the group, the claim became popular among fans Modern Mystery School describes itself as an organization that “trains and certifies healing practitioners and teachers in the tradition of the lineage of King Salomon. ”claimed that members of the group spend upwards $20,000 to reach the group’s upper ranks.
Former students described the group as a “cult” and a “spiritual pyriamid scheme” and alleged that they experienced “financial and sexual exploitation” in the group. As a young actress in Hollywood, Michelle Pfeiffer was previously linked to breatharianism, a cult who believe the only source of nourishment should be sunlight. , “They were very controlling. I wasn’t living with them but I was there a lot and they were always telling me I needed to come more.
I had to pay for all the time I was there, so it was financially very draining. They believed that people in their highest state were breatharian. ” Pfeiffer revealed that then-husband Peter Horton, to whom she was married from 1981 until 1988, “saved” her from the group by opening her eyes to the dangers of the group.
Winona Ryder looks back fondly on her time in a California commune known as the Rainbow Commune, which she lived in with her parents for several years as a child.
“The place we lived at was 380 acres of redwoods. It was beautiful,” sheWhile she’s never spoken publicly about it, multiple sources linked Shirley MacLaine to NXIVM, claiming she attended workshops hosted by the group,alum Keira Maguire was also born into a cult: a polygamist cult called The Seaside Sect that was founded by her father.
“I didn’t know who my mum was until I was five. It sounds strange, but it just is what it is. I didn’t even have birthdays,” sheafter the story broke.
“I think I had my first birthday when I was seven. For other people, it might be really sad. But it’s not, because it’s my story. ” Actress Patricia Arquette was partially raised in a Virginia commune called Skymont Subud along with her siblings.
“They started it with a bunch of their friends, and they wanted to kind of build this utopian society,”in 2011. “David was born there. ” She said the commune had no electricity or bathrooms, and, “I don’t think there was running water.
” Arquette claimed she and her siblings were victims of physical abuse at the hands of their parents throughout their childhood. calling it “a way of worshipping God in any way you feel, but it wasn’t a cult thing at all. ” She did, however, acknowledge that having “a lot of dysfunctional human beings … in one compact place” may have resulted in some abuse by “some yucky adults.
”Scream actor David Arquette was born during the Arquette family’s time living on the Subud commune but he has never spoken about it in depth. Kylie Jenner fans briefly speculated that she and her teen friend group were getting involved in a cult-like group when she and celebrity friends like Jaden and Willow Smith began posting photos of themselves with orgonite crystals back in 2014.
, the controversial so-called “healing” crystals that the teens were photographed with have ties to a “secret” group called “A Secret Society Of Individuals Who Create And Place Orgonite To Balance Gaia’s Energies,” or “The Orgonite Society. ” However, there is no actual evidence that Jenner is linked to the group.
Jaden Smith, who was dating Kylie Jenner at the time that she was taking interest in orgonite crystals, was also seen shopping and even making his own crystals alongside sister Willow. Like her brother, Willow Smith was also the subject of a fan theory that she was linked to the “The Orgonite Society.
” The theory was heightened when she posted a photo of herself reading a book by “Osho,” another name for the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh of Rajneeshpuram whose controversial cult was explored in Netflix’s alum Megan Marx revealed in 2017 that she was brought up in a religious group that banned drinking and watching television, but she stands firm that it wasn’t exactly a cult. She, “I don’t like to call it a sect or a cult, although many people would regard it as such.
Its main purpose was to save individuals from hell — a perspective obviously I disagree with now. ”So Neil Young was never in a cult, but he was definitely linked to the Manson Family. He spent quite a bit of time with the leader Charles Manson and even wrote a song about him, per“We just hung out,” Young said of Manson, according to a 2013 biography.
“I think I met him maybe two, three times. ” “He was an angry man. But Brilliant. Wrong, but stone-brilliant.
He sounds like Dylan when he talks,” Young added.
“He seemed a little uptight, a little too intense. Frustrated artist. Spent a lot of time in jail. ”Joaquin Phoenix, along with his siblings River, Rain, Liberty, and Summer, were raised in Children of God, which is a group with an extensive history of making members give up their money and contact with the outside world.
, Phoenix revealed his parents left soon after he was born, saying, “I think my parents thought they’d found a community that shared their ideals. Cults rarely advertise themselves as such. It’s usually someone saying, ‘We’re like-minded people. This is a community,’ but I think the moment my parents realised there was something more to it, they got out.
”, she detailed how she started to separate herself from it when she was nine and saw how the women were treated.
“I remember watching how the men were with the women, and at a very early age I decided I did not want to be like those women. They were basically there to serve the men sexually—you were allowed to have more than one wife,” she said.
“My dad and I escaped with my dad’s other wife in the middle of the night,” she said. “I remember running through a cornfield in thunder and lightning, holding my dad’s hand and running as fast as I could to keep up with him… sent people to find us. I remember a man trying to break in with a hammer.
”As a child, Glenn Close and her family entered the movement Moral Re-Armament and she revealed to Hollywood Reporter per“You basically weren’t allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire,” she said.
“If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you’re supposed to live and what you’re supposed to say and how you’re supposed to feel, from the time you’re 7 till the time you’re 22, it has a profound impact on you. ”Probably the most well-known instance of a Hollywood star being in a cult is Allison Mack, who was charged with on charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy for her involvement with NXIVM.
, she was sentenced to three years in prison, three years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and a fine of $20,000. One group called the International Society for Krishna Consciousness has been called a cult, but not as criticized as others for what they do with members.
Per, their biggest controversy was making members take acid, and apparently, Beatles alum George Harrison was allegedly in it for a bit, according toBeloved businesswoman and OG YouTuber Michelle Phan has been at the center of numerous cult accusations. After a long break from social media, Phan came back, claiming she had the ability to see angels and heal paralyzed men.
While she has denied the allegations, she has spoken fondly of Dr. Joe Dispenza and his healing methods, which many have considered his retreats to be cultish, perThe latest instance of worry surrounding a celebrity in a cult was with YouTuber Alyx Weiss. Back in 2022, fans grew worried when Weiss hinted she may go to a potluck run by a cult, and then months later, she revealed she was a part of a different cult, per herPlus Icon
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