SMALLVILLE Star Allison Mack Opens Up About Her NXIVM Past - “I Was Excited By The Power”
For years, Allison Mack was best known for playing Chloe Sullivan on Smallville, the sharp and loyal friend to Clark Kent. But behind the scenes, her life took a dark and disturbing turn.
Now, after serving nearly two years in federal prison for her role in the NXIVM sex cult, Mack is finally telling her side of the story in the new CBC podcast Uncover: Allison After NXIVM.
NXIVM was founded by Keith Raniere, who’s now serving a 120-year sentence for sex trafficking, racketeering, and fraud. Marketed as a self-improvement program, it was actually a manipulative and abusive cult where Raniere controlled women through psychological and sexual exploitation.
Mack wasn’t just a follower, she was one of his “masters,” recruiting women into what they thought was an empowerment group but was really a network of sexual slavery.
In the first episode of the podcast, Mack admits that she ignored what was right in front of her.
"I purposely kept myself from hearing things that would’ve been uncomfortable for me.”
She now recognizes how deeply Raniere manipulated her and the others.
"If I recognised that Keith was manipulating all of us, and that this was a strategy for his own perversion, I had to acknowledge what I had chosen and that I had hurt people."
When she learned that Raniere had been abusing underage girls, news that broke a year after she was charged, Mack says that’s when she decided to come clean.
"I don’t know how this is true, but I’m going to plead guilty, because I am guilty. And I do believe that’s true. And I’m going to trust that I’ll be in therapy for years after this, and figure out how this happened."
In the podcast, Mack goes deep into how Raniere used emotional manipulation and control tactics to trap his victims. She also shares that she experienced sexual exploitation as a child, both in her personal life and within the entertainment industry.
When she told Raniere, she says he claimed he could “help her” by being “physically intimate” with her, which is a move that only locked in his control.
Mack doesn’t shy away from admitting her own role in the abuse. She acknowledges how she coerced other women in the cult, often pushing them to comply with Raniere’s demands.
"I was the go-between between him and this person. It was my job to relay what to do with him for her growth. The more she said, 'I’m scared, I don’t want to do it,' the more I would say, 'You need to do it, and the longer you wait, the more consequences there will be.' The coercion started, and the pressure and the pressure and the pressure. And then it was like rape."
She continues, revealing the twisted sense of control she once felt.
"Yes, I was excited by the power that I felt having these young, beautiful women look to me and listen to me. And yes, the sexuality of it was exciting."
"People assume I’m this pervert, but that’s not what happened, what it was for me. People can believe me, or people can think I’m full of shit and not listen. But I feel like I at least have to say it out loud for myself, once."
Since her release from prison, Mack has been working toward a master’s degree in social work and has married Frank Meeink, a former neo-Nazi who now speaks publicly about overcoming radicalization.
It’s an unexpected chapter for a woman once seen as a rising star on Smallville, but one who is now trying to find some kind of redemption after years in the darkness.
Whether people choose to forgive or not, Allison After NXIVM is a chilling and uncomfortable reminder of how even those in the spotlight can fall under the power of manipulation, and how easily people can be corrupted by it.
Via: Vanity Fair