New Memoir Release Spotlight (2)

starring in a cult tv show while also being culty

What a bonkers book ride Dinner for Vampires is.

It’s a story about falling prey to a religious cult.

Did I go into Bethany Joy Lenz’s memoir, expecting all the One Tree Hill tea? Ofc! I was even hopeful for some Guiding Light tea (she was Reva’s clone), I didn’t log all those soap opera hours with Grandma Ruthie to not be rewarded with gossip to pass on in the afterlife.

It’s not trashy.

Was I disappointed by this memoir, yes but also no?! There is not enough gossip or gritty details to bestow this memoir with a trashy tag (the highest honor). What I read was a more nuanced and carefully shared story about a young woman’s acting and religious journey that led to her joining, marrying into and unknowingly funding a religious cult. I was glued to Bethany’s story, it was a wild ride that petered out towards the end and left only questions. It’s worth reading this short memoir and it will become a movie (or musical).

Where it ranks in memoirs.

Dinner for Vampires is somewhere between Tia Levings's “A Well-Trained Wife” memoir (tradwife cult) and “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jeannette McCurdy. It’s not written nearly as well as the latter nor is Bethany as vulnerable but you can tell this is authentically her story and the story sells itself.

How do people fall for cults?

As much as I obsess over cult books, shows, podcasts, I am still amazed when I hear yet another story and surprised by how easily it happens and how long one stays in a cult.

Spoilers and everything I searched on the internet ahead.

Bethany Joy Lenz looking stunning from A Book Of.

In search of connection

Bethany Joy Lenz had a transient childhood with a typical religious upbringing. Her parents divorce when Bethany is 16. Without much time in one place, she didn’t make close friends. She did join theater groups in the local communities she lived in and loved acting and singing. After high school, she moves to NYC to star as a clone as one only can on a soap opera. There, still searching for a familial connection, she joins a niche church, Redeemer Presbyterian community, and deepens her faith. Family and religion start to mean the same thing for her.

Random Quote from Redeemer’s position paper on men and women in the church where they declare the sexes mostly equal and can both serve as leaders in the church.

WE AFFIRM male headship defined as the partnership of two spiritually equal human beings, man and woman, where the man bears the primary responsibility to lead that partnership in a God-glorifying direction.

If it walks like a cult….

Joie (as she was known at this time) makes her way to LA to pursue more meaningful acting opportunities. She has acting morals now, no more trashy soaps. In search of a new religious family she joins a small home-based bible study group that has another minor actor and friend in it. These are the LA based members of a church which she calls the “Big House family” that most of her memoir is about. They use traditional cult tactics to isolate her from her family and friends.

The Big House Family from Yelp of all places.

Exposing the cult

The “Big House family” is Wild Branch Ministries in Battleground, WA. The pastor/leader is Mike Galeotti, the Sopranos obsessed father of BJL’s ex husband (same name). The group has a few z-list celebs who Bethany knew from soaps and ultimately introduced. Great local article here courtesy of reddit.

The cult cults

Bethany’s (she’s now going by this name) new “family” has a large say in her work and direction. She ultimately takes the One Tree Hill Job because Haley James Scott is such a girl next door character, not the hot sex bomb. Her religion is an obstacle while filming. She is labeled difficult behind the scenes. Something she acknowledges but doesn’t defend. According to BJL, the creators get back at her by picking storylines she will hate like a high school boyfriend addicted to porn or making her wear just a bra in a scene. I recall these as typical scenes in all the teen dramas at the time.

BJL’s church family is not shy about asking BJL for money to invest in all of their random shitty businesses, like a dilapidated motel welcoming to swingers bc money not morals. But once married to the pastor’s son, BJL gives co-ownership to all of her accounts to her husband and management of her money to her FIL. Over 6 years, they will take her OTH millions. BJL has suspicions but doesn’t understand anything. SEND YOUR KIDS TO FINANCE CLASSES. In her defense, with a lawyer later on she will find an intricate trail of shell companies and receipts that is impossible to make sense of.

Random piece of the story

There are two pages in her memoir where BJL is unwittingly tossed into the air on a beanbag by her “family” members and it brings on a montage of past memories where men assaulted her or made her feel very uncomfortable. She panics before realizing this time it’s different, they just want to play with her, like siblings, like family. Those two pages made me very uncomfortable.

I always wanted brothers

One Tree Hill

Some how BJL equates the pilot of One Tree Hill to 8 Mile (with Eminem and Brittany Murphy) and loves how gritty they both are and it’s also a factor into her auditioning and taking the role. I have never ever watched 8 Mile and thought OTH or vice versa.

While on OTH, it’s hard for BJL to become besties with the crew, her cult is often in the way as is her lack of confidence. She is close to Hilarie Burton for a month or a year, it’s unclear. She starts to get close to Sophia Bush but realizes she can’t handle how gorgeous and intelligent Sophia is so she retreats to isolation, she doesn’t hang out post filming or on weekends.

Sophia worked obsessively at proving her value - a character trait that made her perfect to play Brooke Davis but clashed with my own insecurities and militant beliefs about how one should go about proving their value.

She is close to Paul Johansson and he continues to be a rock that she can depend on when she ultimately leaves her husband and cult.

Two cults?

It turns out the network execs at One Tree Hill are also like cult leaders. This show started at a time when social media was still becoming a thing. The cast weren’t aware of how big they were becoming, sheltered in NC to film for several months. The execs created division within the cast and repeatedly told them they would probably be canceled that season. This worked in the network’s favor for salary negotiations.

What is love anyway?

In her desperate quest for love (it’s truly desperate, this girl needed counseling not religion), BJL does briefly force love upon on a stranger she meets on location and that turns into a whirlwind engagement a month later. Her “family” does not approve and BJL was never really into it so it ends as soon as it starts. Herein begins the whispers of the cast and set crew of OTH.

We both wanted to be in love, so we decided to be in love.

Tyler Hilton and Bethany Joy Lenz on the One Tree Hill tour

While on tour with OTH (they had a musical tour!), she becomes close with and then distances herself again from Tyler Hilton. It’s her family that creates the distance when they join her for part of the tour and acost Tyler. Tyler still has the decency to warn her that US Weekly is going to print she’s in a cult but somehow the article never comes to fruition and we the public won’t know for years.

BJL is what’s for dinner

The family continues to fuck with BJL, making her give up her dream role as Belle in the Broadway edition of Beauty and the Beast. BJL also acquires and writes a musical adaptation of The Notebook that gets great early response and she is incredibly proud of and feeling successful but the family somehow intervenes with that as well, it’s unclear how but I know it was them. All of this is because the “family” wants those lucrative OTH paychecks to keep coming. BTW - The Notebook musical out today, is sadly not hers and it breaks her heart to see it.

Is this finally love?

Here’s how Bethany ends up marrying in. She is still desperate for romantic love and everyone else in the ‘family’ is married to others in the family, essentially leaving one single man, QB (real name Michael), the son of Leader Les (aka Mike irl). BJL seizes the opportunity, tells her future FIL and it’s ON from there. She doesn’t even love QB and her friends in the family and outside warn her. Upon marrying, her hubs expects to rule all of her decisions as a non-working husband and also for her to remain in the bedroom for endless hours fulfilling his needs. He books the shittiest honeymoon because he doesn’t expect to leave the hotel (and they got a deal). Quickly this loser moves back to the PNW in a house BJL bought and leaves BJL alone in NC to film OTH for 8 months out of the year. Ok acronyms. This goes on for 6 years.

When your cult isn’t culty enough.

There are endless red flags in this book but BJL ultimately decides to leave after a series of questionable physical assaults from her husband. He threw it at me, but it was just a shirt type of scenarios. When this continues to happen with her newborn baby girl attached to her, it’s dunzo, BJL finally cares about something more than the big G. In the aftermath of walking away she discovers her drained bank accounts. On an obsessed mission to get full custody of her daughter, BJL digs the dirt and gets the stories on Michael Galeotti, including sexual assault amongst ex family members. It’s scary but narrow, this is a small group, it helps her in family court but she doesn’t get her millions back or any other legal recourse. This isn’t a cult that’s hurting hundreds or thousands.

Bethany is an incredibly nice woman by all stranger accounts from the internet. She didn’t share this story for a decade because she didn’t feel her cult was culty enough. It wasn’t NXIVM or Children of God or Scientology. She was still plagued by low self-esteem and dare I say imposter syndrome for quite awhile. A cult will do that to you. She remains rooted in her faith having returned to her more original organic faith based roots. Her religious beliefs continue to have an impact on her friend relationships according to blind items and reddit. She has restored her relationships with her bio-family, her father was critical in her winning custody, having collected information on the cult, Wild Ministries for years while trying to convince Bethany to leave.