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Back in 2019, Allison Mack pleaded guilty for her role in the abusive NXIVM cult.
The former Smallville actress played a key role in recruiting victims — and branding them, and doling out “punishments” for the cult’s “slave women.”
Now, after Mack’s time in prison, she is opening up about her mindset at the time.
She started off by signing up for a women’s empowerment group. Now she’s admitting that she was “aggressive” and “abusive” towards the cult’s victims.
Allison Mack is telling all about NXIVM on a new podcast
A couple of decades ago, notorious criminals publishing memoirs about their heinous deeds was a jaw-dropping controversy.
Now, in the age of podcasts, people don’t need a book deal to speak. In some cases, maybe that can help other people avoid the same predatory groups.
Disgraced former actress Allison Mack took to Canadian Broadcast Company’s new podcast, Uncover: Allison After NXIVM to reflect upon her crimes, and how she got there.
She joined NXIVM when it was masquerading as a women’s empowerment group. At first, there did not appear to be a dark side.
But here was. The sex cult aspect is salacious, but blackmail and branding Keith Raniere’s initials onto victims’ skin were the true horrors.
During the podcast’s third episode, Mack recalled showing her devotion to Raniere after she got past the surface, “self-help” level of the cult.
This meant having sex with Raniere whenever he wanted. It meant recruiting other women for him. And it meant, at times, wearing a cilice — a spiked garment — to punish herself.
“You wrap that around your body, so it’s poking you, stabbing you all day,” Mack described. “I used to wear that around my waist, under my clothes if I overate, as like a punishment.”
When it came to the brands, Mack described it happening with a cauterizing pen — all without any pain medication.
“My body was like shaking, in shock,” she detailed. “But I was so good at cutting that off and focusing on what I was doing, like, I’m not going to feel this right now, disassociate completely.”
‘I was not kind and I was aggressive and I was abusive’
“When other women would say, ‘That’s really painful,’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? It’s fine. It’s just another day,’” Allison Mack admitted.
From 2015 to 2016, she shared, Raniere was having sex with her “every day” under the pretense of helping her “healing” from past trauma.
Then she had the task of recruiting other women for him to “heal.”
“The success I had as an actor, I think I did capitalize on that, yeah,” Mack acknowledged. “And it was a power tool that I had to get people to do what I wanted … I think that I was very effective in moving Keith’s vision forward.”
She also addressed “punishments” for the “slaves,” which she said ranged from cold showers to holding a plank for an extended time. These uncomfortable experiences may not sound harsh for adults who believe that they’re choosing this for themselves, but that’s part of their effectiveness — they can play a role in psychologically breaking someone down over time.
“I was not kind and I was aggressive and I was abusive,” Mack confessed.
“Yes, I didn’t hold anybody down and physically force anybody into anything,” she noted, “but I was aggressive emotionally.”
Mack admitted: “I was harsh and I was callous and I was aggressive and forceful in ways that were painful for people.”
She continued: “And did make people feel like they had no choice, and was incredibly abusive to people, traumatic for people.”
Rest assured, the cult leader is still behind bars
According to Allison Mack, she didn’t think of what was happening to her or other women as sexual assault — even when blackmail was part of the picture. Within NXIVM, the belief was that they were all consenting to this.
While still in the cult, she heard about women recording themselves paddling each other and sending the video to Raniere.
She also described the branding as becoming more of a ritual.
According to Mack, 20 to 30 women received Raniere’s initials, saying: “Master, will you please brand me” before going under the cauterizing pen.
Sex cults sound fun in theory. Some of them probably are. But, in real life, most cults — whether they are political or religious or “self help” or all three — tend to center upon gratifying the desires of one evil man.
Speaking of whom, Keith Raniere is serving a 120-year sentence.