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Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
*A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2024*
*NAMED ONE OF PEOPLE'S BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIRS OF 2024* A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free. In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show's millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult. An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she'd been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister--a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family's Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family "minders" assigned to her on set, "Maoist struggle session"-inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with "Leadership" were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal. Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family's grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.
*A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2024*
*NAMED ONE OF PEOPLE'S BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIRS OF 2024* A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free. In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show's millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult. An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she'd been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister--a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family's Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family "minders" assigned to her on set, "Maoist struggle session"-inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with "Leadership" were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal. Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family's grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.
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Community Reviews
I approach most celeb memoirs with a lot of suspicion, but honestly this one is pretty solid. Thereâs not a lot of fluff, it just tells the story in a very narrative fashion with interesting details about being in a cult while being on television in a very mainstream way (which as you can imagine is a unique perspective). Itâs thoughtful and reflective without being too much.
For mind control to work, there has to be heroes and villains. It has to be us versus them. In a cult, it isn't good enough for you to say, "I love you, but I disagree with you." You must affirm my choices and beliefs. Only then can you be considered "safe." In a cult, safety means agreement.
Bethany Joy Lenz tells the story of how her faith guided many of the choices she made in her young adult life, and what ultimately led to her becoming deeply entrenched in what she now knows was a religious cult. She details the double life she was living as a leading cast member of the hit show One Tree Hill and a member of "The Family", telling stories about her constant quest to find her place in the world and how that allowed her to be vulnerable and easily manipulated by the group's leadership. She shares post-trauma revelations about the moments she misinterpreted, the times she pushed people -- including her parents -- away, and the opportunities she lost or missed out on. She isolated herself from half of her double life, and, despite being surrounded by "Family", was isolated in the other half. She was desperate and confused. She was filled with doubts and was conflicted between instinct and loyalty to her faith. She endured psychological abuse, financial ruin, loss of important friendships, isolation from her parents, and a self-imposed-forced-marriage, but none of it mattered until she became a mother. It seems that motherhood switched on a light in her that others had been trying to turn on for a decade. Her voice throughout the book is surprisingly upbeat, quirky, and funny. The subject, however, is not quirky at all.
If you are looking for anecdotes about her time on the show, you will not find that here. But she does draw the curtain back on what was going on in her private life while on that show. And she does it with as much openness as she is permitted (by her friends and former "Family" members), and with a remarkable capacity for forgiveness of herself.
Terrifying darkness and shocking beauty coexist in everyone, and God doesn't wait for us to clean out all the bad before celebrating the good. It's scandalous, really - that kind of love.
Unlike other reviewers of this book, I did not watch OTH. I know Ms. Lenz from my (not so) secret obsession with Hallmark Countdown to Christmas (if you know, you know). I think she is one of the most natural, funny and talented actresses out there; no one could ever guess the kind of trauma she has survived. So when this came on my radar, I was shocked and curious.
It's a very interesting read.
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