Call Her Daddy – Bethany Joy Lenz: One Tree Hill & Escaping a Cult (FBF)

Host: Alex Cooper
Guest: Bethany Joy Lenz
Date: February 27, 2026

Episode Overview

This emotionally raw and revelatory episode features actress and singer Bethany Joy Lenz—beloved for her role as Haley James Scott on One Tree Hill—sharing the harrowing story of the decade she unknowingly spent in a high-control cult. Lenz opens up to Alex Cooper about her childhood, her formative years in the entertainment industry, and the slow, insidious manipulation that led her to relinquish her independence, ultimately isolating her from family and sabotaging her career and finances. The discussion is equal parts cautionary tale and cathartic healing, offering deep insights into recovery, shame, boundaries, and the universality of loneliness.

Main Themes

• Vulnerability and healing through sharing personal trauma
• Psychological manipulation and abuse within high-control groups ("cults")
• The blurred lines between supportive community and unhealthy dependence
• The impact of childhood dynamics on adult relationships
• Fame as a mask for private struggles
• Reclaiming one's voice and agency after trauma

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bethany’s Motivation to Tell Her Story

• Pride Over Excitement:
  “It's not a story that I was ever really dying to tell... but that became part of the healing, was recognizing how relatable my story was... And then when the opportunity for writing a book came up, it just felt like this is the right thing to do.” — Bethany Joy Lenz [02:03]

• Purpose in Sharing:
  Lenz explains that her memoir, Dinner for Vampires, isn’t just about personal catharsis but aims to offer hope and solidarity for others recovering from controlling relationships or environments.

Childhood, Loneliness, and the Search for Belonging

• Roots of Loneliness:
  Lenz describes being an only child with young parents dealing with addiction, codependency, and frequent moves—leaving her craving stability and a place to belong.
  “It was hard to maintain friendships.” — Lenz [05:24]

• Faith Environment:
  She expresses how the evangelical Christian rules-based approach gave her a sense of order, but not room to make mistakes or truly connect, which created emotional distance at home.
  “There was no real relationship... t’s a lot of, ‘Here are the rules... when you accomplish all these... you will be happy.’” — Lenz [05:56]

• Longing for Connection:
  "I wanted a place to belong. It was really hard to feel like I belonged anywhere except the theater..." — Lenz [09:07]

Grooming and Slow Manipulation: Entry Into the Cult

• Q: How did you first encounter this group?
  Lenz describes attending a benign Saturday night Bible study in LA with a friend, which felt comfortingly familiar [10:54].
  “At first it was just nothing to be suspicious about.”

• The Appeal of Community:
  “I was looking for a place to belong still... Community was harder to find, so I was in need of community.” — Lenz [11:46]

• Introduction of Les (the Cult Leader):
  “My first impression... I just didn’t like their faces... I remember having this, like, check in my gut and I thought it was because I just didn’t like their faces... I was like, ‘what an asshole I am.’” — Lenz [13:26]
  Bethany traces her inability to trust her instincts to childhood, making her more susceptible to coercion. “I must be wrong... I can’t trust my own instincts. It makes it a lot easier when you get older for people to take advantage of you.” [10:17]

• Gradual Control:
  “It was a slow transition. It took about a year... felt like I was being challenged... called up to be more... That was exciting.” — Lenz [14:41]

Indoctrination and Isolation

• Suppressing Independence:
  “Independence is bad... anything that separates you from the unity with the group... that needs to be addressed and shut down.” — Lenz [17:09]

• “Bio Family” and Chosen Family:
  The group began to explicitly label her biological family as “bio family,” implying the group was her true family and encouraging distance from her parents in escalating fashion.
  “He didn’t have to be subtle about it anymore... He could just start saying things like ‘bio family’...” — Lenz [20:49]

• The Insidious Slow Burn:
  “Nobody joins a cult. You join a good thing. Nobody walks into something and says, ‘Hey, I can’t wait to fuck up my life. Where do I sign?’ So it happens really slowly.” — Lenz, quoting Mark Vicente [22:40]

• Progression to Isolation:
  Small, reasonable comments by group leaders built trust, then exploited it to encourage isolation from her family [24:00].

• Parental Concern:
  Her father recognized the warning signs and openly confronted her; her mother played “the long game” with gentle caution. Eventually, the group told her explicitly to cut off her father [27:41].
  “By that point, I was several years in and I just trusted them more than I trusted my parents.” — Lenz [28:55]

Control Mechanics: Taboo Questions and Agency Loss

• "Illegal Questions":
  “An illegal question would be: maybe I married the wrong person. You’re not allowed to ask that... you just move forward.” — Lenz [29:57]

• “You can't have doubt about anything essentially in your life.” — Lenz [31:02]

One Tree Hill: Fame in the Midst of Captivity

• Managing Two Realities:
  "The world was watching you on one of the biggest shows... while you were on this huge TV show, you were also dealing with this.” — Cooper [34:49]

• How the Cult Allowed Her to Work:
  The group maintained control while permitting members to pursue their careers, via constant communication and emotional leveraging rather than physical constraints.
  “It wasn’t a ‘join us, put on this robe, and let’s go all live in the forest together.’... It was very much communication based... constant community.” — Lenz [36:22]

• On Playing Haley:
  Lenz felt she could bring her “true, awkward self” to the role of Haley, providing catharsis through work [38:51].
  “When the cameras were rolling, my guard all went down... it was a major catharsis for me.” — Lenz [42:05]

• Isolation on Set:
  The cult forced Bethany to distance herself from her co-stars, sabotaging real friendships—particularly with Sophia Bush and Hillary Burton.
  “I just became someone that nobody really knew how to connect with... when they said ‘cut’... I would only let people in so far.” — Lenz [42:05]
  “It’s almost like you... are aware that something is off and weird, but you’re so immersed in that world...” — Cooper [43:40]

• The "Superior" Feeling of Belonging to the Group:
  “I felt mostly superior to other people, and I felt mostly like they just can’t understand. And I’ve got an answer. I’ve figured— I mean, that’s any cult.” — Lenz [44:18]

• Co-Star Concerns:
  “They knew... By season two, they were like, ‘I think this is a cult. I think this is probably bad.’” — Lenz [46:38]

• Notable Exchange:
  “Are you in a cult?” — Tyler (One Tree Hill co-star), to Bethany [48:07]

  “No. I hate that people can’t understand the depth of relationship... why does it have to be a cult?” — Lenz [48:13]

Financial, Relational & Sexual Control

• Career Losses:
  The group, via “spiritual submission,” influenced Bethany to turn down major career opportunities, including Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast and major film roles [61:00].

• Financial Abuse:
  After merging finances with her then-husband (cult leader's son), Bethany was left with serious financial devastation—$2 million lost to the group and an additional $350,000 in court costs [85:27].

• Marriage Dynamics & “Spiritual Authority”: “The man basically gets the last word on everything... and you really are not allowed to question him... he’s responsible for you...” — Lenz [66:09]

  Having saved herself for marriage, Bethany experienced no sexual desire for her husband and was pressured onto a strict “sex schedule.”
  “Because I was so disinterested in sex, I was then asked to go on a schedule basically of, like, ‘just do it, this is your duty, this is your job as a wife.’” — Lenz [69:43]

  The resulting trauma triggered symptoms of PTSD that impacted future relationships [71:09].

Leaving: The Breaking Point and Aftermath

• The Moment of Realization:
  It wasn’t until after One Tree Hill ended that, through therapy, she could name the truth.
  “My therapist... was like, ‘Are we ready to call it a cult yet?’... I was like, ‘No, like, that is not me.’ Guess what? Me. Yep, she was right.” — Lenz [77:11]

• Escape and Retribution:
  “My only friends, so I thought, suddenly turned on me... showing up at my house to... intimidate me... All of a sudden, no conversation. No. There just was no willingness to see.” — Lenz [81:06]

• Legal System Fails:
  The family court system was unable or unwilling to address non-physical abuse.
  “If you don’t have a physical altercation... they don’t consider it abuse... you can’t even use [the word ‘cult’] in court.” — Lenz [82:23, 89:05]

• Financial Fallout:
  “When I was in the group, they took $2 million from me. When I got out, I had about $250,000 left... The court costs in total were about $350,000.” — Lenz [85:27]

• Biggest Misconception about Cults:
  “It's the same misconception I had... cults are... crazy people and they all live together in some weird big house... I didn’t think I was in one... there is no real definition of a cult. You can’t even use it in court.” — Lenz [88:34]

Healing, Trust, and Hope

• Trusting Again:
  “I don’t want to go through the world as someone who doesn’t trust people... but maybe not credit, if that makes sense... You don’t get to walk into my life and automatically get the free credit card of, like, friend... but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.” — Lenz [90:31]

• Life After:
  Shame, she says, only shrinks when exposed:
  “Please don’t live in shame. Don’t let it keep you closed off and shut down... let it out of your body. It’s the only way to actually find hope and move forward.” — Lenz [92:58]

• Message to Listeners:
  “I hope people feel like they’re not alone... I really want people to feel like their own shame, their own mistakes are faceable, that there’s hope...” — Lenz [92:58]

Notable Quotes and Moments

• [10:17] "If you start at a young age to believe my gut is off, I can't trust myself... it makes it a lot easier when you get older for people to take advantage of you." — Bethany Joy Lenz

• [22:40] "Nobody joins a cult. You join a good thing. Nobody walks into something and says, 'Hey, I can't wait to fuck up my life. Where do I sign?'" — Lenz, quoting Mark Vicente

• [42:05] "When the cameras were rolling, my guard all went down... it was a major catharsis for me... the only place in my life I could actually do that." — Bethany Joy Lenz

• [88:34] "It's the same misconception I had, which is why I didn't think I was in one... we've used it as this slang for things that are super weird." — Bethany Joy Lenz

• [92:58] "Please don't live in shame. Don't let it keep you closed off and shut down... It's the only way to actually find hope and move forward." — Bethany Joy Lenz

Recommended Timestamps

• [02:03] Joy on her motivation for writing
• [10:17] The roots of self-doubt: suppressing intuition
• [13:26] First encounter and intuition about cult leader “Les”
• [22:40] “Nobody joins a cult...” – how the group took control
• [29:57] “Illegal questions”—control through forbidden doubt
• [34:49–44:49] The intersection of One Tree Hill stardom and cult captivity
• [61:00] The cult’s impact on her career
• [69:43] On sexual coercion and “the schedule”
• [77:11] The moment of realization, therapy, and extraction
• [85:27–88:34] Financial abuse and misconceptions about cults
• [90:31] Relearning trust, letting go of shame

Takeaways for Listeners

• Cultic relationships rarely look like stereotypes; they thrive in normal settings, using trust, relatability, and good intentions at first.
• The line between a supportive community and a controlling one is crossed when independence, doubt, or outside contact is discouraged or subtly shamed.
• Financial, emotional, and spiritual abuse can be as devastating as physical abuse—and are far harder to prove or prosecute.
• Rebuilding after trauma involves the hard work of learning to trust again—both oneself and others—but also setting wise boundaries.
• Shame is only diminished by facing and sharing it: “Don’t let it keep you closed off and shut down... let it out of your body. It’s the only way to actually find hope and move forward.”

To anyone feeling isolated or controlled, this episode offers hope, practical wisdom, and the candid, supportive energy that Call Her Daddy is known for—reminding listeners you are never truly alone.