S25 Ep6: Humiliation Ritual

Summary

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Something Was Wrong – S25 Ep6: "Humiliation Ritual"

Release Date: February 5, 2026
Host: Broken Cycle Media

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode dives into the toxic culture and pattern of abuse within the University of Central Oklahoma’s theater department under the leadership of Professor “Cato.” Survivors Miranda, Rhianna, Olivia, and Morgan recount their experiences, detailing how Cato’s grooming, manipulation, and exploitation went unchecked for years. Through powerful personal narratives, the episode explores how authority figures can weaponize mentorship and creative practice to control and harm, and how peer dynamics and secrecy perpetuate abuse.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. First Encounters & Recruitment (03:14 – 10:10)

• Miranda and Olivia recall first meeting Cato — his charm, reputation, and his ability to present himself in the best possible light, especially to newcomers.
  • Miranda (03:14): “He was seen as the coolest professor and the one with the most intense training.”
• Rhianna describes being singled out at recruitment events, noting a pattern of targeting students with less parental presence and grooming them before they even enrolled.
  • Rhianna (05:05): “He actually singled me out during that very first meeting, because I was the only student there without a parent. ...it was a recruitment tool that he used.”

2. Patterns of Grooming, Isolation, and Control (10:14 – 13:03; 15:27 – 17:12)

• Cato used specialized acting methodologies (notably Meisner technique) as tools to push students into emotional vulnerability.
  • Rhianna (10:18): “Maybe Meisner can be effective... but he used it as a tool to get you to experience deep and intense emotion and then control when those emotions happen.”
• He held total departmental control: scholarships, class assignments, trip selections, and created dependency.
  • Rhianna (11:36): “If you needed advisement, if you needed anything... you had to go to Cato.”

3. Gendered Manipulation & Targeted Abuse (12:16 – 13:03)

• Cato focused his attention and manipulation almost exclusively on young female students, neglecting (or mocking) men.
  • Rhianna (12:22): “He really focused in on the young girls that he was educating and abusing. ... He was cruel across the board.”

4. Toxic Peer Dynamics & Humiliation Rituals (15:27 – 20:46)

• Rhianna, Miranda, and Olivia describe theatrical trips and exercises that doubled as humiliation rituals, intentionally breaking down students’ boundaries.
  • Rhianna (17:15): “We developed a show together that was like a clown act. ... I think it was partially a humiliation ritual to, like, get you uncomfortable in front of him and vulnerable.”
• Trips included underage drinking sanctioned by Cato and “open secret” relationships.

5. Sexual Abuse, Coercion & the Complexities of Consent (20:46 – 26:14)

• Miranda details her relationship with Cato: grooming, escalation to sexual acts under emotional and professional duress, and public secrecy.
  • Miranda (24:54): “He would make me give him a blowjob or make me receive oral sex from him while all of my peers were right next door... I thought that I really wanted [these things]. But as time went on... I realized I didn't.”
• Miranda reflects on the emotional confusion caused by grooming, where initial “consent” is tainted by manipulation and coercion.

6. Gaslighting, Competition, and Isolation (26:20 – 36:37)

• Cato fostered competition and animosity between female students, often by promising multiple people the same roles or opportunities, then withdrawing or shifting his favor.
  • Miranda (32:14): “I have such a vivid memory of him making me run the end of the play... so many times in a row... I had to stop and go vomit. That was just a part of the way that he broke down my defenses.”
• He isolated his “favorites” by undermining their friendships and spreading misinformation.

7. Realizations & Breaking the Code of Silence (36:37 – 40:11)

• Rhianna and Morgan connect over experiences of discomfort and harassment, dismantling the “special relationship” narrative and beginning to see a pattern of abuse.
  • Rhianna (37:58): “When Morgan described to me that she had been sexually harassed by Cato, this facade that I had built up shattered.”
• The normalization within the department made disclosures difficult, turning the realization process into an isolating and guilt-ridden journey.

8. Wider Systemic Issues & Institutional Failure (41:18 – 67:00)

• Morgan details how the department culture enabled Cato’s unchecked power: regular underage drinking, inappropriate comments and conduct framed as “teaching,” and repeated targeting of vulnerable students.
  • Morgan (45:03): “I could definitely tell that Cato was not like any other teacher that I had before.”
• Students reflect on the “humiliation ritual” and how Cato manipulated rules (like special access, secret information, and faux-mentorship) to groom and dominate.

9. Looking Back: Red Flags and Lingering Impact (51:09 – 67:00)

• Morgan and others now see grooming signs: imparting “special” information, blurring boundaries, shifting to personal communication channels (Snapchat, text), isolating and controlling, and unpredictable mood swings.
  • Morgan (51:20): “I think the first sign that I would warn people to look out for is the impartment of special information...a way to test and to start to garner trust.”
• The survivors comment on collective denial within the group, gradual awakening to truth, and the trauma's impact on their careers, relationships, and self-worth.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Recruitment and Grooming:
  • Rhianna (05:05): “He kept mentioning how special I was that he had chosen me to partake in this life changing event. ... Now I think about it, I'm like, that's so fucking creepy to say to a 17 year old.”
• On Acting Method as Control:
  • Rhianna (10:18): “He used it as a tool to get you to experience deep and intense emotion and then control when those emotions happen.”
• On Sexual Coercion:
  • Miranda (24:54): “He would make me give him a blowjob or make me receive oral sex from him while all of my peers were right next door... I thought that I really wanted [these things]. But as time went on... I realized I didn't.”
• On Realizing Abuse:
  • Rhianna (37:58): “When Morgan described to me that she had been sexually harassed by Cato, this facade that I had built up shattered.”
• On Patterns of Behavior:
  • Morgan (51:20): “The first sign... is the impartment of special information. Very slowly but methodically inching closer and closer to being more of a friend or a peer... as opposed to having clear boundaries.”
• On Peer Dynamics:
  • Olivia (33:28): “He turned on me again, which he would do frequently. ... But it was different this time. He was very cold and had, like, no interest in the rapport that we had built.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Recruitment & Early Grooming: 03:14 – 10:10
• Acting Exercises as Manipulation: 10:14 – 13:03
• Gendered Abuse: 12:16 – 13:03
• Humiliation Rituals and Trips: 15:27 – 20:46
• Miranda’s Account of Escalation: 20:46 – 26:14
• Consent Complexities, Emotional Turmoil: 26:14 – 33:26
• Peer Competition & Isolation: 33:28 – 36:37
• Learning the Truth & Shattered Narratives: 36:37 – 40:11
• Morgan’s Story & Recognizing Red Flags: 42:21 – 57:09
• Description of Systemic Enablement: 57:09 – 67:00

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Tone & Language

The episode is deeply personal, raw, and honest. Survivors frequently use candid, sometimes explicit language to convey the depths of their trauma and the insidiousness of the grooming and abuse. The tone alternates between reflective, angry, mournful, and, at moments, hopeful for change and validation.

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Conclusion

“Humiliation Ritual” uncovers the mechanisms of abuse in the halls of academia, the long-term impact on survivors, and the urgent need for institutional accountability. The episode is a testament to the courage of those willing to speak out—breaking years of silence, secrecy, and self-doubt.

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For resources, content warnings, and more information, visit the Something Was Wrong episode notes.

Transcript

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Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. Please consume the following episodes with care this season discusses sexual, physical and psychological violence. For a full content warning, sources and resources for each episode, please visit the Episode Notes. Opinions shared by guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. We reached out to Professor Cato Buss and the University of Central Oklahoma for comment in response to allegations in the weeks prior to this episode's release. We have not received a response. Thank you so much for listening.

[Miranda]

You think you know me.

[Morgan]

You don't know me well at all.

[Interviewer]

You don't know anybody till you talk.

[Rhianna]

To someone.

[Interviewer]

Previously on Something was Wrong.

[Miranda]

I went to University of Central Oklahoma. I decided to study theater my second semester of school. Cato was the first person in the department that I met at all. When I met him, it was at the end of my first semester of freshman year. I think he had a really good opportunity to paint himself in whatever light he really wanted to. He was seen as the coolest professor and the one with the most intense training.

[Olivia]

He was very paternal to me in a lot of ways. Whenever we first met, it felt like he was a very strong mentor in my life. I remember getting a text from Cato. He had said something along the lines of, you know, I hope this is okay. I really want us to be close and to work with you while you're here. And I didn't really clock that. That was weird when it happened. When Miranda and I were in Scotland, there was a play and we were the only two that he took to go see it. There was another student that wanted to join us, and he was adamant that she didn't.

[Miranda]

After Scotland, we started to text all of the time. That's also when we would start to meet more frequently at school as well.

[Interviewer]

Here's Miranda.

[Miranda]

Around this time is when I start talking to my friend who I went to school with Rihanna. She was on the trip with us to Louisville. After that trip, she comes over to my house and we're just gabbing and she mentions how hot she thinks Cato is. And I was like, oh, my God, me too. But also, I think he likes me. She was actually the first and only person to know about anything at all because I had disclosed to her that I had a crush on him. If I didn't tell Rihanna, no one would have known at all.

[Rhianna]

My name is Rhianna. I was a student at uco, and I was abused by a professor named Cato. I also witnessed multiple of my friends enter into abusive relationships with Cato. I became enmeshed with Cato in the UCO theater department as a high school senior. The first time I met him was at a parents Day for uco. It was a recruitment tool that he used. I was the only student there without a parent. My high school theater teacher was gracious and kind and she offered to take me, and he actually singled me out during that Very first meeting, because I was the only student there without a parent. I did a little audition for him and at the end of the day he actually followed my theater teacher and I out to the parking lot and got us alone for a minute and talked about how great I was, how impressed he was with me, offered I'm going to give Rihanna all these scholarships and really just put the charm on me. And my high school theater teacher from that point I had like a few more interactions with him while I was in high school. I saw him at another theater, theater audition, college thing and he again singled me out, talked to me about how talented I was. I remember him saying something along the lines of like everyone here wants you, alluding to like they want to recruit you for their colleges. But also constantly bordering that line of suggestive and inappropriate. And then at that event he told me like, email me sometime and we'll connect before you make any final decisions on where you go to college. I followed up with him over email and he invited me to come see a play at UCO. I was a high school senior at the time, 17, communicating with this man that I don't really know, which looking back now is really strange because there was no parent supervision or teacher supervision. But I go see this play. I drove separately, showed up to uco. They didn't know what to expect. I didn't have much details. As we're walking in, he looks at me and says, I've never brought a student to a UCO production before. Everyone's probably wondering why you're here with me and who you are and why you're so special. And I remember feeling really special at the time. And now I think about it, I'm like, that's so fucking creepy to say to a 17 year old. This like 50 year old man. We went, sat together, watched the play and he kept mentioning how special I was that he had chosen me to partake in this life changing event. I think that's like a pattern. The recruitment events and then trips. I think he really used to his advantage to enact this grooming on young girls. I also think there's a through line of not having super present parents. I think he definitely used those events to target people that he thought he could victimize.

[Interviewer]

Did you guys do anything after? Did he introduce you to anybody else from the department?

[Rhianna]

I think we chatted for a minute after the show and he may have introduced me to another professor there who is fantastic. I think that was it at that play is when I told him I decided to come to uco. I think he like knew he had his hooks in me. So essentially all communication stopped at that point. That's a trend that I notice in my time with Cato. There's a love bombing period and then like a distance neglectful period after I told him I'm coming to uco. It was nothing until that next semester when I actually started at uco. I didn't talk to him like that whole summer. And then I would have seen him again in 20, 2016, fall semester.

[Interviewer]

What made you choose ultimately to attend there?

[Rhianna]

It was Cato. It was that I felt I had this special relationship with one of the theater professors there. I had auditioned and gotten into a few schools and been offered scholarships by those schools. But how can I pick a different school when I know who I'm going to be working with and I really get along with him and he thinks I'm so special. Another reason that I was excited to pick UCO is that I knew Morgan was there and we had been really close throughout high school. She at the time seemed to really enjoy uco. She was in a Cato directed play when I was deciding if I should go or not. I think I remember her saying that she was having fun, that she liked it. I didn't interact with him much my first semester. I auditioned for him a few times. I did tech on one of his plays. I think it was the first play that Miranda was in with him. He was kind of still just like pretending I did not exist during this period. We would have brief interactions and then nothing for months. But yeah, I did not have a class with him my freshman year.

[Interviewer]

Did you ever study Meisner technique with him?

[Rhianna]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Would you mind sharing with me what that experience was like for you?

[Rhianna]

Disgusting. It's why I feel like I will never be able to act again or find joy in acting. I think that's another really big reason that he was able to get his claws in so deep. Maybe Meisner can be an effective acting method, but he used it as a tool to get you to experience deep and intense emotion and then control when those emotions happen. It was looking back on it now, like actually nightmarish in the moment. I just remember thinking, oh my God, I'm a real actor. This is so special. How great of a teacher is he that I can feel all of this? I was at a high school event and he had these two high school students doing Meisner repetitions until they sobbed. And he's not their teacher. He doesn't know these students. He has Met them briefly for a moment and is now engaging in what I believe to be incredibly an unsafe acting instruction. It was just another tool of abuse that he loved to use.

[Interviewer]

What kind of access did his position give him to students in the department?

[Rhianna]

Oh, the most. I mean, he was the head theater person. If you needed advisement, if you needed anything involving the theater department, essentially you had to go to Cato. He got to choose who the scholarships went to. He got to control what classes you took in what order if you wanted to. He got to decide who went on the Europe trips. He got to determine who went on away trips. I think he was the head of the improv group as well. In my mind. My experience was ultimate control over the UCO theater department and essentially was not being held accountable to anyone.

[Interviewer]

Did you ever witness him treating male students versus female students differently?

[Rhianna]

I have no significant memories of him having any meaningful interactions with male students. He really focused in on the young girls that he was educating and abusing. The only thing that really comes to mind is just how he was cruel across the board. We were in his office and a student came in needing advice from him or wanting to meet him or something and the student was really excited to meet him. And the student leaves. And I remember Cato mocking him, making fun of him for being excited to meet Cato. I just remember thinking, that's so cruel. Why are you doing this?

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[Interviewer]

When did you meet Miranda and Olivia and what kind of relationship did you have with Miranda?

[Rhianna]

I met Miranda in, I think it was voice and movement, which was this ridiculous theater class in the basement of a library where you like rolled around on the floor and shouted things. I met her my freshman year at uco and we became pretty close friends pretty quickly. We hung out after class a lot. And then I met Liv my freshman year. I was not as close with Liv as I was with Miranda. Miranda and I were friends. I would say Liv and I were like friends of friends. I think I by that Scotland trip had gone on two away theater trips that he provided and in my mind encouraged us to drink. We took a trip to Louisville and a trip to Texas. On both of those trips there was underage drinking in which he was involved in. There was inappropriate touching of students on those trips. On the Louisville trip, there was another group girl who it was basically like an open secret that she had been engaging in a relationship with Kaedo. She was distraught this whole trip and essentially everyone knew that she was so upset because Cato was maybe breaking up with her or mistreating her in some way. No one could acknowledge it. It was the strangest thing. It's like he had this hold over all of us. Rumors were passed around. You know, she spent a lot of alone time with Cato and maybe they're seeing each other. Like, maybe something inappropriate is happening.

[Interviewer]

And was that around the time Miranda came?

[Rhianna]

Yes. That same year that Lindsay seemed really distraught and upset was the year that Cato had really started investing in Miranda. I did the Scotland trip with Miranda and Liv the summer in between my freshman and sophomore year. And we developed a show together that was like a clown act. And honestly, looking back on it now, I think it was partially a humiliation ritual to, like, get you uncomfortable in front of him and vulnerable. I think that's a lot of what his teachings were, making you repeatedly uncomfortable and vulnerable. So you feel this connection to him. We went to Scotland together and then performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And that is when I think I really started to notice something is weird. It feels like he is really focused, focusing on Miranda. There's a specific moment that I think back to, and I remember feeling uncomfortable at the time. Miranda and Liv had chosen to go see a play, and Cato and I, for whatever reason, weren't seeing it, and we had to, like, take a bus back together. And this whole trip, he's kind of shoving Miranda and Liv together and then pushing me off to the side. We take this bus ride together, and he is dead silent the whole time. Won't look at me, won't talk. I'm, like, trying to engage in some forms of small talk, and he just will not engage. I remember being uncomfortable at the time, and now I look back, and I'm like, okay. He wanted me to feel alienated and othered because he wanted to be closer to Miranda and live. And I don't know why he chose me to, like, alienate. Working with him constantly felt like, oh, my God, he's giving me so much praise. He thinks I'm so funny. He thinks I'm incredible. And then a switch would flip, and it's like, I'm scum. I'm not even worth talking to on a bus ride when we're the only two people on this bus that know each other.

[Interviewer]

How many people were on that trip?

[Rhianna]

It was between 9 and 12, somewhere around there. And I know that he also brought his daughter on the trip. And looking back, knowing what I know now, I'm like, you're entrapping these young girls. And his daughter was. I think she was a year younger than me. It's just so deeply uncomfortable. After the Scotland trip, Miranda and I got closer and hung out a lot more. And that's where, like, the Cato crush jokes started. You know, it was just a schoolgirl crush I didn't really think anything of it.

[Interviewer]

Here's Miranda.

[Miranda]

I don't think that I ever really heard about Cato's relationship with Lindsay in a really formal way. It was more so rumors about the two of them. There was a particular trip that we took to Kentucky. She would be really insistent about, like, sitting next to him in the van and he would act really annoyed about it to me. She would text him and he'd be like, ugh, Lindsay is texting me. As we did on all of these trips. Got really drunk and, like, partied in someone's hotel room all night. This was a trip where Cato was the only faculty member that went. She proceeded to get more emotional throughout the night. Some of our peers saw her go into his room really late at night. I have no idea what happened, but I think it was around that time, which would have been my sophomore year, that we had started to hear rumors about her and his relationship.

[Interviewer]

Did you ever talk with Cato about it?

[Miranda]

No. He did something that he did with a lot of my peers, which was talk about how crazy she was. Cato would, of course, never acknowledge it. I just kind of assumed they were dating. They were together and now they're not and everything is fine and there are a couple of adults and she's going to graduate. My junior year, he was directing what's called a mainstage show, which is the biggest show of the year because it's in the university's main theater. It was Sarah Rule's Eurydice, which is the retelling of the Greek tragedy of Eurydice. And he cast me to be the lead Eurydice. And Olivia was cast in the show as well. This moment in particular is what I really think of when I think of him pitting us against one another and making us compete against one another, because he alluded to her that she was going to be cast as a lead and that I was going to be cast as a lead. And made us compete a bunch in the audition process, which was really shitty. And she got cast in the show, but not as a lead. She was a supporting character. Eurydice would have rehearsed for, I think, 3ish months, from August to it probably opened in October or November. It's when I had really developed feelings for him. He would call me into his office almost every day before rehearsal and I would spend 30 minutes to an hour with him deep diving into the show or talking about life or just sitting while he worked, and I would read. I would stay late after rehearsal. As well. I had just started working a new job part time trying to pay for my apartment and school. I would go to an 8am class and leave class at noon and go drive to my job and work from one to four every day during the week. I was meeting him before rehearsal, so going to his office at School at 5 in rehearsal Monday through Thursday from 6pm to 10pm and leaving the campus around 11 every night for multiple months. I was exhausted by this whole process. And it's at this time I confessed to him that I had feelings for him in his office. We had been rehearsing for maybe two to three weeks, if that. I was so anxious to tell him that I had feelings for him. And I can't even really remember what I said, but I think I said something like, I have feelings towards you. He immediately was like, I like you too. Are you positive you want to do this? I was like, yes, I really like you. This is so different than anything else. We're meant to be together and I feel really cosmically about this and we're really aligned. He of course reciprocated because that made him feel better about himself and made him feel like he was not inherently abusing me, which he was. After that, we communicated even more. And the hours before and after rehearsal looked very different. After my confession of feelings towards him. It was pretty soon after that that he would eventually force me to receive oral sex and was really adamant that we have penetrative sex. And I was really against it. I think it was just like a back of mind thing. I don't want to do that with you until I'm graduated. Until we're truly really dating and you, like leave your wife. But we would start hooking up in his office to paint the picture. It's important to note that his office was right next to the one theater classroom and his office was sandwiched between other offices. So there was one professor and his assistant on the other side of the door. He would make me give him a blowjob or make me receive oral sex from him while all of my peers were right next door to me. The door locked, of course, but if he didn't lock the door, like someone could have just opened the door and seen these things that I thought that I really wanted. But as time went on and rehearsal went on, I realized that I didn't want to do all of this was happening during the rehearsal process of this play. So I would come from work, maybe eat if I had time, and I would go to his office and meet him and be forced to give or receive oral sex and then feel disgusting. And I would have to go then rehearse this show that I loved so much. I felt so conflicted because I also felt that I genuinely loved him. For several months. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to graduate college, and I wanted him to quit his job, and I wanted us to. To run away to California and be cool, professional actors. That is what we, like, talked about. I'm really young, and I don't have a lot of experience in relationships at all. And this is technically my first relationship ever. This must just be how it is. You do things that you don't want to do, but it's because you love the person. You just do whatever you have to do.

[Interviewer]

Was there times where you felt like it was consensual and then times you felt like it was coerced?

[Miranda]

Yeah, there were totally times when it was consensual, especially at the beginning. The first time that we'd ever made out and made physical contact felt awesome. I really enjoyed it. I will not say that every single sexual experience I had with him was forced, but all of it carries through the weight of the confusing aspects of being groomed and manipulated. Even if, in the moment I knew that I wanted to give him a blowjob or receive oral sex, it, in hindsight, doesn't inherently feel super consensual because I was manipulated into wanting those things. I felt coerced and pressured and forced. Ultimately, when it became clear to me that my purpose of being with him before or after rehearsal was to get him off, I was more interested in developing a relationship with him. There were times when I very much said no. There were times when I very much was like, I don't really want to do this right now. I said no in as many ways as I could while still feeling comfortable. I still was like, I'm not really feeling it today, or I'm really tired, or, can we just cuddle instead? We only have 20 minutes until we need to get to rehearsal. But none of that ultimately really mattered to him. Over time, our sexual contact became less and less consensual. That was the most intense time of our relationship because it's when we saw each other the most. And he made sure that the process of the play was equally as exhausting as everything else in my life, because he wanted it to be excellent. And it was draining because it was a really fucking sad play and I was the lead. So I was carrying all of this sad emotional weight in and out of the rehearsal room. I have such a vivid memory of him making me run the end of the play, which is the saddest part of the play. So many times in a row to get me to be in this specific emotional state, I had to stop and go vomit. That was just a part of the way that he broke down my defenses. That happened for three months straight, spending all of my time with him and then even meeting up with him on the weekends. He would sneak out of the home that he shared with his wife and his daughter and meet me at his office at school. And I would find a reason to to not hang out with my friends, to be like, I need to go to the library at school or do something at school. I was an incredibly isolating time and I was absolutely riddled with anxiety. I could not sleep at all. I had a slight addiction to melatonin. I was taking like 40 milligrams of melatonin every night to try to sleep because I was so anxious about whatever was going on.

[Interviewer]

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[Rhianna]

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[Morgan]

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[Miranda]

I felt so conflicted because at a certain point we start saying, I love you. I thought that I loved this person. I was unclear about what I was anxious about, but I now know that it was just my body and my nervous system trying to tell me that something was wrong. But I couldn't comprehend it because again, he was so good at manipulating me. My brain was like, this is all normal. This is just the circumstance has to be secret. No one can know about it because he's my professor. But that's just a small thing. It's not a big deal for us. Olivia, for example, I would see her all the time because she was in the play with us, but I'd stopped hanging out with her as much. I remember having her over for the first time in forever and feeling really, like, guilty and weird about it because it had been a long time since I had hung out with her. My relationship with her changed in a lot of ways because when we had started to be sexual with one another, he then started to push me away from her by talking really poorly about her to me in ways that I regrettably at the time kind of believed, telling me that she didn't really get us because he and I come from a sad childhood and she had a. A supportive family. He tried really hard to push me away from her once we had started our relationship because she then became a threat. He needed her to help me get close to him. And then the moment that we started being together, he flipped the script on her completely and was a total asshole to her, which is just very confusing. And I remember her being incredibly confused because I had started to grow distant and. And so had he.

[Interviewer]

Here's Olivia.

[Olivia]

Around that time, it was always the three of us. When we would travel for school things, he would find ways to get the two of us to, like, go do things, go see shows or hang out with him. Those lines were always kind of blurry and started to feel like we were friends and the relationship felt very, like, open in that way. And then we did a play together. There were two main roles based on things that he had said, the impression that we had been given. And things that he confirmed to me directly when he was drinking, because he loved to drink with his students, that it was going to be us that got those two parts. Come auditions, we're both called back for the same part. She gets the part. And immediately it was like we were isolated from each other. I never noticed it in Miranda's behavior towards me. It was always very much like her time was taken up by Cato. She's just really working hard on this play. But he turned on me again, which he would do frequently. But it was different this time. He was very cold and had, like, no interest in the rapport that we had built. That's whenever I noticed Miranda coming to rehearsal really late every day with him. They would show up right before start time, and they were always together. And I asked her because I honestly was just confused as to what was going on. And she told me that she'd been going in for private coaching for, like, a couple hours before rehearsal every day. And then when we would get in the rehearsal room, he was awful to her. He would just flip a switch so fast. From being obsessed with her whenever she was acting to being not angry, but coaching her in such, like, a confrontational way and pushing her emotional boundaries. There were days where he'd be really nice to me in rehearsal and awful to Miranda and vice versa. And obviously, that creates competition. I mean, despite the fact that we were so incredibly close, we also both wanted those opportunities. It continued like that through the whole process. And when we got to actually performing that play on the performance weekend before the shows, Cato would pull her aside to, like, quote, unquote, warmup. But it was really him being intensely emotional with her. I clocked that. It was very weird. But it was hard for me to recognize in that moment what it was. Because there were also times where he was intensely emotional with me. And it wasn't sexual. So I didn't want to assume. I think if I would have been with Miranda more, it would have been easier for me to clock what was happening. And so, because of that, I think it was important that he not only put boundaries on our relationship and so stop being as close with me, but also get me away from Miranda. Now, obviously, I know that he did make a very concerted effort to make her not want to be my friend anymore. There was a necessary distance and animosity that he had to create. Luckily, he failed pretty miserably at doing that. We never had a falling out. We never Fought over roles. We always cheered each other on, even if we wanted what the other one had.

[Interviewer]

Here's Miranda again.

[Miranda]

Rhianna knew that we had started to see each other and that we were in a relationship with air quotes around it, because relationship is the best word that I can have for whatever this was. She was the only person that knew what was actually happening, and she knew that it was happening as it was progressing. She knew that we were having sexual contact. Right before the Title IX was filed. Cato had been to my apartment to hang out. Rihanna knew that we would have hooked up at my apartment. It also was cathartic for me to be able to tell someone. I didn't necessarily realize that I was actively in the cycle of abuse. As far as she knew, it was consensual and we were in love.

[Interviewer]

And what was her attitude about it?

[Miranda]

I think because he did such a good job as painting himself out to be a really big feminist and, like, a really big supporter of women, she, I think, was pretty convinced that it was totally consensual. And I think she also, because of how I spoke about it, really believed that it was just a product of the environment that we were in and that the relationship would have happened anywhere else if he were not my professor and if I were not his student.

[Interviewer]

Here's Rihanna.

[Rhianna]

I was one of the only people that she disclosed about this relationship to when it started. And I remember her telling me, like, you can't tell anyone, but Cato and I are engaging in this relationship. The moment when I was like, I think something not right is happening. She had told me over text that he was coming over to her house. And I don't know why, but that, like, contextualized it for me. My theater teacher, this man who I respect and revere, is going to my friend's house. Like, I've been in that house. I've hung out with her. We play like, GTA in this house. What is happening? Why is this happening? I just felt really uncomfortable about that. I don't know why it was that, but something about him going to her house clued me into. Like, this is inappropriate. And at the time, Morgan and I are in a play together. Cato had his play Eurydice, and Morgan and I were cast in the other theater professor's play. So we were not working directly with Cato. Morgan is giving me a ride home for practice. I cannot for the life of me remember how it came up or why it came up. But Morgan, I think, said something like, does Cato ever make you uncomfortable? And I wanted to vomit first. I was like, oh no, what are you talking about? And she had disclosed to me an experience she had where Cato had sexually harassed her on an away trip where alcohol was involved. I think after getting that piece of information and realizing it's not that Miranda is in like a special relationship with this man who loves her, because in my mind, that's what it was at first. Miranda has this magical aura. I don't know how to describe it. I remember thinking before this point, she's just so special. Of course he loves Miranda and wants to be with Miranda. And then when Morgan described to me that she had been sexually harassed by Cato, this facade that I had built up shattered. And I maybe should not have. I don't know. I disclosed to Morgan that I knew that Cato was engaging in this inappropriate behavior with Miranda.

[Interviewer]

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[Morgan]

Hi, my name is Morgan and my story starts in August of 2014. That is when I enrolled at the University of Central Oklahoma as a freshman and I was a theater education major. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but I never really knew what I wanted to teach or how I was actually going to get there. My experience in high school was very poor, for lack of a better word. I had a very rough time in high school. Honestly, I barely graduated. But one of the things that allowed me to get my diploma was that I was a part of theater and speech and debate, and that genuinely saved my life. It was my senior year of high school that I knew if I get out of this place, I want to teach theater and speech and debate. And so I enrolled at UCL because that was the only program in the state that offered a theater education program degree. I was really looking forward to college as being a fresh start for me. This was the first time that I was on my own and I really could make my own decisions and I was ready to have a new start. I first met Cato, probably the second day that I was at uco. I was enrolled in his Foundations of Theater class. He told me later that that class was one of his projects that he brought to the university because it was a class where all theater majors, whether you were performance, theater ed or design tech, if you were new to the program, you had to take this class with him to get to know everybody and to get introduced to the program. So when I first walked in that class, I could definitely tell that Cato was not like any other teacher that I had before. He was very lively, very energetic, personable, really wanted to, like, make us comfortable, get us to know each other and to know him. And he was very captivating as a teacher. I remember at that first Foundations class, Cato brought in a few upperclassmen that were part of the department for a while. He brought Lindsay and a few other students to just tell us a little bit about the program and how excited they were that we were this new class coming in. I really thought that this department seemed really supportive of each other and was very, very close. I remember being really excited to be a part of his classes. And I was very excited to find out that he was directing one of the main stage shows that year.

[Interviewer]

And how did he behave towards you, specifically?

[Morgan]

Initially, the first couple of classes that I took, he was very inviting and kind to me. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that made me feel like I was special or singled out. But that first week of classes is also. Whenever we auditioned for the productions, I ended up auditioning, and I got a callback for his show, did the callback, and then by that Friday, I was on the cast list. And I was very excited, but I didn't know that that was a big deal necessarily, that I was the freshman that was cast in the show. I would go on to find that out in the next couple weeks. I very quickly ended up getting scooped under the wing of a few upperclassmen. One of them was Lindsay. And I remember they just said nothing but great things about Cato, about how important he was to the program. He was really painted like he had turned the program around and amplified what theater was there. They talked about how amazing it was to take classes from him, how being a part of production was unlike anything else, that it was very intense, but that I was going to learn a lot, and that it was a really, really good thing for me that I was one of his favorites and that I was maybe going to be his, like, freshman. And I kind of just thought, like, he sees potential in me, but that's not what they meant. I did notice pretty quickly that there were a few female students in particular that he was very protective of, very guarded towards, and I could tell that they had a very close dynamic. Right after I was cast is when Cato started to pay more attention to me. Probably was the second or third week of classes that he asked me to come with him to his office. And I remember after class going with him, and he told me to close the door because he liked to keep his attention on one person at a time. So I did, and we sat down, and he talked to me a lot about my life, wanted to know about my family, my parents. I told him about my mom and how she had died by her own hand when I was 15, and how she suffered for a long time from alcoholism and how that affected me. I talked about how high school was very hard and how I was just very excited to be at UCO on my own. He told me a couple things about himself. He had a similar background, and after that, I felt safe with him. But I could tell that he was Happy that that was my background. I think at the time, though, I very much read it as, oh, he understands me. I definitely think that he found it easier to target people who didn't have as much support familially and financially. But I think that Cato would find a vulnerability in anyone he was wanting to pick as his next favorite. I was in the play, I had like one line, but I was there at all the rehearsals and I was ready. He's trying to block this transition scene and he calls me over there and I have no idea what's going on, but I'm like, yeah, whatever you need, Kato. He tells me that he needs me to whip this male actor who is going to be crawling on his hands and knees and that I was to whip him like it was getting me off. I was very surprised. This was not in the play at all. There were other parts of the play that were pretty depraved and there were sexual scenes, but this was not in the production. But I didn't want to come off as like, I wasn't willing to do what I was directed. And so I did it and I felt really weird about it. He had me go through it quite a few times, practicing it. And I remember him looking pleased, but not like, yes, she's taking my direction, but like he was enjoying watching me do that. And the whole thing felt like this test or humiliation ritual. But I did it and it was part of the show and that was that.

[Interviewer]

I'm so sorry. How old were you and how old was he at the time?

[Morgan]

I was 18 and mid. Late 40s, I think.

[Interviewer]

Much older than you, fair to say.

[Rhianna]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Did anybody else who was in the room say anything to you afterwards?

[Morgan]

No. Everyone acted like this was typical Cato behavior. I'm pretty sure my friends, the people who were, you know, I was close with the cast because I got very close with a lot of people in that castle. I think if anything, they just told me I did a good job.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel like Cato fostered a competitive environment?

[Olivia]

Yes.

[Morgan]

I don't remember specific comments that were said years ago. I could tell you in more detail, but it was very common in those closed door visits or when Cato would have a few of us around, he would make little comments here or there about some other students. I do know at one point that he did call Liv spoiled to me. I don't really know a lot about Liv's background, but I know that she had a better relationship with her parents than definitely I did and that she came from a better financial situation than I did. I remember a couple of instances like that, but I wasn't privy to as much of that because I was not a performance major.

[Interviewer]

Now that you have so much more information today than you did then, what are the signs that you pinpoint now of grooming behavior that you witnessed from Cato?

[Morgan]

I think the first sign that I would warn people to look out for is the impartment of special information. One of the first things that Cato did was he let me read the script to Wojcick before our first rehearsal where we all got our scripts. And at the time, I took that as like, this is really cool. He's trusting me with this information. But now I'm like, oh, that was just a way to test and to start to garner trust. Another thing that I noticed is very slowly but methodically inching closer and closer to being more of a friend or a peer, or wanting me to see him like that, as opposed to having clear boundaries of our relationship. Very quickly, Cato let me know that. That he isn't the best at checking his email and that I was to text him, Facebook message him, or Snapchat him. Major red flag. That's fucking weird. But at the time, I'm new to college, and I'm like, I suck at checking my email too. But that'd be another sign that I would say, definitely the element of control. For five, six semesters at uco, Cato was begging me to change my major from theater education to performance. He wanted me to take more of his classes. He wanted me to be an actor. He said if I wanted to teach, I could teach without that degree and I could go back and do that later, that if I took his classes and spent more time and coached with him, that I could be an actress and be really good at that. And despite the fact that I told him multiple times I did not want to be an actress, that never mattered to him. He just wanted me to have to report to him because he was head of performance for a lot of that time. He wanted me to have to answer to him more. And as a theater ed major, I really didn't have to. I think also the mood swings and the hot and cold, that kind of game that he would play with all of us. There were times where he was overly nice to me. I remember I took theater history with him, and I was a very good student in college. I almost got all A's. I was very diligent. I attended class. But something got mixed up on my calendar. And I did not show up to the theater history final and I realized it and I freaked out and I'm crying to him about it. He was so nice and overly understanding to me about it. He let me take the final whenever I wanted to that week and he gave me an easier version of the final and he knew that I was so grateful to him for that. If there were times where I wasn't acting the way that he wanted, he would bring that up and talk about the same person who I did this for is now doing this. So finding or utilizing opportunities to have something over you probably another red flag.

[Interviewer]

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[Morgan]

I ended up traveling with Cato three times. I went to KCACTF, which is the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. I went multiple times with them, the first time being in early 2015 because Wojcick got selected to be performed at this festival. Going into this trip, I knew that these kind of trips were really interesting. I knew that it was very typical that the group would be partying a lot. There was going to be lots of drinking, young college kids alone in a dorm for a week. What could go wrong, right? I was excited to go. I knew that I was the only freshman who got to go on the trip that year, and so I felt really excited that I got to be a part of it. On that first trip, I went with him and a bunch of other people to a liquor store in San Angelo. Didn't go in because I was 19 at that time. He bought us a booze, he drank with us, he got drunk with us. It was totally normal on these trips.

[Interviewer]

Did he ever try to approach you alone or create one on one moments with you that felt unnecessary or unsafe?

[Morgan]

There's definitely one incident. This would have been the last night of the festival. We would go see productions and do workshops during the day, and then there would be an evening production that would happen. The routine was, after that last production, we would all pile into someone's dorm room and we would drink and have a talk back. But that talk back quickly just dissolved into us shit talking and drinking and just hanging out. On the last night, we were walking into the dorm and I was in the back of the group. And then all of a sudden I feel this hand on my ass. I was very startled by it. I didn't really know what was happening. I look and then I see Cato is rushing up behind me on my left and breezing by us to get back into the group. I look behind me. No one else is behind me. No one, from what I could tell, saw what happened. And I was just so surprised that at first I was like, I made that up. That didn't happen. There's no way that happened. So I just shake it off and I keep going with the group. And then I'm starting to process and I realized that did happen. And I had this thought which was so fucked up. That's okay. He must have thought I was Lindsay, which is so not okay. But that's just where my mind went. So I kind of just brushed it off and went back with the group, and we went to the talk back room, and we were hanging out and we were drinking. I had my angry orchard. I had a weird relationship with drinking because of my mom's history and everything, but I didn't want to seem like the wet blanket. I was talking to people, and then Cato comes over and sits near me, and he's definitely not isolating me off. Other people were around, but no one was really paying attention to us. He asked me what I thought about the trip, whether I liked it and whether I'd come back next year. And I told him how great it was and how I loved seeing the plays and being a part of the production. There was a bit that was going on throughout the week. My roommate had brought this stuffed animal. She was taking the stuffed animal everywhere with her, and then she lost it, and she was making a big fuss about it. It was known throughout the whole cast that this was a thing. So I made a little, like, offhanded comment about how my roommate was annoying, but otherwise everything was good. And then he offered. He was like, oh, well, if you're having problems with your roommate, you can come and sleep in my room. And I laughed and was like, oh, that's okay. I'm good. I can make it one more night. And I think he could tell that I was a little uncomfortable. But we moved on. And I don't remember the rest of the conversation from there.

[Interviewer]

What did you know about Cato's relationship with Lindsay? Because you mentioned that you thought, oh, he must have gotten us confused. So it sounds like you had some understanding of they had a relationship.

[Morgan]

The thing about Lindsay is that it has never been confirmed to me or said directly to me that they had a relationship, that they had ever been involved with each other. But everyone in the department suspected, pretty much knew. It was very obvious to me from that first semester in that first production that Cato and Lindsay were very, very close, that she was his muse, that he loved her, that she was his favorite, and that she loved him, too. Occasionally someone might have, like, a side eye or raise their eyebrows at interactions between them, but no one ever said anything. And towards the end of her time at uco, I think we also saw that relationship blow up, because by the end, he was mean to her in class. They were not talking. They were not close. Every time they were in a room together, the air got thicker. It was very Tense. As my time went on in the department. After that first trip, I definitely distanced myself a little bit. I had a buffer because I was a theater education major. I wasn't a performance major, so I didn't have to take a lot of his classes. I wasn't required to audition for the productions like performance majors were. So I opted not to audition in fall of 2015. But our relationship was still good. There were times where he would recommend me for opportunities. Like I did a short film because he called me into his office and he was like, I think you should do this. And so I did. But I definitely took a little bit of a step back. After my first year, Cato was making sure I had scholarship money. I had a good enough relationship with him and rapport that I was always getting some tuition waivers from him. But I was never in another Cato production, and that was on purpose. I also started to notice that things weren't all upright when Cato was very persistent that I go on this trip with him. He does this study abroad tour every year in Scotland in around July or August, and he really wanted me to go on it. There were lots of reasons why I couldn't go. I kept telling him that it wasn't going to happen, that I couldn't afford. It was the excuse I kept using. And at one point, he even offered to take out a loan to pay for me to go, which at the time I was like, wow, that's a big deal. Now I look back and I'm like, that's fucking crazy. Why would you care so much about getting these young girls to go on this trip? It made no sense to me, not trying to be disparaging to myself, but I was not that talented as an actress. I was not that essential or any show that they were doing. There was no good reason for him to really want me to go on that trip. So there are more red flags there. Throughout my time in the department, I started to pick up on the pattern, too. Each year I would see the new freshmen coming in, and I would see how he would treat them, just like how he would treat me. I just started to get more of an unsettled vibe about all of it. And then I went on another trip with them because I was selected as an Irene Ryan partner, which was like an acting competition thing. And so I went on the trip in 2016 with them. I kept a little bit more of a low profile, but at one point, I was sitting with Lindsay and some of those other people watching a production, and they Kind of nudged me. And they're like, cato's going to get us. And so Cato picks us up and takes us to his hotel room. And he's definitely drunk. He's offering us drinks. I don't remember if I drank anything in his room or not, but I remember being there and I remember how I felt. Like I felt very weird and surreal, but I don't remember a lot about what happened in that room. I'm realizing now that that's because I was dissociating out of my mind. And then we realized it was time to go pick up the rest of the people. And so we get in a car with Cato, who is drunk. He drives the quarter mile or wherever to the auditorium, picks us up, drops us off at our dorm. It was probably around this time that I started to feel like this person that I trusted maybe wasn't as amazing and good as he presented himself to be.

[Interviewer]

Next time on Something was Wrong.

[Morgan]

I remember even saying, I want Cato to have a fair shake in representation at this, so I want to go through the formal investigation.

[Rhianna]

I think that Title IX office really took advantage of a bunch of naive girls in a number of ways. And one of them was telling me that it would be anonymous, that Miranda wouldn't see any information that would clue into the fact that it was me who said this.

[Olivia]

He had also told me that they dragged Miranda into it, and it really, really frustrated me because there was no.

[Morgan]

Way that that could be true.

[Olivia]

I told them if he was in a relationship with a student, I would know about it.

[Miranda]

All of a sudden, all of my merit at school, which was that I was a pretty good actor and was cast in a lot of important things by him, was now in my head dismantled because I was in a relationship with him.

[Interviewer]

Thank you so much to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us, and thank you for listening. Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle Media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Reese. Thank you endlessly to our team associate producer Amy B. Chesler, social media marketing manager Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart and audio engineers Becca High and Steven Wack, Marissa and Travis at WME audioboom and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abayomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Glad Rag's original song you Think youk from their album Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice JP Pacheco for their work on this cover recorded at the Grill Studios in Emeryville, California. Find all artist socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to SomethingWasWrong.com if you would like to help support the show, you can subscribe and listen ad free on Apple Podcasts. Purchase a sticker from our sticker shop@broken cyclemedia.com Share the podcast with a loved one or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at at. Something was Wrong Podcast as always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Friends.