S35 E6: Orange Is The New Mack | Allison after NXIVM

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Orange Is The New Mack" | Allison after NXIVM (Uncover, S35 E6)

Overview

This episode explores the aftermath of the NXIVM cult’s downfall with a close look at Allison Mack—her psychological journey, attempts to rebuild her life, and her experience in prison. Through candid interviews and emotional recollections, host Natalie Robomed guides listeners through Allison's struggle for redemption, grappling with public perception, and the slow process of self-understanding after leaving a cult. The episode also delves into her relationships with fellow ex-members and the challenges she faces re-entering society as a convicted felon.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sentencing Aftermath & Allison’s State of Mind

• Context: Keith Raniere receives 120 years in prison; Claire Bronfman and the Salzmans also sentenced; Allison Mack awaits her own punishment.
• Emotional Fallout: Allison describes feeling lost post-plea deal, uncertain of what’s “right” anymore.
  • Quote (01:47): Allison Mack: “I don’t. I’m drowning. I don’t know what to think about this or how to think about this. I was wrong. What the fuck is right?”
• Symbolic Moment: Allison recounts seeing a broken Buddha in her parents’ garden, taking it as a sign (“your God is dead”) (02:10).

2. The Long, Messy Process of Leaving a Cult

• Not a Clean Cut: Host notes how leaving a cult is not instant—it’s protracted and non-linear (03:04).
• Guilt & Shame: Allison candidly admits her attraction to the power she held in NXIVM, and her ongoing struggle with that shame.
  • Quote (05:12): Allison Mack: “Yes, I thought these were young, beautiful women. And, yes, I was excited by the power that I felt...the sexuality of it was exciting and felt powerful. So articulating that about myself...continues to be a process and a challenge.”

3. The Parallel Stories of Lauren Salzman

• Testifying Wreckage: Lauren describes her breakdown after testifying, feeling “two tones” of reality clashing—her indoctrination vs. truth (06:11).
  • Quote (06:11): Lauren Salzman: “…I have a running dialogue of how he gaslighted me out of that in my head while I'm testifying. And so I felt like I was going crazy.”
• Coping Mechanism: Lauren finds solace working at a dog daycare, regaining a sense of goodness through animals (07:27).

4. Allison’s Coping and Self-Reinvention

• Personal Resilience: Despite expectations, Allison stays active—enrolling at Long Beach City College, later transferring to Berkeley.

  • Studies ethics, seeking to untangle real philosophy from NXIVM’s teachings (08:48; 09:00).
  • Quote (09:00): “It’s like pulling part string cheese…this was corrupt and this was, was like really good…let’s keep this and let’s move this.”

• Social Backlash at Berkeley:

  • Allison faces hostility after a TikTok video about her background circulates among students (13:59).
  • Students complain to faculty and Title IX, resulting in restrictions, and pressure for her to change her major (16:05).
  • Quote (14:09): “Probably not a good idea for me to be in that class, but I was fascinated by the topic and I wanted to take it.”

5. Dealing with Notoriety & Public Perception

• Celebrity & Scapegoating: Allison’s role as a supposed “master recruiter” is highlighted, including her notorious tweet to Emma Watson—which she claims not to recall, attributing it to someone else in the organization (18:12).
• Understanding Her Reception: Aware that she will always be seen as a threat or danger by some (17:09).

6. Sentencing and Prison Intake

• Sentencing Day Emotions: Allison’s friend Christina sings to her for comfort as she faces sentencing and possible years in prison (19:05).
  • Judges note both Alison’s culpability and her own victimhood in the “slave/master” dynamic (19:41).
  • 36 months in prison—less than she feared (20:15).

7. Arrival & Reality of Federal Prison

• Prison Structure: Details of daily life at Dublin, CA’s women’s prison (22:12).

  • Unexpectedly placed “inside the fence” (higher security, more controlled movement) rather than “camp” (lower security) (24:25).

• First Days: Allison describes loneliness, the process of being recognized, and learning to navigate prison social dynamics (27:17).

  • Quote (27:38): “It was the first time I'd ever been identified as my race…like, oh, you know, the white girl…”

• Prison Culture: Finds moments of connection and dignity with her “bunky” and others. Crocheting and nature become solace (28:18; 28:45).

• Reflection on Gender, Race, and Justice: Observations about how many women are incarcerated due to crimes committed for or with men (30:35).

8. Letting Go, Acceptance, and Small Freedoms

• Adapting Mindsets: The mundanity of prison gives Allison a new relationship to time and self-worth (29:19).
• Physical Transformation: She shaves her head, forgoes makeup, enjoys small pleasures like prison cheesecake (29:58).
• Nature Rituals: Finds early morning peace collecting wildflowers for makeshift “vases” (32:01; 32:45).

9. Nearing Release, Fears About the Outside

• Anticipation and Anxiety: As release nears, fears resurface about public reception and reintegration (33:23).
• Release Details: She’s released quietly to avoid press attention, returns to her parents’ house, but remains under parole as a “public pariah” (33:41; 33:49).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Allison on Admitting Guilt (03:23):

  “I'm gonna plead guilty because I know that I'm guilty, and a jury's gonna find me guilty...the next decade or two of my life is gonna be the process of unraveling what I did and truly understanding that so that I can heal and move forward…”

• Lauren Salzman on Testifying (06:11):

  “I had Keith’s indoctrination running through my head the whole time...I have a running dialogue of how he gaslighted me...I felt like I was going crazy.”

• Allison’s Experience at Berkeley (14:09):

  “Probably not a good idea for me to be in that class, but I was fascinated by the topic and I wanted to take it.”

• Allison’s Realization About Prison (25:00):

  “They lock the doors every hour on the hour, and you have to stay for wherever you are for a full hour...”

• Mother’s Reflection on Women in Prison (30:35):

  Allison’s mom: “The women in here are probably two thirds of them here, are here because they helped a man do something wrong, and they are punished for it.”

• Allison on Going Outside Again (33:23):

  “I remember like two months out from my release date in prison being like, fuck, like now I have to go be in the world. Like, how is the world gonna receive me?”

• Literary Parallel (34:19):

  “There’s a line in King Lear: ‘I that way madness lies.’ Like, I can't think about that because I'll make myself crazy.”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:47] Allison’s raw confession of uncertainty and guilt.
• [03:23] Description of psychological aftermath—processing guilt over time.
• [05:12] Allison confronting her own motivations within NXIVM.
• [06:11] - [07:57] Lauren Salzman’s testimony aftermath and animal therapy.
• [09:00] Allison tries to separate real wisdom from cult dogma via philosophy studies.
• [13:59] - [16:05] Berkeley incident, backlash, and Title IX restrictions.
• [19:05 - 20:15] Sentencing day: fear, tears, 36-month sentence.
• [22:12 - 25:00] Arrival at prison, initial experiences, increased security.
• [27:38] Allison’s first awareness of racial identity among inmates.
• [29:58] Adapting to prison: shaving her head, finding small joys.
• [30:35] Mother’s observations on incarcerated women.
• [33:23] Nearing release, Allison’s apprehension about public re-entry.
• [34:19] Literary reflections on madness and reintegration.

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Tone & Style

The tone is raw and confessional, with both host Natalie Robomed and Allison Mack revealing vulnerability, confusion, and resilience. There’s an undercurrent of hope despite ongoing struggle, and a focus on accountability, self-analysis, and the “gray zones” of influence and redemption.

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Conclusion

This episode provides an intimate, multi-layered portrait of Allison Mack’s journey as she moves from cult indoctrination toward self-understanding and re-entry into the world, grappling with shame, stigma, and the long, slow work of personal repair. It invites listeners to consider issues of culpability, the lasting marks of trauma, and the complicated road to redemption after taking part in damaging systems.

Transcript

[A]

You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series, you want to know more, more about the people involved, where the case is now and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar, and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

This is a CBC podcast.

[A]

Campsite Media.

[B]

On an overcast June day in 2019, in the same Brooklyn courtroom where Lauren Salzman testified during the NXIVM legal saga, Keith Ranieri's trial comes to a close. A jury in New York has found the leader of a self help group guilty of seven counts of sex trafficking and racketeering.

His sentence, 120 years in prison, which he'll serve in Tucson, Arizona. Judge Garafis gives Claire Bronfman the second highest sentence to Keith because in part, her money funded Keith's twisted vision. She receives nearly seven years in prison. Nancy Salzman Prefect gets three and a half years. Her daughter Lauren gets time served for the period she spent on house arrest, plus five years probation and 300 hours of community service. And Allison Mack, she makes a deal so late in the process that she must wait to hear what sentence she will receive. She flies back to California.

[C]

Until then, I've pled guilty. I was wrong. We were wrong. Okay? I need help. Like, how do I. I don't. I'm drowning. I don't know what to think about this or how to think about this. I was wrong. What the fuck is right?

[B]

Then she's on house arrest at her parents again. One morning she walks out.

[C]

My dad has this sculpture of the Buddha in his garden. And I went outside at like 5 o' clock in the morning and there was mist everywhere. And the head of the Buddha had fallen off, like an animal or something had kicked it. And the head of the Buddha fell. And I had this thought in my head of like, your God is dead.

[B]

And now prison is calling.

How is Alison going to get back to reality? How will she leave the cult? And can she change her mind?

From Campside Media and CBC, this is Allison after NXIVM from CBC's Uncover. I'm Natalie Robomed. This is episode six, Orange is the New Mac.

Here's the thing about leaving a cult, it's not like flipping a switch. I'm reminded of that thing. People say that it takes half the time you were with someone to get over the breakup. Alison was in NXIVM for 12 years, and her decision to leave and turn on Keith was an evolution.

[C]

It wasn't like I felt processed and clear and then pled guilty. It was like, I'm gonna plead guilty because I know that I'm guilty, and a jury's gonna find me guilty, and I did something really bad, and then I'm gonna know that the next decade or two of my life is gonna be the process of unraveling what I did and truly understanding that so that I can heal and move forward in a positive way.

[B]

First, she had to realize that Keith, her guru, wasn't who he'd said he was. That was chipped away at by all the things Alison learned during the lead up to the trial and the trial itself. But it was also revealed in what Keith did or didn't do.

[C]

If Keith just said that he was responsible for this, all of you guys would be let go. There's no reason why you and Lauren and even Claire and Nancy and Kathy are involved in this. Like, this is not because of you. This is because of Keith. And if Keith just said that, all of this would go away. And I remember thinking, yeah, why the fuck isn't he saying that?

[B]

This was something that had stuck out for Lauren, too.

[D]

It didn't fit with what a leader should do, because the leader he convinced us he was takes the hardest consequences for everyone.

[B]

But the problem for both Alison and Lauren is that if Keith wasn't who he said he was, a noble intellectual acting only for the good of others, then neither were they.

[C]

When you do something that is so against your true nature, it is really hard to verbalize that that's what you've done. Going through everything with the proffering, everything with my attorneys and with the prosecutors and everything, it was like.

Admitting, yes, I thought these were young, beautiful women. And, yes, I was excited by the power that I felt having these young, beautiful women look to me and listen to me. And yes, the sexuality of it was exciting and felt powerful. So articulating that about myself, something that I feel like.

Shame for, you know, continues to be a process and a challenge.

[B]

Allison retreats into house arrest. She starts going to therapy, and she begins trying to pull apart what's real from what Keith told her was real. Allison isn't allowed to talk to Lauren or anyone else from nxivm and actually still isn't today. Likewise, Lauren cannot be in contact with Alison either. And during this time, Lauren goes into a tailspin. Testifying on the stand broke something in her.

[D]

Very difficult to go through the trial because I had Keith's indoctrination running through my head the whole time. So I'm saying things that I believe are a reality and that are reality that I learned and that I discovered. And at the same time, I have a running dialogue of how he gaslighted me out of that in my head while I'm testifying. And so I felt like I was going crazy.

[B]

It's like there are two tones playing at once. A horrible discord between real life and NXIVM brainwashing. And at the same time, Lauren's coming to terms with what she's done.

[D]

I saw how people could go crazy and not come back. I saw it like I saw the choice for myself and I didn't want that for me and I wanted to fight for myself.

In the end, after I testified and I, like, legit had a real breakdown. I went to work with animals because I was like, I need to have reflected back to me somebody who sees me in a pure way, not in a slanted way and in a way that I could trust, like, find my way back to myself because.

It caused so much doubt. It caused so much self doubt.

[B]

She gets a job working with dogs.

[D]

On the worst days of my, like, whole life, I would just go into the small dog daycare and I would lay down on the floor and all the puppies would just jump all over me. And I felt like they understood that I wasn't a bad person. I think that's essential. If you can't believe in your own goodness, there's nowhere to go.

[B]

This was Lauren's coping mechanism. And Alison, well, Allison is a doer and an optimist. Like, she's got her own personal reserve of sunshine that she's crumpled up a bit, put in her pocket for a rainy day. If I'm honest, it's one of the things about her I find hardest to relate to. If I were in Alison's situation, awaiting sentencing, having been at the center of a headline grabbing sex trafficking case, I think I would turn inwards, not get out of bed. Probably contemplate darker things than I'd like to admit. But Alison keeps going. Maybe the same personality trait that drove her to be a harsh master, that inner little dictator propels her forward. She starts going to school.

[C]

I enrolled at Long Beach City College.

[B]

In class, she begins teasing apart the ethics and morals she learned in nxivm. Finding the source material that Keith cribbed his ideas from.

[C]

Keith said a lot of shit that was Very true. You know, and that's another thing that was so confusing. It's like pulling part string cheese, you know, it's like, okay, this was like corrupt and this was, was like really good. And like, let's keep this and let's move this. Aristotle also said it.

[B]

She starts meeting people, hosting study groups. She bikes to class 14 miles. That's unheard of in LA. One of the new people she meets is a woman named Christina.

[E]

I even remember saying to our mutual friend, like, if I'm friends with her, like, is she safe?

[B]

Christina starts hanging out with Alison Moore one on one and gets close to her.

[E]

So I started going over to her house just for backyard chats, like every week because she couldn't do any more than that. We just really hit it off at that point. She didn't have many friends.

[B]

Allison's sentencing, originally scheduled for a few months after the trial, has been pushed back. She's waiting to hear her fate.

[E]

She was processing a lot and she was coming up and down in these moments of despair and belonging and like, what the F did I do to my life? And clarity, for sure. But then just feeling so confused by how to trust herself again. She really was struggling with, how do I ever know which way is right and wrong or up and down or anything anymore? Like, I thought I. I thought I knew everything and everything was turned upside down. I think that wounded her and made her very scared to like have thoughts and opinions again and be her true self again.

[B]

By the time Covid hits, NXIVM has completely crumbled. The cult is over, or so you would think. But believe it or not, there are still people loyal to Keith. While Keith is in detention, a group of NXIVM followers start holding nightly dance vigils outside his jail.

They blast music, writhing and gyrating to party songs, supposedly to lift the spirits of the lockdown inmates or to titillate their master, because one of the dancers is Nikki Klein, the Canadian actress Alison married and a fellow first line dos master. In one video, she wears a T shirt and black shorts, her knees bent as she steps to the beat. She's got on a cloth mask because of the pandemic, and she's wide eyed, shaking her arms. She looks like a Pentecostal congregant giving praise to the most high, which in a way, she is because Keith is inside.

While her wife is dancing outside Keith's detention center, Allison is hitting the books. She transfers from community college to Berkeley, a very prestigious school up in Northern California. She's still on house arrest, and the campus is locked down for Covid. So she's doing classes on Zoom.

[C]

So I'm like, in all my classes with my camera on, interacting and engaging as myself. Alison Mack. And I was a Gender and Women's studies major because I love feminist studies. That's really genuinely what I'm most interested in. Before dos and everything, you know, and my minor was in human rights.

[B]

The fact that Alison says this without a hint of irony is sort of unbelievable. I mean, here Alison is, having pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges for her role in a cult that abused women, wanting to major in gender and women's studies. From the outside, if he didn't know Alison had changed her mind, one could see this as nefarious. And it didn't take long before someone did.

[C]

One of the students in one of the classes I was in had mentioned that she wanted to do research on feminism and Christianity. And I had written a paper about a story in the Old Testament. And so I had it from a feminist lens. And so I had done a lot of research, so I knew some names of good researchers, published people, you know. So I private messaged her, and I said, listen, like, check out this person, this scholar. Like, you might be able to find some cool stuff for your research paper. And she was like, thanks so much. And I was like, yeah, no problem. And then she apparently thought I was nice, like, liked me, you know? And so she looked me up on social media and found my Instagram and, like, all my followers, and then read all the comments and then read all the story about me and got, like, really freaked out and made a TikTok video. She did this, like, thing where it was like, put five fingers up, put a finger down. If you have ever known somebody who was committed of a crime. And ultimately, her skit led to Alison Mack as a sex trafficker and is in school at Berkeley and is trying to recruit through Zoom or something like that. And she posted it and then sent it to all the kids in the class.

[B]

I looked for this video, but it seems like it was deleted or made private by the originator. Still, safe to say plenty of Berkeley students saw it when it was first posted.

[C]

And that was in the summer. And then in the fall, I enrolled in a class called Gender, Sex, and Power. Probably not a good idea for me to be in that class, but I was fascinated by the topic and I wanted to take it. And the students in all the classes started emailing the teacher saying that they didn't feel safe being in the class with me. And they couldn't believe that Berkeley would expose them to somebody like me. And they were going to drop the class if I was going to stay in the class.

[B]

Some students in a black feminism class Alison was taking go one step further.

[C]

Other students got together and went to the Title IX office, that's the office.

[B]

That prohibits sex based discrimination on campuses.

[C]

And said that they felt threatened by my presence in their class. And they accused me of recording the class conversations and utilizing the information that I got from what they said during the class conversations to somehow extort them or hurt them.

[B]

Alison says this isn't true, that she'd never been recording them without their consent.

[C]

The teacher at the beginning of the class said, if you are not a black woman, please step back. Like, just listen in this class, because this is a class for black women. And so I was like, okay. So I just listened, took a fuck ton of notes. But as I was learning, I was school. And then the final project was we had to create an art piece that was reflective of what we had learned that semester. So I went through my notes and I took pieces of what all of the women had said and I created a poem.

[B]

Alison makes a paper mache heart and writes a poem on it with quotes from women in the class.

[C]

And then I read it and it was a tribute to them, basically saying, what I learned from this class is what your experience was. And that's like. Like that will, I'll take that with me. And that was, I think, where they got the idea that I had recorded them and that I was going to do something with it.

[B]

It's another example of Alison's good intentions going so completely awry. A repeat of the gulf between what she hoped for and how it was received.

[C]

The Berkeley Title IX office was like, okay, if we come back to campus and you come onto our campus, you are not allowed to. To be in the presence of other students without a professor there. Like, you have to be like in a place on the campus. And you are not allowed to record classes without everybody knowing that you are doing this. And there were just all these restrictions that happened. And then the gender and women's studies professor was like, you should probably change your major.

[B]

I've got to be honest, I see both sides of this. If I was 18, taking a small feminism seminar, I'm not sure I'd want Alison Mack in my class. Her presence threatens the idea of college as a safe space, a little bubble where you go to learn before you're thrust into the cruel world. Then again, if college is where you go for intellectual rigor, being in the same feminism class as a felon from a sex trafficking case could be a real learning opportunity. At least that's what Alison might have hoped.

[C]

I didn't expect it, and it was a real experience of, this is how the world is going to receive me. I'm going to be seen as a danger and a threat.

[B]

Alison is going to be seen as a threat because part of what the students are reacting to is the perception that Alison was a master recruiter, a Svengali of sorts, who would use all sorts of methods, including the Internet, to get new members. This idea was furthered by social media posts while she was still in nxivm, in which Alison seemed to try to recruit celebrities online.

In 2016, when Alison was already in doss, the official Alison Mack Twitter account tweeted at Harry Potter star and noted feminist Emma Watson. The message said the and this is a voice actor. I'm a fellow actress like yourself and involved in an amazing women's movement. I think you dig. I'd love to chat if you're open.

When I asked Alison about this, she had no recollection of ever sending this message.

[C]

No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. Because somebody else ran my social media, and the person who ran my social media was in Jeunesse. Not in dos, but in Jeunesse.

[B]

It's kind of wild that Alison would hand over her Twitter account with more than 100,000 followers to another NXIVM member. But that's the level of naivete Alison had. And now that naivete is being punctured as she's beginning to understand how she's going to be received.

In June 2021, more than three years after she was first arrested, Alison flies back to New York for her sentencing. She travels with her mom and her friend Christina, which you heard about at the very beginning of this series. Christina sings to her as she walks in.

[E]

I think I might have sang the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you. I just remember her trembling like she was just, like, shaking like a leaf. Like, so much fear and adrenaline. And she's kept her head down. And I remember singing to her, which makes me cry because there's, like, at that point, there's nothing left to say. Like, you don't know what you're walking into and you don't know what the outcome will be. All I could do is be present for her in that moment of, like, utter lack of control.

[B]

Inside the courtroom, Judge Garafis sits behind the bench. Alison could be facing more than 14 years in prison. Prosecutors have asked the judge to go easy because of the assistance she's given the federal government. Alison's attorneys, meanwhile, are hoping for no prison time. Judge Garafis looks down at Alison and reads his decision. He tells her she was an essential accomplice. But he also acknowledges Alison's own victimhood, saying, in the language of doss, you were a slave as well as a master. Then he sentences Allison.

[C]

In my head, I had told myself, as long as it's less than five years, you'll be okay. You can do less than five years. So when 36 months came out, I was like, cool, I can do that.

[B]

It's that same rigorous optimism, Alison's favorite coping mechanism kicking into gear. But will it and Allison survive prison?

[F]

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[C]

All I need is one person to believe in me.

[B]

All I need is one person to think I have something.

[F]

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[G]

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[B]

On a hot September day in 2021, Alison and her mom drive up to a small, bland city about an hour inland from San Francisco.

Alison is here in Dublin, California to report to a low security women's prison that once housed Patty Hearst.

[C]

It was like old army housing with the slivered windows and the barbed wire everywhere. And because it was not maximum security, it just looked like kind of like a rundown camp, you know.

[B]

And actually Allison does think she's going to camp. Sort of. Camp is prison slang for the low security part of a prison that houses non violent inmates.

[C]

There's no locks on the doors. Like they open the doors at 6:00am and like the doors are open until 9:00 clock at night. So you can come and go as you please. Like, there's just a lot more freedom and flexibility.

[B]

Camp is typically designated for white collar criminals. People like Felicity Huffman, the actress who was in camp at Dublin for her role in the college admissions scandal. This is where Alison thinks she's going.

[C]

My mom and I drive up and we pull into the parking lot. And I had to call my probation officer before she cut the ankle monitor off and say, like, you know, I'm out sitting outside of Dublin. She was like, yes, I can see, because it's like the GPS tracker on my ankle monitor, you know? And I was like, we're about to walk in. And she said, okay. And I said, can we cut the monitor? And she said, yes. And so my mom took the scissors out and cut the ankle monitor off, which was a trip. The first time I felt my ankle bare in, like, three and a half years. And my mom was like, okay, let's go in.

[B]

They walk inside together.

[C]

And then I got to a certain point, and the guard was like, you can't come any further to my mom. And so my mom was like, okay, I guess this is where I leave, you know?

[B]

You know, Mindy Allison's mom again.

[H]

So I walked as far as I could walk, and she walked. And then she turned around and waved to me. That was horrible. And I, you know, I said goodbye.

[C]

She called my name, you know, and I turned around and she just said, I love you, and, like, waved, you know, it was such a weird experience. And I was like, okay. Like, it felt like walking into the gates of hell. Like, you don't know what you're gonna find on the other side, but you just gotta go.

[B]

It turns out Alison isn't in the lower security camp. Her intake officer tells her she's what's called inside the fence. She is seen as a threat. She's put in the higher security part of the prison where movement is much more controlled.

[C]

So they lock the doors every hour on the hour, and you have to stay for wherever you are for a full hour. And then they open the doors for 10 minutes, and you have something called a 10 minute move, which means that you can move from one place to the next on the prison. You all have to move in one direction, so it's much more regulated. And you have 10 minutes to get there. And then they lock the doors behind you wherever you are.

[B]

Alison is taken to her cell.

[C]

It was like a wooden door with a little skinny window and then tile floor, and it was 6ft by 9ft, and you Walk in and to your right is a toilet. And above the toilet is a clothes hanger where you keep your uniforms hung. And then to your left is a sink and a mirror. And then you take another step in and you've got a locker and a locker and then a window. But the windows were painted up until about a foot from the top, so you couldn't see out the window. And then on the left were two bunk beds.

[B]

She has a bunky, a roommate of sorts.

[C]

In female prisons, they don't allow single man cells because they say that it's bad for women's mental health. But I think it's to avoid rape charges. A friend of mine was raped because she was in a solitary cell because she had Covid and an SEO went in and took advantage of her and then left. And so, like to avoid that, they always keep women together in cell.

[B]

Alison Spunky is a short woman from Arizona.

[C]

The woman who I had been put in a room with was well known and well respected and kind of stocked because in prison you pay with commissary. So food. Food and toiletries and stuff that you can buy from the commissary is how you pay your bills. And she came back from work and was just right away, like, so kind.

[B]

The pair start talking about their families, about home. In prison, nobody asks what the other person is in for. To Allison, there's something freeing about that. But the anonymity doesn't last long.

[C]

Every day at 4 o' clock and at 9 o', clock, you have count. And the assistant warden was doing the count, which was, like, random. She never does count, but she was walking around doing count. And she stopped at our cell and she looked at me and she said, how are you doing? And I was like, I'm okay. And she was like, do you have everything you need? And I said, yeah, my bunky is generous. And she goes, well, your bunky's not supposed to be sharing anything. And she was like, but I'm glad you're doing okay. And then she kept counting. And my bunky looked at me and went, who the fuck are you? Like, why would the warden stop in front of our cell and ask if you're okay?

[B]

Alison explains.

[C]

I was like, well, my case was kind of high profile, and I was kind of known, you know, And. And then there were a few people on the compound that were fans of Smallville that knew about me. Then people would be like, you're an actress. You're famous. Like, why didn't you tell me you were famous?

[B]

It's not just her fame that singles her out. The inmates are majority people of color.

[C]

It was the first time I'd ever been identified as my race. You know, like, oh, you know, the white girl. And like, why are you listening to that weird white people music? You talk like a white person. Like, why are you using all those white girl words? I was like, what does a white person and talk like? And my bunky was like, you use words like fabulous and lovely. And I was like, oh, those are white people words. Okay.

[B]

Her bunky looks out for her.

[C]

My first bunkie was like, she's not about the life. She's not about you. Like, back off. Leave her alone. Don't give her drugs. Don't offer her drugs. Don't hit on her. She's not about it. And that kind of, like, spread through the unit. And so I didn't really have to deal with advances that I didn't want want or offers that I wasn't comfortable with.

[B]

Allison befriends another inmate named Pam and soon becomes bunkmates with her.

[C]

Pam was probably 15, 20 years older than me. She was super intelligent and super funny and had already been down for, like, three years.

[B]

The two spend lots of time together listening to npr, especially when the prison goes on lockdown for a Covid outbreak. Alison fills much of this time crocheting.

[C]

I crocheted fingerless gloves. I got really good at crocheting.

[B]

It seems like a lot of women get into crochet in prison. Martha Stewart famously learned to crochet when she was serving time back in the 2000s and actually walked out of prison wearing a huge grey poncho made by a fellow inmate. I understand why crocheting takes time, and in prison, that's all there is. There's a mundanity to the days that warps clocks, shifts calendars, changes the scale of ambition.

[C]

I swept and mopped the floors in the unit on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, which was wild. I was like, this is the first time in my life that nothing that I do has any real bearing or meaning on, like, my success as a human being on the outside. And I was like, I have never not had.

Somewhere I had to be. And I was like, I want to see what that feels like.

[B]

It's a different form of releasing attachment. The underlying philosophy that the collateral in NXIVM had so bastardized. Alison decides to release expectations around parts of her physical appearance, too.

[C]

I actually ended up shaving my head, and I didn't wear makeup because the freedom that I found while constrained was so intense with respect to just the opportunity to shed any sort of need to look a certain way or be defined in a certain way by my appearance. And I ate chocolate. I ate prison cheesecake. I enjoyed myself.

[B]

Allison's mom, Mindy, visits Allison regularly in prison.

[H]

She was humbled, like, you can't believe. Like she said, mom, the women in here are probably two thirds of them here, are here because they helped a man do something wrong, and they are punished for it. Like, they held the bag or they drove the car, or they. One woman, an elderly woman, they stuffed the lining of a car with drugs and sent her to a destination to deliver the car, and she didn't know there were drugs in the car, and they arrested her, and she got, like, 20 years in jail or something, and she's 60 something now.

[B]

Slowly, Alison is coming to realize that she, too, was in trouble because she'd helped a man do something wrong. She's thawing out, and she sees things that makes her realize her relationship with Keith was not what she thought it was.

[C]

He created this environment where everybody was, like, at his feet, literally and figuratively, and everybody was looking at him like this perfect human being. Like, he created that and then capitalized on it and then made me feel like I wanted that.

[B]

Even as Allison is distancing her mind from Keith and no longer following the obsessive dos protocols that she did for so many years, there's still some habits she cannot shake.

[C]

On Sundays in prison, There was a 6am move to the rec yard, and nobody would go because it was 6am on a Sunday, and I was always up early, and that's something I didn't ever kick. So I would go by myself, and I would sit in the yard as the sun was rising and it was, like, foggy. And outside the fence, beyond the barbed wire, you could see, like, deer grazing and stuff, you know? And I would bring my journal and my Barry Oliver book of poetry. And there were wildflowers that would grow out there that they couldn't pick faster than they would grow. So I would collect wildflowers and I'd stick them in my sleeves, and there were these little tiny pink flowers that were super pretty.

[B]

Alison would take the flowers she collected back to her cell.

[C]

Yeah, we had little pill bottles that, you know, you could buy vitamins on commissary, so we bought vitamins. And then we kept the pill bottles, and we would wrap them in tissue paper and then either wrap clear tape around them if we could get our hands on clear tape, or use glue to Stick the tissue paper down and those were our vases.

[B]

It's Alison's way of exerting control, putting little wildflowers in old pill bottles like a dollhouse miniature craft project. But as Alison's time inside draws to a close and she has to face the outside, she starts to get nervous.

[C]

I remember like two months out from my release date in prison being like, fuck, like now I have to go be in the world. Like, how is the world gonna receive me? Like, I don't know, you know?

[B]

And now she must go out and face it.

In June 2023, after serving two years of her three year sentence, Alison is let out early for good behavior.

[C]

They released me in the middle of the night so that we didn't nobody would be there to take pictures of me.

[B]

Leaving prison, Alison goes back to her parents house. Now on parole. Technically she has paid her debt to society, but she's still a public pariah and now a convicted and notorious felon. How will the rest of the world receive her?

[C]

There's a line in King Lear I that way madness lies. Like, I can't think about that because I'll make myself crazy.

[I]

She says, do you judge me? And I just looked at her and said, I'm a former neo Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you?

[C]

There's like this image of three of the Manson followers shaving their head and sitting vigil. I was like, holy shit, that was me.

[B]

Tune in next week for an all new episode of Alison after nxivm. Or you can listen ahead to the full series now by subscribing to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts or by subscribing to the CBC True Crime channel on YouTube links in the show description.

You've been listening to Uncover Alison after nxivm from CBC and Campside Media. It's hosted by me, Natalie Robomed. Our executive producers are myself and Vanessa Gregoriadis at Campside and Stephen Belber. Our senior producer is Lily Houston Smith and our associate producer is Emma Siminoff. Sound design, mix and Engineering by Mark McAdam and Ewin Lai Trimuin. Thank you to Colin Campbell at cbc. Our story editor is Derek John and our senior producer is Kate Evans. Our coordinating producer is Emily Kinnell. Our executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tonya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Nurani is the director. If you enjoyed Alison after nxivm, please rate and review the the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

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