S35 E7: The Lotus Flower | Allison after NXIVM

Summary

Uncover: Allison after NXIVM

Episode: S35 E7 — "The Lotus Flower"
Date: December 15, 2025
Host: Natalie Robamed (CBC)

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Episode Overview

The final episode of the "Allison after NXIVM" series traces Allison Mack's ongoing journey of reckoning, healing, and transformation following her release from prison. Through raw diary entries, intimate interviews, and documentary-style narration, the episode explores Allison’s efforts to rebuild her identity and relationships, contending with the inescapable legacy of her role in Keith Raniere’s notorious cult. Key themes include shame, accountability, self-forgiveness, the psychology of cult involvement, and the possibility (and limits) of redemption.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Life After Prison: Navigating Stigma and Shame

• Allison reflects on the lingering impact of her conviction and public infamy:
  • “No matter what happens, …I can change my name, I can change my profession, …but I can't change my face. And my face is such a huge part of how I'm recognized, and you can't Google my name without seeing my face.” (Allison Mack, 01:41)
• She’s cautious about reintegration, torn between wanting to remain small to avoid hurting others, versus her desire not to "live in a box." (02:18)

2. Unexpected Relationships & Shared Pasts

• Allison’s new relationship with Frank Mink, a former neo-Nazi and ex-convict who now works in activism and recovery, illustrates parallel paths of transformation:
  • Both have been featured in documentaries and found one another through happenstance at a dog park.
  • Frank’s early skepticism is informed by wild rumors about Allison, but on meeting her, says:

    "You know, I'm a former neo Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you?...No, I don't judge you at all." (Frank Mink, 08:51)

3. Everyday Triggers and Healing Old Wounds

• The “Donutgate” anecdote showcases how cult conditioning can seep into daily life, even after leaving:
  • An argument over Frank’s indulgence in donuts leads Allison to recognize deeply ingrained patterns of control and food anxiety from her NXIVM years and acting career.

    “I freaked out about this jelly donut. And my therapist was like, well, yeah, you had been punished pretty intensely for many years…food was the enemy, you know?” (Allison Mack, 12:06)

  • The couple commemorated this moment of awareness with a painting of a donut in their home (13:23).

4. Changing One’s Mind: Personal and Spiritual Reflections

• Frank offers insight into transformation and accountability:

  • “I at one time believed…because of the color of my skin, I was better than another human being…know now that's one of the most idiotic things you could say.” (Frank Mink, 10:26)
  • “There are rooms right now full of people who changed our lives…So people do change. I've changed.” (10:51)

• He views Allison's journey through a spiritual lens:

  “Whatever your beliefs are...he really uses the broken vessels. ...The people who help the most are people that have gone through really dark times.” (Frank Mink, 14:18–15:10)

5. Confronting the Cult Mentality & Accountability

• Allison and the host examine the psychology of cult involvement, drawing parallels to infamous cases like the Manson Family.

• Allison, on the possibility of violence if NXIVM hadn’t been stopped:

  “If I really start to think about where we would have gone had we not been stopped, it gets a little too scary. And it's like, aye, that. That way madness lies.” (Allison Mack, 22:43)

• On the horror of being both intended healer and inflictor of harm:

  “I was trying to heal sexual trauma, and then I turned around and was someone who was supporting it. …I can’t face that truth.” (28:30)

6. Wrestling With Harm and Responsibility

• Allison is forthright about her role:

  “I was so aggressive emotionally…I was harsh and I was callous…forceful in ways that were painful for people and did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people…So I think 100% all those allegations are true. And also, I am someone who cares deeply…Both of those things are true about me.” (25:46–28:06)

  • This is tied back to the therapeutic concept of Internal Family Systems — the idea that conflicting “parts” can coexist within a person.

7. Rebuilding Life & Purpose

• Allison’s academic pursuits post-prison have been fraught (an aborted stint in Gender Studies at Berkeley, now a shift towards psychology and expressive arts therapy). She’s hyperaware of how easily past patterns could recur:

  “…If you're gonna really get into somebody's mental health…you need to be armed with education and regulation and constant checking. Is this ethical? Am I hurt? Am I doing the right thing? Am I hurting somebody?” (Allison Mack, 31:19–32:20)

• She finds restorative meaning teaching arts in prisons:

  “The work that I'm doing now is bringing creative arts, theater, music, poetry, all of that into the prisons and basically injecting humanity into an incredibly dehydrated place.” (Allison Mack, 36:17)

8. Healing, Symbolism, and Moving On

• In a poignant closing sequence, Allison gets a tattoo of a pink lotus flower to cover the NXIVM brand on her hip, witnessed by the host:

  “This is Alison's attempt to reclaim her body and her story, to transform a mark of coercion into a symbol of healing.” (39:53)

• Allison’s reflection on identity and autonomy in the aftermath:

  “My whole life I spent living into other people's expectations because those expectations felt good…It wasn't until everyone's idea of me was horrible, you know, that I was like, oh, wait, I actually don't want to be anything that you're saying I am you at all.” (Allison Mack, 39:17)

9. The Ongoing Challenge of Redemption

• The episode closes with the acknowledgment that some harms cannot or should not be forgiven, and not all survivors are obligated to participate in an abuser’s narrative of transformation:

  “Some things can't ever be forgiven. And I don't expect Alison's victims to absolve her. Some hurt is just too deep.” (Interview/Host, 41:34)

• Allison’s new marriage (she now goes by Allison Mink) and the now-healed lotus tattoo serve as metaphors for transformation that both covers and coexists with the scars of the past.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On shame and the inescapability of the past:

  “I can change my name… but I can't change my face. ...You can't Google my name without seeing my face.”
  (Allison Mack, 01:41)

• On accountability:

  “I was so aggressive emotionally…forceful in ways that were painful for people and did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people...And also, I am someone who cares deeply.”
  (Allison Mack, 25:46–28:06)

• On attempting (and the limits of) repair:

  “How do you fucking put back together a glass that you break? ...You can't live the rest of your life staring at shattered glass.”
  (Allison Mack, 29:57)

• On the meaning of the tattoo:

  “This is Alison's attempt to reclaim her body and her story, to transform a mark of coercion into a symbol of healing.”
  (Host/Narrator, 39:53)

• On mutual recognition of harm and change:

  “Do you judge me?” — “You know, I'm a former neo Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you?”
  (Allison Mack & Frank Mink, 08:51)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:31–02:18 — Allison reflects on the lifelong shadow of her conviction and choosing how to re-enter the world.
• 03:32–06:47 — Allison’s first meeting and developing relationship with Frank Mink.
• 07:17–13:23 — Donutgate incident and deeper look at post-cult triggers.
• 15:10–18:41 — Host recounts initial skepticism and eventual identification with Allison’s struggles.
• 21:01–23:21 — Cult psychology, Manson comparisons, and fears of potential for violence.
• 24:39–28:06 — Candid admission of harm, abuse, and the complexity of motives.
• 31:19–33:14 — Shift to academia, pursuit of therapy, self-awareness about risks of repeating harm.
• 36:17–36:49 — Meaning and healing in current prison arts work.
• 37:11–40:22 — The tattoo session: reclaiming the narrative, moving from branding to the lotus flower.
• 41:34–end — Reflections on forgiveness, ongoing scars, and Allison’s changed identity.

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Tone & Language

• The episode employs a frank, searching, and confessional tone — oscillating between analytical self-examination, moments of humor, and tender vulnerability.
• Host Natalie Robamed is skeptical but empathetic, probing both the gray zones of trauma and the limits of post-cult redemption.
• Allison herself is stripped of defensiveness, embracing both the darkness and idealism that led her astray.

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Conclusion

Episode 7, "The Lotus Flower," is an introspective, layered exploration of healing after catastrophic harm—both personal and to others. Instead of offering easy closure, the podcast leaves listeners with honest uncertainty: the past can be transformed, but not erased. For Allison Mack, the lotus flower covering her brand becomes not proof of innocence, but ongoing evidence of struggle, survival, and incomplete redemption.

Transcript

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[Allison Mack]

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[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

This.

[CBC Announcer]

Is a CBC podcast.

[Blue Apron Advertiser]

Campsite media.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

It's December 2023 in Southern California, where the perpetual sun suspends seasons, the only hint of mock winter curling its way into cool mornings and and crisp nights. But Allison Mack is acutely aware of time. She's now about six months out of prison, and her days are mapped out by what is still to be done. A thousand hours of community service and three years probation. She's using a voice recorder given to her by director and playwright Stephen Belber, who Alison met when she was still in nxivm to keep a sort of audio diary. Alison is describing a conversation she had with an older man about trying to get a job after prison.

[Allison Mack]

I was talking to an older gentleman there who was just trying to help me figure out what I could do.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

For a job, Alison tells this man she's recently come out of prison.

[Allison Mack]

When he was saying, you know, is this something that's going to follow you for the rest of your life? And when he asked that question, it made me take pause because I was sort of thinking like, yeah, this is something that's gonna follow me for the rest of my life. Because no matter what happens, no matter where I go, I can change my name, I can change my profession, I can change the direction in my life, but I can't change my face. And my face is such a huge part of how I'm recognized, and you can't Google my name without seeing my face.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Alison is realizing that what happened is here to stay. She's scared of what comes next, not just because of what everyone else will think.

[Allison Mack]

It's a weird thing to start to ease my way out into the world because I don't want to hurt anybody again, you know, so there's a part of me that's like, if I just keep everything small, then no one will get hurt. But I don't want to live in a box for the rest of my life, you know, so just rebuilding that.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Trust.

[Allison Mack]

And myself, I think is sort of this next phase.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

How will people react to her now that She's a convicted felon who has had such a public fall from grace. And can she ever trust herself again? From campside media and cbc, this. This is allison after nxivm from cbc's uncover, I'm natalie robomed. This is episode seven, the lotus flower.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

One morning, Allison's walking her dog down by the shore of the Pacific Ocean. It's February 2024, about eight months since Alison left prison. She heads into a dog park. She notices an attractive, heavily tattooed guy in his late 40s with slicked back hair.

[Allison Mack]

The first thing I heard was he commented, he said, you, dog has such pretty pink skin. And he has, like, a very thick east coast accent. And so I immediately was like, are you from New York? You know? Cause I love New York. And he's like, nah, I'm from Philly. And I was like, oh, I love Philly. And I started going on about, like, the art museums and stuff in Philly. And he was like, yeah, I'm not from that part of Philly. I was like, oh, where are you from? He's like, I'm from South Philly. It's kind of the hood.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

His name's Frank. Their dogs get along, and so do they.

[Allison Mack]

He invited me to come have food at his restaurant. He worked at a. He was a waiter at a Thai restaurant up the street, like a local neighborhood place. And he was like, you gotta come to my restaurant. You gotta come to my restaurant.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

You'll love it.

[Allison Mack]

You'll love it. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll come on Thursday with my mom. That's like my date with my mom. We go out every Thursday.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

That Thursday, Alison and her mom go to eat at this Thai place and sit down at a table in Frank's section.

[Allison Mack]

He had told the whole staff that I was gonna be coming in sometime this week and to call him boss because he wanted them to make it look like he was more important in the restaurant than he was.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Frank spends the night talking to them. He lets slip that he was recently in Atlanta.

[Allison Mack]

And I was like, what were you doing in Atlanta? And he was like, oh, I'm a public speaker. And I was like, what do you speak on? And he was like, oh, just like, tolerance and de Radicalization and police reform. And I was like, no way. I was like, I have done time. And, like, I'm really passionate about prison reform. Like, that's crazy. He was like, really? And he goes, yeah, well, like, my story's kind of unique. So I spent a lot of time in and around the system. And, like, I really want to, you know, make some changes in it or be a part of that. And I was like, me too. And I said, you know, have you ever seen the documentary why We Hate? And he was like, the Steven Spielberg documentary? And I was like, yeah. He's like, yeah, I'm in it.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

He wasn't bullshitting. He's actually in this documentary.

[Frank Mink]

This is the house I grew up in over 30 years ago.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Frank, me, grew up in South Philadelphia.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

In the 1970s, because it turns out the guy Allison met in the dog park is Frank Mink, a renowned former neo Nazi who used to have the word skinhead tattooed across his knuckles and a flaming swastika on his neck to boot. That night, Allison and her mom go home and re watch the documentary.

[CBC Announcer]

At 17, Frank was sentenced to three years in prison for nearly killing a man.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

They learn that Frank has done time for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. Like Allison, he's a convicted felon. He's also a former addict. Frank doesn't recognize Alison when he first meets her, but after they exchange emails, he Googles her.

[Frank Mink]

I was like, I seen the documentary. Like I had seen. Yeah. So I just was like, oh, my God, this is her. This is this, and that is her.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

He and Alison have actually both watched each other in documentaries without realizing. And it's just one of the unexpected similarities between the pair, who on the surface, could not be more different. Frank speaks with a thick accent that belies his Philly roots. He's got sleeves of tattoos, though the white supremacist ones have long since been removed. And he talks with the quiet confidence of someone who's been through some shit. Still, when he starts dating Alison, some of his friends are wary.

[Frank Mink]

My one friend was like, yo, there's someone even saying she was with Jeffrey Epstein. Like, you know, so you hear all these, like, crazy things, right? And my friend's like, I don't think it's true, but there's people that are saying, like, her name's on Epstein list and all this crazy stuff, right? And so I was like, no, no, I know it's not like that. Like, I can tell that this wasn't, you know, that it wasn't like a. Like a sexual deviant thing that. That they was going through. Like, I could just tell by who she was and even by watching that it was like this. A lot of people that were really brainwashed into not even so much about him. It's just more of the camaraderie. I think that a lot of them had in this little thing of theirs.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

It's interesting that Frank says this little thing of theirs. This thing of ours, as fans of the Sopranos will know, is a phrase often used to refer to the mafia. A NXIVM was a sort of mafia, a tight knit group with its own internal logic and a reputation for hurting people. And Frank's also right. I do think a lot of the worst behavior in nxivm came from women reinforcing and egging each other on. Women who had been deputized to do Keith's bidding for him. Not long after their first date, Allison tells Frank everything.

[Frank Mink]

She wasn't defending anything. She was just like, here's the deal. A bunch of women got branded. This is one of the reasons why I went to prison is, you know, we were part of this cult and it was this sex cult with this guy.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

And she used that word cult.

[Frank Mink]

She used cold. But yeah, she used the word cult. She was like, he turned into this cult. I remember she asked me when we got done walking, she says, do you judge me? And I just looked at her and said, you know, I'm a former neo Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you? Are you? No, I don't judge you at all.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

Allison may have just stumbled upon one of the very few people who can relate to having been in a cult, because the white supremacist movement is a sort of cult in and of itself. I'm not just talking about the shaved heads and tattoos.

[Frank Mink]

The.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

There's the very radical ideological thinking, oftentimes strict control of behavior and a tendency towards violence. Like Allison, Frank's involvement in an extreme group landed him in prison. If you've seen that film from the 90s, American History X, in which Edward Norton plays a recovering skinhead, Frank's real life sort of seems to have played out like that. Frank started to de radicalize in prison when he was surrounded by lots of black inmates. After he got out, he worked for a Jewish guy, the experience of which punctured many of his anti Semitic beliefs. Frank left the white supremacist movement in the 90s and now works at a non profit with unhoused people, connecting them with resources. He does public speaking and civil rights activism on the side, even testifying in front of a House subcommittee in 2020 on white supremacy in policing. In some ways, Frank is a poster boy for changing your mind.

[Frank Mink]

I completely at one time believed that because of the color of my skin, I was better than another human being. On this planet and believed that with all my heart for years of my life. And know now that that's one of the most idiotic things you could say.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

As I mentioned, he's also a former addict and he's big into aa.

[Frank Mink]

I live a life of recovery. There are rooms right now full of people who changed our lives. Crackheads, drunks, heroin addicts, sex addicts who got into life and got into recovery and have changed their life and are now some of the best people you'll meet in your life. So people do change. I've changed.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

He's also a very matter of fact kind of guy, which for someone still coming out of Keith's esoteric way of speaking, and frankly, his brainwashing is really important. For example, one of Frank and Alison's first ever arguments was over a donut. Frank had been trying to watch his diet, and one day he came home with a jelly donut.

[Frank Mink]

And she just goes, I thought you weren't going to do that no more. And I'm like, okay. Like, again, I'm a recovering drug addict. Alcohol, it's not like a relapse to me. I'm like, okay, well, it's a jelly donut. And she's like, it's not just a jelly donut. It's your health and I want you to be healthy and I want you to live better. And I'm like, yeah, it's just a jelly donut.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Apparently, Frank had had a donut for breakfast and was planning on having the second for lunch.

[Allison Mack]

And I was like, that's just, like, really indulgent and unhealthy. And he's like, I don't need you to tell me what I can and can't eat. And I was like, you don't respect yourself, therefore you don't respect me.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

To Alison, it's not just a donut.

[Allison Mack]

I'm seeing disrespect. I'm seeing indulgence. I'm seeing impulsivity. I'm seeing lack of discipline. I'm seeing all of the things, and I'm not even seeing those things. I'm just feeling my body in fight or flight, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not even logically being like. But, you know, like, I'm just freaked the fuck out, you know? And he's like, it's a fucking jelly donut. You can't tell me what I can and can't put in my mouth. Like, that's fucked up. Like, who do you think you are? You know? And so I went back to my therapist. And I was like, I freaked out about this jelly donut. And my therapist was like, well, yeah, you had been punished pretty intensely for many years. So the three years in das, it was like I was wearing the Solis and I was having to ask for calories. But 20 years leading up to that, I was constantly on a diet, constantly trying to figure out how to be thinner and be smaller, and food was the enemy, you know? And it was after that that I actually hired a therapist to help me with eating disorders so that I could properly understand food.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

The pair decided to commemorate Donutgate.

[Frank Mink]

We now have, like, an artist picture of a donut in our house now.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Because if there's one thing Frank knows, it's that cult. Like, thinking takes a long time to.

[Frank Mink]

Unravel from the work that I've done with former jihadists, former gang bangers, former neo Nazis. I mean, I've worked in that world for a long. I think people don't understand what it's like when you get stuck in something like that, and it's the one thing that, like, validates you. It's hard to get out.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Frank is a deeply spiritual guy. When I met him for the first time, he was wearing a Star of David necklace. Several people had told him he looked Jewish over the years when he'd been getting into a neo Nazi gang there. An uncle even sat him down and told him the minks had Jewish heritage. Frank really is a believer, and he sees God in Allison's struggles.

[Frank Mink]

Whatever your beliefs are, higher power, creator or whatever, he really uses the broken vessels.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

What do you mean by that?

[Frank Mink]

I think that I mean, you just look even from whatever you take, even the stories from the Torah or from the Bible, and the people that God uses are always people that went through hard. Joseph was sold into slavery, thrown into a pit, then falsely accused and went to prison. He had King David, who was anointed king, and then he was hiding in caves from King Saul. And I have also seen in my life where the people who help the most are people that have gone through really dark times. The people that were in the valleys of life and learned how to get out of the valleys. I always feel that God uses those people that the most to help others.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

I've got to be honest. When Vanessa Gregoriadis, my frequent writing partner and our executive producer, first told me about Allison over a year and a half ago, when this whole project started to take shape, I did not share Frank's opinion. Not at all. Vanessa had called me while I was in the car driving somewhere my like I always am in la. She said she'd gotten a call that Alison Mack was newly out of prison and interested in telling her story and she thought I should host a podcast about her.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

And I said something like, I have.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

No interest in being a tool in Alison Mack's redemption arc. Like everyone else, I only knew the version of Allison I'd seen in documentaries and the press that is a villain and I did not want to put my credibility, my career on the line for her. Vanessa said, just meet her and then tell me what you think. So not long after I got dinner with Alison in person alongside writer and director Stephen Belber, who first thought Alison had a story to tell. We met outdoors at a nice restaurant in downtown la. I didn't record the meeting because we didn't yet know if we were making this podcast, but I remember walking in feeling skeptical, to say the least.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

I was prepared to be hit with a Hurricane Force apology tour, a prepackaged PR campaign wrapped in the bundle of a former actress desperate to get back into Hollywood. When Allison walked in, there was an element of the star in her. She arrived beautiful and wide eyed, incredibly effusive and over emphatic in the way lots of female actors are. But I've interviewed lots of actors and I'm around a lot of Hollywood types, so I'm used to dealing with this base element of performativity and oftentimes there isn't much past it. But when we sat down I discovered with Alison there was. We started talking about therapy and trauma and our respective tattoos. Alison didn't have visible tattoos before, but now that she doesn't have to be on TV anymore, she's been getting them. It turns out Alison and I have both been doing a similar sort of therapy. It's called Internal Family Systems. It's an increasingly popular therapeutic model and actually has nothing to do with families. It's based around the idea that there are different parts within us, the good, the bad, the anxious, the mean. The theory is by zeroing in on these different parts in isolation and questioning what each part is really trying to communicate, you can get deeper into understanding your actions. The aim of doing this integrated parts work, it's called, is to bring all these parts into the correct relationship with each other. One of the parts that Allison was working on was her desire to be the best.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

She made a dark joke about how.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

She'D always had this drive to be the best daughter, the best actor and then the best cult member, which of course in the case of NXIVM meant being the worst.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

After dinner, I called Vanessa back. She had talked to Alison extensively after their experience when she was writing her New York Times story. But now she asked me what I thought. I said, I see a lot of myself in her. That might sound odd, but I meant it.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Like Allison, I'm a people pleaser. I always want people to like me, to be told I'm good. It has its pros. It made me a straight A student, a pleasure to have in class and as an adult, a LinkedIn endorsed pleasure to work with. But it also means that I've spent a lot of my life contorting myself, twisting who I really am into, who I thought people wanted me to be, maneuvering my real ambitions and desires into a malleable substance that could be poured into to anything that gave me praise. And the thing that scared me most about Allison's story was that she had thought she was doing good and that in her case, wanting to be good and do good actually resulted in bad things. The most evil things. She represented the gulf between intent and actions. And I wanted to understand it.

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[CBC Announcer]

Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the Debaters, the show where Canada's funniest arguers battle it out. Are you one of the last people you know to still use a landline phone? This week we're asking if every home should have one, and I promise we won't be phoning it in. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Here's the thing. However much we all think we wouldn't fall for it. No one sets out to be in a cult, and Alison knows that better than anyone.

[Allison Mack]

I was at the Broad Museum in downtown la and there's this very stark piece of art that has an image of 33 of the Manson followers shaving their head and sitting vigil outside the courthouse during the sentence of the women. And it was like a kick in the gut when I saw it because I was like Holy shit, that was me.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

I've been thinking about the Manson Family a lot while working on this podcast. Charles Manson, as a cult leader in LA in the 1960s, had contorted the free love counterculture of the time into a violent drug fueled group. He recruited and manipulated a slew of followers, many of them young women who eventually went on a killing spree, murdering multiple people, including the actress Sharon Tate.

[Allison Mack]

There are often comparisons drawn between the Mansons and, like, the Nixon, and that's a very scary connection because of what ended up happening.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Both of these cults were run by men who largely relied on women to do their dirty work. Like the Manson family. Most cults do end with some sort of violence, if not bloody murder. And while the brandings and sexual harm in NXIVM were forms of violence, I've often wondered how far NXIVM might have gone if it hadn't been stopped. If instead of being indicted, Allison and the others had holed up in Mexico, sealing themselves off from the world and reality. I asked Alison this.

[Allison Mack]

When you ask me, like, do you think you would have gotten violent? There's a line in King Lear where he's freaking out about how his daughters are turning on him and all of this. His life is being destroyed because his family wants his wealth or whatever, and he starts to go down this description and then he goes, aye, that way madness lies. Like, I can't think about that because I'll make myself crazy. And I said that to myself so many times, like, if I really start to think about where we would have gone had we not been stopped, it gets a little too scary. And it's like, aye, that. That way madness lies.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

It's scary to think your fanaticism could lead you so astray that your own mind could do that. And this is part of what Alison's been struggling with.

[Allison Mack]

How can I ever trust myself again? When I made a decision and another decision and another decision and another decision that were so antithetical to the things that are significantly important to me. Like, female empowerment has been like my jam since I was 12 years old. You know, like, the character I played on Smallville was like the epitome of like, the feminist kind of idea. For me, at least back in that day, you know, I. I wanted to make women awesome, and yet I destroyed that, you know, like, over and over and over again for a man. What's happening in my head, like, what the fuck is going on?

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Allison hurt a lot of people, including Keith's name, but it was still her who did it, Recruiting women, giving them the assignment to go to Keith, coercing them and belittling them all in the name of self growth, which was really harm. She admits it.

[Allison Mack]

So I was the go between between him and this person, you know, and it was my job to relay what she needed to do with him for her growth. Right. And the more that she said, I'm scared. I don't want to do it, the more I would say that means you need to do it, and the longer you wait, the more consequences there will be. And so then there was like, the coercion started to get involved and the pressure and the pressure and the pressure. And I was at the helm of that because I was under the belief that this is sexual liberation and this is going to cause her to be so much more powerful and free in herself and in her life. And so we have to do this, you know, and then it's like rape, you know?

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

But what compels me most about Allison and why I ultimately decided to do this story in the first place is that she's a person who's willing to grapple with. With the bad things she's done. What do you say to claims that you were a harsh monster?

[Allison Mack]

That's true. I have certain people in my life who are lovely and love me and are like, you don't belong in prison. And I'm like, you weren't there. I was not kind, and I was aggressive and I was abusive. And yes, I didn't, like, hold anybody down or physically force anybody into anything, but I was so aggressive emotionally. And whether or not somebody else thinks that that deserves a prison sentence or not, it doesn't really matter because that's my conscience, and that's on me. And that's not okay. That's not okay for me to be that way, you know? And so I was harsh and I was callous, and I was aggressive and forceful in ways that were painful for people and did make people feel like they had no choice and was incredibly abusive to people, traumatic for people, you know. So I think 100% all those allegations are true. And also, I am someone who cares deeply and wanted very much to grow and wanted very much for everybody that I was involved with to grow. And so being able to recognize, like, both of those things are true about me. It was like when I was, like, proffering and getting ready to go to prison and in therapy and stuff, it was like I would flip flop between, like, I'm this horrible, heinous villain who was hurting these Beautiful, innocent people. And I was corrupt, and I was. I was this right hand of Keith, and I was all of these horrible things, you know? And my therapist would be like, what? Like, what are you saying right now? Like, that wasn't what we were talking about last week when we were talking about the vision that you had for what you thought you were doing and the thing that motivated you to go and seek out help and the thing that motivated you to commit your life to Nexian in the first place. That is not a horrible, heinous person. That's a person that has these values that was incredibly misled and manipulated. I definitely recognize and admit that I was abusing my power and that I was mean and I was forceful. But I also can't negate the fact that there was a part of me that was altruistic and was desperate to help people and wanted to be better and wanted. I was willing to do anything to be better in myself and to help other people be better, you know, so that makes me human.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

This is the idea of internal family systems that I was talking about earlier that were comprised of all these different parts. But the thing is, very few people's parts are as extreme as Allison's or have done quite so much harm. How do you feel about having been involved in, like, bringing sexual trauma to other people?

[Allison Mack]

I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question. I don't feel like there's a way to answer that. Appropriately, I guess, because it was the opposite of what I was trying to do. Do you know what I mean? I was trying to heal sexual trauma, and then I turned around and was someone who was supporting it. I mean, that was why it took me a year to plead guilty, because I was like, I can't face that fact. I can't face that truth. And I think the only way that I sit in a place where I feel like, okay, moving forward is to recognize that I was also dealing with it. Just like any person who's committed a crime, you have to get to a place where you recognize the brokenness in yourself and why you chose to do the bad thing that you chose to do.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

There's this phrase, one that I've thought about often while making this show. Hurt people, hurt people. That can sound like an excuse, but I don't mean it that way. I think it's an invitation, an opportunity to grapple with the ways we've been hurt so as not to repeat them onto others. But what about hurt people who have already hurt people? The answer for Alison is to try to metabolize the harm she's caused.

[Allison Mack]

Maybe the pain that I inflicted on people and myself, I can turn into wisdom so that I can try and mitigate that pain for future generations or other people. How do you fucking put back together a glass that you break? You can't. You can't. And also, you can't live the rest of your life staring at shattered glass. And so then you go, okay, I broke the fucking glass. That was the best glass I had. And that was, like, the last thing I wanted to do. What do I do? Like, how do I make things better? Not ignoring the glass, not pretending like it didn't matter, but also moving forward. You know.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Alison tried to move forward. She enrolled in Women's and Gender Studies at Berkeley. But as we've already heard, that didn't go over well with her fellow classmates. So Alison ended up changing her major to psychology. She's now pursuing a master's in Social work. If that concerns you, I get it. Hearing that might make you think Allison could be using everything she learns about how the mind works to manipulate people. Once again, Allison is incredibly conscious of this.

[Allison Mack]

I'm looking at PhD programs in something called Expressive Arts therapy. Because there's one thing that I learned in all of this craziness is that the mental landscape is incredibly fragile. Just because you're, like, a good listener doesn't mean that you should be somebody's therapist. You know what I mean? Like, that's like saying, like, I'm a good cook, so I should be a surgeon. Like, no knife. Skills are different. Listening is different. Friendship is different. If you're gonna really get into somebody's mental health and really work to help somebody in a very deep way, you need to be armed with education and regulation and constant checking. Is this ethical? Am I hurt? Am I doing the right thing? Am I hurting somebody? Because we're so complicated in our heads, and we're so fragile, and we just don't understand that. I do want to be a therapist, but I want to be, like, a PhD therapist. Like, I want to be a very well educated, very, like, knowledgeable, you know, Like, I don't want to be haphazard with somebody's mental.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Mental health. It makes sense that after you've been brainwashed, been in a cult, you'd want to understand your own brain. I think a lot of former NXIVM members, those who were in really deep, are still trying to understand how they got there in the first place. Lauren Salzman certainly seems to be Doing.

[Lauren Salzman]

So I think I was in a very abusive situation that I didn't have the self, a strong enough sense of self to understand. And I think he took advantage of that. Yeah, I think he abused me for a number of years and unfortunately my family dynamics propagated and perpetuated a lot of it. And that's been really hard.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

When Lauren said this to me, I heard NXIVM in it, the emphasis on personal responsibility, that it was her fault she didn't have a strong enough sense of self to see through Keith's bullshit. But I also heard accountability.

[Lauren Salzman]

When you've hurt somebody, I think, I mean, at least for myself, I have a responsibility to myself and those people to understand what happened and to try to fix it to the best of my ability. And I believe the way to do that was to keep my eyes in my own lane and just take full responsibility for what I did above and beyond, as if it was all me, not even Keith, me. And that's what I did in federal court.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

She's now married and living in upstate New York with her wife.

[Lauren Salzman]

I met my wife through the process and, you know, she said to me at one point, she's like, people up, people make mistakes. We're fallible. You have to go on. It's making you sick, it's making you crazy and it's not healthy. You have to stop with the ethical breach stuff. You're doing the best you can every day. You can't live like this anymore. You have to stop.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Not everyone from NXIVM is in the same place. Even after all this time, Keith still has some supporters who point to what they view as ways the case was mishandled by the federal government. Clare Bronfman has never publicly renounced Keith. She served out the end of her nearly seven year sentence at a halfway.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

House in New York City and was.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Officially released at the end of June 2025. It's not clear where she is now. Nikki Klein, the Canadian actress who was dancing outside Keith's detention centre, publicly renounced Keith in 2023, but ultimately did not respond to requests to participate in this series. According to her personal website, she has an agent and seems to be trying to act again. Her bio reads, I have had the good fortune of learning a lot of things the hard way. My hope is that the wisdom I've gained through my experiences can prevent others from going through the same or in the very least, not go through them alone. Healing and learning is a common theme among former NXIVM members. India Oxenberg Alison's former slave and one of the people who Alison hurt the most, wrote this to us. It's not the right time for me to take on something like this. I just had a baby and my energy is going towards my family and our restaurant. It's a really difficult story that's impacted a lot of people, including myself, in very severe ways. If I come back to talk about it again, I hope it will be more about what healing and recovery look like after compound trauma, especially in such closed communities.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

Both Lauren and Alison still have a deep desire to help people. Like a lot of former inmates, Alison's personal experiences with the criminal justice system has really impacted her. She's now working at a non profit, teaching the arts in prisons and using them to help people readjust to life on the outside.

[Allison Mack]

The work that I'm doing now is bringing creative arts, theater, music, poetry, all of that into the prisons and basically injecting humanity into an incredibly dehydrated place.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

There's a way in which this is healing for Alison, too.

[Allison Mack]

Working with the incarcerated population is so incredibly rewarding. And being able to say, like, I've been where you are. You are not a forgotten human. You and your life is not over.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

It's like she's trying to say it to herself. So now we've come to the end of our series, and I want to end on one hot day last summer when I went with Alison to a Tattoo shop on LA's east side.

[Allison Mack]

Yeah, I just wanted something that was like, not going to touch my hip.

[VRBO Advertiser]

You know what I mean?

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

Yeah, not going to.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

She and I are standing in the nicely decorated waiting room, chitchatting while we wait for her appointment. Allison's wearing a loose black dress. It looks like it's made of linen or some other natural fabric. And she's glowing. She's got a nose ring and a pretty new tattoo on her shoulder. A string of flowers to represent the wild flowers she picked in prison. She's here to get another one from the same tattoo artist. Sounds good.

[Allison Mack]

Hi, Jun, how are you? Nice to meet you. I like your hair.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Nice to see you. Allison lies down on the black table. I sit down beside her. The tattoo artist, a petite Korean woman wearing black gloves, pulls out her stencil to show Alison.

[Allison Mack]

So yuan is lotus. I try to make the shape, like, similar to the scarf.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Alison. Alison hitches up her dress and the tattoo artist places the stencil above Allison's hip. Because Alison is getting a tattoo to cover her nxivm brand. I lean over from where I'm sitting on the other side of Alison to get a look at the brand. It's small and ugly. After all these years, it's still there. It's less of a welt. It's sunken into the skin now, but it still looks harsh and angry. The tattoo artist pulls nearer. This little gun thing is so cool.

[Allison Mack]

It's so much more delicate.

[VRBO Advertiser]

Right?

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

A strange calm descends over the room. Allison stares at the ceiling.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

I love it.

[Allison Mack]

She has stars on the ceiling. She did this all herself. Oh, cool.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

After the first few strokes, Allison and I start chatting about music and the Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night she just saw and therapy. Gradually, the conversation shifts to where she is now. I've said this to a few people.

[Allison Mack]

Before, but it's like my whole life I spent living into other people's expectations because those expectations felt good. Like, everyone expected we need be successful. They expected me to be a nice person. They expected me to be fun or whatever. Guilt or whatever. Like, they. They were all these, you know, I.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

Got, like, most promising newcomer my freshman.

[Allison Mack]

Year in high school, and, like, you know, stuff like that. And it was like, yeah, I'll totally live into your idea of me. Your idea of me sounds great. And it wasn't until everyone's idea of me was horrible, you know, that I was like, oh, wait, I actually don't want to be anything that you're saying I am you at all.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

As the tattoo artist pulls back, I'm able to see the image that will soon be permanently covering Allison's brand. It's a pink lotus flower nesting in a huddle of leaves, a symbol of rebirth and renewal. This is Alison's attempt to reclaim her body and her story to transform a mark of coercion into a symbol of healing. After a while, I excuse myself. Well, I think that I should go.

[Allison Mack]

And leave you to it.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Yeah, I think it's good.

[Allison Mack]

Do you have anything you need?

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

Yeah.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Host (Natalie Robamed)]

As I leave Allison, I find myself thinking about whether we can ever really move on. The uncomfortable truth is that all of us, at some point in our lives, are likely to hurt someone. Not brand them with a cauterizing pen. Sure. But chances are, even with the best intentions, we're going to hurt someone's feelings, break someone's heart, accidentally scar our children with something we don't even remember. But the way I see it, the only thing we can do is try our best to repair the hurt we've caused, to be accountable for what we did, and to make amends where possible. Some things can't ever be forgiven. And I don't expect Alison's victims to absolve her. Some hurt is just too deep.

[Narrator (Natalie Robamed)]

A few months ago, Alison and Frank got married. She may not be able to change her face, but after this wedding she did decide to change her name to Allison Mink. I think of Allison's lotus tattoo, now fully healed. It completely covers the Nexium brand. You can no longer see the scar at all. The scar is still there underneath the layer of color. It always will be. But it's beautiful now. Delicate pink petals with a yellow center. A permanent portrait of a flower emerging out of muddy waters and reaching towards the. If you liked this show, Uncover Escaping Naxium is a powerful story of the beginning of of the unraveling of Keith Ranieri's cult. Listen to Escaping Nexium at the link in the show notes or by scrolling to season one of Uncover Wherever you're listening right now, You've been listening to Uncover Alison after nxivm from CBC and Campside Media. It was hosted by me, Natalie Robamed. Our executive producers were myself and Vanessa Gregoriadis at Campside Media and Stephen Belber. Our Senior producer was Lily Houston Smith and our Associate producer was Emma Siminoff. Sound design, mix and engineering by Mark McAdam and E. Wing. 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 podcast art was designed by Good Tape Studio. Our cross promo producers are Amanda Cox and Kelsey Cueva. Our video producers are Evan Agard, Tamina Aziz and John Lee. Executive producers are are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tonya Springer is the Senior manager, Arif Noorani is the director and Leslie Merklinger is the Executive Director of CBC Podcasts. If you enjoyed Allison after nxivm, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. For more cbc podcasts, go to cbc ca podcasts.