Bethany Joy Lenz Reveals How 'One Tree Hill' Costars Helped Her Leave a Cult

Bethany Joy Lenz is opening up about a very difficult time in her life.

The 42-year-old One Tree Hill star was in a cult when she starred on the popular teen show, which aired from 2003 to 2012.

The cult began as a home Bible study in Los Angeles and pushed her to isolate herself from loved ones and miss out on a lot.

Fortunately, Bethany had support from her castmates. She shared all the details during an appearance on the Biscuits & Jam podcast.

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“I was a smart person,” she said. “I was a good actor. You can’t be a good actor without being smart. You can’t dissect a script without being able to assess things. But I had a big blind spot in my life — and everybody does — and mine was something that I was going to have to work out on my own.”

She added, “I feel like a lot of the people there, whether consciously or subconsciously, knew that just their presence and being an encouragement and letting me know that they still loved and cared about me in spite of the fact that I was a little weird, that made a big difference. It made me feel like there was safety when it came time for me to leave that group.”

Bethany is telling her story in a new book and hopes to encourage others to leave dangerous situations.

She explained on the podcast, “Maybe this will help inspire you and give you some ideas to be able to know what’s normal and what’s not normal, how to have boundaries, how to recognize it.”

“There is life after trauma,” the actress promised. “[It was] 10 years of pretty intense mental, spiritual, financial abuse.”

Bethany and her costars Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush recently celebrated female friendships on One Tree Hill‘s 20th anniversary.