Reason Smallville's Allison Mack joined Keith Raniere's NXIVM sex cult
‘I’m not recruiting young, nubile women to be his sex slaves’: Smallville star Allison Mack protested her innocence in unearthed interview about sex cult Nxivm – claiming she joined ‘to become a great actress again’
- Smallville actress Allison Mack had told reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis that she joined the Nxivm sex cult to be a star again
- The revelation came in a newly unearthed interview with the reporter on her new podcast, which is set to detail the Nxivm scandal
- Mack, who is serving a three-year sentence, was among the Nxivm leadership accused of running a sex trafficking ring with leader Keith Raniere
- Victims detailed the pain they suffered under Mack and Raniere, with images showing how they were branded with his initials
- Mack initially stood behind Raniere before eventually turning on him and providing key evidence to investigators in the case against him
Disgraced Smallville actress Allison Mack claimed she had joined Keith Raniere’s Nxivm sex cult because he had promised to make her a star again in an unearthed interview.
Mack, 40, who is serving a three-year sentence after pleading guilty to manipulating women to become sex slaves for Raniere, made the revelation in a 2017 interview with reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis.
‘I asked Keith if he would help me become a great actress again because I felt like I was a fraud,’ she told Grigoriadis in the newly unearthed interview to air on the journalist’s podcast.
The Honey We Shrunk Ourselves star ultimately said that she decided to stay with Nxivm despite allegations of sexual abuse because she had only done ‘consistently good’ things.
Mack also defended Raniere, telling Grigoriadis that he was ‘not the head of a harem,’ and that she was not a recruiter for a cult, likening the allegations against her to McCarthyism.
‘I’m not recruiting young, nubile women to be his sex slaves,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s The Crucible, it’s the McCarthy trials, it’s just like, throwing accusations and spreading like wildfire.’
The interview came just weeks before Raniere was indicted of sex trafficking charges, which would lead to a 120-year sentence.
He is currently being held at a Tucson, Arizona, jail where he was recently knocked out by a fellow inmate and put into a cell smeared with human feces.
Smallville actress Allison Mack (pictured following her 2021 prison sentence) had told reporter Vanessa Grigoriadis that she joined the Nxivm sex cult to be a star again
Mack, who starred in the hit Superman origin series, was among the Nxivm leadership accused of running a sex trafficking ring
The cult was run by Keith Raniere (above), who was found guilty and sentenced to 120 years in prison. Victims of the cult had his initials branded on their skin
Clare Bronfman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit identity theft
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Sentence: 81 months in prison and $500,000 fine
Keith Raniere
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit identity theft.
Plea: Not Guilty
Verdict: Guilty, all counts
Sentence: 120 years in prison
Allison Mack
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Sentence: Three years in prison
Kathy Russell
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Lauren Salzman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy
Plea: Guilty (plea deal)
Nancy Salzman
Charges: Racketeering conspiracy
Plea: Guilty
In early clips of the podcast episodes obtained by Page Six, Mack maintained her innocence and claimed to have discussed the allegations of sex trafficking with Raniere, who founded Nxivm in 1998.
While the group began with the goal of offering self-improvement techniques for clients, a federal investigation found that it was at the center of a cult that branded women with Raniere’s initials and forced them to have sex with him.
Mack also noted that she had been confronted by friends at the time of her involvement with Nxivm.
‘“You’re brainwashed, you’re sick,”‘ she said friends told her.
‘I just was like walking with myself and I was going like, “Am I crazy?”
‘”Am I one of these awful people that you read about that does horrible things and thinks that she’s doing things for God?” I had a lot of conversations with myself like that,’ she added.
‘Ultimately, I just sat down and I like looked at my life and I looked at my relationships and I looked at all of the things I had written, journals that I had kept — things that I had done over the last few years. And it was so consistently good,’ Mack said.
Despite standing by Raniere and Nxivm in 2017, Mack eventually turned on the cult leader after his indictment, providing key recordings and other evidence for the case against him.
Along with the interview with Mack, the podcast, which drops episodes on the Nxivm scandal on Thursday, also includes segments with Raniere.
In a teaser for the episodes, Raniere denied that women were branded with his initials, comparing any marks from the victims to the type of brandings done by black fraternities.
‘You look at it compared to the Omega Psi fraternity, we had one of those branches on campus where I went to college,’ he told Grigoriadis. ‘African American. They brand themselves with an Omega.
‘Michael Jordan has a brand and the Omega. They brand these things to be very visible and they make it ’til they go puffy. And things like that.
‘A group of 10 or 15 women in suburbia, their average age is like 40, getting together and deciding to have a little hip brand. If that were guys, it wouldn’t make news,’ he said.
‘The fact that it’s women and the fact that it makes news is reinforcing, unfortunately, a negative stereotype of women, I think.’
Pictured: Mack breaking down as she apologized to the victims of the sex cult she helped recruit for. Given her apology and work with investigators to build a case against Raniere, Mack was given a three-year prison sentence
Victims of the cult told prosecutors how Raniere and other leaders branded them with a burning piece of metal
Keith Raniere, the leader of notorious sex cult Nxivm, was assaulted in his prison in Arizona by another inmate, leaving him unconscious and nauseous for a week
During her sentencing last year, Mack denounced Raniere and apologized to her victims, saying: ‘I made choices I will forever regret.’
‘I’m filled with remorse and guilt. I renounced Keith Raniere and all of his teachings. From the deepest part of my soul, I am sorry.’
Mack, who was once part of Raniere’s inner circle, had given them a recording of a conversation she had with Raniere about the branding, which was used to bolster their case against him.
She had also provided information to prosecutors about how he encouraged ‘the use of demeaning and derogatory language, including racial slurs, to humiliate “slaves.”‘
Former members testified at Raniere’s trial that he established a secret sorority within Nxivm in about 2015 in which women were kept on starvation diets, branded with his initials and, in some cases, ordered to have sex with him.
Leaders of the group who were known as ‘slave masters’, including Mack, were said to use nude photos and other compromising materials to blackmail members into complying.
Raniere was convicted in 2019 on charges that included sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, human trafficking and multiple counts of racketeering – including sexual exploitation of a child, possession of child pornography, extortion and identity theft.
The former Nxivm ringleader has reportedly been forced to spend hours in cells smeared with human feces, is housed with an intersex female prisoner and is allowed only one five-minute phone call a month, among other grievances.
‘Currently he is allowed one five-minute phone call per month, he cannot have a razor, he has no access to legal resources, and given books ‘at staff discretion,” his lawyers said in September.
Raniere says he believes these measures and the disciplinary ticket are ‘retaliation for the recent publicity that my case has received as a result of my efforts to challenge my conviction.’
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