Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Hollywood Sex Cult

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Allison Mack, formerly known for her role as Chloe Sullivan on the television series Smallville, became a central figure in the NXIVM scandal—a case involving a self-proclaimed self-help organization that was later exposed as a coercive cult.Mack joined NXIVM in 2006, an organization led by Keith Raniere. Within NXIVM, she rose to a high-ranking position and was instrumental in establishing a secret subgroup called DOS. This subgroup operated under a master-slave hierarchy, where women were recruited under the guise of female empowerment but were subjected to branding, forced labor, and exploitation.

Man, this hot honey chicken and waffle sandwich from Racetrack is stacked with flavor. Hey, boss. Looks like the build's coming together. Yeah. Crispy chicken, egg, cheese, and a drizzle of hot honey on two golden waffles. It works all right. No, I was talking about the job. Oh, right. Breakfast stacked with flavor.

The new hot honey chicken and waffle breakfast sandwich. Only here for a limited time. Racetrack. Whatever gets you going. Available through May 5th that participating in locations serve 6 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. On December 12 Disney Plus invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six-episode docu-series.

I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The End of an Era. And don't miss Taylor Swift, the era's tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the Tortured Poets Department. Streaming December 12th, only on Disney Plus. Do you remember that show Smallville?

Well, this Smallville actress got involved in a cult. And she apparently tried to pull Emma Watson into it as well. Now, the woman's name is Allison. She's 18 during this time. She's an actress, and she's been on the Hollywood grind for over a decade. She was in Camp Nowhere. She was in Honey We Shrunk Ourselves. She was in Seventh Heaven.

But one day, in 2001, her whole life changes. because she gets cast in this new show called Smallville about a young Superman, and Allison plays his sidekick. And this role is great for her, and she's really good in it. But despite this success, she can't help but feel like there's something missing in her life, and that feeling is about to get her in a lot of trouble. Now, Allison has a friend, this woman, Kristen, and Kristen is also an actor on Smallville. And Kristen apparently understands that Allison is feeling lost and she wants to help her out.

So one day in 2006, she invites her to a meeting with a self-help group, which is part of a larger organization called Nexium. And so Allison is like, self-help, all right. And she decides to give it a shot. And so Allison goes to this group, and this group ends up being straight up a cult. But Allison, she's naive. She doesn't know that. And so she meets a bunch of people there, including a few women who low-key want to recruit her into this cult real bad. And they want to recruit her because she's on TV.

She's moderately famous. And having famous members always makes cults look more legit. And so they tell her they can help her out, and that joining them will solve all her problems and will advance her acting career and all this nonsense. One of them even flies Allison on a private jet to go and meet the founder of this self-help group. The founder is this guy, Keith. And Keith, he's a weird dude, but he's extremely smart. Or at least he claims he is. He claims he's some kind of genius. And he takes himself very seriously. He and the other members call him Vanguard and shit. But we're

not going to call him that because that's actually stupid. Anyway, so Allison's like, all right, maybe this guy can help me. And so she decides to join Keith and Nexium. And from here, she gets sucked in to the world of this cult, and they give her a sense of community, and they promise to fix whatever's bothering her and help her acting career. And honestly, she feels pretty good

about these people and about this place. And over the next few years, she gets more and more dedicated to Nexium and to Keith. And Keith, he starts making extreme demands from her and the other members. Like he'll tell them to lick up a puddle of mud, or run

headfirst into a tree. And I guess the members will just like do it like okay here we go. He also teaches them bullshit like how women should be monogamous but men are supposed to be polygamous which just ends up being a sleazy way for him to get laid with multiple partners. Regardless all of this conditioning works on alison and she gets more and more isolated from the outside world and she starts losing friends outside the cult and pretty quickly her whole world revolves around Keith. In fact it's room that she and Keith start smashing. And while that seems very likely, in my opinion, that isn't actually confirmed.

Now, by this point, it's 2011, and Smallville has wrapped, like the show's done. And Allison isn't really acting much anymore. All her time is completely invested in this cult. Like she's out here making recruitment videos for them. And then that expanded out and out and out into the rest of my life. And now I have the most beautiful friendships. And eventually, around 2015 or so, Keith lets Allison in on this big secret project he's doing called DOS, aka the vow. And this is where the group members will have, and I'm not making this up, master slave relationships.

Specifically, I think they mostly mean sex slave, which is pretty much just a scheme that Keith comes up with so that he can surround himself with submissive women to smash with. So anyway, in this master slave scenario, Keith himself is a master. But he also puts Allison in a master role so that she can go out and recruit slaves. And Allison, she really wants to please Keith. So she puts a lot of effort into her role. And she recruits as many women into this cult slave program as she can. And she'll generally lure the women in by telling them that they're joining a female mentorship program or like a women's movement. And once the women are in and they become full-fledged members and they're all brainwashed, that is when they get blackmailed.

Like the cult will make them hand over what they call collateral, which is basically embarrassing or incriminating stuff about them like nudes. And they threaten to release this collateral everywhere if these members disobey or reveal anything to the public about the cult. And once they get the collateral, Allison and the cult will force them to basically become sex. slaves where they have to smash with their master. And a master is a cult member with many slaves. Most masters have like five or six slaves. One master claimed that they have 22 slaves that they're smashing with. And if that isn't bad enough, they then force the slaves to get a symbol branded on their pelvices. The symbol is actually a mashup of Keith's and Allison's initials. And so who sits at the top of this weird master slave pyramid?

Of course, the self-proclaimed genius himself, Keith. Keith has declared that he is allowed to smash with any of the slaves, and apparently if they refuse, then their collateral will be made public. And allegedly, Keith himself has more than 50 slaves in this pyramid. And not only that, it seems like Allison even tries to recruit Emma Watson. Hermione herself into this cult by tweeting at her. I'm a fellow actress like yourself and involved in an amazing women's movement. I think you'd dig.

I'd love to chat. And a month later, she tries again. I participate in a unique women's movement I'd love to tell you about. And then three weeks later, she tries a third time. I don't think Emma Watson ever wrote her back. Hermione ain't trying to be a no-sex cult. But anyway, with all of the power, Keith and the Master's whole, over each of these slave members, it seems like he and Allison and the others can keep this weird-ass sex pyramid scheme going like forever.

Until. Okay, at some point, some of the members and former members, I guess they have a moment where they're all like, you know, this is kind of weird, right? And so one of them or all of them get in contact with the New York Times and they expose everything, the abuse, the abuse, the the branding, the master slave relationships, all of it. And then in 2017, Kaboom, the New York Times publishes the story and it goes public. And people read it and they're like, oh snap,

the girl from Smallville isn't a sex cop? And that gets the attention of the FBI. And so the FBI starts investigating. And Keith, I guess he gets word that the FBI is looking into him and he leaves town and he moves from New York all the way down to Puerto Vallarda, Mexico. But unfortunately for him, the feds are pretty good at what they do, and they're also pretty good at finding people. So in 2018, they find him in Mexico, and with the help of the Mexican feds, bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. The suspected head of an alleged

cult that reportedly branded female members now faces charges in the United States after he was arrested and extradited from Mexico. And shortly after that, in New York, bam, they, they arrest Allison too. Here's her mugshot. And they also arrest some of the other cult members, the ones who rank high. And Allison takes a plea deal and she gets sentenced to three years in prison. While Keith, he gets charged with a bunch of stuff, including sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of a minor, because I guess one of the girls in the cult was underage, and he gets sentenced to 120 years in prison. Wow.