Something Was Wrong - S25 Ep5: Testing Me

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

*Content Warning: grooming, institutional betrayal, sexual violence, stalking, on-campus violence, intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, stalking, rape, and sexual assault.Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources   SWW Sticker Shop!: https://brokencyclemedia.com/sticker-shop SWW S25 Theme Song & Artwork: The S25 cover art is by the Amazing Sara Stewart instagram.com/okaynotgreat/ The S25 theme song is a cover of Glad Rag’s U Think U from their album Wonder Under, performed by the incredible Abayomi instagram.com/Abayomithesinger. The S25 theme song cover was produced by Janice “JP” Pacheco instagram.com/jtooswavy/ at The Grill Studios in Emeryville, CA instagram.com/thegrillstudios/ Follow Something Was Wrong: Website: somethingwaswrong.com  IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast  Follow Tiffany Reese: Website: tiffanyreese.me  IG: instagram.com/lookieboo Sources:Association of American Universities. Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct. Westat / Cantor et al., 2015 and 2017.Holland, Kathryn J., Cortina, Lilia M., and Freyd, Jennifer J. Research on institutional betrayal and sexual violence in higher education, 2018–2021. Miodus, Stephanie, et al. “Campus Sexual Assault: Fact Sheet from an Intersectional Lens.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/apags/resources/campus-sexual-assault-fact-sheetNational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. National Academies Press, 2018.Sable, Marjorie R., et al.; Cantor, David, et al. Multi-campus climate survey analyses examining reporting behavior and trust in institutions.U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey special analyses on reporting disparities.Wood, Leila et al. “Sexual Harassment at Institutions of Higher Education: Prevalence, Risk, and Extent.” Journal of interpersonal violence vol. 36,9-10 (2021): 4520-4544. doi:10.1177/0886260518791228

Oh, hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished paying off all my debt with the help of the Credit Counseling Society. Whoa, seriously? I could really use their help. It was easy. I called and spoke with a credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses,

gave me a few options, and help me along the way. You had a ton of debt. And you're saying Credit Counseling Society helped with all of it? Yep. And now I can sleep better at night. When debt's got you, you've got us. Give Credit Counseling Society a call today. Visit no more debts.org.

Access Storage presents the Olympic spirit. Hi, I'm Piper Gillis. And I'm Paul Pori. And we are Team Canada Ice Dancers. When we're in Milan, we aren't just representing all the accomplishments and the success it takes to get to the games. We're celebrating all the people at home. The people that have supported us, they're going to be cheering for us.

When we go out on the ice, we're going to be skating. We know our community is going to be cheering for us. We know the country is going to be cheering for us. And that's such an important and special feeling on the biggest stage. Thank you, Canada. Brought to you by Access Storage, proud partner of Team Canada. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. Please consume the following episodes with care.

This season discusses sexual, physical, and psychological violence. For a full content warning, sources, and resources for each episode, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. The podcast in any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. We reached out to Professor Cato Bus and the University of Central Oklahoma for comment in response to allegations in the weeks prior to this episode's release. We have not received a response. Thank you so much for listening. Sexual harassment and assault on campus isn't just peer to peer.

A large institutional survey across eight collegiate campuses found that among undergraduates who reported sexual harassment, 12.5% of freshmen and nearly 25% of seniors reported experiencing sexual harassment by faculty or staff. In these incidents, about 61% of reported faculty and staff harassment perpetrators were faculty members, with most identified as male. At the heart of professor student abuse is a power imbalance. Professors control grades, recommendations, educational opportunities, scholarships, and in some cases even future career opportunities. This imbalance can easily be exploited when harm continuously goes unchecked.

Abuse between educator and student can take many forms and can include but are not limited to, unwanted sexual advances or propositions, requests for sexual favors tied to academic benefit, sexual harassment during office hours, and or grooming behaviors that build trust before exploitation. Because of the authority the professor holds, students may fear retaliation, damage to their academic standing, or disbelief if they speak up.

And even when students do report, Disciplinary action is taken in a minority of reported cases, an outcome many survivors describe as deeply retramatizing. In Chapter 2 of this season, you'll hear from survivors Miranda, Olivia, Rihanna, and Morgan, who crossed paths while studying theater at the University of Central Oklahoma. Miranda was a first-year student when she met Cato Bus, a tenured professor, who later became head of the theater department and who initially offered her scholarship support. Over time, Miranda says the relationship became less consensual, shaped by a growing imbalance of power. As allegations surfaced and Miranda learned of Morgan's Title IX investigation, she began to better understand

her own experience. With the support of her friends, Miranda eventually entered into her own Title IX process, one she says left her demanding more justice. Together, their stories reveal how abuse of power persists in hierarchical campus spaces and how institutional betrayals can compound harm. What's often lost in institutional responses is the human cost. In their wake, perpetrators often leave a profoundly devastating impact on their victims. Survivors face not only trauma, but lasting academic. consequences like missed opportunities, derailed careers, and the fear of retaliation within their

own institutions. The harm can ripple outward, undermining a student's sense of safety, self-worth, and confidence in systems meant to protect and educate them. This gap between policy and practice is what many survivors describe as institutional betrayal. When the systems that were meant to protect them, instead deepen the harm. By understanding the dynamics, recognizing the data, and supporting survivors, we can push towards campuses where safety and respect are non-negotiable. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is something was wrong. You think you know me, you don't know me well at all. You don't know. You don't know anybody till you talk to someone.

Hi, my name is Miranda, and I live in Brooklyn, New York. I am originally from Oklahoma. I'm here mostly because of my best friend, Olivia, who is pretty integral to the story. Olivia and I studied theater in college, and it's a huge part of why I'm telling this story and what happened to me, and Olivia was there for all of it. Her being my best friend has given me a lot of the strength and bravery that I have to be able to speak out about what happened to me. She is kind of the catalyst to why I chose to record this. So this is dedicated to Olivia. If your best friends were describing you, how would they describe you to somebody who's never met you? I would say that they would describe me as funny, brave, and smart.

I grew up in a town called San Springs, which is not the biggest town in Oklahoma. Oklahoma itself is pretty small and generally conservative. I had a pretty chaotic childhood. My parents divorced one another when I was pretty young. I was two and I was toaded back and forth between the two of them until I turned 18 and went to college. My mom, I think, has struggled a lot with various addiction and pain in her life. And until I was in fifth grade, she was married to a man who was very abusive to our family. Half of the time I was with her and my stepdad and the other half of the time I was with my dad.

My dad is quite the opposite of who I am. We don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. I have non-conservative views and don't get along with some of my family because of that. They also never spoke to one another, so I was the middleman between the two of them. And my first recollection of them ever being in a room together was in high school when I graduated. All that to say, I'm pretty close with my mom now, and we have worked really hard on our relationship and forgiving one another. But yeah, it was just generally chaotic and I think set the stage for me to be 18 and moving away from home for the first. time and being really excited. It was the first time that I'd ever been living in one place longer than a week because I had spent one week with my dad and then one week with my mom. And I had done that ever since I was two. I went to University of Central Oklahoma, which is about an hour and a half away from where I grew up and where all of my family lives. I did that intentionally because I was pretty tired of my family life and I was really excited to go to school far away. I would have

gone out of state had we had the money or the ability to go out of state. My high school was relatively small, so I knew where everyone was going to college. And no one really that I knew went to this school, so I was really alone for the first time ever in my life. I did a lot of theater when I was in high school. It was really what I loved and what I was incredibly passionate about. When I went to college, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do, but I didn't have the intention of studying theater. I decided to study theater my second semester of school. Kato, who's the person that abused me, was the first person in the department that I met at all. When I met him, it was at the end of my first semester of freshman year before I had any friends.

I had just started partying for the first time ever. I kind of went crazy. It was the first time I'd ever been drunk and smoked weed in my life. So I had experienced a lot of first and didn't have a lot of close friends or any family. And so I think he had a really good opportunity to paint himself on whatever light he really wanted to. He is a very manipulative person and seemed incredibly trusting. I distinctly remember in my first meeting with him talking more about myself than the department or the program or what I needed to do to get in. into the department or what classes I would take once he met me and found out that I was alone and I come from a background that wasn't the best, meaning I didn't have a huge support

system back home really at all. And also, I grew up pretty poor. It was in our first meeting that he began to offer me scholarship money for school. All of our minimalist makeup girlies are going to love our newest sponsor, Merit Beauty. I've been using their makeup for about a month, and I'm going to tell you about my three favorite products so far. Number one, the minimalist perfecting complexion stick. It's not a foundation or a concealer, but it can replace both in your makeup bag. It's so easy to apply and it smooths right on.

It feels glorious. Second is their flush balm cheek color. I got shade Precious Baby Pink. It's a cream tint that melts into your skin that stays flush all day. I love that it looks hydrating and natural and do it. Last but certainly not least, their shade slick, tinted lip oil is so moisturizing, and it gives you just a wash of moisturizing color for healthy lips all day. Merritt makes elevated makeup and skincare designed to help you look put together in minutes. It's time for your makeup and your skin care to meet the reality of your daily routine with Merritt Beauty.

Right now, Merritt Beauty is offering our listeners their signature makeup bag with your first order at meritbeautcom. That's M-E-R-I-T-Beautcom to get your free signature makeup bag with your first order. Meritbeauty.com. Thank you so much. Can you explain a little bit about who Cato is at the school and who he was in regards to your education? When I started my freshman year, he was just a tenured professor, and when I moved into my sophomore year of school, he became the head of the theater department. He was, after my freshman year, the person with the highest authority in the room at any given time, other than when the dean of college in fine arts was in the room. But for us, as students, he was for sure the most important person in the room. He directed a lot of plays as well

and taught the more advanced acting classes. We had plenty of other competent and good professors, but he was seen as the coolest professor and the one with the most intense training, and he did a very good job of painting himself as the smartest person. In the first couple of meetings, I think he was really quick to disclose that he also had a chaotic and abusive childhood. He spent a lot of time in Montana and had his PhD. He told me about his acting training and how it was different than the other professors there. I feel like I didn't really learn a lot about him at all. That would come over time and also mostly through the rumor mill of other students as well. I feel like things that he neglected to mention were that he was married and that he had a daughter.

Stuff like that, I think I learned from students who knew him a bit better than I did. And once we had started to develop a relationship, he was very clear to mention that they were not actually married. They were common law married, according to him. He didn't wear a wedding ring or anything, but he referred to her as his wife, too. Most people, except to me, eventually he would start referring to her as her name and not my wife. How old were you when you met him and how old was he? I was 18 and I think he at the time was probably 45 or 46. What were the impressions that you got from other students as you did get to know people in the department of their impression of him?

I've never been in an environment where people adored a person more than the general population of students adored this person. Everyone wanted his attention all of the time and everyone thought that he was just the coolest. Even though he was much older than us, of course, like all of the girls kind of fond over him. Even the faculty at the school loved him. He also came across as incredibly progressive and feminist. The majority of people that went to the school are also from Oklahoma and grew up pretty conservatively and most of the time conservatives are not studying theater. So you go to this college and meet this professor who had just lived in Oregon and was super feminist and upset at the state of feminism in the world and made a priority to cast shows that were predominantly women and

tried to be very vocal about how he was also trying to cast women of color. Everyone thought that that was awesome, but everyone also knew that he was a total asshole, particularly to the men and boys in the department. He would make fun of them in front of everyone and would call them names. if you were a part of his inner circle, which I started out a part of this inner circle of people that he deemed favorites, then he would say the most awful stuff about everyone else in the department. Like he would call people stupid and terrible actors and would make fun of their performances to you in private. And everyone kind of knew that he did that as well. But even when he was making fun of you, you were like, there's something so special about this person.

When you had his attention in a good way, he was really good at making you feel, like you were the only thing that mattered. What kind of power does somebody in his position have over the students that are studying in his program? You didn't need to audition to get into the program. Every year we had something that was called progression, but everyone knew that it was a bit of a joke. He had to go and perform for him and the other tenured professors to keep admittance into the program. No one was really judging your performance. But he specifically was in charge of all of the finances of the department.

So he had a huge say in who got what money. There's usually four or five plays, and he would always direct one, and then all of the other professors would always direct one, and then there would be like a couple of student-led shows. But his shows were always the most coveted shows, because you were going to get unlimited access to him and his unique acting teaching methods, so he could do basically anything that he wanted.

As you were going into your junior and senior year, he taught the more capstone classes that mattered more for your graduation or carried more weight. And because everyone thought that he directed the most unique and artsy plays, he held all of the casting power. So all of this to say he had as much power as you can have being the department head of a pretty small theater department at a pretty small university in Oklahoma. but to all of us, it felt like he was in charge of our futures. A lot of times in grooming situations, there's some boundary testing where professors may gradually cross professional lines. Did you sense any of that behavior from him?

Totally. My sophomore year, I was cast in my first play of his. It was a show called Love and Information. It was this. immersive piece of theater where we would eventually perform it in a warehouse. The idea is that the audience would walk around and catch these clips of scenes as they were happening live in person. I was cast in this play of his and it was a very small cast. I think there was probably like 14 of us total. The play used something called Meisner Technique, which is what he was trained in. He does have real accolades when it comes. to this. For those who are not familiar, could you explain a little bit more about the Meisner

technique? Yeah, I think it's really important to the story, and I think it is a really big piece in the way that he was able to groom me specifically. Misner is built on repetition and vulnerability. He would always say, like, you're living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, which is the whole idea of Meisner. He took us through all of these training techniques that he had just learned. It was pretty fresh on the brain for him, I suppose. My only experience in Meisner really is him,

and so I'm not certain how much of it is actual Meisner technique and how much of it is his version of Meisner technique. The way that this rehearsal process went is different than any other show that I've ever done. He started us not even, with the script, he started us with these exercises of repetition. You sit across from your partner and you start with physical observations. So, like, I would sit across from Olivia, who is my best friend.

And this is where our friendship also started because she was in this play with me. I would sit across from her and I would go, you have brown hair. And she would repeat it. She would say, I have brown hair. And you would go back and forth until it leans into something more specific. And the whole idea is that you're trying to, like, allow yourself to be vulnerable. enough to be seen and you're trying to allow yourself to hurt on purpose. And the idea is eventually you're sitting across from your peer who you see every day at

school and you go into stuff like, you're scared, I'm scared, you're terrified, I'm terrified, you're depressed, I'm depressed. You reach these incredibly sad and deep moments. Then he would dig into it and would amp up the repetition by yelling at us and being like, I don't believe you. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. I'm sitting across from one of my peers and we're in the midst of saying all this really intense stuff. That's not necessarily true, but you begin to believe it. And he is yelling at you to amplify how you're feeling. So then by the end of your scene or practice, you're sobbing so hard you can't breathe. And then he's there to console you and to be like, you did so amazing. What an excellent job. Don't you feel awesome? Also, he's crying. He also breaks down into tears to act like an empathetic person and to make your guard totally down because you've just experienced this crazy emotional high and low. That's just week three of rehearsal of this three-month rehearsal process.

So that's not even like working with the text of the play. Eventually, we start using Meisner to get into the text of this. The play is written in vignettes, which are. small scenes that are virtually unrelated to one another. So it's basically like a lot of mini plays. The way that he split everyone up is that everyone had one partner that you worked with and ultimately you did your vignettes with. They were all based on human emotions. There was love, grief, politics. The one that he put me in was sex. The through line was like a couple who was arguing about their sex life for most of it. It was pretty awkward for me specifically at that

stage in my life. I had virtually no experience in the world of sex at all. And I think he just projected whatever he wanted me to be into this. I think that it was just, in hindsight, very telling. So I was in a vignette with a guy who, at no fault of his own, he was just cast in his play. He just happened to be someone in our department who was older. I was 19 when this play started. He was probably 25. All of our scene content was about sex and relationships. Misener was just like the thread through all of this and it allowed him to break each one of us down individually and then be there to put us back together. I had been able to convince myself that it was something that I was really excited about.

Cato had cast me in this and had made me feel like he thought of me as a sexual being. I decided to be comfortable with it. I wanted to be a sexual being. I don't really, to be honest, remember feeling weird about it either

because it was my first play that I was doing at UCO that was different than anything else that I'd ever done. In my head, it was also like, none of this is real. I'm just playing pretend because I'm an actor. And it was around that time when he would get my phone number. I remember he emailed me and was like,

can I get your phone number so that I can text you about the show? Before this, he would email me way more than any normal professor would email a student back and forth on my school email account. Once he got my phone number, he would text me after rehearsal and be like really excellent job. It's so moving to watch you be so vulnerable. You brought me to tears with this scene. So that was all throughout this rehearsal process. And then at some point during the rehearsal process,

he would add me on Snapchat, which was like the next tier of if you are cool enough in this group of Cato favorites, you would eventually get added on Snapchat. Part of the promotional work of this play was a Snapchat filter. It's the Snapchat filter where your mouth is open and like rainbow spills out of your mouth.

It was so weird that that was our promotional image because it basically resulted in him adding a lot of us on Snapchat so that we took pictures of ourselves with a filter and then like sent it to him on Snapchat so that he could screenshot it and then use it as the promotional image. So that's when like direct communication other than school-assisted forms of communication began around this rehearsal process.

How long did you guys work on that project together? I think we started rehearsal at the beginning of the school year, which would have been August, and the show went up around Halloween, so from like August to October-ish. And would you pinpoint this as the time when you got closer to Cato? It was around this year, for sure. He would start to text me after a lot of rehearsals because I was formally a part of the department. He personally made all of my classes. class schedules for me or would offer advice on what classes I should take and who I should take

them with. He would text me a lot and send me unsolicited emails. But the play was for sure, I think, the inciting incident. I think that a lot of this play was him testing my boundaries to see how far he could really get with me. And the answer was pretty far. The play was the beginning of him having permission to text me outside of school and to contact me. about things that are not necessarily related to school. We would talk about music, books, and poetry, and things like that. I think that that's really when he began to think of me as potentially someone that he could actually groom. I always compare my relationship with him to his relationship with Olivia, who was my best friend and still is.

We were both incredibly close with him, but in very different ways. he would see both of us individually and private for various reasons, but for her, he had decided that he was a bit more of like a father figure. He had started to develop this relationship with her when she was a freshman. When I started my sophomore year in the department, he definitely pushed for us to be friends in a lot of ways. And I think part of that is because he needed her to convince me that he was a good person so that I wouldn't have any red flags or warning signs ignite in my brain when getting to know him and when he would begin to groom me specifically to be sexual with him.

My name is Olivia and I met Miranda in 2016 when we were freshman in college. She was new to our department and she and I became really quick friends. we had a really special connection. We were friends all through college and have been friends for almost 10 years today. Whenever I first met Miranda, she was so intimidating because she's stunning and she's so smart. I very quickly learned that she really does bring out the best and everybody that she's around

and that's a quality that she has to this day. 19-year-old Miranda was a lot of fun. We just had so many adventures, bebopping around our little college. We are always getting in mischief together. And it's very much still that way today. We always love doing pranks together. She just really makes everybody feel comfortable.

She's silly. She's always down for a laugh. But she's also sensitive. She's so in tune with her emotions, everybody else's emotions, and she's just ready to encourage everybody that she comes across. I decided to study theater because it's what I had always done. I was nine the first time.

I was in a professional production. It was just kind of a natural next step for me to study it in school. And I got a talent scholarship from Cato. I was recruited to the college. Cato and I met winter of my senior year of high school. And it was at a recruiting event in North Texas. He was there recruiting and my number was called. I really wasn't interested in joining.

the program. And then I had a friend who was and she went on a tour. We drove up to the school one weekend and I liked it. It wasn't my top choice school by any means, but then we started talking about scholarships and he was willing to give me a talent scholarship. And so I decided to go for it. What were your initial impressions of him and his personality? Mostly it was positive. I mean, he really seemed like he wanted to invest in me. And when I got to the school for my tour, it very much felt that way. Like, I could tell he wanted me there, that he wanted to help me grow and to give me all the tools that I needed to be a successful actress. So I felt like going there, it would really do me a lot of good. He was very paternal to me in a lot of ways whenever we first met. It felt like he was a very strong

mentor in my life. Did you feel close to him even in the first semester of freshman year? Yes, I did. We were very close from the second that I got there. We would have these majors meetings where all of the people in the department, we would come together. We would talk about stuff going on on campus, stuff happening in the department. At my first one, there was a senior that he loved, had a wonderful relationship with, and he had that senior approach me and began to mentor me. And, that student and other students you were close to were like, you're Cato's new girl, meaning that I was going to be like the kid that he cast and everything. I remember, I think it was that day, getting a text from Cato.

He had either asked for my phone number or given me his. I don't remember. He had said something along the lines of, you know, I hope this is okay. I really want us to be close and to work with you while you're here. And I didn't really clock that that was weird when it happened. I mean, obviously, it was very weird and inappropriate. It just very much seemed like he cared about me. He wanted me to be successful, and I didn't have family there.

I had moved to a new state, and I was looking for that support in any way that I could get it. He continued to find opportunities to give me little nudges. Like, he would invite me to his office to read the script that he was going to do for the next year that none of the other kids knew about, and he would give me private coachings that other kids weren't getting, and find me other opportunities. and I would go on recruiting trips with him. He would find any opportunities to compliment me. I was doing a scene at an acting competition freshman year.

He just kept making comments about, like, how wild I looked on stage. It was very, very weird, but he was like that with me a lot. Whenever he wasn't being paternal towards me, he was really angry. His moods very much controlled my day. Like, he knew how to control me with his frustration. He would give me the silence. in treatment and then sometimes he would be almost like love bombing. That paternal side of him would come out. And he did sometimes make an appropriate comments, but it was much less frequent with me. But he could turn very, very quickly. And he did. In hindsight, do you feel like he was grooming you in some way? Yes. I don't know that I will say that he was sexually grooming me because nothing sexual happened to me other than he made weird comments towards, a lot of his female students.

That wasn't an experience that was unique to me at all. But I do think what he was doing was grooming. I was at his absolute Beck in college. I would have done anything he wanted me to do because he was giving me opportunities and he made me feel special. And because of that, I was intensely loyal to him. And I think he needed that support later on

whenever shit kind of hit the fan. He relied on that loyalty a lot. But I do think in a lot of ways that it was grooming. I know that towards the end, especially when the situation with him and Miranda occurred, he relied on me to protect his image very heavily. How long were you in the program before you met Miranda? She was a general studies major, I'm pretty sure, for one semester. So we met the spring of freshman year.

We were in the same year. there was a play our sophomore year that I was on the crew for and she had a friend in it. And I think at that point, she hadn't officially made the decision to transfer in to the department, but she was either thinking about it or like in process with it. I met her in passing. Other friends who were very close to Kato would tell me like, he really wants you and this new girl Miranda to be in his play next year. And so I knew immediately that like we would probably end up spending a lot of, lot of time together, but we didn't get to know each other until the next fall whenever we were in

that play. If there was somebody who was starting with you knew like Miranda as somebody who had been in the program a little bit longer, what advice would you give to that person about the environment and ways they could be successful? My advice at that time probably would have been do everything you can to work with Cato. Now my advice would be to like focus on making friends and learning how to build a community because I feel like we really lacked that in college because we were so isolated because of everything that was happening that we didn't get that experience in a lot of ways. I feel like we lost out on a lot of time with our peers because of that. One of the things that Miranda spoke with me about was the Meisner exercises and philosophy. Were you in that group as well? Yes. We took the class at different

times, but we did it very frequently together when we were in his shows. It was his number one philosophy that he liked to practice, but it was a very slippery slope emotionally. He would really push us to dangerous places emotionally and have us screaming at each other or bawling our eyes out and he's yelling at us and giving us commands. It was incredibly intense anytime you were in his rehearsal room. It was a way of making us vulnerable. He would exploit that vulnerability. in front of all of our peers and disguise it as teaching us how to act. How did it feel when you would walk away from those long sessions of the Meisner techniques? Whenever he would let us out of it, like when we would end a scene or end an activity,

he would always give us a big hug or tell us something encouraging, and that felt really good to me. Knowing that I had his approval felt really good, but emotionally, he called it scrubbed. He would always be like, you're going to be so scrubbed when you get home. The first show that Miranda and I did with him was called Love and Information. We all represented broad emotions or like experiences. So Miranda played sex and she was wearing lingerie, which should have never happened. And my character was love and I was paired with another woman.

He would make me and this other woman go to these emotional heights over the period of like two hours. He would come by and watch our scenes and we would be doing the same scene over and over. And we just didn't understand that what we were being asked to, to do wasn't safe. It was this exploitation of these horrific, dark experiences in our lives. He would ask about horrible things that had happened to us or ask us to imagine terrible things. And then we would do the scene. It just made it really difficult to get away from that anytime that we wanted to act. And it's part of the reason that I don't act anymore at all. I totally changed careers a couple years after I graduated. It was really traumatizing, honestly. And also, it's not

like real acting, in my opinion. When we would work with other directors, they had a hard time coaching us because we were so used to just this emotionally intense situation. Getting away from that intensity and having somebody just give you direction was not something that was easy for us after that. And it was the only thing that we wanted to do at the same time because it felt like, okay, this is real acting. It's what's making us vulnerable on stage. If you were called a Cato Baby, it was known that you were intense and you were like hardcore. And that's a lot to carry as like an 18, 19 year old. It just was different than what all of our other peers were experiencing too.

Like my husband, he was in the program with us and his experience was so different than mine because he connected with a different director and he got to do fun projects where he was encouraged and given confidence. Here's Miranda again. Traveling was really important in the way that. our relationship developed as well. My sophomore year, I was invited to go with the theater department as a whole to KCACTF, which is Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and it's regional. So it happens all over the United States and Proctors come to watch her show and they identify

people who are really good in the region. You choose a partner and you perform with your scene mate. I was invited to go and Delivia picked me to be her partner. We went to Texas, so he drove us all in like a huge van to Texas. And that's, I think, when the boundaries were crossed even more so because we were now totally off campus. And it was just a huge party. It was also really fun because I was 19. I'm traveling with kids that are my age and we're going to perform and it's really exciting.

He took all of us in this huge van supplied by the school to go. liquor warehouse and all of the seniors or people who were 21 at least, we all hand them cash and we go, get me a box of red wine. They go in and they buy all of this liquor for us for the week, including him. He goes in and he buys himself a huge handle of whiskey. The goal is we're all going to party with one another all week. We go to this hotel where a bunch of college students are staying for the same festival, so the hotel is just theater students. This is where he was really able to put me in a vulnerable position because I would get totally obliterated drunk. We were all hanging out with him. I was never really alone with him

around this time at all, but he was there when we're doing tequila shots. Me and my friends were so wasted that we found ourselves in this hotel atrium in the middle that was like an enclosed pool and that's where like everyone hung out and you would just leave your hotel room doors open for people to come in and out because everyone staying at the hotel was a part of this convention. We were in our swimsuits because we were swimming. We go into one of our hotel rooms and get into a bathtub together and like turn on the water. I have such a vivid recollection of looking up and he's just there standing in the doorway and no one thought it was weird. He is a part of the department and we're all getting drunk and so was he. He was he. He's a part of the department. And so was

The next day we would go do our scenes and act and then we would go home. But this trip in particular, I think, is where he started to show me favors by saving me the front seat in the van. Or I would sit directly behind him when we were traveling. Olivia would sit to my right and he would secretly reach his hand back through the door to, like, reach for my hand. Which at the time felt really normal, even though we had never. made physical contact like that before, but it was just so sneaky. He would do stuff that was signals to me. Like, he would text me while we're all at dinner being like, so-and-so's being so annoying

to bond with me in a particular way. Or I think it was this trip. We like went into this restaurant to get lunch or something, and he specifically held me back to buy me lunch, almost as if we were on a date, which he didn't do for anyone else on the trip at all. Like a month later or something, we would go to. Louisville, Kentucky. Humana Festival is another festival

where they put on professional plays for college students. And it was on the trip of driving to Louisville that he started really quietly calling me Babe and Baby. Being on these trips is really when he began to test my boundaries

in a different way of being a lot more explicit to me in physical touch. Nothing super sexual, but maybe rubbing on my shoulder. or holding my hand in secret. We're like watching a play and he sits next to me and like specifically puts his leg next to mine

so that we're touching. And, you know, I think is testing me to see if I move away. The trips were integral. And then that summer, I studied abroad for the first time. We all went with him to Scotland and we did the Edinburgh French Festival with him. This time it was like an international trip with much. less supervision. It was a much smaller group of students as well, and he was the only professor that took us, which seems insane, because we were like 12 girls staying in a house by ourselves

in a country where the legal drinking age was only 18, so we were just wasted all the time. And he would invite me and Olivia as a pair to shows by ourselves. He would specifically leave everyone else in the group out. He had to bring Olivia so that it was a not weird if anyone found out that the three of us were going to see a play together. It causes a rift between me, Olivia, and the rest of the students because we don't want to be like, oh, we're going to go see a play with Cato. So we had chosen to not tell a bunch of people. After Scotland and after the trips of my sophomore year, every day that we were in Scotland, he would text me and would make jokes about getting away and like, oh, don't you wish that we could

go do our own thing? Or it's a bummer that we have to like, hang out with everyone, right? I don't think he would have been able to, like, groom me in the way that he was without traveling. Here's Olivia. We traveled a lot. Miranda and I specifically, at least probably three times a year, we were gone presenting or at competitions. And truthfully, our school trips, it was, like, drinking 24-7. That started the first time, 19 years old, first year of college. My first acting competition. It was the first time I ever drank. And that year, Cato didn't get me alcohol, but the next year and like every year after that, he would take us to the liquor store and let upperclassmen buy us alcohol. He would drink excessively at these trips. And he would always

find his way to the students and would talk about like his marriage or in one case, I traveled with him to a recruiting trip and he was sobbing telling me how much he loved me and all the parts he wanted to give me because he had been drinking. And he was breaking, I mean, pretty much every role that you could probably break in that employee handbook at the university. And we just thought it was fun that he wants to hang out with us. But it was like that every night whenever we were on a trip. He was on his worst behavior 100% of the time. Even whenever we were traveling internationally. The university comes and gives you this big spiel about drinking on those trips. It's a big no-no. It's a huge liability, especially for him. He's responsible for a group of

12 kids in Europe right now, and he is shit-faced at everything that he goes to. That was just who he was, and it created this culture that that's how we behave on those trips. And to be honest with you, that's not that different from other departments that we associated with at the conferences, but his always was a little bit more personal. He was always a little bit closer to us and very much was like hanging out with all the teenagers. Did it ever seem to you at the time that he was treating Miranda or any of the other students differently?

I didn't really notice him treating Miranda differently because when we would travel, me and Miranda would go do things with him on our own pretty frequently. But then I did start to pick up on it. She was the only one that I noticed. where it felt like sexually inappropriate. Every year he would have like one or two new students that he would really connect with,

that he would create similar relationships to that he had with me. Did he have those kinds of relationships with young men in addition to young women? Not really. Cato didn't really like the boys in our department, which is kind of a huge red flag. In fact, he was pretty mean to them.

My husband went to school with us and Cato was terrible to him. and then there was another friend of ours that he was also really mean to. His abuse and whenever he was mean to, like, me felt different than whenever he was mean to the boys. How did he try to, like, justify that or play it off or did he not really try to hide it? I think his justification was that he was all in it for the cause of feminism and women getting to play men's parts and supporting the gay community and all of these things. So he very much hid his disdain for, like, the men in our department. He would call them back for things and obviously not cast them, but make them work even harder for it.

And they always knew that they weren't going to get it. Were there other moments or anecdotes that you can think of that strike you now as odd in his behavior that you witnessed during that time? There's a lot, honestly. When Miranda and I were in Scotland, there was a play. And we were the only two that he took to go see it. there was another student that wanted to join us and he was adamant that she didn't with Miranda. I would see him making these sorts of comments to her and complimenting her in ways that like he just didn't compliment his other female students.

It was clear that he like cared very much about her and found ways to like show that care publicly, even if it wasn't publicly proclaiming their relationship. It was always very evident that he had big feelings about her. Did you ever take that as romantic? I always thought it felt weird, but I didn't want to assume that he was being romantic towards her. Here's Miranda. After Scotland, we started to text all of the time, and it had transitioned into me reaching out more consistently, instead of waiting for him to text me only.

That's also when we would start to meet more frequently at school. as well. Around the time that he started to text me more consistently, because I was hanging out with Olivia so much, I had changed the settings in my iPhone to not have text messages show up on my screen so she wouldn't see him texting me. I would do the same with Snapchat so that she wouldn't see me Snapchatting him all the time. As much as he pushed us to be friends, he pushed us to compete against one another. And it had resulted in me feeling like I didn't want her to have this special attention that I was getting from him. I didn't want to share it. I was developing real feelings for him. It was more than just a crush on your older professor. I was like,

oh, I think I have feelings for him as a person and I really actually like him. By the time that I realize that I start to have feelings for him, he's done such a good job at making me feel special and like I was much older than I was in reality. He was all about me being an old soul and can't believe you're so young. He would say like I feel like you're my actual friend. By the time that he starts paying me attention in ways of trying to hold my hand or he's calling me baby, I'm thrilled. How often do you feel like you were communicating at that point? Every day, at least a little bit. Not as much on the weekends, obviously because he was with his family.

Next time on something was wrong. The hours before and after rehearsal looked very different after my confession of feelings towards him. Rihanna told me that she had really, really bad news and that she didn't know how to say it. And I asked her if it had to do with Cato. I knew after I asked that the answer was yes. He and Miranda had told me like, this isn't true. He, in one way or another, essentially asked me to be a character witness for him. They asked if I would come in for an in-person interview.

I was fucking terrified. A, because I would be tattling on this man who directly holds my future in his hands. and then B, because it felt like actually the world's biggest betrayal to one of my best friends. Thank you so much to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us. And thank you for listening. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Reese. Thank you endlessly to our team. Associate producer, Amy B. Chessler, social media marketing manager,

Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart, and audio engineers Becca High and Stephen Wack. Marissa and Travis at WME, Audio Boom, and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abiyomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Gladrag's original song, You Think You, from their album, Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice J.P. Pacheco, for their work on this cover recorded at the Grill Studios in Emoryville, California. Find all artists' socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to Something Was Wrong.com.

If you would like to help support the show, you can subscribe and listen ad-free on Apple Podcasts, purchase a sticker from our sticker shop at brokencyclemedia.com, share the podcast with a loved one, or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Something Was Wrong podcast. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.