Bethany Joy Lenz Says 'One Tree Hill' Storylines Were Used To Humiliate Her
One Tree Hill actress Bethany Joy Lenz has been an open book in recent years about the trials and tribulations that filled her young adult life, from difficulties she faced in the television industry while she brought to life the beloved character of Haley James Scott on the hit teen drama to her involvement with a cult. In her recently published memoir, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!), the actress got candid about a lot of what went on when the cameras weren’t rolling on One Tree Hill—and much of it left longtime fans of the show shocked.
Show creator's control and humiliating storylines
In her memoir, the actress compared show creator (who she doesn’t specifically name in the book, but many have assumed the figure is Mark Schwahn) to the leader of the cult, Big House Family, she was a part of (who she referred to as Les). When Lenz felt the writing and plotlines of the show contradicted her personal values and beliefs in relation to what she described in the book as her “religious modesty," she pushed back, but that only made things worse for her.
"The more my personal beliefs and preferences interfered with the creator’s demands, the more he started writing things into the storylines that I assume were an attempt to humiliate or antagonize me,” she wrote in the memoir. “Like making other characters call Haley ‘fat.’ Or having Haley ‘overreact’ to her high school boyfriend watching porn.”
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Bethany Joy Lenz on her cult experience
While Lenz’s work life was tumultuous, her personal life consisted of countless battles as she navigated her existence under the thumb of a controlling cult leader. The group in which Lenz was a part of started out as something along the lines of a Bible group, but when a new member infiltrated and started initiating control, things turned sour, and Lenz’s life felt as if it was no longer hers.
Being a part of this cult not only gravely impacted her, but affected the relationships she had with co-stars and friends outside of the group.
“I did have a sense of superiority because I thought I had all the right answers,” Lenz told The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t trust anyone else outside of the group, because I was afraid that if I got curious, listened and empathized with somebody else that was outside, maybe I would get swayed or convinced into something that was not what I believed in.”
Regardless of how Les and the show creator chose to target the young actress, their methods were similar, she explained. “Now I see the similarity between the creator’s strategy and Les’s strategy,” she wrote. “In hindsight, it became clear that they both used geography to isolate us young and trusting people from our support systems and pressure us into doing what they wanted. But whereas the creator’s only leverage was fame, Les’s leverage was my eternal salvation.”
Despite what she went through at this time both on and off the screen, Lenz is still able to look back on her time on the show fondly and even co-hosts the One Tree Hill Drama Queens rewatch podcast alongside her two co-stars, Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush.
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