S35 E1: It Started in Vancouver | Allison after NXIVM

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Speaker 4 This is a CBC podcast.

Speaker 4 Campsite Media.

Speaker 5 It's a warm, muggy day in New York City City in June 2021, the kind of summer day when the air feels oppressively heavy, as if it's about to smother you.

Speaker 5 And for Allison Mack, the day could not get any heavier.

Speaker 5 Allison is a famous actress, but she's famous for something else now, for being prominent in one of the most devastating cults in contemporary history. She spent 12 long years in that cult.

Speaker 5 And now she's sitting in the back of a car that's driving towards a Brooklyn courthouse. She's wearing a black dress that she's bought specifically for the court date.

Speaker 5 Her green eyes gaze ahead at what's to come.

Speaker 6 The culture of my family is like:

Speaker 6 we don't dwell on what bad things could happen. We just believe that it's going to be okay.

Speaker 6 And so, all the while leading up to my sentence, it was like, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
It's going to work out. It's going to be okay.

Speaker 5 Allison is here because of her role in Nexium, the infamous sex cult run by Keith Ranieri.

Speaker 5 Of all the people who've become tangled up in Nexium, she's the most famous of the bunch. The media attention on this case, and Allison in particular, has been fierce.

Speaker 6 My mom and my friend Tina rode in the car with me, with my attorneys.

Speaker 6 And we got there and we parked in a place that was not out in front so that we could get a little bit of distance on the paparazzi before they came to us.

Speaker 5 From the car, she sees the photographers waiting for her. Everyone has covered this case.
It's international news, and a lot of the reporters are focused on Allison, the TV star.

Speaker 5 She was on the CW for over a decade, on the popular show Smallville. She played Clark Kent's best friend.
Now she's fallen back to Earth. She's tabloid chum.

Speaker 5 She's a target.

Speaker 6 Tina was on one side, my mom was on the other, and my attorneys were in front of us. And my friend Tina was singing a song to me, like a hymn.

Speaker 5 Tina is singing a nice choral song in her ear, trying to calm her down. This is something Allison's friends have been doing to ground her for this day.

Speaker 6 My friend Becca had sung me a song the day before. They put her hand on my heart, and it was a song that was talking about how God is in the waiting.
God is in the moments when you

Speaker 6 are just waiting, you know?

Speaker 5 But the songs are no use. As soon as Allison gets out of the car, onto the sidewalk, she's like a magnet, and the photographers are metal.

Speaker 6 And then, like, the paparazzi just like,

Speaker 6 you know, came around us, and they couldn't move.

Speaker 5 They stick to her, bearing down, moving as she moves, pushing towards the courthouse as one big mass. Allison gets jostled.
Her hair swings forward.

Speaker 6 I just put my head down and was like trying to listen to Tina, you know, and like feel my mom and like my attorneys were like, you you guys have to let us move eventually they push through

Speaker 5 allison enters the courtroom with her mom and older brother inside the judge sits behind a tall wooden bench he's got white hair and wears round rimless glasses that mirror the roundness of his face he's here to sentence allison for her crimes

Speaker 6 i had like 15 people sitting behind me in my sentencing hearing to support me, you know, I have 14 letters of recommendation from different people, professors from my college my pastor the church i was going to allison herself had written two letters to the judge explaining her actions there was this rallying sense of like we're going to be able to convince the judge that she's not worthy of incarceration i mean my therapist i think wrote a letter that said that she hopes that she will receive no time She's cooperated with prosecutors and other defendants in the case have received probation.

Speaker 5 But Allison's aren't the only letters. Before the judge sentences her, he must also hear victim impact statements.
Letters from people Allison has hurt.

Speaker 5 I was physically injured, and it's a scar that is very difficult.

Speaker 6 Alison criticized everything about guilty of that abuse of power and trust.

Speaker 5 I have never felt so vulnerable and exposed.

Speaker 5 One victim is here to read her statement in person.

Speaker 5 She gets up. She's pretty, with long brown hair and almond brown eyes.
She starts reading her letter directly to Allison.

Speaker 6 She's like, I hope you rot in a cell for a long time.

Speaker 6 And while you're sitting at home in your comfortable house putting on lipstick, you have to know that you destroyed lives and you're a monster and very, like, very angry, you know.

Speaker 5 Allison sits stone-faced in the courtroom, holding back tears.

Speaker 6 I think that I was thinking, and I still was thinking about like, oh my God, my poor brother, you know, behind me, like having to hear this about his sister, you know, like my poor mom, like,

Speaker 6 I'm so sorry, you guys, you know, just like, it was more like,

Speaker 6 I can take it, like, you know, but like, fuck you guys, like, I'm so sorry, you know? So I think that was hard. Like, just,

Speaker 6 I don't see myself as innocent, you know, and they were.

Speaker 5 Allison tries to keep it together. She stands stock still, taking it in.
And after the victim statements, the judge reads his 10-page decision.

Speaker 6 He pointed to the fact that I seemed callous and laughed at people's pain and led people in negative directions and that that was not acceptable.

Speaker 5 He said you capitalized on your celebrity.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Do you think that's fair?

Speaker 6 I think that I capitalized on the things things I had. And so the success I had as an actor, I think I did capitalize on that.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 And it was a power tool that I had to get people to do what I wanted.

Speaker 5 He says you were an essential accomplice. Do you think that's fair?

Speaker 6 I think that I was very effective in moving Keith's vision forward.

Speaker 5 And because of that effectiveness, The judge says Allison must serve three years in federal prison.

Speaker 9 The former Smallville actress pleaded guilty to racketeering and and racketeering conspiracy charges, acknowledging she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for Keith Ranieri, Nexium's leader.

Speaker 5 He was sentenced to the men. Allison led women to be branded with Keith Ranieri's initials on the flesh of their bodies.
She was a quote master, overseeing women who were her slaves.

Speaker 5 She had sex with Keith daily. She had threesomes with another member who was also having sex with him.

Speaker 5 She told women inside the cult that they would reach enlightenment if they did as she did and developed a relationship with Keith.

Speaker 5 For this, she has been portrayed as a villain, as the person who acted as a pimp for Keith.

Speaker 5 To some, she appeared to have been a top lieutenant.

Speaker 5 But who is Allison Mack, really?

Speaker 5 Is she a victim or someone who victimized others?

Speaker 5 From Campside Media and CBC, this is Allison Afternexium from CBC's Uncover. I'm Natalie Robomet.

Speaker 5 This is episode one. It started in Vancouver.

Speaker 5 I'm driving down the freeway from my house in LA to the satellite city of Long Beach, California. It's the day after Christmas in Southern California, which means it's light jacket weather.

Speaker 5 Where I grew up back in Dubai, with my British mom, I'd be lolling on the couch making leftover turkey sandwiches. But not on this day, because I'm on my way to interview Allison Mack.

Speaker 5 I'm feeling nervous. I've met Allison a few times, but this is our first full interview.
And I'm worried. I still don't know whether I can fully trust her.

Speaker 5 The highway gives way to views of the sea, where oil rigs dot the horizon. Allison lives here, down by the shore of the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 5 I park and walk into the hotel where I've arranged to meet my producing partner on this project, Vanessa Gregoriadis.

Speaker 6 Hello, good morning.

Speaker 6 Here we are at this glad hotel lobby.

Speaker 5 Vanessa has covered Nexium for just under a decade. We work together a lot, but we live on opposite coasts, so it's always nice to see each other in person.
I love that moon. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 5 We're both kind of anxious, chattering to fill the time. We've been turned on to this story by Stephen Belber, a playwright, director, and screenwriter.

Speaker 5 Stephen has done a lot of projects about convicts, and he thinks Allison has a story to tell. So he brought us on board.
Vanessa also has some experience with Allison Mack.

Speaker 5 She actually wrote a story about Nexium back in 2018. A story in which Allison lied to her.
More on that later. We don't know which Allison we're going to get today.
Will she tell the truth?

Speaker 5 We don't have much time to to wonder. Because right on the dot, at 9 a.m.,

Speaker 5 Allison arrives.

Speaker 5 Allison has not spoken publicly since her incarceration. She's never told her story in a magazine, or a book, or a documentary.

Speaker 5 She's had lots of offers, but always said no until now.

Speaker 5 She wants to tell her story in podcast form because she loves podcasts and because she's no longer comfortable in front of cameras like she used to be.

Speaker 6 How were your guys' holidays here?

Speaker 8 They were good. I mean, I.

Speaker 5 Today, she's wearing a puffer vest, blue plaid shirt, black leopard print leggings, Doc Martin boots, and thick socks.

Speaker 5 Her hair is in a messy ponytail with one of those curly hair ties that don't tangle your hair at night. She's smiling, her face beaming as she greets us.
She's confident. She's turning it on.

Speaker 5 And we're being maybe overly friendly, too. Everyone seems nervous.
She talks about her dogs.

Speaker 6 And they start wrestling like right under me. Where I'm like, I'm so sorry.
I really wanted this to be focused and serious and not any rat and dogs beneath me.

Speaker 5 I have to say, she appears younger than her 43 years.

Speaker 5 Looking at her, you would never guess that she was fresh off years in prison and three and a half years on house arrest. But that's how most scars are.
You can't see them fully clothed.

Speaker 5 I have so many questions I want to ask, but as we settle in a hotel room sitting opposite each other, the quiet thrum of the street below, I decide to start at the beginning, the beginning of her life.

Speaker 6 So I was born in Europe in northern Germany. My dad was an opera singer.
He's retired now, but he was singing in the opera houses over there. And then we moved to Southern California.

Speaker 6 My mom was from Southern California and I think was just like homesick for her parents, for sunshine and beach. Northern Germany doesn't really have a lot of that.

Speaker 5 Allison moved back to Long Beach at two years old and was raised in an artistic household just a few miles from where we are now with her musician dad and Montessori school mom teacher.

Speaker 5 She had one older brother and later on, a much younger sister.

Speaker 6 My brother is 16 months older than I am, but my brother is very shy and introverted.

Speaker 6 When I was born, my brother would like push me in front of him to talk like on our behalf, behalf, you know, like I was very willing to be center of attention and he was very willing to let me be the center of attention.

Speaker 5 For a young girl who was willing to be the center of attention, there were a lot of opportunities in Hollywood, just an hour or so away. Allison got into acting.

Speaker 6 The first commercial I did was a German chocolate commercial. And they wouldn't let me eat the chocolate.
I had to spit the chocolate out after every take because they didn't want me to get sick.

Speaker 6 And I remember being like, oh, that's bunk. Because I had to, you know, do multiple takes from multiple angles and things like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I can just picture Allison, four years old, putting the chocolate in her mouth, chewing, wanting so badly to eat this delicious treat that every kid loves, and then having someone else cut and having to use all her willpower to spit it out over and over and over again.

Speaker 5 But she did it. And she was good at it.

Speaker 6 I started going to acting class when I was five. And I didn't know how to read yet.
So a lot of of my memorization was like auditory. My mom would read it to me and I would repeat it back.

Speaker 5 Allison liked performing, but it was more than that.

Speaker 6 I was from birth like, I want you to be happy with me all the time, you know? And I think even before I started acting, I was like, what do you want me to do? Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 6 Where do you want me to go? Okay, I'll go there. You know, like, I just was like,

Speaker 6 I was that kind of constitution.

Speaker 5 For Allison, this behavior carried on to set, where she gained a reputation as a director's actor, someone who would do whatever the director wanted and help get the rest of the cast in line.

Speaker 6 The whole value of me as a human being was around being an actor and being a good actor. And I was special at school because I was a good actor.

Speaker 6 And then I also like conflated love with acting and being good, you know.

Speaker 5 And her peers, the girls she should have been playing dress up and making mud pies with, they were competition.

Speaker 5 Allison says she would walk into a room and instantly take stock of everyone else, placing herself in a hierarchy among them.

Speaker 6 That's automatically what you do when you walk into an audition room.

Speaker 6 Like you look around at all the girls that are in the audition and then say, oh, I know that girl because I tested with her three years ago for that thing. So I know she's good.

Speaker 6 And so then there's this weird, like, you're pitted against each other and you're competing with each other constantly.

Speaker 5 And the competition Allison experienced at those auditions, she felt it at home too.

Speaker 6 My sister was born when I was nine and a half, and that was

Speaker 6 complicated for me

Speaker 6 because I was the little girl and I was the center of the universe in my family's home. And then my sister was born and I was like, who is this? You know, taking my spot.
And I was angry and jealous.

Speaker 6 And I didn't know where to put those feelings. And those feelings

Speaker 6 contradicted the perception that I had in the world where people always looked at me and were like, oh, she's such a nice girl. And she's so sweet.

Speaker 6 And I was always like, the good girl in school and la la la. And then I had these like dark feelings about my sister.

Speaker 5 Competition with other women would come to haunt her. And Allison's time as a young actress left her feeling older than she was.

Speaker 6 At the time, I didn't feel like I was 14. I didn't feel like I was a kid.

Speaker 5 Before long, Allison moved to LA.

Speaker 6 I moved out of my parents' house when I was 16 because I got a TV show with Chris Evans, actually, called The Opposite Sex.

Speaker 5 Hey, Kate.

Speaker 10 Okay, this isn't for class. You like reading for pleasure?

Speaker 5 In it, Allison played a high school nerd named Kate. Like most teen TV shows from the time, the nerd was also incredibly gorgeous.

Speaker 6 So I like run these groups, and I leave the discussions.

Speaker 11 It's just

Speaker 5 people,

Speaker 6 some lawyers, some professors, a couple of writers. Wait.

Speaker 5 Her on-screen character was precocious, and so was she. She was only 16, had graduated high school early, and was living in LA without her parents.
She says that was intentional.

Speaker 6 I really distanced myself from my family.

Speaker 6 My parents was kind of going through like individuation and having a hard time with my mom's dependence on me and just kind of angry and a teenager, you know, with too much money and freedom, you know.

Speaker 5 But the show didn't last.

Speaker 6 We got canceled, which is what happens to most shows. And My skin started to break out because I was a teenager and I had a makeup artist tell me I should go on Accutane.

Speaker 5 Accutane is a powerful prescription used to treat acne that can have side effects.

Speaker 6 So I went on Accutane, which we now know causes severe depression. And I plummeted, like, I was so depressed.
My emotions were all messed up.

Speaker 6 And I'm newly living on my own in LA and I had gained weight and like it was just, I wasn't working.

Speaker 5 By the time she turned 18, during this low period, Allison encountered the man who would go on to become her first boyfriend, a rocker she met at the famous LA bar, the Viper Room.

Speaker 5 She'd actually been planning to leave LA and go study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, a serious drama school.

Speaker 5 But then she met this guy and got an audition for a show called Smallville.

Speaker 6 Yeah, so I went in and I read for them and David Nutter, who was our director, who cast the show. And

Speaker 6 And I got the part.

Speaker 5 Allison was cast as Chloe Sullivan, another nerdy girl next door.

Speaker 6 I always got the smart girls, and I think part of that was because of my like weird fear of sexuality. Like I never felt comfortable or confident being like the Angenu girl.

Speaker 6 So I always always sort of like the His Girl Friday, the smart, quirky, funny, quit sidekick.

Speaker 5 The show was filmed in Vancouver. So Allison upped and moved to Hollywood North.
And right away, it was a fantasy.

Speaker 5 Going to set every day, doing what she loved to do, being young in a beautiful new city with a group of cool friends.

Speaker 6 This was like 2000. It was when Smallville premiered.
So we didn't have social media. We were just so homey and continued to be that way throughout the whole process of the show.

Speaker 6 Like none of us ever got caught in the fame bubble or very conscious of our fame.

Speaker 5 Allison didn't understand she was famous and she also didn't understand money. She was just 19 when the show started airing.

Speaker 6 And I was making $40,000 a week out of gate. I had a financial person that took care of all my money, a business manager, and I didn't want to know about anything.

Speaker 6 And so they didn't tell me about anything.

Speaker 5 She's got a dream job, a rock star boyfriend, more money than she knows what to do with. But actually, not everything was quite as dreamy with the boyfriend, who Allison does not want to identify.

Speaker 6 So I was living in Vancouver and he was living in LA.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 he was spending money so fast, like he was spending so much of the money that I was making.

Speaker 6 But it was like easier for me to just like give him a credit card and deal than it was for me to stand up to him because standing up to him would turn into like these big violent

Speaker 6 name-calling horrible things.

Speaker 5 I asked Allison if he hit her.

Speaker 6 Not until the very end of the relationship, but he hit himself, you know, and he would like cut his own face. He would say, like, look at what you're making me do.
And I was chop up his own face and

Speaker 6 things like that, like horrible, gnarly things.

Speaker 6 And that was the first time that I got someone's initials burned into my body. I got his initial tattooed on my chest when I was 20.

Speaker 6 He had gotten a big A tattooed on his chest.

Speaker 6 And then it was like, if you loved me, you would get the same thing. If you loved me, you would do this.
And so then to prove to him, you know, my love for him,

Speaker 6 to try and make it so that he didn't hurt himself again, you know, I got tattooed on my chest.

Speaker 6 And all the while I'm on Smallville, you know, so it's like, it was crazy.

Speaker 6 Like when I'll never forget one time, I mean, it's so embarrassing because like the crew, the casting crew of Smallville saw me just like, I'm such a mess, you know?

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 6 all the while trying to like keep it together, you know, like be

Speaker 6 perfect on camera

Speaker 6 But I will never forget one time we were doing a scene. I was doing a scene with Tom and they were setting up for my close-up.

Speaker 5 Tom Welling, the actor who played Clark Kent.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I walked away and I was on the phone.

Speaker 5 She's taking a call from her boyfriend.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 he was just railing on me for something, just

Speaker 6 calling me all kinds of names and saying all these horrible things about me to me.

Speaker 6 And I was just like, okay, okay. You know, just like trying to calm him down and taking it.
And the AD was like, Allison, we're ready for you. We're ready for you.
And I was like, okay, I have to go.

Speaker 6 And we're ready for you, Allison. We're waiting for you.
I was like, okay, I have to go. And I hung up the phone and I walked onto set.
And I,

Speaker 6 they said, rolling, you know, as I was walking onto set.

Speaker 6 And the director said, action. And I took a deep breath and I looked at Tom

Speaker 6 and I just

Speaker 6 lost it. And I said my lines, you know, they mean like I was still able to like perform the dialogue, but like tears are streaming down my face.
And they said, cut, you know.

Speaker 6 And the cameraman looked around at me, and he was like, Are you okay? And I was like, Yeah, I'm good. I was like, Was that too much emotion? Did you want me to do something less?

Speaker 6 Because that was too strong. And they were like, Yeah, maybe it was a little too much for the scene.
And I was like, Okay, cool, let's do it again. I can, I can pull it back, you know.

Speaker 6 And it was like, I just like wrapped it into like what I was doing.

Speaker 6 Because that's just what you do, you know. And the embarrassing thing is, like, everybody knew that like I was in a fucked up situation and that it wasn't healthy and that I wasn't well and whatever.

Speaker 6 But one of the people that was closest to me was like, Allison, we love you and you need to be with somebody that lifts you up. And he said, that's all I'm going to say, you know.

Speaker 6 So it took three years for me to get out from under that one.

Speaker 5 It would take her 12 years to get away from the next man whose initials she got inscribed on her. But before then, she would have hurt a lot more people than just herself.

Speaker 5 You know, to be honest, I didn't feel comfortable going home.

Speaker 12 I have a discharge paperwork that's like an inch thick, gives me all of his prescriptions, but it's still, I'm also handing a rescue medication.

Speaker 5 Managing my pain was never something I ever even considered.

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Speaker 5 So while Allison was living in Vancouver, she developed a really close friendship with another cast member on Smallville, Kristen Krug.

Speaker 5 Allison was Clark Kent's best friend in this modern take on that very American story of Superman. And Kristen played Clark Kent's love interest on the show.

Speaker 1 That's the thing about Clark Kent.

Speaker 5 He's not always there when you want him, but he's always there when you need him. Where Allison was the petite, perky blonde, Kristen was almost model beautiful.

Speaker 5 She's got these gorgeous light brown eyes and high high cheekbones, and she's actually from Vancouver herself.

Speaker 5 But she and Allison started going far away from Vancouver together, taking exotic trips around the world.

Speaker 6 We went to Syria and Turkey together. We went to Mongolia together.
We went to Paris and we had... So much fun.
And that became kind of like a thing.

Speaker 6 Like we went to Paris multiple times together and just shopped and saw art and sat at the, on the top of the pompidoux and had brusé and like just like lived this kind of like dream thing.

Speaker 6 And we both were at the point where we were 25, we were in New York City together. It was our break and we had rented an apartment in the same building in the West Village.

Speaker 6 And we both were like, why do we both, why do we feel so unsatisfied? Like we both had beautiful boyfriends and all the things.

Speaker 6 And yet both of us were talking about this weird ennui that we felt of like, just like, blah,

Speaker 6 what is that? You know?

Speaker 6 And I was like, I I feel

Speaker 6 like this odd emptiness

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 it feels so wrong given the nature of my life, you know? And she was like, yeah, I'm too.

Speaker 5 And there were people in Vancouver, in the actor circle there, who'd gotten into what seemed like a life coaching course. They wanted other local actors to join.
It sounded light and fun.

Speaker 5 The name of the company giving the courses was Nexium.

Speaker 6 It's the science of joy. It's the most amazing thing.
It's made everything so much better in my life. You've got to do this.
You've got to do this.

Speaker 5 Allison says, Kristen took a Nexium course and came back and told her all about it.

Speaker 6 And it was like all she could talk about. She was just like super excited about it.

Speaker 6 You know, she had a coach and she was talking about Vanguard and Prefect, which are the names that you called Keith and Nancy at the time.

Speaker 6 But Kristen was like, there is an organization Keith's created. It's just for women and they're doing a weekend and I think you should do it.
And I think you'd really like it.

Speaker 6 And I was like, okay, well, if you think I should do do it, I'll like it. Like, okay, like, I'll do it.

Speaker 5 That first weekend course took place in a hotel conference room in Vancouver. I can picture it.

Speaker 5 Grey walls, strangely geometric tiled carpets, those long tablecloths that reach all the way to the floor.

Speaker 5 The course was taught by Nancy Salzman, a formidable woman with short dark hair and a laser-sharp focus. This is some archival video of Nancy explaining Naxium's coursework.
Hello, I'm Nancy Salzman.

Speaker 5 Welcome to your first origins class. Did you ever see the carnival game whack-a-mole? There's this little mole and he pops up and he has this like little grassy hat on.

Speaker 5 So you take the sledgehammer and you knock down this mole and you knock down this one, knock one down and another one pops up and another one pops up. And does this sound like you're life?

Speaker 5 Nancy's daughter Lauren was there too. Lauren's got the same dark hair as her mother and eyebrows that have also been tweezed to a very fine point, like a comma turned on its side.

Speaker 5 Nancy's sermons focused on honesty, a core tenet of Nexium's teachings, which emphasize each person being radically honest with themselves and taking accountability for their own actions.

Speaker 6 We were learning about what's the purpose of mankind, and we were learning about like how does that relate to gender differences and relationships.

Speaker 5 After Nancy's presentations they'd split into breakout groups to dig deeper. It was empowering to Allison to spend a weekend hanging out with women, examining their self and their role in society.

Speaker 6 I liked

Speaker 6 the curriculum. Like I liked what we were learning.

Speaker 5 We were learning about honesty and what does it mean to be honest and we were after the weekend in Vancouver ended Allison says they went to Kristen Krug's house with Nancy and some of the people from the course.

Speaker 6 And Nancy did like an EM demo. EM is like an exploration of meaning and it was like this like amazing therapeutic thing for people in Nexian.

Speaker 6 It was like the panacea kind of a thing and you would bring an issue that you had to Nancy and

Speaker 6 then Nancy would have this conversation with you where she would explore the meaning that you made around this concept or this problem that you have.

Speaker 5 An EM is sort of a therapy session, but it almost sounds like something out of Scientology. It helps you destroy the problem almost instantly, helps you go clear.

Speaker 6 And then by the end of the conversation, you would be better and like you would feel different and everything would be better.

Speaker 6 So we all watched this person get their EM and it was like, whoa, that seemed to really help that person. So I was like, I want one of those.

Speaker 6 I want an EM.

Speaker 6 And Nancy said, you know what? We have an extra seat on our private plane. Does anybody want to come back to Albany with us tonight and meet Keith?

Speaker 5 Keith Ranieri, the guy who everyone in Nexium was talking about constantly. He didn't come to Vancouver, but everyone said that he was the guy who'd birthed all of Nexium himself.

Speaker 5 They say he's the world's smartest and most ethical man.

Speaker 5 He is the guru.

Speaker 6 And I was like, well, I got nothing to do for the next couple of days. I don't have to shoot anything until the end of next week.
Like, yeah, I want to go.

Speaker 5 The private plane they were taking belonged to Claire Bronfman, the mega-rich Seagram heir and Nexium devotee.

Speaker 5 Her grandfather grew present-day Seagram into a giant conglomerate from a distillery in Montreal in the 1920s.

Speaker 5 On the tarmac, outside the jet, Allison walks up the steps and into paradise.

Speaker 6 It was my first time ever on a private plane. It's like what you see on TV.
Like it's, you know, there's like several chairs. You know, a pilot and he was like, do you want to to watch the takeoff?

Speaker 6 And like, I sat up in the front with him as we took off.

Speaker 5 I can imagine Allison looking out through the cockpit, seeing the horizon broaden before her.

Speaker 5 Not only is she a successful actor with lots of money and the ability to travel wherever she wants, now she's literally seeing the world in a new way, opening her eyes and mind to new possibilities.

Speaker 6 I remember we didn't have to sit in the chair. We could sit on the floor, which I was like, what? I'm on the floor in the plane.
That's weird.

Speaker 5 Up here, in a private plane, the rules didn't apply. So Allison settles down, cross-legged, with all the spiritual seekers from Nexium.
Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, and Claire Bromfman.

Speaker 5 These amazing, powerful women who seem to be so deep and have all the answers for the ennui she'd been feeling.

Speaker 5 They land in Albany, a small city in upstate New York, nestled on the Hudson River. From the airport, they pile into cars.

Speaker 5 Nexium members, members, as a rule, drove BMWs because Keith thought they were the best-made cars. And Allison heads to Nancy's house in the suburb of Clifton Park, about 25 minutes from the city.

Speaker 5 But pretty much, as soon as they arrive, Nancy disappears. And Allison is told to hang tight.
Someone would come get her so she can go to volleyball.

Speaker 6 Yes, volleyball.

Speaker 6 And I was like, okay, cool. And they were like, but it's going to be like late, like middle of the night, because they start playing volleyball at midnight.

Speaker 6 And I was like,

Speaker 6 that's weird. And they were like, well, Keith is not on a regular person's schedule and they like to have privacy when they play volleyball.
So that's why they play in the middle of the night.

Speaker 6 So I was like, all right,

Speaker 6 okay.

Speaker 5 Allison waits and waits. And then, late at night, as the sleep is threatening to push at the corners of Allison's eyes, a woman arrives to pick her up.

Speaker 6 She's in a BMW SUV and we go to the volleyball court and there's like a whole bunch of people there. It's like the middle of the night and there's like tons of people.
I was like, whoa, okay.

Speaker 5 If you've seen HBO's The Vow, you know the scene Allison's talking about.

Speaker 5 Brightly lit volleyball courts, the sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor, dozens of shorts wearing Nexium men vaulting volleyballs back and forth while throngs of women watch from the sidelines.

Speaker 6 And I go go walking into the gym and

Speaker 6 I just went and sat down and I was like watching them play volleyball and just kind of waiting and they finished a set and Keith came over and they introduced him to me.

Speaker 5 Keith's short. He's wearing a black t-shirt, shorts, knee pads, and he's got his long hair pulled back in a ponytail with a sweatband on top.

Speaker 6 I wasn't expecting like some big studly.

Speaker 6 Like I didn't think like, whoa, he's so hot. Like I thought he's an older,

Speaker 6 geeky

Speaker 5 Dude.

Speaker 6 He looked like somebody that my dad did an opera with when I was in Germany. Like he just looked like a normal white dude.

Speaker 6 And I mean, yes, he's a total geek with his headband and his glasses and his volleyball thing. Whatever.
And he said,

Speaker 6 it's nice to meet you. Do you have a question for me? And I was like, a question? And he said, yeah.

Speaker 6 I said, I didn't know I was supposed to prepare a question. And he said, well, you didn't have to prepare a question, but some people people like to ask me questions.
And I was like, oh,

Speaker 6 I don't have a question. I just thought I'd come and smile and cheer you guys on and it would be okay.
And he went, oh, is that how you do life?

Speaker 5 Is that how you do life? He says. This is Allison's first time meeting Keith.
And now Allison, the successful young actress, is already being put on her back foot.

Speaker 5 She feels as though she's done something wrong, which, for people pleaser like like Allison throws her into a tailspin.

Speaker 6 When he said, oh, is that how you do life? I was like,

Speaker 6 I don't think so. I don't think I just stand on the sidelines and smile, but like, maybe.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 After this interaction, Allison's ride asks her if she wants to head out.

Speaker 6 And I was like, okay, yeah, I mean, I'm getting kind of tired, so let's go. So we get in the car to go home.
And I said, nobody told me I had to prepare a question.

Speaker 6 And she said, you didn't have to prepare a question. And I said, but Keith asked me if I had a question.

Speaker 6 And I didn't know that he was going to ask me that and she was like well some people have questions for him and I was like well why and she was like well he's like the smartest man in the world so usually when people meet the smartest man in the world they may have questions for him and I was like so I can ask him anything and she said yeah you can ask him anything and I was like oh

Speaker 6 and I thought well then I do have a question. And she was like, do you want to go back? And I said, yeah.

Speaker 6 And so we turned around and we went back. And by this point, it was like three o'clock in the morning.
And I walk in to the gym and I said, I thought of a question. And he said, oh, okay.

Speaker 6 And I sat down and he made me wait till they finished the whole game.

Speaker 5 On set, Allison's the talent. She's the person people wait for.
But with Keith, it was the other way around.

Speaker 6 So I waited for like probably an hour.

Speaker 5 Eventually, Keith deigns to come talk to her again.

Speaker 6 He came over over and sat next to me and the whole room came and sat down, like around us. It was so bizarre.
And I was like, okay, this is weird. But like, I'm a performer and like, okay, like, sure.

Speaker 6 You guys want to sit and watch us? Like, sure.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 Mark was there with the camera filming us.

Speaker 5 Mark Vicente, another prominent Nexium member and filmmaker.

Speaker 6 And I think somebody even said, like, we film everything Keith says because he's so brilliant. We don't want to miss anything.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 6 And he said, what's your question?

Speaker 5 The question Allison has for Keith is, what is art?

Speaker 6 And he took me on this really wild exploration of art and essentially at the end said, like, art itself is nothing, but what you make of art is everything.

Speaker 6 So essentially, art is a reflection of whoever you are and whatever you are inside. And no one had ever said anything like that to me.
Like no one had ever turned anything around.

Speaker 6 I was so externally focused and my parents were so externally focused that the idea that what I was seeing outside that I thought was so beautiful was a reflection of me inside was like,

Speaker 6 like, blew my mind, you know.

Speaker 5 Allison starts to cry. This is what she's been searching for, meaning.

Speaker 5 And now she's found it here in Albany in an amazing group that so many of her friends are a part of, run by a principled man called Keith Ranieri.

Speaker 5 It's a lot for her to take in, overwhelming, even.

Speaker 6 And I felt like

Speaker 6 discombobulated and disoriented about what he was saying to me. It almost felt like the ground was like shift.
It was a bizarre experience. And he said, are you okay?

Speaker 6 And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'm just feeling a little disoriented.
That was a lot.

Speaker 5 Allison seems so earnest, so desperate to please. She reminds me of all the musical theater girls in high school who I found performative.

Speaker 5 And her question, to me, a snobby Ivy League grad, seems like a sort of elementary one, Philosophy of Art 101.

Speaker 5 But it's easier to laugh at someone than wonder where they're coming from.

Speaker 5 That's part of what I'm trying to do here, push past my gut reactions to understand how and why Allison got sucked into Nexium and what drove her to do the things she did.

Speaker 5 Because it didn't happen overnight. 12 years is a long time.

Speaker 5 Allison would leave Vancouver and leave LA and move to Albany. She would become one of Keith's top students.

Speaker 5 All of these threads of her childhood, people pleasing, wanting desperately to be liked by authority figures, competing with other women, would start weaving together, pushing her to become the best Nexium pupil, the best workshop leader.

Speaker 5 the best cult member, a person capable of doing horrible things.

Speaker 5 And one of those awful things was being part of the group of women who helped dozens of other women get a body modification under questionable circumstances.

Speaker 5 In many ways, it was an eerie echo of what had happened to Allison so many years earlier when she had that initial of a boyfriend tattooed on herself.

Speaker 5 In a quiet house, one woman lays on a massage table. The lights are off.
The smell of singed human flesh is in the air.

Speaker 5 These women are getting the initials of Allison's, you could say, boyfriend, Keith Ranieri, inscribed on them.

Speaker 5 But she's not telling them that.

Speaker 5 And what they're getting is not a tattoo, of course. It's something much, much worse.

Speaker 5 A brand. burned into the delicate skin above the hip bone with a cauterizing iron.

Speaker 5 The The fine point of the searing hot pen comes in contact with flesh.

Speaker 5 It sizzles.

Speaker 5 This woman is one of her slaves, someone Allison has made an oath to help and protect.

Speaker 5 But she hasn't protected them. She's been telling some of them to seduce Keith sexually.

Speaker 5 Allison doesn't want to talk about this part of the story, and especially not the branding. I can feel it.
It bothers her that she's associated with this horrific graphic mark of the cult.

Speaker 5 But she's so associated with it, some of these women would come to believe the brand actually contained Allison's initials. It wasn't true, but it was a rumor that would catch on like wildfire.

Speaker 5 And now Allison must talk about it. She must take responsibility.

Speaker 6 People think the sorority was kind of like your hunting ground or something.

Speaker 5 I have at least one polyamorous partner that is in the sorority.

Speaker 10 He's flirting with somebody younger, prettier, more famous, more popular, you know, whatever than you. And you really start to realize you aged out before you were even 30.

Speaker 6 He said, in order for me to help you with that, we're going to have to be physically intimate.

Speaker 8 I'm nervous about putting every asset that we have on the line.

Speaker 3 when I'm not sure that her allegiance is to us and not Keith.

Speaker 10 I go into his suite and I lock it down and I'm like, get the fuck out of here, like go out the window. And all I can think of is just protect Keith.

Speaker 5 How do you feel about having been involved in like bringing sexual trauma to other people?

Speaker 6 I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question.

Speaker 5 You've been listening to Uncover, Allison Afternexiam, from CBC and Campside Media. It's hosted by me, Natalie Robemed.

Speaker 5 Our executive producers are myself and Vanessa Gregoriadis at Campside and Stephen Belber. Our senior producer is Lily Houston-Smith and our associate producer is Emma Siminoff.

Speaker 5 Sound design, mix and engineering by Mark McAdam and Ewyn Lyde Tremuyin. Thank you to Colin Campbell.
At CBC, our story editor is Derek John and our senior producer is Kate Evans.

Speaker 5 Our coordinating producer is Emily Emily Connell. Our executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak.
Tonya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Nurani is the director.

Speaker 5 If you enjoyed Allison Afternexium, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 4 For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/slash podcasts.