Bethany Joy Lenz Reveals How Her Daughter Influenced Her Decision to Leave Cult After 10 Years: 'We Gotta Get Out'

Mar. 15, 2025

Bethany Joy Lenzis opening up about her experience in anultra-Christian cult— and how her daughter motivated her to escape after a full decade.

While a part of the group, Lenz married musician Michael Galeotti in 2005 and welcomed one child, daughter Rosie, in 2011. The couple divorced in 2012, the same year the actress decided to escape the cult.

“I left because of my daughter,” she shared onGMA. “I left because it was time.”

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Bethany Joy Lenz, daughter Rosie.Bethany Joy Lenz/Instagram

Bethany Joy Lenz/Instagram

Lenz continued to recall her exact thought process at the time, sharing, “I remember having this thought, I said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me and why I will allow myself to be treated this way, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to allow this to happen to her. We gotta get out.'”

Lenz furtheropened up to PEOPLE about her journey for an October cover story. “I don’t think of it as brave,” she said of why she’s finally opening up. “I think of it as important. Living silently in the suffering I experienced, I don’t know if that helps anyone.” She hopes her book will empower others in similar situations: “I think of this more as the right thing to do.”

Actress Bethany Joy Lenz-Galeotti (L) and daughter Maria Rose Galeotti attend the premiere of Hasbro Studios' “My Little Pony Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks” at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres on September 27, 2014 in Hollywood, California.David Livingston/Getty

David Livingston/Getty

She also shared thatshe lost the millions of dollars she had earned from filmingOne Tree Hillto the cult leader— leaving her feeling extremely lost.

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“I had many, many weeping-on-the-floor nights, just trying to figure out how to manage and what I was going to do and what to do with my emotions, the anger, the injustice, all those things,” she added.

“There’s a part of me that’s still like, ‘Oh, God, it’s so gauche to talk about money. Don’t. And there are so many people who would never even imagine seeing that kind of money, let alone what I was left with in the bank account, which, eventually, all just went to lawyers anyway. But it was hard. It was very hard.”

source: people.com