India Oxenberg, who fled the notorious NXIVM sex cult with her mother and fellow actress Katherine Oxenberg, details how she was seduced and lured into a sense of security in a groundbreaking new interview.
In an interview on “The FOX True Crime Podcast,” Oxenberg said that growing up in trendy Los Angeles led her to sense that something was wrong with the so-called New York self-help groups that ultimately exposed her to physical and emotional abuse. He said it may have dulled his ability to do things. , branding, forced sex, starvation, etc.
“The idea of looking for an alternative education wasn’t all that new to me. I’m also from Los Angeles, where there’s a saturation of what’s new, what’s cool, and what’s non-traditional.” she said. On the podcast. “So I think maybe my filter for that kind of thing was a little more open.”
Former ‘Dynasty’ star Katherine Oxenberg ‘sometimes lost hope’ after fear of losing daughter to NXIVM sex cult
India Oxenberg hopes her story gives other trauma survivors hope. (Avalon Lennon)
After Oxenberg fled the group in early 2018, she and her mother helped the FBI arrest them. Founder Keith Raniere and his co-conspirators were soon jailed on charges including sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy.
When Oxenberg dropped out of college in Boston at just 19 years old, she took a group “personal development” class after a former “trusted friend” introduced her to what she called an “amazing” and “transformative” program. I started doing it.
What she and her mother thought would be a “regular self-help talk” ended up captivating them with a star-studded audience.
“We were kind of surrounded by all kinds of experts in the audience,” Oxenberg recalls. “There were people I knew. Some people would walk into the grocery store and think, ‘Oh, that person is famous.'”
“I was young and intimidated and feeling like maybe this is where I’m meant to be,” she recalled. “So, looking back, obviously, things were different then. Hindsight is 20/20. I see the red flags now, but I didn’t see them then.”
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India Oxenberg (left) escaped NXIVM with the help of her mother, Dynasty actress Katherine Oxenberg. (Roxanne McCann)
Initially, Oxenberg said the group’s program seemed “logical.”
“They were pitching this self-help program that would help you overcome your core fears and the limitations of your belief system,” she recalled.
“I turned around [my mom] And I thought, “I think this is something for me.” I wanted to try it. And I asked her if she could do it with me as a kind of bonding thing for her,” Oxenberg said.
Her involvement in the group becomes “all-consuming” and she becomes exhausted and unable to do any other work. Ms. Oxenberg lost relationships with her friends and her family, believing false promises that if she worked hard enough, she would eventually receive financial rewards that she said “never happened.”
After five years in the group, she was introduced to a “cult within a cult” called “DOS” by human trafficking co-conspirator Allison Mack. Women in the group were stigmatized, forced to provide nude images and false confessions for blackmail, and forced into sexual slavery.
“I was not as successful as other people who were successful in sales. For example, I was spending all of my time and money to grow…I was in the same group. I had an awkward relationship with a guy who was, well, he was my boss,” Oxenberg explained.
“I remember Allison Mack coming up to me and asking me what I wanted to do with my life. She was someone I looked up to and looked up to,” Oxenberg recalled. “When she introduced this special group within the group for women to get additional coaching…I was listening because she’s successful and maybe I need it.” I thought you might have something.”
Sex cult members detail forced kissing and branding
NXIVM Executive Success Programs signs outside its Albany, New York, office. NXIVM founder Keith Raniere was arrested by the FBI in Mexico in March 2018. (Amy Luke)
“I had little idea what it was going to be because they didn’t reveal anything about it,” she said.
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Each time Mack gave her new information about the inner group, Oxenberg said, “he had to provide her with incriminating information or damaging information.” [herself,]“I trusted the higher-ranking members, but I didn’t realize at the time that it would be used to blackmail me.
She eventually moved to the group’s base in Albany, New York, where the cult controlled her sleeping, eating, social and communication habits. She said she was branded with an iron soon after her arrival.
“It was incredibly painful and scary and I couldn’t say no, it was like I was being asked to leave my body,” Oxenberg recalls. “The learning curve of understanding what pimps do to prostitutes, that’s how they treat people who are their property, and things like that was something I had to learn after the fact. It was something.”
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“But I couldn’t honestly say what it was because I still believed it was good. That’s how twisted everything was,” she said. Told.
Oxenberg said the threat of leaking personal information was known as “collateral” rather than blackmail, and was often used as a means of punishment for disobedience.
Ms. Oxenberg said that when she first met Mr. Raniere, she was told that her first “mission” was to seduce him.
NXIVM survivor India Oxenberg reflects on surviving sex cult: ‘I felt shame and guilt’
India Oxenberg has a podcast, Still Learning, where she speaks with trauma experts and survivors. (Avalon Lennon)
“I thought, ‘What does this have to do with me growing up?’ I didn’t understand. But I wasn’t allowed to ask questions, because as soon as I did, I was reprimanded,” Oxenberg said. looks back.
The “missions” also included appearing nude in front of Mr. Raniere and asking him to take nude photos of Mr. Raniere while appearing “totally unprotected.”
After she was admitted to DOS for two years, she said Mr. Raniere began showing up in the middle of the night, calling her to his apartment and making her wait naked for him to arrive.
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“I thought all these very inhuman things were for my benefit because that’s what I was told,” Oxenberg said, “but in reality they were just sexual assaults and rapes. It was something like that.”
When she finally escaped the group seven years later, Oxenberg said, “I had to put everything back together.” [she] What to learn and what to release [she] I really believed it. ”
“I really had to accept what was lovely to me and what was going to work for me in my life,” she said. “And it’s not based on anyone else’s standards, it’s completely based on my standards. And a lot of that has to do with self-esteem and self-awareness, and that comes from traumatic experiences. I’m willing to talk about those things, but yeah, I’m still hurt. ”
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Oxenberg said helping the FBI build the case against Raniere and his co-conspirators for nine months was an important part of her healing process. In the end, Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
“The truth is, I’m proud…I feel lucky that he got the sentence he deserved. And I feel so lucky that he got the sentence he deserved. And so many other victims who will never get that justice. I know there are women and people in general,” she said. “So there’s a part of me that thinks… I’m lucky that my predator is in prison because a lot of people walk around very scared because their predators aren’t. And I hope this sets a precedent for the future, and kind of saying, “Like, show people, like, don’t interact with us. .Because there will be consequences for you.”
Oxenberg has since rebuilt her life with her husband and cats in Key West, Florida.
