"One Tree Hill" alum Bethany Joy Lenz is opening up about leaving a group she describes as a "cult" in her new memoir, "Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)."
Lenz, who played Haley James Scott on the iconic teen drama for nine seasons between 2003 and 2012, described the group, known as The Big House Family, in an interview with "Good Morning America" that aired Tuesday.
"It was just a home group Bible study, and then it morphed with the entrance of a pastor from another state," Lenz said. "I think he just saw a lot of young professionals and got dollar signs in his eyes and went, 'Oh, I know what I can do here.'"
Lenz said the pastor then began a "long-game con" and a "long-game manipulation."
"After about a year I was totally entrenched in it," she said.
Sophia Bush celebrates female friendship with Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy LenzLenz married a fellow member of the group and split her time between the group's home base in Idaho and the "One Tree Hill" sets in North Carolina.
Lenz said her onscreen marriage to co-star James Lafferty, who played Nathan Scott on the series, was much happier than her real-life relationship.
"He was always just like kind of a friend, brotherly person to me, who I really love and care about," she said of Lafferty. "But I know in my body there was this constant back and forth and this awareness that I am capable of butterflies and feeling excited and feeling loved and engaged by another person and it's not happening in my marriage -- and it never did."
Lenz said she eventually left the group and her marriage in search of a better life for her daughter.
"I left because of my daughter. I left because it was time," she said. "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've got to get out.'"
While struggling to start over, Lenz said she realized $2 million she had made on "One Tree Hill" went unaccounted for.
"I don't know if it's buried in a hole somewhere. I don't know if it's all just been spent," she said.
These days, Lenz is reconnecting with old friends -- her "One Tree Hill" castmates Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton Morgan. The trio now host the podcast "Drama Queens."
"We didn't make those connective points when we were younger for various reasons -- one of which being: I was in a cult, and so it was harder for me to make connections with people," she said. "But yeah, I'm really grateful that the opportunity came back around."
"Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)" is out now.
