{"id":370149,"date":"2025-11-10T22:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370149\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T22:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:33:10","slug":"allison-mack-podcast-details-nxivm-sex-cult-keith-raniere-brainwashing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370149\/","title":{"rendered":"Allison Mack Podcast Details NXIVM Sex Cult, Keith Raniere Brainwashing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAllison Mack<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the former \u201cSmallville\u201d star, who became known as the infamous enabler of NXIVM<\/a> leader Keith Raniere as the Ghislaine Maxwell to his Jeffrey Epstein \u2014\u00a0is finally telling her story in the new CBC<\/a> podcast \u201cAllison After NXIVM.\u201d The seven-episode podcast, part of CBC\u2019s \u201cUncover,\u201d premiered on Nov. 10, is hosted by Natalie Robehmed and produced by Vanessa Grigoriadis of Campside Media.<\/p>\n

\n\tMack, now 43, was a child actor who grew up in Long Beach, California, eventually moving to Vancouver to star on \u201cSmallville\u201d \u2014 the story of the teenaged Clark Kent \u2014 which ran for nine seasons on The WB (later The CW) beginning in 2001. In the first episode of \u201cAllison After NXIVM,\u201d she recounts that it was through co-star Kristin Kreuk that she first went to a NXIVM meeting in 2006 and embraced it quickly (and later fell under the spell of Raniere).<\/p>\n

\n\tRobehmed lays out in the premiere episode what the podcast\u2019s goals are, which is to answer, \u201cWho is Allison Mack, really? Is she a victim or someone who victimized others?\u201d Mack is, as \u201cAllison After NXIVM\u201d meticulously details, of course, both victim and victimizer. She was completely brainwashed by Raniere, and became part of a harem of women who serviced his every need. She had coercive sex with him daily, and gave up her life and career to move closer to NXIVM\u2019s headquarters in Albany, New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as Raniere\u2019s right-hand woman, Mack was also a ruthless taskmaster within the group. She encouraged other women to go to him for the same kind of sexual \u201chelp\u201d Raniere was giving her, meaning that she was sending them off to be raped by him. Within the NXIVM women\u2019s group DOS, which Raniere was secretly in charge of, Mack had \u201cslaves,\u201d and enforced what they ate (minimally) and when, as well as every action they took. She also recruited women for NXIVM, including the high-profile former member India Oxenberg, whose mother, actor Catherine Oxenberg, was one of the first to speak out about the cult.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor these crimes, Mack went to federal prison for nearly two years and was released in July 2023. It was during her prosecution, she recounts in the podcast, that she slowly began to wake up to what Raniere had done \u2014\u00a0and to what she had done while under his spell.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe abuses of NXIVM were first exposed widely in the New York Times investigation \u201cInside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded<\/a>,\u201d in October 2017. In that story, NXIVM whistleblower Sarah Edmondson, who was in DOS, detailed her experience in the group. After that story, the tides turned against Raniere, and he was arrested in Mexico in 2018 (Mack was also on the premises). <\/p>\n

\n\tHBO\u2019s \u201cThe Vow,\u201d a docuseries directed by Jehane Noujaim\u00a0and\u00a0Karim Amer, premiered in August 2020 and became a pandemic success, popularizing the cult\u2019s story. In both \u201cThe Vow\u201d and in its second season in 2022, Mack was a shadowy, mysterious figure (Raniere had everything filmed), often in the background. Raniere was convicted in 2019 and is currently serving a\u00a0120-year sentence for sex trafficking, racketeering, fraud and other crimes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAllison After NXIVM\u201d begins with Mack recounting her sentencing day in June 2021, during which she describes her family having to listen to what she\u2019d done. \u201cOh, my God, my poor brother behind me, having to hear this about his sister,\u201d she says through tears. \u201cMy poor mom! I\u2019m so sorry, you guys. I can take it, but like fuck, you guys, I\u2019m so sorry. I don\u2019t see myself as innocent, and they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt goes through Mack\u2019s present, in which she has married and is pursuing a master\u2019s degree in social work. The carefully reported project, as often happens, has received blowback online<\/a> for giving Mack a platform. But as Robehmed says in the first episode, \u201cIt Happened in Vancouver,\u201d Mack received countless offers to tell her story, but had turned all of them down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAllison has not spoken publicly since her incarceration,\u201d Robehmed says. \u201cShe\u2019s had lots of offers, but always said no \u2014 until now. She wants to tell her story in podcast form, because she loves podcasts, and because she\u2019s no longer comfortable in front of cameras like she used to be.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThere are cushier platforms that Mack could have chosen, of course, and people who actually listen to it will realize that \u201cAllison After NXIVM\u201d challenges Mack at every turn. Additionally, the podcast has the first-ever interview with Lauren Salzman, the daughter of Nancy Salzman, NXIVM\u2019s co-founder. Salzman was sentenced in 2021 to time served and five years of probation, after having pleaded guilty and testifying against Raniere (who\u2019d also been her lover) at his trial.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n