Shocking secrets of Hollywood sex cult
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SITTING together, five wannabe members of the Nxivm group prepared themselves to enter a secretive sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.
As part of their acceptance, it was explained they needed to give their “master” naked photographs or other compromising material of themselves.
It was, they were told, needed as security in case they thought of revealing the workings of the group to the world.
That sinister demand was nothing compared to what was to follow next in what has now become a criminal case that has left Hollywood and America’s high society reeling.
One by one, the recruits were ordered to undress as they were told they were each to receive a tattoo.
In the house in upstate New York, they were then led to a massage table where they were held down by their arms and legs by three others.
Instead of the needle of a tattoo gun, they saw a white-hot cauterising device, and were ordered to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honour.” Over the next half hour, as a female doctor seared a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, the room filled with the smell of burning flesh and muffled screams. “It was like a bad horror movie,” said actress Sarah Edmondson, 41, who underwent the agonising ritual last year.
She said: “We were crying, we were shaking, we were holding each other.
“It was horrific. I felt petrified. I felt, every part of my body was like, ‘Get out of here. Run’.”
According to former Nxivm publicist Frank Parlato, at least 54 victims carry such scars today.
The women had willingly become fully paid-up members of Nxivm – pronounced Nexium – joining a membership that included high-profile actresses, models and heiresses, not all of whom were branded.
To the FBI, they had been duped into a multi-million-dollar sex trafficking and forced labour operation headed by Keith Raniere, 57, who was arrested in Mexico in March after a month-long manhunt.
Clare Bronfman, 39, the step-daughter of actor Nigel Havers and billionaire heiress to the Seagram liquor empire, was arrested and charged on Tuesday over her alleged involvement in Nxivm.
Bronfman is accused of being a “high ranking” member of the group, which is also alleged to involve actress Allison Mack, 35, star of Superman TV series Smallville.
Bronfman is the youngest daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman and the British socialite Rita Webb, who was Nigel Havers’ third wife.
Wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt, Bronfman appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court, where a judge set her bail at $100million.
She pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit identity theft and racketeering and was put on house arrest with electronic monitoring. Nxivm members paid thousands of pounds to attend “personal development” seminars, wearing coloured sashes denoting their “rank”. They would treat Raniere, whom they called “Vanguard”, like royalty, bowing to him as he walked into a room. Prosecutors allege that Raniere blackmailed followers into becoming sex slaves. Some
were subjected to humiliation, such as being forced to wear fake cow udders on their bare breasts.
Since 2002, up to 16,000 women have bought into Raniere’s hype and taken his seminars across the world.
Two of them were Bronfman and her sister Sara, who brought with them their large chequebooks.
Before his death in 2013, their father, Edgar Bronfman Sr said of Nxivm “I think it’s a cult”. He said he had not spoken to his daughters in months because of the millions they had donated to the organisation.
Despite various exposes – one of which led actress Goldie Hawn to pull out of a Nxivm speaking engagement – Raniere had a hold over thousands of women, allegedly trying to involve actress Emma Watson, 28, and American singer Kelly Clarkson, 36.
Raniere allegedly used his influence in Nxivm for his own sexual gratification. Prosecutors wrote in their criminal complaint against him that he had “a rotating group of 15 to 20 women with whom he maintains sexual relationships”.
Christine Marie, who was hired by Nxivm in 1998 and soon began a sexual relationship with Raniere, said: “I found it fascinating these beautiful, smart women knew about each other and didn’t seem upset to share Keith.”
She added: “Still, it seemed like secret polygamy to me.”
Raniere’s twisted sexual beliefs made their way into the Nxivm curriculum, with “disturbing hypotheticals” that challenged “whether incest and rape are actually wrong”, prosecutors say. llegations in court documents include one that Raniere “physically assaulted at least two intimate partners” and punished one woman in her 20s who developed romantic feelings for someone else, ordering that she be confined for 18 months.
He also created an off-shoot “men’s movement”, where women were humiliated for their “weakness”.
They were “forced to wear fake cow
udders over their breasts whilw people called them derogatory names”, prosecutors allege.
If convicted, Bronfman, Raniere, Mack and three others face up to 20 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy, forced labour conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy charges.
Bronfman was a member of Nxivm’s executive board and alleged financial backer from 2009 to 2018.
Prosecutors accuse her of helping keep the sex ring going with a “master” and “slave” structure designed to extract free labour and get sexual services for Raniere.
It is alleged she made it possible for Raniere to use a dead person’s credit card account by arranging to pay the monthly bill. He used the card as part of a scheme to avoid paying taxes, prosecutors said.
Bronfman is also accused of leading efforts to discredit victims of a sorority dubbed DOS – derived from a Latin phrase that translates as “Master of the Obedient Female Companions” – which ran within Nxivm.
Despite the shocking abuse claims, some cult members remain loyal to Raniere, including the daughter of actress Catherine Oxenberg.
The Dynasty star says 26-year-old India has been brainwashed and has rejected claims that the group’s alarming behaviour was consensual.
She said: “Ultimately, they are all victims of Keith Raniere.”