27 Celebrities Who Have Been Part Of Cults Or Affiliated With Pretty Scary Cult Leaders

David and Patricia Arquette have both spoken about being born into Skymont Subud. While the pair are perhaps the best known of their family, all five Arquette siblings — Rosanna, Richmond, Alexis, David, and Patricia — work as actors.

The Arquette kids were born into a commune that their parents started with their friends, based on the Subud spiritual movement. Despite the ostensibly peace-oriented beliefs of the group, the Arquette children have shared that their own home was less than ideal.

If the name Skymont Subud isn't familiar to you, you're hardly alone. The group is alternately described as a cult or a commune, and there's very little left of the original organization. Virginia Living writes that the Subud movement was founded in the 1920s and is described as "an international spiritual philosophy that emphasizes the awakening of one's 'inner self' as part of the process of finding more fulfillment in life."

Throughout the 1970s, hundreds of people joined the Skymont community. Richmond Arquette described the experience fondly, noting, "I was surrounded by friends, all the time, and we had a lot of freedom. We swam in the creek. We swam in the river."

NXIVM was founded in the 1990s as a self-help company, and many were astounded in recent years when accusations surfaced that founder Keith Raniere used the female members inappropriately.

People were further surprised when the list of celebrities involved in the cult came to light. Surprisingly, the list includes Shirley MacLaine, who is well known for her role in many films, including Terms of Endearment and Postcards From the Edge. While she's never publicly spoken about her affinity with the group, multiple sources have linked her to it.

Before her arrest in 2018, Allison Mack was most known for playing Chloe Sullivan on the show Smallville. Her career came to a halt after she was accused of quite a few criminal acts in support of NXIVM. Part of her story is portrayed in the Lifetime film Escaping the NXIVM Cult: A Mother's Fight To Save Her Daughter.

Seven years ago, Kylie Jenner shared a photo of her hand holding a large crystal in the shape of a pyramid. People were intrigued: What was this all about?

It turns out the crystal is an orgonite, which is a human-made crystal that allegedly has healing powers. People claim orgonite helps them with any number of ailments, including headaches and spiritual woes. The Orgonite Society is based on the work of Dr. Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychotherapist who was a student of Sigmund Freud.

Dr. Reich had a fixation on the relationship he believed exists between physical health and sexual ability. As Refinery29 puts it, he believed if "libido was strong, and orgasms were uninhibited, then a person could reach their physical and societal prime — they would just thrive."

Kylie Jenner wasn't the only celebrity rumored to be affiliated with the Orgonite Society in 2014. In fact, she was allegedly introduced to the organization by her then-boyfriend, Jaden Smith, and his sister, Willow.

In 2014, Willow shared a photo of herself, her brother, and friends apparently constructing their own crystals, and she tagged the Orgonite Society in the post. It's not clear if the Smith children are still affiliated with the group or not.

Kylie Jenner's involvement in the Orgonite Society is even less clear. While many of the group's adherents take it seriously, some have chalked up Kylie's interest to kids being kids. In the years that followed her 2014 post, she hasn't shared much of anything that references the organization.

The Family International is a California-based cult that has been known by two other names: Children of God and its original name, Teens for Christ. The organization is sometimes referred to as the Family of Love.

In the beginning, the organization encouraged its members to shun the outside world, known as The System. The founder, David Berg, died in 1994, and his wife took over.

The organization continues today and remains based in Huntington Beach, California.

Many fans of Joaquin Phoenix know that he and his family spent several years involved in Children of God. His parents left the cult right after Joaquin turned 3 after spending most of the 1960s traveling around Venezuela and Puerto Rico. The family apparently thrived in the group, and left only after Children of God took a turn toward the truly abhorrent.

Joaquin's mother, Heart Phoenix, once told Vanity Fair that leaving the group was hard, and "it took several years to get over our pain and loneliness."

Rose McGowan's family also managed to escape the Children of God when she was a child. Rose has spoken about the experience extensively and never has a positive word to say. In 2011, she told People, "I remember watching how the [cult’s] men were with the women … [The women] were basically there to serve the men."

She also shared that she isn't quite sure why her parents were into the group. "My mother is brilliant; she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and speaks three languages. And my dad was an incredibly talented artist. He became really passionate about Jesus and fell into this group [the Children of God]. I guess it strangely made sense to them."

Rose also says that the organization used children as a bargaining chip. "The children were kept very separate from the parents. I learned how to read at 3, and I was reading Edgar Allan Poe at 6. But I don’t think anyone taught me to tie my shoes for a very long time. The group encouraged you to have a lot of kids as fast as you could. Then if you made plans to leave, they would lean on you. You know … maybe your kids would disappear."

Musician Christopher Owens was also raised in the cult. In 2011, he opened up to The Guardian about his experience under the organization's thumb:

"Imagine being raised in the Taliban. Being told everybody else in the world is bad, rejecting technology, rejecting medical research, being devoted to God and believing America was evil and the end of the world was coming: all the same principles."

Glenn Close revealed in 2014 that she'd spent nearly all of her childhood and teen years in a cult. Her father, William Taliaferro Close, was a doctor who joined the Moral Re-Armament cult when she was only 7. Glenn shared that the experience of being raised in the group had her questioning what was real about herself.

"I wouldn't trust any of my instincts because [my beliefs] had all been dictated to me." She added, "You basically weren't allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire. If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you're supposed to live and what you're supposed to say and how you're supposed to feel, from the time you're 7 till the time you're 22, it has a profound impact on you."

While many likely remember actor Andrew Keegan from 10 Things I Hate About You, he has another notable role: He founded the "spiritual community" Full Circle in 2014. He claims his organization "passionately seeks to inspire and empower the community to co-create a better world."

In 2015, Vulture described the group this way: "The actual theology of the group is tough to pin down, but it seems to loosely follow Hinduism — or at least Russell Brand’s Sanskrit-tattoo version of it."

Winona Ryder is the first to admit that she had an unusual childhood. Her parents were close friends with the poet Allen Ginsberg and author Timothy Leary (who was also Winona's godfather). When she was 7, the family moved to a commune in Northern California. The family joined seven others who all shared over 300 acres of land.

In 2013, Michelle Pfeiffer revealed that she spent part of her early career in a Breatharian cult. She told Stella magazine, "They worked with weights and put people on diets. Their thing was vegetarianism. They were very controlling. I wasn’t living with them but I was there a lot and they were always telling me I needed to come more. I had to pay for all the time I was there, so it was financially very draining. They believed that people in their highest state were breatharian."

It might be hard to believe now, but many people once found cult leader Charles Manson to be engaging and charismatic. The Manson Family was made up of approximately 50 members who all followed Charles Manson, with many members believing he was Jesus Christ. The Family was responsible for numerous murders, including that of the actress Sharon Tate.

While he was definitely never a member of the Manson Family, singer Neil Young definitely spent time with Charles Manson and even wrote a song about him. Far Out Magazine wrote that their time together was fairly significant, noting that Neil "jammed with the killer, helped write new music, gifted him a motorcycle and even tried to help the future murderer secure a professional record deal."

Shakey: Neil Young's Biography reveals even more. The author writes, "This meeting of the minds provided much fodder for interviews, with Young telling journalist Nick Kent that Manson was 'great, he was unreal … I mean, if he had a band like Dylan had on Subterranean Homesick Blues.'"

Beach Boy Dennis Wilson also spent serious time with Charles Manson prior to his most infamous acts of terror. In 1968, he picked up two women who were hitch-hiking; those women ended up introducing him to their "spiritual guru" named Charlie.

Charles Manson showed up at Dennis Wilson's home the same day. The pair were friends for an amount of time that hasn't been clearly established, and Manson reportedly moved quite a few of his followers into Dennis Wilson's home during that time.

Scientology was invented by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s. The organization has been described as a religion, a cult, and even a business, and it has weathered controversy throughout its entire existence. Rumors surrounding the organization have implied that members are thrown off a boat if they disobey, that there's a Scientology prison camp, and that Scientologists have stolen various documents from the US government.

Tom Cruise is arguably the most notable member of the Church of Scientology. He's never appeared to waver in his commitment to the organization. He once explained, "When you're a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help. … We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures."

Kirstie Alley is another actor who was tied up in Scientology for years. She became a Scientologist in 1979 while struggling with addiction; the organization offered a program that helped her.

The Self-Realization Fellowship was founded in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananda. Elvis' ex-wife, Priscilla, once detailed Elvis' involvement:

"Some time later we were summoned to another retreat, the one that quartered Sri Daya Mata, the woman who assumed leadership [of the Self-Realization Fellowship] after the passing of Yogananda. She was soft-spoken and natural, a person obviously at peace with herself. Elvis took to her immediately. Thus began an ongoing dialogue between Elvis and Sri Daya Mata that profoundly influenced his life. At the beginning of this spiritual enterprise, Elvis was wildly enthusiastic. Beyond talking of joining a monastery, he wanted to form a commune. He wanted to devote his life to helping others fulfill themselves through devotional discipline. In fact, he wanted to be a leader of the Self-Realization Fellowship."

Rapper Angel Haze has stated more than once that she and her mother were part of a religion known as the Pentecostal Greater Apostolic Faith, which she's described as a cult. She told The Guardian, "We all lived in the same community, within 10 minutes of each other. You weren't allowed to talk to anyone outside of that, you weren't allowed to wear jewellery, listen to music, to eat certain things, to date people … you weren't allowed to do pretty much anything. Church was on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. When they did revivals it was every day. I used to just crawl under the bench and try to sleep."

Filmmakers Todd Hughes and P. David Ebersole produced a documentary about actress Jayne Mansfield called Mansfield 66/67. The documentary is about her time with Anton LaVey, the high priest of the Church of Satan. Jayne Mansfield was killed in a car accident within a year of meeting LaVey.

P. David Ebersole explained, "She crafted this phenomenal, larger-than-life movie star image in the '50s that completely fell out of vogue. In the '60s, everyone wanted you to be real and down-to-earth. We always thought that's part of why she got caught up in seeking. That's part of why she found her way to the Church of Satan."

Christian Science was founded in the 19th century by Mary Baker Eddy. Mary believed that illness could be healed by prayer and that the physical world is an illusion. Christian Scientists believe that their prayers are most powerful when they are eschewing medical intervention, but members are not completely forbidden to seek medical help as needed and/or mandated. However, many people have avoided seeking medical attention throughout the years, leading to the deaths of adults and children.

Val Kilmer is a lifelong member of the church, and it appears he avoids medical intervention whenever possible. In 2020, he revealed that he went to a doctor in 2014 after a lump in his throat kept growing. His doctor diagnosed him with cancer, but Val told a reporter that his church described the lump as a "suggestion of throat cancer" and explained this means that "the idea is rather than say I have it or possess it, there is a claim, there's a suggestion that this is a fact."

James Hetfield is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Metallica, and it turns out he was also raised in the Christian Science faith. He told Louder Sound that the experience definitely bothered him as a child:

"It certainly did affect me though – more than my sister and my brothers, I took it a little more personally. Our parents didn't take us to the doctor. We were basically relying on the spiritual power of the religion to heal us or to shield us from being sick or injured. And so at school I wasn't allowed to sit through health class, to learn about the body, to learn about illnesses and things like that."

John Lennon and Yoko Ono were both big fans of Father Yod, the founder of a California-based cult called the Source Family. Father Yod also ran a vegetarian restaurant, which was frequented by Lennon and Ono, along with Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty.

News.com.au explains that the restaurant was the perfect place for Father Yod to recruit new members: "The restaurant was the perfect recruiting tool for the Source Family, and its ranks quickly swelled with young, impressionable people looking for a sense of purpose and community."

Neil Bush, brother of George W. and Jeb, is reportedly part of the Unification movement, or the Unification Church. The church was founded by Sun Myung Moon in the 1950s, with its followers sometimes referred to as Moonies. The church also believes Sun Myung Moon is the Messiah.

Neil Bush joined Sun on a yearlong tour promoting the construction of a $400 billion tunnel that never came to fruition. After Sun Myung Moon's death in 2012, Neil said, "As controversial as Rev. Moon was in the United States, I got to know him as a man whose heart was focused on bringing together people of different faiths to bridge divides. His call on people of faith to serve others is an important legacy."

Rumors that R. Kelly had inappropriate relationships with numerous young women have been around for decades; in 2019, many of those rumors were proven to be true. In 2019, Jim DeRogatis reported that he received a phone call from a mother in Georgia who told him the singer was "in total control of the lives of six young women in the Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek."