Years after being arrested and charged in connection to the NXIVM cult, Allison Mack has been opening up about her experiences. Many of those recollections were revealed on a podcast limited series, on which the Smallville alum discussed her life before, during and after the cult. Mack recalled her role within the group and the circumstances that allegedly contributed to her joining in the first place. Now, she’s discussing what happened after her arrest and what it was like being questioned by federal agents.
Mack – who played Chloe Sullivan on the aforementioned DC show throughout its 10 seasons – recently caught up with former co-star Michael Rosenbaum on his Inside of You podcast. During the episode (which was posted to YouTube), the pair discussed Mack’s legal issues, which were set in motion after she was arrested in 2018 for alleged sex-trafficking, sex-trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. She eventually cooperated with the feds and, in this recent interview, she recalled her questioning sessions:
It was walking through the gates of hell. It was horrible…. It was difficult, because I was still figuring out what had happened and was still kind of trying to understand. I mean, you think it’s confusing for you on the outside, imagine being the person who’s living it. I was like, ‘What happened to me?, like, ‘What is going on?’
The Marilyn star further explained that the process of collaborating with federal agents in a case like hers is known as “proffering.” As part of that, officials seek to determine whether a defendant is fit to testify in court and to gather information that can potentially be used by prosecutors. Mack also clarified to Rosenbaum that at no point was she required to take a lie detector test while sharing her comments on the cult.
Sometime in 2006, Mack joined NXIVM, which was started by Keith Raniere in 1998. On the podcast series Allison After NXIVM, Mack claimed it was co-star Kristin Kreuk who encouraged her to join the organization though, at that point, both actresses only believed it to be a self-help group. Mack’s position within the cult eventually rose, and she eventually amassed “slaves,” who were branded. Mack says that after her 2018 arrest, she “stopped talking to about 90%” of the people in her life, and she also had dark thoughts:
Coming to terms with what had happened was just outrageously painful. Coming to terms with the fact that I might be convicted of a sex crime, which meant that I was a sex offender for the rest of my life, [I] might have to go to prison for 22 years. All of these realities were surfacing that were so heavy and dark and painful.
Mack, who also considered suicide, also had a small support system that she says “saved” her life. In 2021, she pled guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges and, around that same time, she apologized for her actions in a statement. The Wilfred alum explained to Michael Rosenbaum that she was initially looking at “16 to 22” years in prison. However, she was sentenced to three years and three years of probation. She was released early in 2023 after serving 21 months at California’s Federal Correctional Institution.
At this point, NXIVM has been defunct since 2021, and its history was detailed in the docuseries The Vow, which can be streamed with an HBO Max subscription. Meanwhile, Allison Mack says she is now “rehabilitated” and that she can “very clearly understand what happened and it was wrong.”
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
