Lena Dunham Says Allison Mack Invited Her to a NXIVM Meeting After 'Girls' Audition
Lena Dunham is looking back at this interaction through a new lens.
The Girls creator shared insight into an alleged experience with Allison Mack—who served two years in prison after pleading guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy for her role in the NXIVM sex cult—when the actress auditioned for the HBO series.
"I recognized a woman named Allison Mack from Smallville," Lena wrote in her memoir Famesick. "She wasn't right for any of the roles but invited me via email to her 'intimate women's group' every week for the next year."
The 39-year-old—who did not name the group but appeared to be referring to the cult's secret society DOS, in which women were allegedly forced into sexual slavery—attributed her not getting involved with the group to divine intervention, writing, "There but for the grace of God go I."
E! News has been unable to locate a contact for Allison for comment.
Two years after Allison was released from prison in July 2023, she shared insight into her role in NXIVM—whose founder Keith Raniere is serving a 120-year sentence after being convicted of racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and wire fraud in 2020—and DOS.
"I capitalized on the things I had, and so, the success I had as an actor, I did capitalize on that. It was a power tool I had to get people to do what I wanted," she said on the Allison After NXIVM podcast in November. "I was very effective in moving Keith's vision forward."
"My role, as Allison, because I was so out in the world, was to spread the message and bring new people in and represent what NXIVM is in the public eye," she added. "Because that was my personality and my constitution, that was my role."
The 43-year-old said that Keith—whom she became romantically involved with after joining the cult in 2006—had her lead a curriculum for actors and artists called "The Source." She noted that the program was "all about taking acting exercises" for those "involved in the arts and utilizing them to help people build more compassion in their lives."
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Eventually, she said that Keith had tapped her for a new project for a select group of women that was "really intense," which would eventually be named DOS.
"It takes a lifetime, lifelong commitment," she recalled him telling her. "It's basically designed to make you push through your greatest fears so that you can become the strongest and most empowered version of yourself."
Allison said that Keith referred to it as a "master-slave dynamic," in which she would learn to be "completely humble and completely subverted."
The Ant Bully actress said that she had agreed to participate after Keith allegedly convinced her that it would rid her of her narcissism.
For a closer look at more of Allison's revelations from her time in NXIVM, keep reading.
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Allison Mack Describes Herself as “Not Innocent”
As Allison Mack looked back on her 2021 sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy and acts for her involvement in NXIVM, the Smallville alum recalled the guilt she felt while listening to victim impact statements calling her a “monster” in front of her brother Shannon Mack and mom Mindy Mack.
“I was thinking, like, ‘Oh, my god, my poor brother behind me having to hear this about his sister. My poor mom. I'm so sorry, you guys,’” Allison admitted on the first episode of the CBC True Crime podcast Allison After NXIVM. “I can take it, but like, “F--k, you guys. I'm so sorry.’”
“That was hard,” she continued. “I don't see myself as innocent, and they were.”
At the hearing, she was ultimately sentenced to three years in federal prison, but was released in 2023 after two years.
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Allison Mack Shares What Led to Smallville
She delved into the circumstances that led her to NXIVM—a purported self-help group led by Keith Raniere that has since been characterized as a sex cult by former members—in the first place, including her rise to fame as a teen actor. She began living on her own at 16 after booking the short-lived TV show Opposite Sex opposite Chris Evans and Milo Ventimiglia.
It was around this time that she started experiencing a bout of “severe depression.”
“I plummeted,” Allison said on the podcast’s first episode. “My emotions were all messed up and I’m newly living on my own in L.A. and I had gained weight and I wasn’t working.”
And though she was set to leave Los Angeles to study acting in Europe, she got her audition for Smallville and moved to Vancouver once she “got the part.”
“I always got the smart girls and I think part of that was because of my weird fear of sexuality,” Allison, who played Chloe Sullivan on the show, shared. “I never felt comfortable or confident being the ingénue girl.”
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Allison Mack Says Costar Kristin Kreuk Introduced Her to NXIVM
During her time on Smallville, Allison said she developed a friendship with costar Kristin Kreuk, and the pair traveled the world together when not filming. Their close bond allowed them to be vulnerable about an “unsatisfied” feeling they had in their lives.
It was that “weird ennui” that Allison said led Kristin to take a few classes with a new self-help organization named Jness, a subsection of NXIVM.
“‘It's the science of joy. It's the most amazing thing,’” Allison recalled Kristin telling her. “‘It's made everything so much better in my life. You've got to do this.’”
She added, “It was all she could talk about. She was super excited about it.”
As a result, Kristin convinced Allison to give the group a try.
“‘They're doing a weekend and I think you should do it. I think you’d really like it,’” Allison remembered the Murder in a Small Town star saying. “And I was like, ‘OK, if you think I should do it and I'll like it, I'll do it.”
E! News has reached out to a rep for Kristin for comment and has not yet heard back.
For her part, Kristin previously said in a 2018 statement to social media that she was only involved in what she understood to be “a self-help/personal growth course that helped me handle my previous shyness” and left the organization around 2013.
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Allison Mack Details the Jness Courses
Allison ended up enjoying the self-help classes led by NXIVM cofounder Nancy Salzman—who pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges of conspiracy racketeering and was sentenced to 42 months in prison—and her daughter Lauren Salzman, who also pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges and was sentenced to five years of probation.
“We were learning about what's the purpose of mankind and we were learning about how does that relate to gender differences and relationships,” she explained. “I liked the curriculum. I liked what we were learning. We were learning about honesty and what does it mean to be honest.”
Afterwards, Allison said she joined a group of people at Kristin’s house, where Nancy demonstrated a “therapeutic” exercise known as an “exploration of meaning” (EM).
“You would bring an issue that you had to Nancy and then Nancy would have this conversation with you where she would explore the meaning that you made around this concept,” Allison shared. “By the end of the conversation you would feel different and everything would be better.”
She added, “We all watched this person get their EM and it was like, “Whoa. That seemed to really help that person. I want one of those. I want an EM.”
For Nancy’s part, her lawyers wrote a letter to the judge presiding over Keith’s trial saying she was "fooled, controlled, humiliated, and ultimately led to engage in criminal conduct by an egotistical, self-important, sex fiend," being Raniere, according to Elle.
Keith Raniere Conversations/Youtube
How Allison Mack Met Keith Raniere for the First Time
After her weekend at Jness, Allison said she was invited to meet Keith in Albany, N.Y. Once she arrived, the Smallville actress was told to wait until a member retrieved her to join Keith for a game of volleyball in the middle of the night.
“I was like, ‘That's weird,’” Allison recalled. “They were like, ‘Well, Keith is not on a regular person's schedule and they like to have privacy when they play volleyball, so that's why they play in the middle of the night.’”
Once they met, Allison said Keith asked if she had a question for him, which caught her off-guard. She later asked him about the meaning of art, and his response made her want to know more about the man who others told her was “the smartest man in the world.”
“He took me on this really wild exploration of art and essentially at the end said, ‘Art itself is nothing, but what you make of art is everything. Art is a reflection of whoever you are and whatever you are inside,’” she recalled. “No one had ever said anything like that to me. No one had ever turned anything around.”
She added, “The idea that what I was seeing outside that I thought was so beautiful was a reflection of me inside blew my mind.”
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She Spent Over $100,000 on NXIVM Teachings
Although Allison had made a lot in Hollywood–earning $40,000 a week on Smallville—she blew through her money in NXIVM.
She estimates she gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the group, including between $60,000 and $100,000 on training courses for her spiritual learning.
She noted, “I was blowing my money out of bank account."
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How Allison Mack Used Her Smallville Fame for NXIVM’s Gain
In the years after joining NXIVM, Allison rose through the ranks to the inner circle of the group’s leader Keith.
And the actress—who appeared on the WB series for 10 seasons between 2001 and 2011—admitted that her fame was an asset to get others to listen to her.
“I capitalized on the things I had,” she shared, “and so, the success I had as an actor, I did capitalize on that. It was a power tool I had to get people to do what I wanted.”
At the time, her goal was to use that fame to the benefit of the leader, who is currently serving 120 years for his convictions of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, attempted sex trafficking, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. As she put it, “I was very effective in moving Keith's vision forward.”
HBO
While Keith has maintained his innocence throughout his trial and convictions, he does admit to his involvement in NXIVM.
“I apologize for my participation in all of this—this pain and suffering,” Keith said in a 2020 interview with NBC News. “I've clearly participated. I've been the leader of the community.”
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Allison Mack Says NXIVM Leaders Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman Diagnosed Her with Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Allison, who said she had struggled with her self-worth, recalled the conversation she had with Keith and Nancy in which they diagnosed her as a narcissist.
"I had narcissistic personality disorder," she recalled them telling her during a seminar. "I was so appalled. I was like, 'I don't want to be that. I don't want to have that.'"
She said that she was willing to listen to "whatever Keith said" to work on her mental health.
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Allison Mack Details Moving to NXIVM Headquarters After Smallville Finale
Following the Smallville series finale in 2011, Allison—who had been living in Vancouver, where the series was filmed before relocating to Brooklyn—moved full-time to Albany.
"I can't even remember who put it in my head that I needed to move to Albany full-time and let go of my brownstone," she recalled in the second episode of the Allison After NXIVM podcast. "I remember being so sad 'cause I loved my brownstone. I made my love for the brownstone bad."
According to Allison, she would tell herself that loving the home would be materialistic and superficial and decided that selling the brownstone would be the ultimate test of her dedication. By the time Allison bought her small townhouse outside of the New York capital, she had been attending NXIVM workshops for five years.
Keith Raniere Conversations/Youtube
Allison Mack’s Sex Life With Keith Raniere
During her time in NXIVM, Allison became engaged in a sexual relationship with Keith, as well as other members, she told the podcast’s host Natalie Robehmed.
“She had sex with Keith daily,” the podcaster told listeners during the first episode after her interviews with Allison. “She had threesomes with another member, who was also having sex with him.”
Of Allison’s influence, Natalie added, “She told women inside the cult that they would reach enlightenment if they did as she did and developed a relationship with Keith.”
Allison said Keith phrased their sexual experiences as “energy work," an attempt to heal her insecurities surrounding her sexuality.
“He would take ownership or responsibility for what was happening in my body and what was happening with me emotionally,” she said. “It was like, ‘No other man will be able to do this for you.’”
Although she was hesitant to engage in threesomes, she rationalized it to herself: “In my head, I’m like, ‘It’s just ‘cause you’re so limited in your ability to love.’” She told herself, “Push yourself, love harder, love more.”
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Allison Mack Says She Married “Sister Wife” Nicki Clyne
Although Allison said Nicki "didn’t really like me very much," she agreed to marry Nicki so that the Canadian actress could stay in the U.S., describing her as a “sister wife” since they both had sex with Keith.
“I already know I’m not going to marry somebody else,” Allison shared. "What’s the difference? We’re basically married anyway.”
She said they privately got married with Nicki’s mom as the witness. However, Allison's own mom found out later and recalled being “horrified” by the news.
E! News has reached out to Nicki for comment but hasn’t heard back.
As of 2022, Nicki said she had "no communication with Allison or Keith," telling Page Six, “I stopped being able to communicate with Allison when she decided to cooperate with the government, which is over three years ago now.”
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Allison Mack Shares Her Role in NXIVM
With Albany being the center of the cult's operation, the actress "ascended" to the next level of self-improvement. And as she revealed, she ultimately took on more responsibility, often spearheading the recruitment process.
"My role, as Allison, because I was so out in the world, was to spread the message and bring new people in and represent what NXIVM is in the public eye," she explained. "Because that was my personality and my constitution, that was my role."
And as more actors became intrigued with NXIVM, Keith had Allison lead a curriculum for actors and artists called "The Source." She said that the program was "all about taking acting exercises involved the arts and utilizing them to help people build more compassion in their lives."
However, Allison explained on the podcast that Keith had eventually tapped her for a new project that was "really intense"—and only for a select group of women.
"It takes a lifetime, lifelong commitment," she recalled him telling her. "It's basically designed to make you push through your greatest fears so that you can become the strongest and most empowered version of yourself."
She remembered Keith referring to it as a "master-slave dynamic," in which she would learn how to be "completely humble and completely subverted." She said that Keith told her that agreeing to participate would rid her of her narcissism.
This secret society, named "DOS," would ultimately be where women were allegedly forced into sexual slavery.
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Allison Mack Details NXIVM Secret Society DOS and Branding "Slaves"
The actress shared insight into DOS, where she alleged that she and the other women frequently sent a group photo of themselves naked to Keith.
"It was at the beginning of the meeting, so we didn't have to sit naked the whole time," she said in the third episode of Allison After NXIVM. "We all had the common belief that if it's uncomfortable, it means we're coming up against our issues and that's a good sign. That means we're growing."
After the death of Keith's longtime girlfriend Pam Cafritz in 2016 following a battle with cancer, Allison and the other seven original members of DOS—who were called the Firstline Masters—were assigned to replicate DOS with their own "slaves."
Along with all of the women, both original members and "slaves," being starved and sleep-deprived through their very strict daily routine, allegedly supervised by Keith, Allison recalled when branding became part of DOS.
"My body was shaking, in shock," she said. "But I was so good at cutting that off and focusing on what I was doing. I'm just not going to feel this right now. I'm going to dissociate completely and be somewhere different."
As more members joined DOS—which had grown to 150 women—brandings were codified into the group's rituals and recorded. Allison said that members were expected to ask, "Master, will you please brand me?" She noted that of those women, 20 to 30 were branded.
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Allison Mack Details Her First NXIVM "Slave" Recruit
Allison's said her first recruit into DOS was her former roommate India Oxenberg, who had first joined NXIVM five years earlier.
"The logic behind it was like, 'Oh, now he's going to work on me and my jealous issues and my feelings of insecurity around this young, beautiful woman,'" Allison explained, "'and he's going to help India with her struggles around her acceptance of her sexuality and her body.'"
The assignment she gave India "to push her through" her insecurities was to seduce Keith.
"The assignment had one specific task, one particular endpoint," Allison shared. "The assignment was to seduce Keith to the point where he would take a picture of you without your clothes on and then they would text the picture to me so that I knew that the assignment was completed."
By then, Allison had racked up several "slaves" and she would often punish them, recalling, "Most of the time, it was like, 'OK. 1 minute cold shower for everybody in the group, including me.'"
For India's part, she previously detailed the weight her time in NXIVM had.
"That was also my personal experience," she told Variety 2020. I did not see what was happening to me as sexual abuse or rape at all. That took me six months after I left NXIVM, working with the FBI — six people around me, questioning me for days on end — to admit that I was sexually abused. I couldn’t get it out of my throat."
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Allison Mack Recalls Learning One of Her "Slaves" Was Sexually Assaulted By Keith Raniere
Allison revealed she had assigned a "slave," only named as Nicole, to do whatever Keith had told her to do. And as the Wilfred alum remembered, Keith allegedly told her to get on a table blindfolded before someone else performed oral sex on her.
Allison said that Nicole had come running back to her house.
"She told me what happened and I was like, 'F--k, you're really brave,'" she said. "That was all I could say. I was like, 'I don't think I would have the guts to do that. You're really brave.'"
Learning about the incident shocked her, she admitted, but added that her surprise had been naïve given the circumstances. She emphasized, "I trusted that Keith would not do anything."
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Allison Mack Was Put on Extreme Diet in NXIVM to Control Her Weight
For breakfast every day, she had kabocha squash, plain Greek yogurt, honey, almond butter and, on occasion, blueberries. Lunch was a salad and dinner was glass noodles with kale, jalapeños and more kabocha squash.
“Her hand was a light orange all the time,” her mom Mindy told the podcast host. “I said, ‘You probably outta have some protein.’”
But Keith had put Allison on a 500-calorie-per-day diet, the actress said.
“One of the commitments was I had to stay under a certain weight: 107 pounds,” Allison said. “I was so thin that I could touch my fingers together around my waist.”
She wasn’t allowed to eat after 5 p.m. every night, and she fasted for the entire day every Monday. Plus, she was running six miles a day.
“I used to chew so much gum because I was so f--king hungry all the time,” she said. “There was a hyper fixation on weight.”
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Allison Mack’s Husband Revealed as Former Neo-Nazi Frank Meeink
Two years after Allison was released from prison, she tied the knot with a man who Natalie identified as Frank Meeink—a self-described former neo-Nazi who was a member of a white supremacist gang—who joined Natalie on the podcast in episode seven.
The former NXIVM member met Frank—who shared in his autobiography Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead that he went to prison at 17 for kidnapping one man and nearly killing another—at a dog park in Los Angeles in February 2024 and the pair connected over their shared interest in prison reform.
“He was like, ‘Oh, I'm a public speaker,’ and I was like, ‘What do you speak on?’ and he was like, ‘Oh, just like tolerance and de-radicalization and police reform,’” Allison recounted. “And I was like, ‘No way. I have done time and I'm really passionate about prison reform. That's crazy.’"
Since leaving prison, Frank’s past has led him into public speaking, civil rights activism and “testifying in front of a House subcommittee in 2020 on white supremacy in policing,” according to Natalie.
But given his life’s experiences, he has been able to listen to Allison’s involvement in NXIVM without judgement.
“She wasn't defending anything,” Frank said on the episode. “She was just like, ‘Here's the deal. A bunch of women got branded. This is one of the reasons why I went to prison.’”
Frank added, “I just looked at her and said, ‘I’m a former neo-Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you? No, I don’t judge you at all.’”
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Allison Mack Wasn't Concerned When the FBI Got Involved Following a Series of Women Leaving NXIVM
After one of the women whose branding was filmed Sara Edmonson, the founder of NXIVM's Vancouver Center, whose husband informed other non-DOS members about the branding. After Sarah left the group, she began making calls to warn others, including Allison's mom Mindy. However, Allison wasn't initially phased by the additional concerns coming forward.
"I remember when the FBI was getting involved and those conversations were coming up,” she said on the podcast. "I was just like, 'It's fine. They're going to understand that we're not doing anything wrong.' Like completely disconnected from reality in my delusional belief that everything is fine."
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Allison Mack Says Her First Branding Was a Tattoo
During her early days on Smallville, Allison alleged she had a toxic romantic relationship that led to “the first time that I got someone's initials burned into my body.”
“I got his initial tattooed on my chest when I was 20,” she alleged. “He had gotten a big A tattooed on his chest. And then he was like, ‘If you loved me, you would get the same thing. If you loved me, you would do this.’ So, to prove my love for him, to try and make it so that he didn't hurt himself again, I got tattooed on my chest.”
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