S35 E1: It Started in Vancouver | Allison after NXIVM

It was allowed to spread, while governments dragged their feet and tech companies shrugged.

“"I'm staring at myself in this video that I know I haven't made."”

"This is what it looks like to feel violated." This season, on understood. If you follow the trail, who does it lead to? These images they would like hunting me, and the biggest platform was Mr. Deepfake's understood. Deepfakeborn Empire.

Available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Campside media. It's a warm muggy day in New York City, in June 2021. The kind of summer day when the air feels aggressively heavy,

as if it's about to smother you.

And for Allison Mack, the day could not get any heavier. Allison is a famous actress, but she's famous for something else now.

“For being prominent in one of the most devastating cults in contemporary history,”

she spent 12 long years in that cult. And now she's sitting in the back of a car that's driving towards a Brooklyn courthouse. She's wearing a black dress that she's bought specifically for the court date. Her green eyes gaze ahead of what's to come. The culture of my family is like, "We don't dwell on what bad things could happen.

We just believe that it's going to be okay." And so all the while leading up to my sentence, it was like, "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. You're going to work out. It's going to be okay."

Allison is here because of her role in nexium.

The infamous sex cult run by Keith Bernieri. Of all the people who've become tangled up in nexium, she's the most famous of the bunch. The media attention on this case and Allison in particular has been fierce. My mom and my friend Tina wrote in the car with me with my attorneys, and we got there and we parked in a place that was not out in front so that we could get a little bit

a distance on the paparazzi before they came to us. From the car, she sees the photographer's waiting for her. Everyone has covered this case. It's international news. And a lot of the reporters are focused on Alice at the TV star. She was on the CW for over a decade on the popular show Smallville.

She played Clark Kent's best friend. Now she's fallen back to Earth. She's tablet chum. She's a target. Tina was on one side of my mom was on the other and my attorneys were in front of us. And my friend Tina was seeing a song to me like a him.

Tina is singing a nice choral song in her ear, trying to calm her down. This is something Allison's friends have been doing to ground her for this day. My friend Becca had sung me a song the day before. They put her hand on my heart and it was a song that was talking about how God is in the waiting. God is in the moments when you are just waiting, you know.

But the songs are no use. As soon as Allison gets out of the car onto the cyborg, she's like a magnet and the photographers are metal. And then like the paparazzi just like she. You know how came around because they couldn't move. They stick to her, bearing down, moving as she moves, pushing towards the courthouse as one big

mass. Allison gets jussled. Her hair swings forward. I just put my head down and was like trying to listen to Tina. You know how I'm like feel my mom and like my attorneys were like you guys have to let us move. Eventually they push through. Allison enters the courtroom with her mom and older brother.

Inside the judge sits behind a tool wooden bench. He's got white hair and wears round rimless glasses that mirror the roundness of his face. He's here to sentence Allison for her crimes. I had like 15 people sitting behind me and my sentence and hearing to support me, you know. I have 14 letters of recommendation from different people.

Professors from my college, my pastor, the church I was going to. Allison herself had written two letters to the judge explaining her actions. There was this rallying sense of like working I'd be able to convince the judge that she's not worthy of incarceration.

“I mean my therapist I think wrote a letter that said that.”

She hopes that she will receive no time. She's co-operated with prosecutors and other defendants in the case have received probation. But Allison's aren't the only letters. Before the judge sentences her he must also hear victim impact statements.

Letters from people Allison has heard. I was physically injured and it's a scar that is very difficult to actually criticize that everything about who he of that ability of that ability of power and trust will be

One victim is here to read her statement in person.

She gets up. She's pretty with long brown hair and almond brown eyes. She starts reading her letter directly to Allison. She's like I hope you brought in itself for a long time and while you're sitting at home

“in your comfortable house putting on lipstick you have to know that you destroyed lives and”

you're a monster and very angry you know Allison sits stone faced in the courtroom holding back tears.

I think that I was thinking and I still was thinking about like oh my god my poor brother you know

behind me like having to hear this about his sister you know like my poor mom like I'm so sorry you guys you know just like it was more like but I can take it like you know but like fuck you guys like I'm so sorry you know so I think that was hard like just I don't see myself as innocent you know and they were. Allison tries to keep it together she stands stock still taking it in and after the victim

statements the judge reads his ten-page decision. He pointed to the fact that I seemed to call us and laughed at people's pain and led people in negative directions and that that was not acceptable and he said you you capitalized on your celebrity yeah do you think that's fair I think that I capitalized on the things I had and so the success I had as an actor I think I did capitalize on that yeah

and it was a power tool that I had to get people to do what I wanted he says you were an

“essential accomplice do you think that's fair. I think that I was very effective in moving”

Keith's vision forward and because of that effectiveness the judge says Allison must serve three years in federal prison. The former smallville actress pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges acknowledging she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for Keith Ranieri next year's leader. Allison led women to be branded with Keith Ranieri's initials on the flesh of their bodies. She was a "master" overseeing women who were her slaves.

She had sex with Keith daily. She had three sons with another member who was also having sex with him. She told women inside the cult that they would reach enlightenment if they did as she did and developed a relationship with Keith. For this she has been portrayed as a villain as the person who acted as a "pimp" for Keith. To some she appeared to have been a toply tenant.

“But who is Allison Mac really? Is she a victim or someone who victimized others?”

From campsite media and CBC, this is Allison after next year. From CBC's uncover. I'm Natalie Rogomet. This is episode one. It's started in Vancouver. I'm driving down the freeway from my house in L.A. to the satellite city of Long Beach, California. It's the day after Christmas in southern California, which means it's like jacket weather. Where I grew up back into by with my British mom, I'd be lolling on the couch

making leftover turkey sandwiches, but not on this day. Because I'm on my way to interview Allison Mac. I'm feeling nervous. I've met Allison a few times, but this is our first full interview. And I'm worried. I still don't know whether I can fully trust her. The highway gives way to views of the sea where oil rigs dot the horizon. Allison lives here, down by the shore of the Pacific Ocean.

I park and walk into the hotel, where I've arranged to meet my producing partner on this project. Vanessa Grigoriades. Vanessa has covered an axiom for just under a decade. We work together a lot, but we live on

opposite coasts, so it's always nice to see each other in person.

We're both kind of anxious, chattering to fill the time. We've been turned on to the story by Stephen Bilber, a playwright, director, and screenwriter. Stephen has done a lot of projects about convicts, and he thinks Allison has a story to tell, so he brought us on board. Vanessa also has some experience with Allison Mac. She actually wrote a story about next year

We don't know which Allison we're going to get today. Will she tell the truth?

“We don't have much time to wander, because right on the dot, at 9 a.m., Allison arrives.”

Allison has not spoken publicly since her incarceration. She's never told her story in a magazine,

or a book, or a documentary. She's had lots of offers, but always said no until now. She wants to tell her story in podcast form because she loves podcasts, and because she's no longer comfortable in front of cameras like she used to be. Today she's wearing a puffer vest, blue plaid shirt, black blapper print leggings, don't martin boots, and thick socks. Her hair is in a messy ponytail, with one of those curly

hair ties that don't tangle your hair at night. She smiling, her face beaming as she greets us. She's confident. She's turning it on. And we're being maybe overly friendly, too. Everyone seems nervous. She talks about her dogs, and they start wrestling, like right underneath. I'm so sorry. I really wanted this to be focused. It's serious, I know I can get out and

dogs. I have to say, she appears younger than her 43 years. Looking at her, you would never

guess that she was fresh off years in prison, and three and a half years on house arrest.

“But that's how most scars are. You can't see them fully clothed.”

I have so many questions I want to ask. But as we settle in a hotel room, sitting opposite each other, the quiet thrum of the street below, I decide to start at the beginning, the beginning of her life. So I was born in Europe, in northern Germany. My dad was an opera singer. He's retired now, but he was singing in the opera houses over there. And then we moved to Southern California.

My mom was from Southern California, and I think it was just like homesick for her parents, for a sunshine and beach. Northern Germany doesn't really have a lot of that. Allison moved back to Long Beach at two years old. It was raised in an artistic household just a few miles from where we are now. With her musician dad, a Montessori school mom teacher. She had one older brother and later on a much younger sister.

My brother is 16 months older than I am, but my brother is very shy and introverted. When I was born my brother would like push me in front of him to talk, like on our behalf. You know, like I was very willing to be central of attention, and he was very willing to let me be the center of attention. For a young girl who was willing to be the center of attention, there were a lot of opportunities in Hollywood, just an hour or so away.

Allison got into acting. The first commercial I did was I a German chocolate commercial,

and they wouldn't let me eat the chocolate. I had to spit the chocolate out after every take, because they didn't want me to get sick. And I remember being like, "That's bunk." Because I had to, you know, do multiple takes from multiple angles and things like that, yeah. I can just picture Allison four years old, putting the chocolate in her mouth, chewing, wanting so badly to eat this delicious treat that every kid loves, and then having someone

he'll cut, and having to use all her willpower to spit it out over and over again. But she did it, and she was good at it. I started going to acting class when I was five, and I didn't know how to read yet, so a lot of my memorization was like auditory. My mom would read it to me and I would repeat it back. Allison liked performing, but it was more than that.

“I was from birth. Like, I want you to be happy. But if me all the time, you know, and I think”

even before I started acting, I was like, "What do you want me to do? Okay, I'll do that." "Where do you want me to go? Okay, I'll go." You know, like I just was like, I was that kind of constitution. For Allison, this behavior carried on to set, where she gained a reputation as a director's actor, someone who would do whatever the director wanted, and help get the rest of the cost in line,

the whole value of me as a human being, was around being an actor, and being a good actor, and I was special at school, because I was a good actor, and then I also, like, conflated love with acting and being good, you know. And her peers, the girls she should have been playing dress up and making modifies with, they were competition. Allison says she would walk into a room and instantly take stock of everyone else, placing herself in a hierarchy among them.

That's automatically what you do when you walk into an audition room. Like, you look around at all the girls that are in the audition rooms. And so, oh, I know that girl because I tested with her three years ago for that thing, so I know she's good. And so then there's this weird, like, you're painted against each other and you're competing with each other constantly.

My sister was born when I was nine and a half, and that was

“complicated for me because I was the little girl, and I was the center of the universe and my”

family's home, and then my sister was born, and I was like, who is this? You know, taking my spot, and I was angry and jealous, and I didn't know where to put those feelings, and those feelings

contradicted the perception that I had in the world, where people always looked at me,

and were like, oh, she's such a nice girl, and she's so sweet, and I was always like, the good girl in school and Lala, and then I had these like dark feelings about my sister. Competition with other women would come to haunt her. An Allison's time as a young actress left her feeling older than she was. At the time, I didn't feel like I was 14. I didn't feel like I was a kid, but for long, Allison moved to LA. I moved out of my parents house when I was 16,

because I got a TV show with Chris Evans actually called the opposite sex. Okay, okay,

“okay, this isn't for class, you like, we need a pleasure. In it, Allison played a high school nerd”

named Kate. Like, most team TV shows from the time, the nerd was also incredibly gorgeous. So I like run these groups, and I leave the discussions. She just issues some people, some lawyers, some professors, a couple of writers. Her own screen character was per coaches, and so was she. She was only 16, had graduated high school early, and was living in LA without her parents. She says that was intentional.

I really distanced myself from my family, my parents, was kind of going through like individuation and having a hard time with my mom's dependence on me and just kind of angry and a teenager, you know, with too much money and freedom, you know. But the show didn't cost. We got canceled, which is what happens for most shows, and my skin started to break out, because I was a teenager, and I had a makeup artist tell me I should go and acutane.

Acutane is a powerful prescription used to treat acne. They can have side effects.

So I went on acutane, which we now know causes severe depression, and I plummeted, like, I'm so depressed. My emotions were all messed up, and I'm newly living on my own in LA, and I was working. By the time she turned 18 during this low period, Allison encountered the man who would go on to become her first boyfriend. A rocker she met at the famous LA bar, the Viper Room. She'd actually been planning to leave LA and go study at the Royal Academy

of dramatic arts in London, a serious drama school, but then she met the sky and got an audition for a show called Smallville. Yeah, so I went in and read for them and David Nutter, who was our director who cast the show, and I got the part. Allison was cost as Chloe Sullivan,

“another nerdy girl next door. I always got the smart girls, and I think part of that was because of”

my like weird fear of sexuality, like I never felt comfortable or confident being like the

honest new girl, so I always sort of like the his girlfriend the smart quirky funny quit sidekick. The show was filmed in Vancouver, so Allison up and moved to Hollywood North. And right away, it was a fantasy. Going to set every day, doing what she loved to do, being young in a beautiful new city with a group of cool friends. This was like 2,000. This one's Mulville premiered. So we didn't have social media. We were just so homie and continued to be that way throughout the whole

process of the show, like none of us ever got caught in the fame bubble or very conscious of our theme. Allison didn't understand she was famous, and she also didn't understand money. She was just 19 when the show started airing, and I was making $40,000 a week out of the gate. I had a financial person that took care of all my money, a business manager, and I didn't want to know about anything, and so they didn't tell me about anything. She's got a dream job, a rock star boyfriend,

more money than she knows what to do with, but actually not everything was quite a streaming with the boyfriend, who Allison does not want to identify. So I was living Vancouver and he was living in L.A. And he was spending money so fast, like he was spending so much of the money that I was making. But it was like easier for me to just give him a credit card and deal than it was for me to stand up to him because standing up to him with turned into like these big violent,

name calling horrible things. I asked Allison if he hid her. Not until the very end of the relationship, but he hit himself, you know, and he would cut his own face. He would say, like, look at what

and that was 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. He had gotten a big A tattooed on his chest, and then it was like, if you loved me, you would get the same thing. If you loved me, you would do this. And so then to prove to him, you know, my love for him to try and make it so that he didn't hurt himself again, you know, I got tattooed on my chest. And all the while I'm on smallville, you know, so it's like, it was

“crazy like when I'll never forget one time. I mean, it's so embarrassing because like the crew,”

the casting crew was smallville, something just like, I was such a mess, you know, but um, all the while trying to like keep it together, you know, like be perfect on camera.

But I will never forget one time we were doing a scene, I was doing a scene with Tom and he

were setting up from my close-up. Tom Welling, the actor who played Clark Kent, and um, I walked away, and I was on the phone. She's taking a call from her boyfriend. And he was just railing on me for something, just calling me all kinds of names and saying all these horrible things about me to me. And I was just like, okay, okay, you know, just like trying to calm him down and taking it. And the AD was like, Alice, I'm already free. We're ready for you.

“And I was like, okay, I have to go home. We're ready for you Alice, and we're waiting for you. I was like,”

okay, I have to go and I hung up the phone and I walked onto set. And they said rolling, you know, as I was walking on the set, I'm the director said action and I took a deep breath and I looked at Tom, and I just lost it. And I said my lines, you know, they mean like I was still able to like perform the dialogue, but like tears are streaming down my face. And they said cut, you know, and the cameraman looked around. I mean, it was like, okay, and I was like, yeah, I'm good. I was like,

was that too much emotion? Did you want me to do something less? Because that was too strong. And they were like, yeah, maybe it was a little too much for the scene. And I was like, look, hey, cool, let's do it again. I can pull it back. You know, and it was like, I just like wrapped it into like what I was doing. Because that's just what you do. You know, but the embarrassing thing is like, everybody knew that like I was in a fucked up situation. And then it wasn't healthy and that I wasn't

well. I didn't know whatever. But one of the people that was closest to me was like, how suddenly we love you.

“And you need to be with somebody that lifts you up. And he said, that's all I'm in this day, you know.”

So it took three years for me to get out from under that one. It would take her 12 years to get away from the next man who's initials. She got inscribed on her. But before then, she would have hurt a lot more people than just herself. You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series, you want to know more, more about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes.

I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhardt and on my podcast crime story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find crime story wherever you get your podcasts. So while Allison was living in Vancouver, she developed a really close friendship with another cost member on Smallville, Kristen Crueck. Allison was Clark Kent's best friend in this modern

take on that very American story of Superman. And Kristen played Clark Kent's love interest on the show.

That's the thing about Clark Kent. He's not always there when you want him, but he's always there

when you need him. Where Allison was the petite perky blonde, Kristen was almost model-beautiful. She's got these gorgeous light brown eyes and high-high cheekbones, and she's actually from Vancouver herself. But she and Allison started going far away from Vancouver together, taking exotic trips around the world. We went to Syria and Turkey together. We went to Mongolia together. We went to Paris, and we had so much fun, and that became kind of like a thing. We went to Paris multiple times together,

and just shopped and saw art and sat at the on the top of the pump you do and had Brouset, and just like lived this kind of like dream and thing. And we both were at the point where we were 25. We were in New York City together. It was our break, and we had rented an apartment

unsatisfied? Like we both had beautiful boyfriends and all the things. And yet both of us were talking

“about this weird on we that we felt of like just like, "What is that?" You know? And I was like,”

I feel like this odd emptiness, and I feel so wrong given the nature of my life, you know, and she was like, "I have it too." And there were people in Vancouver in the actor circle there, who'd gotten into what seemed like a life coaching course. They wanted other local actors to join. It sounded light and fun. The name of the company giving the courses was nexia.

It's the science of joy. It's the most amazing thing. It's made everything so much better in my life.

You've got to do this. You've got to do this. Alison says, "Christen took a nexia in course." And came back and told her all about it. It was like all she could talk about. She was just like super excited about it. You know, she had a coach and she was talking about Vanguard and pre-fact, which are the names that you called Keith and Nancy at the time. But Christen was like, "There is an organization. Keith is creative. It's just for women. They're doing a weekend."

“And I think you should do it. I think you can really like it. And I was like, "Okay, well if you think I should do it,”

I'll like it." Like, "Okay, I'll do it." That first weekend course took place in a hotel conference room in Vancouver. I can picture it. Gray walls, strangely geometric-touch carpets, those long tablecloths that reach all the way to the floor. The course was taught by Nancy Salzman, a formidable woman with short dark hair and a laser sharp focus. This is some archival video

of Nancy explaining Nexia's coursework. Hello, I'm Nancy Salzman. Welcome to your first

origins class. Did you ever see the carnival game whack-a-mole? There's this little mall and he pops up and he has this like little grassy hat on. So you take the sledgehammer and you knock down this mall and you knock down this one, knock one down and another one pops up and another one pops up and does this sound like you're like? Nancy's daughter Lauren was there too. Lauren's got the same dark hair as her mother,

an eyebrows that have also been tweezed to a very fine point. Like a comma turned on its side.

“"On the head of the education division for the company, I love the curriculum and I think”

I know better than anybody besides Keith and Pete, how this course I want to do with it." Nancy's sermons focused on honesty, a core tenet of Nexia's teachings, which emphasize each person being radically honest with themselves and taking accountability for their own actions. We were learning about what's the purpose of mankind and we were learning about, like, how does that relate to gender differences and relationships?

After Nancy's presentations, they'd split into breakout groups to dig deeper. It was empowering to Allison to spend a weekend hanging out with women, examining their selves and their role in society. "I liked the curriculum, like I liked what we were learning. We were learning about honesty and what does it mean to be honest?" After the weekend in Vancouver ended, Allison says they went to Kristen Crook's house

with Nancy and some of the people from the course. Nancy did like an EM demo.

EM is like an exploration of meaning and it was like this, like, amazing therapeutic thing

for people in Nexia and it was like the panesia kind of a thing. 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 or this problem that you have. An EM is sort of a therapy session, but it almost sounds like something out of Scientology. It helps you destroy the problem almost instantly. It helps you go clear and then by the end of the conversation you would be better

and like you would feel different and everything would be better. So we all watched this person get 30 and and it was like, whoa, that seemed to really help that person. So I was like, I want one of those. I was like one of them. And Nancy said, you know what, we have an extra seat on our private plane. Does anybody want to come back to Albany with us tonight and meet Keith. Keith Reniri, the guy who everyone in Nexia was talking about constantly. He didn't come to Vancouver,

but everyone said that he was the guy who'd birthed all of Nexia himself. They say he's the world's smartest and most ethical man. He is the guru. And I was like, I got nothing to do for the next couple of days and I don't have to shoot anything until the end of the next week. Like, yeah, I want to go. The private plane they were taking belonged to Claire Bronfman, the mega rich Sea Grim Air and Nexia M. Devotee. Her grandfather grew present a Sea Grim into a giant

conglomerate from a distillery in Montreal in the 1920s. On the tarmac, outside the jet,

it's like what you see on TV, like it's, you know, there's like several chairs, you know, a pilot,

“and he was like, do you want to watch the takeoff and like I sat up in the front with him as we took off?”

I can imagine Allison looking out through the cockpit, seeing the horizon border and before her. Not only is she a successful actor with lots of money and the ability to travel wherever she wants. Now she's literally seeing the world in a new way, opening her eyes and mind to new possibilities. I remember we didn't have to sit in the chair, we could sit on the floor, which I was like, what time on the floor and the plane that's weird? Up here in a private plane, the rules didn't

apply. So Allison settles down across like it with all the spiritual seekers from Nexia.

Nancy Solzman, Lauren Solzman, and Claire Bronfman. These amazing powerful women who seem to be

so deep and have all the answers for the on-way she'd been feeling. They land in Albany, a small city in upstate New York, nestled on the Hudson River. From the airport, they pile into cars. Nexia members as a rule drove BMWs, because Keith thought they were the best-mate cars, and Allison heads to Nancy's house in the suburb of Clifton Park, about 25 minutes from the city. But pretty much as soon as they arrive,

Nancy disappears, and Allison is told to hang tight. Someone would come get her so she can go to volleyball. Yes, volleyball. And I was like, okay, cool. And they were like, but it's going to be like, late, like middle of the night, because they play volleyball at midnight. And I was like, that's weird. And 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.”

So I was like, "Where are you?" Okay. Allison waits and waits, and then they did night. As the sleep is threatening to push at the corners of Allison's eyes, a woman arrives to pick her up. She's in a BMW SUV, and we go to the volleyball court, and there's like a whole bunch of people there. It's like a middle of the night, and there's like tons of people. I was like, "Whoa." Okay. If you've seen HBO's the vow, you know the scene Allison's talking about. Brightly lip volleyball courts,

the sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor, dozens of shorts wearing nexium men, bolting volleyball's back and forth, while throngs of women watch from the sidelines. And I go walking into the gym, and I just went and sat down, and I was like watching them play volleyball, and just kind of waiting, and they finished a sat, and Keith came over, and they introduced him to me.

“Keith's short. He's wearing a black t-shirt, shorts, knee pads, and he's got his long hair”

pull back in a ponytail, with a sweat band on top. I wasn't expecting like some big studly. Like I didn't think like, "Whoa, he's so hot." Like I thought he's an older, geeky, dude. He looked like somebody that my dad did not pro with when I was in Germany. Like he just looked like a normal white dude. And I mean, yes, he's a total geek with his headband and his glasses and his volleyball thing, whatever. And he said, "It's nice to meet you.

Do you have a question for me?" And I was like a question, and he said, "Yeah." I said, I didn't know I was supposed to prepare a question, and he said, "Well, you didn't have to prepare a question, but some people like to ask some questions." And I was like, "Oh, I don't have a question. I just thought I'd come and smile and cheer you guys on and it would be okay." And he went, "Oh, is that how you do life?"

"Is that how you do life?" he says. This is Allison's first time meeting Keith.

And now Allison, the successful young actress, is already being put on her back foot. She feels as though she's done something wrong, which for people please are like Allison, Drosser into a tailspin. And when he said, "Oh, is that how you do life?" I was like, I don't think so. I don't think I just stand on the sidelines in smile, but like maybe, I don't know. After this interaction, Allison's ride asks her if she wants to head out. And I was like,

"Okay, yeah, I mean, I'm getting kind of tired, so let's go." So we get in the car to go home, and I said, "Nobody told me I had to prepare a question," and she said, "We didn't have to prepare a question." And then I said, "But Keith asked me if I had a question, and then I didn't know that he was going to ask me that." And she was like, "Well, some people have questions for him." And I was like, "Well, why?" And she was like, "Well, he's like the smartest man in the world."

So usually when people meet the smartest man in the world, they may have questions for him. And I was like, "So I can ask him anything." And she said, "Yeah, you can ask him anything."

And she was like, "Do you want to go back?" And I said, "Yeah." And so we turned around and we went back.

“And by this point it was like three o'clock in the morning. And I walk into the gym,”

and I said, "I thought of a question." And he said, "Oh, okay." And I sat down and he made me wait until they finished the whole game. On set, Allison's the talent. She's the person people wait for, but with Keith, it was the other way around. So I waited for like probably an hour. Eventually Keith Daines to come talk to her again.

He came over and sat next to me and the whole room came and sat down,

like around us. It was so bizarre. And I was like, "Okay, this is weird." But like,

I'm a performer and like, "Okay, like, sure, you guys want to sit and watch us?" Like, sure. And Mark was there with the camera filming us. Mark Vicente, another prominent next

“year member and filmmaker. And I think somebody even said like, "We film everything Keith says”

because he's so brilliant. We don't want to miss anything." And I was like, "Okay." And he said, "What's your question?" The question Allison has for Keith is, "What is art?" And he took me on this really wild exploration of art. And essentially at the end, said like art itself is nothing, but what you make of art is everything. So essentially art is a reflection of whoever you are and whatever you are inside. And no one had ever said anything like that to me.

Like no one had ever turned anything around. I was so externally focused and my parents were so externally focused that the idea that what I was seeing outside that I thought was so beautiful was a reflection of me inside was like, "Like, blue my blind, you know." Allison starts to cry. This is what she's been searching for, meaning. And now she's found it

here in Albany, in an amazing group that's so many of her friends are a part of,

run by a principled man called Keith Berniery. It's a lot for her to take in overwhelming even. And I felt like discombobulated and disoriented about what he was saying to me. It almost felt like the ground was like, "Shift, it was bizarre experience." And he said, "Are you okay?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'm just feeling a little disoriented. That was a lot." Allison seems so earnest, so desperate to please. She reminds me of

all the musical theater girls in high school who I found performative. And her question, to me, a snobby Ivy League grad seems like a sort of elementary one, philosophy of art 101. But it's easier to laugh at someone than wonder where they're coming from. That's part of what I'm trying to do here. Push past my gut reactions to understand how and why

“Allison got sucked into next to him. And what drove her to do the things she did?”

Because it didn't happen overnight. 12 years is a long time. Allison would leave Vancouver and leave LA and move to Albany. She would become one of Keith's top students. All of these threads of her childhood, people pleasing, wanting desperately to be liked by authority figures, competing with other women, would start weaving together, pushing her to become the best next-seem pupil, the best workshop leader, the best cult member, a person capable of doing

horrible things. And one of those awful things was being part of the group of women who help dozens of other women get a body modification under questionable circumstances. In many ways, it was an eerie echo of what had happened to Allison so many years earlier. When she had that initial of a boyfriend tattooed on herself. In a quiet house, one woman lays on a massage table. The lights are off. The smell of cinched human flesh is in the air. These women are getting

the initials of Allison's, you could say, boyfriend, Keith Reneri, and described on them. But she's not telling them that. And what they're getting is not a tattoo, of course. It's something much, much worse. A brand burned into the delicate skin above the hip bone with a cordurizing iron. The fine point of the searing hot pen comes in contact with flesh. It's sizzles. This woman is one of her slaves. Someone Allison has made an oath to help and protect.

But she hasn't protected them. She's been telling some of them to seduce Keith sexually.

it. It bothers her that she's associated with the horrific graphic mark of the cult.

“But she's so associated with it. Some of these women would come to believe the brand actually contained”

Allison's initials. It wasn't true, but it was a rumor that would catch on like wildfire. And now Allison must talk about it. She must take responsibility.

People think the story was kind of like your hunting landers. I have at least one polyamorous partner

“that is in the story. It's flirting with somebody younger, prettier, more famous, more popular,”

you know, whatever. Then you and you start to realize you aged out before you were even 30. He said in order for me to help you with that, we're going to have to be physically intimate.

I'm nervous about putting every asset that we have on the line when I'm not sure that her

allegiance is to us and not keep. I go into his weight and I lock it down and I'm like get the fuck out of here and like go out the window. And all I can think of is just protect, Keith.

“How do you feel about having been involved in like bringing sexual trauma to other people?”

I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question. You've been listening to Uncover, Alice in After Nexium, from CBC and campsite media. It's hosted by me, Natalie Robimed. Our executive producers are myself and Vanessa Grigoriadas at campsite and Steven Belfer. Our senior producer is Lily Houston Smith and our associate producer is Emma Siminoff. Sound design, mix, and engineering by Mark McCaddem, an E-Winn Lyatramuann.

Thank you to Colin Campbell. At CBC, our story editor is Derek John and our senior producer is Kate Evans. Our co-ordinating producer is Emily Cannell. Our executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tonya Springer is the senior manager. Our if Naurani is the director. If you enjoyed Alice in After Nexium, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts