Bethany Joy Lenz is getting candid about her days as a member of an insular Christian group called The Big House Family.
Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Lenz opened up about her decadelong involvement with the group, which she readily describes as a cult. It was during that time, the former “One Tree Hill” actor said, that she was pushed into marrying one of the leader’s sons, whom she identifies as “QB.”
Not only did Lenz accuse the group of squandering much of her Hollywood earnings, but she also claimed that leaders put her and her then husband on what she described as a “sex schedule” in an effort to foster a deeper connection between the two.
“Because I was so disinterested in sex, I was then asked to go on a schedule, basically, of like, ‘Here’s how you can — you just have to do it. Just do it. This is your duty. This is your job as a wife. Your emotions will fall in line. If you do it enough, then eventually, you will find a way to enjoy it,’” she told “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper.
“It was a routine that I had to participate in, in order to keep the peace in my marriage.”
Watch a clip from Lenz’s “Call Her Daddy” interview below.
Elsewhere in the interview, Lenz said she “hated” being intimate with QB, and would leave him for weeks at a time when she was working — but that he would be expecting Lenz to have sex upon her return.
“I had so much PTSD from showing up at the airport to see him knowing that I was going to have to start this sex schedule for the next, like, two weeks or three weeks or whatever,” she explained.
It’s unclear if Lenz was referring to musician Michael Galeotti. She was married to Galeotti from 2005 to 2012 and shares a 13-year-old daughter with him.
According to People, Lenz decided to leave The Big House Family in 2012. She details her experience with the group in her new memoir, “Dinner for Vampires.”
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The actor first got involved with The Big House Family in the early 2000s, around the time she landed her breakout role as Haley James Scott on “One Tree Hill.” Her co-stars on the series, including Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray, were aware of her ties to the group.
“For a while, they were all trying to save me and rescue me, which is lovely and so amazing to be cared about in that way,” Lenz told Variety last year. “But I was very stubborn.”
Noting that she lost out on “so many” professional opportunities while a Big House Family member, she added, “Everything I’d trained for, all my childhood dreams were coming true and I said no to all of it so I could go live with this remote, small group of people, convinced I was making a noble, spiritual sacrifice.”