Bethany Joy Lenz revealed the title of her memoir on Instagram on Thursday. In “Dinner for Vampires,” Lenz will detail the decade she spent “in an abusive, high-demand group (aka, cult).”
“Being a writer has been a great, private joy in my life since I was about 12. This isn’t the first book I thought I’d write, publicly, but as difficult as this subject matter is to untangle, I’m grateful I get to share my story, my way,” Lenz explained.
“It’s a story of forgiveness and a roadmap to how manipulation works, with heartache and humor along the way. We all make mistakes and I hope Dinner for Vampires reminds you that, no matter what weird roads you’ve gone down, you’re not alone.”
Lenz announced the memoir in August 2023. In an interview with People that month, the actress said that her years in the cult overlapped with the years she spent filming “One Tree Hill.”
She also said, “Recovery looks different for everyone, depending on your experience of trauma. I had to start from a baseline of my personal understanding of God and the experiences I had had. And then there was a lot of going back to who I was before and remembering that, and then acknowledging that there was so much I just didn’t know.”
The actress has never publicly named the cult she was a member of, but she has been outspoken against religious organizations for inappropriate or negative behaviors. In 2021, she tagged Mosaic Church in an Instagram post about a billboard.
She wrote, “Hey @mosaic church, what about this billboard over your church says “Christ” to you? Nothing. It says #ErwinMcmanus.”
“I went to Mosaic on and off for 2 years. The level of control displayed, particularly by McManus was deeply characteristic to me of a high-demand group and was disturbing to me and to many other people who have left Mosaic for that very reason. I don’t call people in my community out publicly, EVER, but this billboard made me sick & angry that so many people are being mislead in the name of a God I love and cherish, I feel I have a responsibility to speak up for anyone willing to hear it.”
“The hierarchy in this ‘church’, the level of abuse that I’ve consistently heard goes on behind the scenes and how everything centers around the Leader is textbook 101 of cults. And usually, unless you’re in the inner circle, it’s much harder to spot,” she added.
“Dinner for Vampires” will be released on Oct. 22 by Simon & Schuster.
