Bethany Joy Lenz attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Netflix’s New Film “Blonde” at TCL Chinese Theatre on September 13, 2022 in Hollywood, California.
Originally appeared on E! Online
Bethany Joy Lenz is getting candid about a hard time in her life.
The "One Tree Hill" star has been frank about her time as a member of the "The Big House Family" organization – which she says was a "cult" – for nearly 10 years, and now she's detailing how being in a difficult marriage during those years has left a lasting effect on her.
"I had a crazy sex drive," Lenz shared on the Oct. 16 episode of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast. "It's kind of amazing that I didn't have sex until I was married. It felt like this promise that I had been given as a good evangelical was a big crock."
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The 43-year-old added, "I thought if I save myself for marriage, then the promise is amazing sex and super deep intimacy, and nothing's ever as good. And then we have sex, and it's like, 'Why do I feel so sad? I don't feel more connected to you. I feel farther away from you.' And I don't think that necessarily had anything to do with saving myself for marriage. It was just that I married the wrong person."
READ One Tree Hill’s Bethany Joy Lenz Reveals Where She Found “Safety” Amid Exit From Cult Life
The issues made her and her husband — whom she calls QB, adding he was also the son of the organization's leader — create a "sex schedule" to help with their intimacy issues, especially because her husband was going back and forth between the Pacific Northwest and Wilmington — where she filmed "One Tree Hill" — a lot.
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"Because I was so disinterested in sex, I was then asked to go on a schedule," she told host Alex Cooper. "Basically of like, '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.'"
Lenz admits she participated in the routine "in order to keep the peace in my marriage," but that the schedule contributed to her anxiety and unhappiness in the relationship knowing that they would have to keep to the schedule after she picked him up from the airport when he got back into town.
"My stomach dropped every single time," she said. "In fact, it really affected my relationships afterwards — like, other boyfriends when I had to go pick them up from the airport. I had so much PTSD from showing up at the airport to see him knowing that I was gonna have to start this sex schedule for the next, like, two weeks or three weeks or whatever."
Though Lenz did not reveal the identity of "QB," she notes the two had a daughter together. She was previously married to musician Michael Galeotti for five years before the couple divorced in 2012. They share 13-year-old daughter Rosie.
E! News has reached out to Galeotti for comments, but has not heard back.
Looking back on that time in her life, Lenz admits that she and her husband "didn't have a lot in common," but that she felt like she'd "run out of options" when it came to finding a partner because she couldn't date a non-Christian or anyone outside the group, so her relationship with QB "became this sort of arranged situation."
But despite the difficulty, Lenz did admit that she felt empathy for her ex husband.
"It's so sad because he — like the poor guy never had a shot," she shared. "[He] was raised by this narcissist. He's thrust into a marriage with a girl that's not right for him. He's doing the best that he can."
She added, "It was just a mess all around."
And while Lenz reiterated that it was the wrong marriage for both of them, she did add it was hard to think so negatively about it, "because I have an amazing daughter, and so, is anything wrong?"
The "Dexter" alum also detailed her life with the group in her upcoming memoir "Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult)," where she describes how she ended up joining in the first place.
"I had always been looking for a place to belong," she told People. "It still looked normal and then it just morphed. But by the time it started morphing, I was too far into the relationships to notice."
However, about 10 years after joining, she found that something was off about the community and realized she needed to get out.
"The stakes were so high," she said. "They were my only friends. I was married into this group. I had built my entire life around it. If I admitted that I was wrong — everything else would come crumbling down."
