1. The Phoenixes
Had McGowan spent her early years across the Atlantic, she might have crossed paths with actors Joaquin and the late River Phoenix, who also grew up in the Children of God sect. The Phoenix family traveled through communes in Mexico and Venezuela, sometimes begging to get by. River Phoenix reportedly said that the family was destitute and living in “disgusting” conditions by the time of his seventh birthday in 1977. That year, soured by the sect’s practice of using sex to woo new converts, the Phoenix parents decamped with their brood and became Christian missionaries.
The unconventional upbringing took a toll on River and Joaquin Phoenix. River Phoenix died of a drug overdose in 1993; Joaquin Phoenix either orchestrated or actually endured a very public downward spiral that he chronicled in the 2010 film “I’m Still Here.”
2. Rose McGowan
“Scream” actress Rose McGowan is another former Children of God cult member. Rose McGowan managed to break free when she was 9. They fled because her father feared she would be sexually abused. Today she is grateful that she got out and says, “I know I got out by the skin of my teeth.”
Premiere of The Butler’s in Love
Los Angeles, California in 2008 (Photo Credit: Apega/WENN)
3. The Arquettes
David, Patricia, and Rosanne Arquette all have illustrious film and movie careers, but they spent part of their childhood in a Subud community. It was a “commune” in which they had an unstable and at times violent upbringing.
4. Winona Ryder
At the age of 7 Winona Ryder’s family moved into the Rainbow commune. Her family and seven other families tried to live self-sufficiently off the land. The isolation may have helped Winona become interested in acting because they had no TV to entertain themselves.
5. Glenn Close
Also at the age of 7, Glenn’s family joined a cult, the Moral Re-Armament, with her family. For 15 years her family remained involved in the group but Glenn Close managed to get out at age 22. She went on to have a highly successful film career.
6. Musician Christopher Owens
Girls musician Christopher Owens likens his time in Children of God (yes, them again, although they were called “The Family of Love” at the time) to being raised by the Taliban. “Imagine being raised in the Taliban,” he told The Guardian. “Being told everybody else in the world is bad, rejecting technology, rejecting medical research, being devoted to God and believing America was evil and the end of the world was coming: all the same principles.” His travels with the group, which rejected outside technology, brought him to Slovenia at the age of 16, at which point his sister, who had fled the group previously, helped him come to Texas. Upon joining the modern world, he was hit with horrendous culture shock (it was the mid-90s and he had never even seen a phone).
7. Michelle Pfeiffer
When Michelle Pfeiffer moved to Hollywood, she was lost. She was taken in, spiritually rather than physically, she says, by a couple who believed in “breatharianism” (say that five times fast), the idea that people don’t need food or water, merely sunlight. Pfeiffer was unable to live on the diet, something she says “nobody can adhere to.” She didn’t even realize that something was wrong until she met her first husband, who was working on a film about Reverend Moon Sung Moon’s Unification Church. “We were talking with an ex-Moonie and he was describing the psychological manipulation, and I just clicked. I was in one — a cult,” she told The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine.
(via Celeb Answers, ABC, Daily Beast)
