Name: India Oxenberg Opens Up About Her Family’s NXIVM Nightmare: “It’s Like Freaking Shakespeare”
Brand: vanityfair.com
SKU: vanityfair-com-318
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

India Oxenberg Opens Up About Her Family’s NXIVM Nightmare: “It’s Like Freaking Shakespeare”

preview

DaysHoursMinutesSecondsIndia Oxenberg was not prepared for what she found on the flash drives.It was the summer of 2018, and India had recently returned to the Malibu home of her mother, Dynasty actor Catherine Oxenberg, after spending seven years in Keith Raniere’s secretive group .Though Raniere had been arrested months prior, and the nefarious details of NXIVM and its master-slave sex cult DOS had been reported by outlets like the and , the 27-year-old still believed what she had been told by Raniere and his coconspirator Allison Mack: that DOS, to which Oxenberg had pledged herself, was her only path to total enlightenment; that the brand crudely cauterized into her pelvic region was a Latin symbol for the elements; that her extreme deprivation diet, which caused her hair to fall out and stopped her periods, was a necessary means to prove her strength and self control; and that the oral-sex sessions Raniere had subjected her to were not for his gratification, but a way for her to work through the intimacy issues she was told she had.India was still so indoctrinated in the organization she had joined at age 19 that, when questioned by FBI in 2018 after Raniere’s arrest, India denied that anything negative or sexual had happened within NXIVM. She wasn’t lying, either: “That is what I believed,” India later explained. After Mack was arrested, India even agreed to box up Mack’s property and put it in storage. A few of Mack’s items—jewelry, a diary, and a box of flash drives—seemed too personal to throw into a storage unit. So India put the items in a bag and kept them with her.Six months later, back in Malibu, India remembered the duffel bag and decided to see what was on the flash drives.“That was a huge, huge moment for me,” India told Vanity Fair. “When I heard those flash drives, I could not go back to thinking the way that I had…. There were several turning points for me before that. But that was the major one.”The flash drives contained audio of Raniere masterminding DOS’s darkest details. In one recording, Raniere could be heard describing the brand—his initials—that he wanted burned into the pelvic skin of the attractive young women he had hand-picked for his harem. In another bit of audio, Raniere instructed DOS “masters” on how to make it look as though the women—whom he specified should be naked during their induction “ceremony—wanted to be branded, even though the pain, without anesthesia, was so searing that some participants had to be physically held down.India had been told by her mother and other former NXIVM members that Raniere was the dark, deliberate force behind DOS. But those claims were so different from what she had been taught that she felt caught in a whirlwind of conflicting rumors. At least, until she heard the words come out of Raniere’s own mouth on those flash drives.Shortly after the discovery, India started screaming for her mother.“For her to hear Keith say the things that he did in terms of designing stuff—all the lies and the deception…it was powerful,” Catherine told Vanity Fair in a separate interview. “I’m thinking, Okay, idiot, you just admitted everything that you’ve said you had nothing to do with.”“Are you ready to go to the FBI?” Catherine asked her daughter.“Yes,” India replied.Catherine had spent years on a hellish crusade to save India from NXIVM’s clutches—staging interventions, pleading with authorities, telling the press about NXIVM’s criminal underbelly, counseling with legal experts, and even writing a heart-wrenching book appealing to India.As Catherine fought for her daughter to see the light, she also prepared for that day—readying a support system to be on standby, including a legal team, a deprogrammer, and a few FBI contacts.“I had all their numbers,” Catherine said of the FBI agents. “So I said, ‘Who do you want to speak with—Big Mike or Little Mike?’ She said, ‘Big Mike,’ and called him straightaway.”Said Catherine, “It was the moment I had been praying for.”“It’s like freaking Shakespeare,” India told Vanity Fair last week in one of her first interviews, looking back on her NXIVM saga. “It’s so tragic.” Yet the depth of her mother’s love—as demonstrated in Catherine’s public battle against the group—is “so beautiful at the same time.” After about two years’ worth of intensive therapy and deprogramming, India said, “I can look at it like that now.”India said that she and her mother have healed the relationship that Raniere and his NXIVM cohort knowingly severed in order to alienate India, a high-value recruit with Hollywood ties and a royal bloodline, from her primary support system. Said Catherine, “I didn’t understand that there are people out there who will try and destroy love, destroy connection, and destroy family. I will fiercely never let that happen again, and be much more watchful and mindful of people.”Catherine has endless empathy for her daughter’s ordeal. “People go, ‘Well, I’ll never be sucked into a cult.’ But quite frankly, the dynamic is very similar to a controlling, abusive relationship,” she said. “And Keith was not only a cult leader, he was a sexual predator. You look at what R. Kelly did…you look at Epstein…. The system in place that they designed in order to be able to get access to women is the same. They had enforcers; they had people who developed trust with young women. The more we bring light to this kind of predatory behavior and expose it, the safer it will be for young women.”Catherine has been her daughter’s public mouthpiece for the past two years, while India has concentrated on healing. But this October, India is opening up for the first time on-screen— sharing intimate details about her journey, like the above flash drive account, in a four-part Starz docuseries called Seduced. The series, which India executive produced with female filmmaking team Cecilia Peck and Inbal B. Lessner, allows India to explain how she—as a 19-year-old looking for direction—fell for the organization Raniere pitched as a self-improvement program, along with an estimated 17,000 other members. India’s mother and grandmother, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, also appear on camera to relive the tale from their perspectives—with legal and psychological experts connecting the dots on how a predator like Raniere could be so prolific in his deceit.India hopes that Seduced might give audiences a more three-dimensional portrait of her than media headlines that dismissed her as “a cult girl” or a “sex slave.”“If you really knew me and if you just sat down and talked to me, you would realize that I’m not just that one-dimensional tagline,” said India, speaking via Zoom from her mother’s sunny living room in Brentwood. “There’s a human in there.”Catherine’s behind-the-scenes crusade to save her daughter was recently documented in . There are numerous differences between the projects. “Where The Vow leaves off, Seduced picks up,” Catherine explained. She sounded relieved to finally be taking a step back after waging such an exhausting, public battle—the fractures of which the family is still trying to mend. “I'll be happy when this is all behind us and India can move forward with her life,” said Catherine. “I’m looking forward to India being able to tell her own story. It’s about time.”Reclaiming her narrative is just part of India’s extensive healing journey. She’s also transformed herself physically—rediscovering her love of food after years spent on DOS’s starvation diets, and taking up boxing. “I’ve gotten strong! I actually have full-on muscles that I’m really proud of,” India said, flexing. “There’s something about boxing that turns off your mind and just allows you to trust your body…. And I need that. I needed to regain that trust with my body and my thoughts. And I also wanted to get strong again—to feel physically capable of protecting myself.”Rather than working with a plastic surgeon to partially remove her brand—a process that would have taken a year, and wouldn’t have restored her skin pigmentation anyway—India went a different route.“I designed a tattoo around the brand,” she explained. “It’s this mandala-type shape and an evil eye pointing outward. Around, it says en quora en para, which means ‘still learning.’ For me, it’s about reclaiming that part of my body so I didn’t have to look at myself naked and see Keith’s initials. I see something that I want, that I’ve placed on myself.”During quarantine, India wrote a book about her experiences that she also titled Still Learning—which will make its way to Audible soon. Seduced, which premieres on October 18, will be airing on Starz through another important milestone: Raniere’s October 27 sentencing, where India plans to deliver a statement in the same courtroom as her abuser. “I want to have that last moment of me saying my piece to him there in the room,” India said. “I’m scared to do it, but I feel like I need it.”The only appropriate punishment, in India’s mind, is life in prison. “I don’t think that he is able to repair himself. I think he is somebody who is a danger in society. And if he is let out, I believe that he’ll do exactly the same thing that he’s always done.”India is a delight in Zoom form—warm, articulate, and the first to joke about her past life. Asked if she considered online dating post-NXIVM, she deadpanned, “If anyone had Googled me at the time, they would have swiped the other direction: ‘No, thank you.’” Her sense of humor, too, has helped her heal. “In order to be okay with this type of thing, you have to have a certain sense of humor,” she said, “or else it’s just going to bury you.”India also spoke candidly about working through the intimacy issues that still plague her post-NXIVM. During her years in DOS, India said she felt detached from her feelings, thoughts, and desires. “I thought I was totally asexual, when really I was just being abused and didn’t feel any feelings of sexuality or interest towards men or women. I had to rebuild that.” After NXIVM, said India, “I had a few hookups with guys just to kind of test it out.”India resisted dating for a while before meeting a sous-chef named Patrick in New York when she was managing a different restaurant. “At the time, I was trying to avoid men entirely,” India said, cracking another joke. “Men had disappointed me severely…so I pushed him off quite a bit.”India softened to Patrick’s advances when she realized he wanted to get to know the real her—not the character he had read about in the news.“He was aware of the story and aware of me, but he never really brought it up,” India said. “Anytime he asked me questions, it was without judgment. He wanted to know from me, the source…and I so appreciated that and needed that. Because before, I just felt like everyone was interacting with me like ‘cult girl,’ and not like India.”India is still learning to navigate her relationship with Patrick, who is now her fiancé, as residual NXIVM issues crop up—random floods of repressed memories, or intimacy roadblocks. “I still find myself being resistant to certain things—even with my fiancé, who I feel totally safe with,” said India. “I don’t want him to look at me in certain places or things like that. I’m like, Why do I still have this hang up? But that’s because of what I experienced. I know that consciously, but it’s not fun to have those residual issues.”These days, India maintains a safe inner circle that includes Patrick, Catherine, her two sisters, her foster cats (named Beans and Rice), and a smattering of best friends, some of whom she met in NXIVM. (India does not maintain contact with the friends who still belong to the organization.) And for the first time in a while, India also sees a future for herself. “I’d love to continue writing and doing work like this,” she said, referencing the Starz series. “I've learned so much from being an EP, and from working with the other women: It’s totally reinvigorated me.” She has no interest in fame, preferring to focus on media “that matters”—like documentaries about women’s issues, high-control groups, coercion, or other tricky subjects. “I feel like if there’s anything that you can do to heal, it’s to take your pain and turn it into something positive.”She also wants to start her own family: “I’m planning to get married and I would love to have children.”Catherine is thrilled to watch the return of her warm, loving daughter. When India was indoctrinated, she told her mother she never wanted to have kids: “They shut down your emotional center and your ability to love in this cult,” explained Catherine. “The first moment I knew that she was getting healthy, she said, ‘I think I want to get a kitten.’ Now her opening up about having babies…I will love being a grandmother. I am very happy to have her want to have kids. I'd love her to have kids.”Looking back on her journey with India, Catherine said, “We’ve been through an absolutely horrendous ordeal together and we’re both stronger for it. We both found an inner strength that, unless we had gone through this, we wouldn’t have known was inside…. That is a gift. And the other gift is, I don’t think I will ever take the connection that I have with my children for granted again.”India, for her part, “just hope[s] that I will be a good mom.” She let out a peal of laughter, “But my God, if I get a daughter…I think it would be a very interesting karmic experience for me to have a daughter—to feel a little bit of what my mom has felt three times over.”More Great Stories From Vanity Fair— A First Look at Diana and Margaret Thatcher in — in Rhyme for John Lithgow’s Trumpty Dumpty Book— Brace Yourself for George Clooney’s Apocalyptic Movie — The Streaming This October— Inside Netflix’s Latest , Emily in Paris— on Prince Charles and Princess Di— From the Archive: How Hollywood Sharks, Mafia Kingpins, and Cinematic Geniuses — Not a subscriber? to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. is a Hollywood correspondent who has been at Vanity Fair for 11 years. She covers film, television, and celebrity. In spite of her title, she lives on the East Coast. You can follow her on .From the awards race to the box office, with everything in between: get the entertainment industry's must-read newsletter.

DaysHoursMinutesSecondsIndia Oxenberg was not prepared for what she found on the flash drives.It was the summer of 2018, and India had recently returned to the Malibu home of her mother, Dynasty actor Catherine Oxenberg, after spending seven years in Keith Raniere’s secretive group .Though Raniere had been arrested months prior, and the nefarious details of NXIVM and its master-slave sex cult DOS had been reported by outlets like the and , the 27-year-old still believed what she had been told by Raniere and his coconspirator Allison Mack: that DOS, to which Oxenberg had pledged herself, was...

public

Julie Miller is a Senior Features Writer for Vanity Fair. She covers most things entertainment including awards season, film festivals, Hollywood events, and celebrity news. julie_miller@condenast.com

Julie Miller

Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.  The first version of Vanity Fair was published from 1913 to 1936. The imprint was revived in 1983 and currently includes five international editions of the magazine. As of 2018, the Editor-in-Chief is Radhika Jones.

India Oxenberg Opens Up About Her Family’s NXIVM Nightmare: “It’s Like Freaking Shakespeare”

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS