Allison Mack addresses her NXIVM past for 1st time since prison release
"Smallville" actress Allison Mack, who was previously sentenced to three years in prison for her role in NXIVM, is speaking out for the first time since her release.
In a new seven-episode podcast from CBC's "Uncover," titled "Allison after NXIVM," hosted by Natalie Robehmed, Mack, 43, opens up about her time in NXIVM, a cult-like group that purported to be a self-help organization.
After her April 2018 arrest on charges including sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy, she pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy in 2019, admitting to manipulating women into becoming "slaves" for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, who had sex with them.
Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison in 2020 for racketeering and sex trafficking offenses, while Mack was sentenced in July 2021 to three years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.
Mack was released early from prison in 2023 after serving 21 months.
"I definitely recognize and admit that I was abusing my power and that I was mean and I was forceful," Mack says in episode 7 of the series. "But I also can't negate the fact that there was a part of me that was altruistic and was desperate to help people, and I wanted to be better -- and I was willing to do anything to be better in myself and to help other people be better."
Robehmed asks Mack in the episode how the actress became involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people. Mack says she was trying to do "the opposite."
"I was trying to heal sexual trauma," she says. "And then I turned around and was someone who was supporting it. I mean, that was why it took me a year to plead guilty, because I was like, I can't face that fact. I can't face that truth."
Mack also opens up in the podcast series about how she became involved in NXIVM, saying in one episode that she was influenced to join after her "Smallville" co-star Kristin Kreuk took a course on it.
"It was like all she could talk about. She was just like super excited about it, you know?" she says.
Kreuk previously said in a March 2018 statement that she left NXIVM in 2013 and "had minimal contact with those were were still involved" after that point. She stated that any accusations "that I was in the 'inner circle' or recruited women as 'sex slaves' are blatantly false."
"During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity," she added, saying she was "deeply disturbed and embarrassed to have been associated with NXIVM" and hoped "that the investigation leads to justice for all of those affected."
Elsewhere in "Allison after NXIVM", Mack shares shares what was going through her mind during her sentencing and holding back tears while her family listened in the courtroom.
Mack said, "That was hard. I don't see myself as innocent and they were."
After being released from prison, Mack remarried, according to reports. In the podcast, she says she also enrolled at Long Beach City College in California.
