Allison Mack’s NXIVM Podcast Revelations

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Allison Mack Describes Herself as “Not Innocent”

As Allison Mack looked back on her 2021 sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy and acts for her involvement in NXIVM, the Smallville alum recalled the guilt she felt while listening to victim impact statements calling her a “monster” in front of her brother Shannon Mack and mom Mindy Mack.

“I was thinking, like, ‘Oh, my God, my poor brother behind me having to hear this about his sister. My poor mom. I’m so sorry, you guys,’” Allison admitted on the first episode of the CBC True Crime podcast Allison After NXIVM. “I can take it, but like, “F–k, you guys. I’m so sorry.’”

“That was hard,” she continued. “I don’t see myself as innocent, and they were.”

At the hearing, she was ultimately sentenced to three years in federal prison, but was released in 2023 after two years.

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How Allison Mack Used Her Smallville Fame for NXIVM’s Gain

In the years after joining NXIVM—a purported self-help group that has since been characterized as a sex cult by former members—Allison rose through the ranks to the inner circle of the group’s leader Keith Raniere.

And the actress—who appeared on the WB series for 10 seasons between 2001 and 2011—admitted that her fame was an asset to get others to listen to her.

“I capitalized on the things I had,” she shared, “and so, the success I had as an actor, I did capitalize on that. It was a power tool I had to get people to do what I wanted.”

At the time, her goal was to use that fame to the benefit of the leader, who is currently serving 120 years for his convictions of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, attempted sex trafficking, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. As she put it, “I was very effective in moving Keith’s vision forward.”

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Allison Mack’s Sex Life With Keith Raniere

During her time in NXIVM, Allison also engaged in a sexual relationship with Keith, as well as other members, she told the podcast’s host Natalie Robehmed.

“She had sex with Keith daily,” the podcaster told listeners during the first episode after her interviews with Allison. “She had threesomes with another member, who was also having sex with him.”

Of Allison’s influence, Natalie added, “She told women inside the cult that they would reach enlightenment if they did as she did and developed a relationship with Keith.”

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Allison Mack Describes What Led to Smallville

Beyond just detailing Allison’s legal trouble over her association with NXIVM, the podcast also delves into the circumstances that led her to the group in the first place—including her rise to fame as a teen actor. She began living on her own at 16 after booking the short-lived TV show Opposite Sex opposite Chris Evans and Milo Ventimiglia.

It was around this time that she started experiencing a bout of “severe depression.”

“I plummeted,” Allison said on the podcast’s first episode. “My emotions were all messed up and I’m newly living on my own in L.A. and I had gained weight and I wasn’t working.”

And though she was set to leave Los Angeles to study acting in Europe, she got her audition for Smallville and moved to Vancouver once she “got the part.”

“I always got the smart girls and I think part of that was because of my weird fear of sexuality,” Allison, who played Chloe Sullivan on the show, shared. “I never felt comfortable or confident being the ingénue girl.”

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Allison Mack Says Her First Branding Was a Tattoo

During her early days on Smallville, Allison alleged she had a toxic romantic relationship that led to “the first time that I got someone’s initials burned into my body.”

“I got his initial tattooed on my chest when I was 20,” she alleged. “He had gotten a big A tattooed on his chest. And then he was like, ‘If you loved me, you would get the same thing. If you loved me, you would do this.’ So, to prove my love for him, to try and make it so that he didn’t hurt himself again, I got tattooed on my chest.”

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Allison Mack Says Costar Kristin Kreuk Introduced Her to NXIVM

During her time on Smallville, Allison said she developed a friendship with costar Kristin Kreuk, and the pair traveled the world together when not filming. Their close bond allowed them to be vulnerable about an “unsatisfied” feeling they had in their lives.

It was that “weird ennui” that Allison said led Kristin to take a few classes with a new self-help organization named Jness, a subsection of NXIVM.

“‘It’s the science of joy. It’s the most amazing thing,’” Allison recalled Kristin telling her. “‘It’s made everything so much better in my life. You’ve got to do this.’”

She added, “It was all she could talk about. She was super excited about it.”

As a result, Kristin convinced Allison to give the group a try.

“‘They’re doing a weekend and I think you should do it. I think you’d really like it,’” Allison remembered the Murder in a Small Town star saying. “And I was like, ‘OK, if you think I should do it and I’ll like it, I’ll do it.”

E! News has reached out to a rep for Kristin for comment and has not yet heard back.

For her part, Kristin previously said in a 2018 statement to social media that she was only involved in what she understood to be “a self-help/personal growth course that helped me handle my previous shyness” and left the organization around 2013.

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Additionally, while Keith has maintained his innocence throughout his trial and convictions, he does admit to his involvement in NXIVM.

“I apologize for my participation in all of this—this pain and suffering,” Keith said in a 2020 interview with NBC News. “I’ve clearly participated. I’ve been the leader of the community.”

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Allison Mack Details the Jness Courses

Allison ended up enjoying the self-help classes led by NXIVM cofounder Nancy Salzman—who pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges of conspiracy racketeering and was sentenced to 42 months in prison—and her daughter Lauren Salzman, who also pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges and was sentenced to five years of probation.

“We were learning about what’s the purpose of mankind and we were learning about how does that relate to gender differences and relationships,” she explained. “I liked the curriculum. I liked what we were learning. We were learning about honesty and what does it mean to be honest.”

Afterwards, Allison said she joined a group of people at Kristin’s house, where Nancy demonstrated a “therapeutic” exercise known as an “exploration of meaning” (EM).

“You would bring an issue that you had to Nancy and then Nancy would have this conversation with you where she would explore the meaning that you made around this concept,” Allison shared. “By the end of the conversation you would feel different and everything would be better.”

She added, “We all watched this person get their EM and it was like, “Whoa. That seemed to really help that person. I want one of those. I want an EM.”

For Nancy’s part, her lawyers wrote a letter to the judge presiding over Keith’s trial saying she was “fooled, controlled, humiliated, and ultimately led to engage in criminal conduct by an egotistical, self-important, sex fiend,” being Raniere, according to Elle.

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How Allison Mack Met Keith Raniere for the First Time

After her weekend at Jness, Allison said she was invited to meet Keith in Albany, N.Y. Once she arrived, the Smallville actress was told to wait until a member retrieved her to join Keith for a game of volleyball in the middle of the night.

“I was like, ‘That’s weird,’” Allison recalled. “They were like, ‘Well, Keith is not on a regular person’s schedule and they like to have privacy when they play volleyball, so that’s why they play in the middle of the night.’”

Once they met, Allison said Keith asked if she had a question for him, which caught her off-guard. She later asked him about the meaning of art, and his response made her want to know more about the man who others told her was “the smartest man in the world.”

“He took me on this really wild exploration of art and essentially at the end said, ‘Art itself is nothing, but what you make of art is everything. Art is a reflection of whoever you are and whatever you are inside,’” she recalled. “No one had ever said anything like that to me. No one had ever turned anything around.”

She added, “The idea that what I was seeing outside that I thought was so beautiful was a reflection of me inside blew my mind.”

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Allison Mack’s Husband Revealed as Former Neo-Nazi Frank Meeink

Two years after Allison was released from prison, she tied the knot with a man who Natalie identified as Frank Meeink—a self-described former neo-Nazi who was a member of a white supremacist gang—who joined Natalie on the podcast in episode seven.

The former NXIVM member met Frank—who shared in his autobiography Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead that he went to prison at 17 for kidnapping one man and nearly killing another—at a dog park in Los Angeles in February 2024 and the pair connected over their shared interest in prison reform.

“He was like, ‘Oh, I’m a public speaker,’ and I was like, ‘What do you speak on?’ and he was like, ‘Oh, just like tolerance and de-radicalization and police reform,’” Allison recounted. “And I was like, ‘No way. I have done time and I’m really passionate about prison reform. That’s crazy.’”

Since leaving prison, Frank’s past has led him into public speaking, civil rights activism and “testifying in front of a House subcommittee in 2020 on white supremacy in policing,” according to Natalie.

But given his life’s experiences, he has been able to listen to Allison’s involvement in NXIVM without judgement.

“She wasn’t defending anything,” Frank said on the episode. “She was just like, ‘Here’s the deal. A bunch of women got branded. This is one of the reasons why I went to prison.’”

Frank added, “I just looked at her and said, ‘I’m a former neo-Nazi who used to kidnap people. Do you think I have any room to judge you? No, I don’t judge you at all.’”