Captive by Catherine Oxenberg
Sometimes a book is ripped from the headlines. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Captive (Gallery Books), a blow-by-blow account of actress Catherine Oxenberg’s determination to save her daughter and bring down the Nxivm sex cult, reads like fiction. But you can’t make a story like this up.
Oxenberg says Nxivm brainwashed her daughter, India, and turned her into someone ready to recruit sex slaves into a secret society that branded members with the initials of the group’s founder, Keith Raniere.
Raniere is now in prison, and several of his high-ranking Nxivm leaders have been arrested, including Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman, whose millions allegedly financed retaliatory legal action against anyone who fell out of Nxivm favor. Charges include racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor, money laundering, identity theft, and wire fraud.
It began as a mother-daughter bonding experience. In 2011, Oxenberg and India, then age 20, attended a Nxivm entrepreneurial workshop called ESP, for Executive Success Programs. It was basic self-help jargon with a high price tag ($2,400 for the first session), sold to celebrities and celebrity wannabes.
Two years later, Oxenberg had lost interest in the program, but India was hooked. She exhausted a large inheritance paying for training to become a Nxivm leader, and spent most of her time at its headquarters in Albany, NY.
In 2016, Oxenberg got a call from a former Nxivm member. “You have to save India,” said the woman, who said she feared for her own life.
Horrified, Oxenberg couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A secret slave-master group. Starvation diets because Raniere liked (group) sex with thin women. Masters who recruited slaves who became masters by recruiting more slaves. Branding. And India, recruited by “Smallville” actress Allison Mack, was a branded, recruiting member.
BookTrib recently spoke to Catherine Oxenberg at her home in Malibu, CA. Her voice is joyous and graceful. The joy comes from having saved her daughter, and the grace from the fact that she is, after all, royalty. She’s the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. She’s also played two princesses on television: Princess Diana, and an American equivalent, Amanda Carrington on “Dynasty.”
BookTrib: How is India faring now?
Catherine Oxenberg: Amazing. I am treasuring every moment I get to spend with her. She is in a place in her life where she has asked for privacy. She’s healthy, she’s happy, she’s come out of this the wiser.
It’s challenging sometimes to watch our children go through their own journey. It’s one thing doing your life, but it’s another thing having a loved one in jeopardy, or what you perceive to be in jeopardy. That’s way harder. Now I know what I put my parents through.
BT: What advice do you have for anyone working to resolve a seemingly impossible problem?
CO: Never give up, and never take no for an answer. Even though doors were closed in my face, and it did feel impossible, I just would never give up. For those who believe in a higher power and who have a strong faith, pray. I prayed for strength, I prayed for guidance. I prayed every day and that carried me through.
BT: Are there plans to create a documentary or movie version of your story?
CO: I have been followed for the past year by documentary filmmakers. There also are people reaching out who are interested in making a movie about it. If they don’t tell the story, I hope somebody does. This is a landmark case. This is the first time the government stepped in and arrested someone like Keith Raniere before a Jonestown-type massacre. It’s unprecedented.
BT: How close did the group come to a suicide pact?
CO: I think there were warning signs, and what I’ve learned is that these small groups are the most deadly, because they are tightly wound around their leader with blind devotion.
What’s the next step after you are branding people, coercing people into sex? Raniere just kept pushing for more and more obedience, and the most extreme act of obedience is to die for the cause.
There even was a discussion question in one of the groups: “When is suicide an honorable thing?” Suicide was embedded in their doctrine. Allison Mack has already committed a kind of suicide. She literally fell on her sword, confessed, and was ready to face life imprisonment for this man.
BT: Do you think there will be more arrests out of the Nxivm investigation?
CO: The answer is yes. I’ve been in the courtroom on several occasions, and a couple of months ago, prosecutors let it slip there would be additional arrests. Keith, Allison and four other ranking members have already been arrested, and if they are going after the racketeering charges, there are so many other people who could be implicated, and I know there are others who have broken the law, and should be arrested. I am anticipating another roundup, a third batch of arrests.
BT: Captive was published in August but it includes events that took place in May. How were you able to complete your book in such a short amount of time?
CO: This was my first rodeo, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it came at a cost. The book was supposed to come out at end of September, but the publisher pushed it up to August. I kept adding things, and poor Natasha [Stoynoff, Oxenberg’s collaborator] was writing day and night. I’m proud to share the credit with her. You can imagine the velocity at which we were writing. It was back and forth multiple times a day.
BT: In an interview with Megyn Kelly, you said about Nxivm, “Brainwashing is not consent. Extortion is not consent. Blackmail is not consent.” What else can you say about cults?
CO: There’s a lot of victim shaming going on, but one of the most important messages I have is that nobody signs up to join a cult. These dangerous groups are well-oiled machines of deception. They may offer a consumer legitimate benefits, but that’s how they recruit people. It’s all based on deception.
What’s so scary is how easy it is to make that happen. It is very easy to change the way people think without them being aware of it. Keith Raniere is a serial con man. And the human psyche is much more fragile than I was aware of.
Captive is now available to purchase.
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