Michael Rosenbaum worked with Alisson Mack on Smallville for eight seasons. In your webcast / podcast, Inside you, the actor discussed Mack’s involvement with the NXIVM cult. And he remembered a bizarre incident that led him to expel the actor from home.
‘Smallville’ star Alisson Mack was involved in a cult
While portraying Clark Kent’s best friend (Tom Welling), Chloe Sullivan in Smallville, Mack met NXIVM cult leader Keith Ranier. She joined her group and became one of the highest profile members. Mack ended up serving as second in command for Raniere and appeared in many of NXVIM’s promotional clips.
But what was initially presented as a self-help group turned out to be a sexual cult. In April 2018, Mack was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy. Authorities suggested that the actor was recruited other women to join the NXIVM and then blackmailed them into having sex with Raniere.
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In April 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to extortion charges and is currently awaiting sentencing. In the same year, Raniere was convicted on seven counts, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and extortion.
Allison Mack invited Michael Rosenbaum to the NXIVM class while working on ‘Smallville’
In a 2019 episode of your podcast, Inside you, Rosenbaum talked to her Smallville co-star Tom Welling on Mack and his involvement in NXIVM. Rosenbaum revealed that Mack once invited him to an NXIVM self-help session.
“I remember once, maybe it was Allison who asked me or something, and she said, ‘Hey, you should try to go,'” said Rosenbaum. “And I was like, ‘No. I do not know. It is not for me.”
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Rosenbaum noted that there was no indication that it was a sex cult at the time, but he still declined her offer. And despite working with Mack so closely, Welling said he knew nothing about the group.
“I didn’t know anything about it. (…) I was very surprised to read something about it, ”said Welling. “It looks very bizarre. Allison has always been a nice person to me – it’s also funny that people think that we would know or that we would have some perspective on that. “
Michael Rosenbaum had to expel Allison Mack from his home
In a 2020 episode of Inside you, Rosenbaum recalled a disturbing incident with Mack. Sometime after Rosenbaum left Smallville, Mack reached out to him and asked to come for a visit. But she showed up at his house with two friends.
“She is nearby, she comes to the house,” Rosenbaum recalled. “And she comes in and [when] she came in, she was a different person. She came in as if she owned my house, literally, she owns my home. “
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Rosenbaum said that Mack and his friends casually went into his kitchen, picked up pots and pans and started cooking. When he asked what they were doing, Mack said they were making food because they were hungry.
Rosenbaum was uncomfortable with this space invasion. So he asked Mack and his companions to leave. But his male friend became physically and verbally violent.
“‘You just came in and started cooking at my house, you don’t even say why,'” Rosenbaum said to Mack and his friends. “Why don’t you just go. In fact, I would like you to get the hell out of my house. ‘”
But the actor noted that Mack’s reaction to him was even more bizarre than the visit. “I remember I was waiting for Allison to join the conversation and say, ‘I’m sorry, no, he didn’t mean that,'” said Rosenbaum. “There was nothing. It was almost like they were zombies. That’s how I remember it. I’ll never forget that.”