A Little Bit Culty

This episode is sponsored by Better Help.  Have you seen Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets on Prime yet? Ooooof! We have and it’s really, really good. Also hard to watch. Also a bit infuriating. In other words: A culty docuseries. If you’ve already followed the Duggars, the reality TV mega-family behind the hit show 19 Kids and Counting, you know it’s all a lot to process. Shiny Happy Peop...

This is a replay of an episode Sarah & Nippy recorded for the  A Little Bit Culty Patreon . If you want to access to all of our content bonuses, ad-free episodes and other goodies, sign up at:  www.patreon.com/alittlebitculty See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp and More Labs .  Dr. Shefali is a renowned authority on family dynamics and personal development who has published four books (three New York Times best-sellers) and teaches classes and seminars across the globe. She has all the makings of a guru, but is the first to say she doesn’t dig guru culture - and in fact has some pointed thoughts on the personal...

This epiosde is sponsored by Better Help. Hey Listener, you asked for a greatest hits medley of all our NXIVM related guests in one or two meaty episodes. And hear ye, hear ye we have delivered. This is our second NXIVM extravaganza, and we hope you dig it. We’ll be back soon with all new episodes, and until then you can always hang out with us on Patreon at patreon.com/alittlebitculty if you can’...

This episode is sponsored by Better Help.  Well hello there, A Little Bit Culty listener. How’d your summer go? What’s the haps? This is actually our out of office greeting talking to you, because we’re away from the studio right now investigating some kickass episodes for our new season. But we didn’t want to leave you hanging…so we went through the archives to make you a veritable Dairy Queen Bl...

This epoisode is sponsored by Better Help. Hey everyone! It’s ANOTHER remix episode of A Little Bit Culty because: It’s always good to take some time to look back and reflect.  PLUS we’re currently working our tails off on a batch of all new, farm fresh episodes for a brand new season. Until then, you can always join us over on Patreon - that’s patreon.com/alittlebitculty for new weekly episodes,...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We’re back with another greatest hits mashup this week, pulled together from the Little Bit Culty archives for your late listening pleasure because…well…we can’t quit you - not even for a short late summer, early fall hiatus. Can you believe some shows go on hiatus? LAMMMMMME! Not us. Breaks are for babies.  For real though, while we’re working on fresh...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Hey everybody, hope your summer was frickin’ great.  We’re working on all-new episodes of A Little Bit Culty, coming in hot ANY DAY now, but for this sultry, late summery time  we wanted to revisit our cool, culty archives and put together some mashups of our greatest hits for you. We’ll be back soon with all new cult-busting content, and we’re dropping...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Here’s Part 2 of our conversation with Guinevere Turner whose memoir When the World Didn’t End is drawn from fastidiously kept childhood diaries written while she was raised in a cult. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, back up and listen. In Part 2, Turner shares what it was like to return to “normal” life, how her story became a thriller, and what’s h...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Guinevere Turner recently published a memoir about being raised in a cult, being kicked out, and finding her way in the world. Her book When the World Didn’t End dives deep into her experience drawn from fastidiously kept diaries. Here on A Little Bit Culty Turner shares some off-the-cuff stories. We chat about writing craft. And Turner brings up questi...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Rebecca Bender grew up in a small town, played varsity sports, made high school honor roll, and would have started college early except she got pregnant. She was a little ostracized. And a lot lonely. Then she fell in love — kind of. She followed her knight in shining armor to Las Vegas only to be sold among three human traffickers.  She was branded, thr...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Last week, Alberta Mayne Bligh, Brooke Henderson, and Erin Boyes dove into what attracted them to Michèle Lonsdale-Smith ’s acting classes – the good, the bad, and the messy. Our three guests are ex-students, each with their own thriving careers in film, theater, television, directing, development and even art therapy. And they are among the 26 ex-stude...

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Alberta Mayne Bligh, Brooke Henderson, and Erin Boyes are among the 26 ex-students who recently spoke up about their experience under the acting tutelage of  Michèle Lonsdale-Smith in a revelatory story published in The Cut. Lonsdale Smith is, by many accounts, a dogmatic leader who claims her techniques help actors tell the truth about their unresolved...

Citisens of Sound presents: Tiny House Tales, a podcast about the experiences of people who have joined the tiny house movement.  Join your hosts Zack Giffin and John Weisbarth, known from the popular show "Tiny House Nation," as they give listeners a behind the scenes glimpse into the absolute joys and inherent challenges of living tiny. Together they seek to unlock the successful strategies for...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  In the age of social media, many of us are aware that choices are increasingly made for us by algorithms—which is unfortunately not a reference to Vice President Al Gore’s dancing abilities.  But even if we are living in our own little bubbles, it doesn’t quite match the extremities of, let’s say, someone who was raised within a radically nondenominational...

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. While in their youth, Jessica Willis Fisher and her eleven siblings were thrust into the spotlight for being the perfect musical family. Having achieved nation-wide fame on America’s Got Talent, the Willis Fishers scored their own reality show in 2015, letting cameras into their pristine and heavily Christian home to document the daily lives of a happy, smi...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Of the many subplots within the NXIVM story, one of the most unusual (and that says a lot) was the cult’s dance with Tourettes Syndrome and research surrounding it. TS for short, the syndrome involves involuntary tics and has no known cure.  On today’s episode, which is a continuation from last week, our guest Isabella Constantino discusses the final punctu...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. NXIVM’s timeline unfolds like a (horror) film with its own subplots. One of the cult’s best known smaller mythologies was its ability to cure Tourette's Syndrome, which is a condition in the nervous system that causes tics like sudden and uncontrollable movements or vocal outbursts. It should be noted that while there are certainly various treatments for ma...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  If you didn’t listen to part 1 of this double whammy—stop, drop, and scroll down (or up, depending) because you’ll be lost without the context.  On this continuation, we hear more from author Tia Levings about her experiences with Christian Fundamentalism, and more specifically how she got out of a situation that was “a little bit culty,” to say the least....

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Just as roses have thorns, so too do pristine, seemingly blemish-free families have their own dark sides. For example, we have the Duggar family and their show 19 and Counting, which broadcasted the daily lives of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their army of children between 2008 and 2015 to millions of viewers around the world. Now, a new documentary on t...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. In part two of our conversation with Dr. Tamara MC, we get into everything that happened after she was married in a secret wedding ceremony, including attending the 8th grade (she was only 12-years-old) and keeping her religious life a secret from the rest of the world.  As a reminder (and don’t forget to listen to part one if you haven’t), Dr. Tamara MC’s...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. When she was only 12-years-old, Dr. Tamara MC had a secret wedding ceremony in the middle of the night. Shrouded in pitch black and with no one present but her new husband, a much older man who could supposedly guide her to the kingdoms of knowledge and heaven, this night further cemented Tamara’s place in a highly abusive religious cult. Above all else, me...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Another day, another wellness guru preaching enlightenment on social media. Total snooze, right?! Unless said guru begins telling her followers to cut ties with their “family cults'' in order to save their children from a ruling class of evil reptilian creatures, the likes of which are responsible for creating the COVID-19 “scamdemic” as a Luciferian tool t...

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you still manage to read the news, good job. You’ve then no doubt heard that “Doomsday Mom” Lori Vallow was just convicted of murdering her 16-year-old daughter Tylee and seven-year-old son J.J. This judgment will be an end to this harrowing yet enthralling story, which turned 49-year-old mom and Mormon, Lori Vallow into an international media fixture, s...

Today’s episode is Sponsored by BetterHelp. We’re back for part 2 of our interview with Daniella Mestyanek Young, the badass author of Uncultured: a Memoir . In her book, Young gets into the nitty gritty of growing up in the Children of God cult, now known as “The Family International,” with their horrifying pedophilic practice called “Law of Love.” In part 2, we dive deeper into Young’s time as a...