Despite the warning, Lenz wrote in her memoir Dinner for Vampires that she “didn’t feel too at risk of being objectified. I believed in this show and its ability to send meaningful, uplifting messages to the audience.”
Bethany Joy Lenz is revealing the warning she got ahead of signing on to One Tree Hill.
Lenz, who recalled the moment in her new memoir, Dinner for Vampires, said she got a call from her manager relaying a message from an executive the night before she was set to screen test for the show.
“I have a direct quote that I’ve been asked to relay to you, to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into before you sign this contract,” Lenz said, according to Entertainment Weekly.
“You tell her this show is about f–king and sucking and if she’s gonna have a problem with that, she shouldn’t come in tomorrow,” Lenz’s manager told her, delivering a quote from the TV executive working on the show.
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“Just tell him I understand what he’s saying. I’m not gonna try and stop them from writing about real teenagers. I believe in this show and I want to be a part of it,” Lenz later said.
The 43-year-old actress, who was raised an Evangelical Christian, noted that she felt One Tree Hill was “different from most bubble-gum TV with subliminal agendas” and she didn’t want to limit her career to acting on faith-based projects.
“Grit didn’t scare me, and the One Tree Hill pilot had grit,” she added.
Lenz also wrote in her memoir, “I didn’t feel too at risk of being objectified. I believed in this show and its ability to send meaningful, uplifting messages to the audience.”
One Tree Hill premiered in 2003 on The WB before moving on to The CW in 2006.
The show ran for a total of nine seasons, and as the show progressed, the “f–king and sucking” aspect of the show did play a part when Lenz tried to push back on some of the storylines.
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“When I stood my ground as a matter of religious modesty, my manager would get a call, ‘She’s being difficult again. We told you what this show was about,'” Lenz says in her memoir. “And, in fairness, they did. The ‘f–king and sucking’ executive has been very clear about that. I guess I just looked at my character and figured that would be other people’s storylines.”
While promoting her new memoir, Lenz has also been open about the religious group she was a part of while filming the show — accusing them of brainwashing her and stealing her money.
While appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Lenz said that during her time in The Big House Family, she was made to distance herself from her own family, with the group convincing her that members of her family, including her mom, were “spiritually in a different place.”
“It happens really slowly,” she explained during the Oct. 16 episode. “There were small comments dropped, like ‘Don’t forget, we’re your family, we’re here for you.'”
She alleged that they would often emphasize that her mom was “just on a different path” and that she didn’t respect Lenz’s boundaries.
She also shared that she her then-husband, the son of Big House Family leader, Michael Galeotti, who she only identified as “QB” in the episode, created a “sex schedule” to help with their intimacy problems.
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“I was so disinterested in sex, I was then asked to go on a schedule,” she recalled. “Basically of like, ‘You just have to do it. Just do it. This is your duty. This is your job as a wife. Your emotions will fall in line. If you do it enough, then eventually, you will find a way to enjoy it.'”
The routine ultimately contributed to her anxiety in their relationship.
“My stomach dropped every single time,” Lenz who divorced her then-husband in 2012 after seven years of marriage, said. “In fact, it really affected my relationships afterward — like, other boyfriends when I had to go pick them up from the airport. I had so much PTSD from showing up at the airport to see him, knowing that I was gonna have to start this sex schedule for the next, like, two weeks or three weeks or whatever.”
The One Tree Hill alum’s candid confessions about her experience as a member of The Big House Family organization, which she’d described as a “cult,” has now prompted a response from the ministry’s founder and her former father-in-law.
“Everybody sees things a little differently and she’s going to cling to the fame,” Galeotti told the Dailymail.com in an interview published Oct. 22. “Good for her. She’s going to make a name for herself. But it’s not the way it went down.”
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Michael’s son Michael Galeotti Jr., with whom Lenz shares 13-year-old daughter Rosie, also weighed in, telling the outlet that his main priority is their daughter.
“I don’t know what to make of this memoir after all this time,” he added. “I have a daughter who’s really important to me. I don’t want it to affect her. It’s too much. I don’t really want to cause any problems for her.”
TooFab has reached out to Lenz for comment.
