THEY ESCAPED Cults!

CELEBS SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES WITH SOME LESS-THAN-SAVORY GROUPS BENT ON CONTROLLING THEM

JINGER DUGGAR

A new Prime docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets goes deep on the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a fundamentalist sect founded by accused sexual harasser Bill Gothard (he denies the allegations) and followed by the supersize Duggar family. Adherents are isolated from the larger world, with restrictions on what they can read, watch and listen to — and women are expected to be subservient to men.

“It was based on superstition, manipulation, control,” Jinger Duggar Vuolo, 29, has noted, adding that she was told, “If I didn’t follow every principle [Gothard] taught, then my life would be one disaster after another.”

JOAQUIN PHOENIX 

“I think my parents thought they’d found a community that shared their ideals,” the Oscar winner, 48, has said of being brought up in the Children of God cult. “Cults rarely advertise themselves as such. It’s usually someone saying,

‘We’re like-minded people. This is a community.’ But I think the moment my parents realized there was something more to it, they got out."