Polygamy, Incest & Reality TV: Amanda Rae Breaks the Silence (Part 1)

[00:00:00] Wir sind Teresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt. Die Plattform, die wir vor Shopify verwendet haben, hat regelmäßig Updates gebraucht, die teilweise dazu geführt haben, dass der Shop nicht funktioniert hat. Endlich macht unser Nemo Boards Shop dadurch auch auf den Mobilgeräten eine gute Figur und die Illustrationen auf den Boards kommen jetzt viel, viel klarer rüber, was uns ja auch wichtig ist und was unsere Marke auch ausmacht. Starte Dein Testen heute für 1 Euro pro Monat auf shopify.de slash radio.

[00:00:27] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson. And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames.

[00:00:57] And this is A Little Bit Culty. Cults are commonplace now. From fandoms to fads, we're examining them all. We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad. Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them. Because we want you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way. For example, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material. And who knows? You could already be in a cult.

[00:01:28] If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed. So keep listening to find out. We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware, this podcast might contain stories that could be alarming to some of our listeners. So please check our show notes for more detailed descriptions and take care of yourself. Subscribe to our Patreon for Thursday bonus episodes, Q&A, and all sorts of exclusive content. That's patreon.com slash a little bit culty. Welcome to season seven of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:02:08] Welcome back to A Little Bit Culty, everyone. We have a huge show today, y'all. Our guest is Amanda Ray, a survivor of a radical offshoot of the Mormon Church. You might recognize her from the A&E show, Escaping Polygamy. She also has a popular YouTube channel where she raises awareness about extreme versions of LDS, Latter-day Saints. Amanda's former sect is called the Kingston clan, AKA the order. And extreme doesn't begin to describe them. It goes way beyond polygamy.

[00:02:35] We're talking blood tests to determine racial purity, child brides, the spiritual numbering system, even incest. When Amanda escaped at 17, she was being pressured to marry her cousin. And of course, girls in the order are considered property. So Amanda was never raised with the basic life skills to survive on her own, but she did it. Recovery is a long, difficult road, and she'll tell us about all the challenges and consequences she faced. We will also get into the pitfalls of being on reality TV.

[00:03:03] If you can believe it, those shows have a tendency to exploit people. Go figure. Amanda Ray's story is truly amazing. We have so much to cover, so let's welcome her to the show. All right. Here we are in studio with Amanda Ray Grant. Welcome.

[00:03:33] Welcome. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? Good. I'm excited to be in Georgia actually. I meet you guys in person. I'm so glad you suggested it. Isn't Georgia greener than you thought it would be? I've been here before. Wow. Yeah. But it is greener than I remember. Most people are like, I can't believe how green Georgia is. I forgot how humid it is though. It is also more humid right now than, well, it's going to be like this for a while, but it hasn't been this way. She's hitting the two weeks of pollen. Yeah. There's a very pollen. Record breaking pollen. Oh, really?

[00:04:03] Yeah. So, allergies are high. We're okay. We're okay, but it's hard for people with allergies. It's right down. We were sitting on our patio and we could actually see the pollen. Falling from the trees. Hmm. It's wild. Which is new phenomena for me. Yeah. But I'm sure our audience does not care about our pollen. Like weather forecasting. Hey, like we're just setting the groundwork. We're setting the groundwork. We're in Georgia. We're in Georgia. So, we have to know and they've, you know, they've heard us cover the Mormon church. Mm-hmm.

[00:04:32] We've never covered this particular offshoot of Mormonism. We've never covered the Kingston clan. Mm-hmm. So, that's where you were born or raised. Yeah. Tell us about it and give us the brief history that you think that we need to know. You don't have to cover everything because I know it's a lot. Mm-hmm. We could do like a limited part series on the Kingston clan. I think there's been limited parts series. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, what do we need to know? Okay. So, I'll give like the bulk of a little bit of the history and what they believe today. Mm-hmm. And then we can dive into my story just so that I guess the viewers can kind of be like,

[00:05:02] oh, okay, so this is what the Kingston's are. Yes. Because a lot of people even in Utah don't even know what is going on. Which is shocking. And I was shocked John Delenn hadn't heard of him. I know. For those of you who don't remember John Delenn, he's the OG Mormon podcast guy. I thought he was joking for a second. I was like, are you for real? I was like, no, I've never heard of him. Yeah. Yeah. But he was fascinated. Yeah. Basically, we did branch off from the LDS church, but I like to explain it as we basically lived in the time of Joseph Smith.

[00:05:30] Like they still live in that time because Joseph Smith had what, 33 plus wives. He believed in a lot of the teachings that we believe in the order today. The Kingston clan is known as the order. We called ourselves order members. And it started in 1935. So they, Utah can't become a state, right? Because they need to denounce polygamy in order to become a state. So then when the LDS church denounces polygamy, then all of these polygamists kind of branch

[00:05:56] off or start getting kicked out or trying to find community within their polygamy. Because what are you going to do? Divorce all your wives? Even though the LDS church was still living polygamy, but that's a story for another day. My great grandpa starts the order and he starts the numbering system. And he was starting to just number whoever joined the community. It wasn't really religion at the time. It was Davis County Co-op. They still go by that name today. They have a website, Davis County, DCC society.com.

[00:06:24] And so it was just a co-op at the time because it was around the Great Depression and they were kind of just trying to huddle together. Even the leader was like, you know, anyone from any religion is welcome. Even though they were all white people too, which we'll get into that in a second. So it was a co-op. He's just numbering as each man joins. So he was number one and there was number two. My grandpa Ortele is number eight. And he becomes the leader after the first leader dies, Grandpa Ortele.

[00:06:52] He doesn't really do anything with the number system. He only gives like four numbers out. And then the leader today. So there's only been three leaderships. The leader today is Paul Kingston. He's my uncle. So Ortele's son from his second wife. He is number nine. And he started to realize that the numbers were like, people were obsessed with this number. And he would dangle it to these men to get the men to do what they want. Like, hey, we need you to go work on our potato farm for $10 an hour and bring your wife and 10 kids

[00:07:21] and just be happy about it. And maybe you'll get a number. So it was like your number became your ticket to heaven. So a numbered man is like one of the highest priesthoods to hold in the order. And they do. I remember talking about it's kind of like, I don't know if you've heard of like the LDS church. They they're like, I want to return missionary. And I want, you know, they that it's that Melchizedek priesthood and all of that comes into the numbering system. But the numbering system and there's a bunch of different beliefs on this.

[00:07:49] But I think that the core belief is, have you heard of the verse in the Bible that talks about 144,000 will walk with God? Yes. That's the numbering system. And that's what a lot of people that have left the group believe. That's where it stems from, is that once you get your number, you are one of those 144,000 that get to walk with God. I was going to say, we don't know Bible scripture that well, but we've done enough of these podcasts to have heard of that part. Right. Yeah. And Jehovah's Witness also believe that. Adubs. Yep.

[00:08:18] And so they'll do because I remember as a woman in the order, I was like, well, what about my number? You know, I want to walk with God, but they will. This is kind of eerie. And maybe I can send you some of these pictures if you want to. Since we're going to have visuals, I can show you on the gravestone. So Ortel dies. He has number eight on his gravestone. It's cemented in his gravestone. His wives. I think he had like 14 wives. His second wife got 8.2. The first wife just got 8.1. My mom's the second of three wives. And my dad's number is 36.

[00:08:45] So on her gravestone, I assume it'll be 36.2. Isn't that so creepy? It's like branding. So Sarah would be my point one? Point one. Yeah. But if you leave, you got to get rid of the number because only the men keep the number and they're the ones that bring you to heaven. Sort of the base belief that this group is operating on is that your deeds in this world is what sets you up for your experience in the afterlife. Right. So that's something people have to buy into from the beginning. Yeah.

[00:09:15] And this is what they would teach in Sunday school. I remember they brought some floss. I'll never forget this. They brought this floss and they were like, this piece of floss is your life on earth. Okay. Now picture this piece of floss wrapped around the earth a billion times. That's eternity. So are you really going to waste this piece of, you know, this tiny little amount of time to go be worldly and frivolous?

[00:09:38] Like that was how they kind of programmed us to as kids be like, it's just this small amount of time that I can basically white knuckle it through life until eternal life is going to be this kingdom of God. It's going to be so amazing. Now, was this a doctrine from the get or do you think like you mentioned the Great Depression? Do you think the Great Depression may have informed it? This is a good question. Just to gather members and then once they had members, they need to keep them once times weren't as strenuous. Yeah. I'm wondering how much that.

[00:10:05] I think that the Great Depression really did kind of instill a lot of the beliefs that still they live by today. So two of the main things that they keep, basically the order shits on the LDS church, even though they came from it. But it's because they're like the LDS church fell away because they didn't keep these two principles, which is polygamy and consecration. And I think consecration is because of the Great Depression. What's consecration? Consecration is.

[00:10:33] So they're like, well, the LDS church does 10 percent, but we give our all to the Lord. So they would have us even as kids signing 10 percent forms. But then we also signed inventory forms, which means everything that I own is the Lord's, which is leadership. And even back in the day, the DCC society, when it was a co-op, they had a little storehouse where they would put stuff into it. And it was like for the community to use. I think at the time it actually kind of made sense because no one had anything. But now it's like the leadership is getting everything.

[00:11:03] And then there's people on the bottom suffering. You know what I mean? So it's like it was pretending to be the humanitarian aspect of socialism in terms of we take care of everybody. Which is so funny because they're like pro-Trumpers and they're so like anti. The irony. Yeah. So, OK, back up for a second. So this is the world that you're born into. And your mom wasn't. We don't have to go into her whole history. But she was. How did she get involved? Well, yeah.

[00:11:32] Why did she choose the Kingston clan? The leader today, his dad is Orteo, we just talked about. And this is my grandpa. Orteo married a woman named LaDonna. And she's the second wife. But everyone thought she was the first because she was like the favorite wife. She's the one that took on his legal last name. LaDonna, his last name is Peterson. My mom's dad, Ray Peterson, is her brother. So my mom was affiliated already distantly though.

[00:12:00] And her older sister starts to get courted by my dad. And my dad has direction and wants to marry her. And she joins the group. You know, they kind of like bring the woman in. Sorry. Explain what direction means. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So direction from God. This is a big teaching that they believe is because all the marriages are approved by the leadership. They have to be. And so you need to pray from a very young age. I was taught in like elementary school. Pray for who you're going to get, who your number one choice is.

[00:12:29] You got to marry your number one choice so that you can have the right family and blah, blah, blah. So direction is when you pray to God to get your direction on who you're supposed to marry for your number one choice. Then maybe you'll have a dream or a premonition. And in my case, I would go tell my dad and he'd be like, keep praying. Like, I really believe they have predetermined. I think that it goes so deeper than a lot of the members even know. I think that by birth, there are contracts. Like you get a few of my daughters, I'll trade you for a few.

[00:12:58] Or you'll notice too, like there's a specific family there. All of their daughters married into the leadership's family and they have wealth. If they're building their own home, like you can see it's like, I mean, it's almost impossible not to see. Even when I was in there, I was like, that's weird that this family, I was in poverty my whole life and this family seems to be doing so much better. Oh, all those kids are like promised to that family. That's interesting. It's kind of like royal lineage. It really is. And that even brings us into the, they do believe that their bloodline is a direct,

[00:13:28] direct descendants of Christ. So not just Joe Smith. Jesus Christ himself. How did he get in the mix? The Kingstons. Yeah. So they believe in the 12 tribes of Israel is the, you're only supposed to breed with the 12 tribes of Israel and that's what brings in the racism. So they, that's why you won't see any black people. There is Italian and they were racist against their own Italian members. So they had a hard time.

[00:13:55] A lot of the De Fabrizio family ended up like leaving because they, they were racist against them. Didn't feel welcome there. Yeah. But to go back to the story of my mom, she has a really interesting story because she watches her sister, Mary, my dad. And she's like seven or eight at this time starts helping tend the babies for her sister. And then I really believe my dad just started to be predatory towards my mom and be, and like started to have direction and dreams from God that he needs to marry his wife's little sister.

[00:14:22] It, the, the order breeds pedophiles and pedophilia and it puts pedophilia on a pedestal. I remember seeing a pictures of, so they would show a picture of a man holding a baby and they would be telling their, bearing their testimony saying like, I knew when I was holding this baby that it was going to be my wife. And they're like bragging about how they ended up marrying her later. And this is still practice to this day. They will have their grandparents' picture on the wall. Like that's grandma and grandpa.

[00:14:49] And that's when grandpa knew he was going to marry grandma and she's a two year old and they brag about it. And so when the men are being raised in that, they are doing it too and not seeing an issue with it. What's become normalized. Have you considered that there's mental illness? Oh, for sure. But they don't, they don't believe in mental illness. So then it doesn't exist. So anything to justify their own. Yeah.

[00:15:13] I genuinely think though that the Peterson line has multiple like schizophrenia, bipolar, paranoia, just from the things that specifically LaDonna, so Ortele's wife LaDonna, she was always having dreams, like the craziest dreams and like Christ would visit her and like people just listened and like gave her shit because she had a dream that God said. And there's even a story where she had a dream that she was supposed to get the nicest house in the order. I'm like, well, I would like to have that dream too.

[00:15:42] And she, but she would do it. She would go knock on the door and be like, Hey, so God said that this is my house now. You know that God also in my dream last night said I needed a day at the spa. Yeah. So, and you guys are paying for it. You know, my dream was that God came to me and said, your wife's going to say that she needs a day at the spa and you're supposed to say that. So what happens? What happens? It's a self-worth thing too, because like I, as much as I don't like LaDonna, cause she was

[00:16:09] a like crazy bitch because she was like the one that would like pull the other wives out of the car and like, but she was a kind of like a boss ass bitch because she ran the order and she's the reason why the leader's the leader today, her son. It was supposed to be Ortele's brother, but she was like, nope. And she just would step in there and be like, well, God said, well, God said. And then people would just have to believe it. So how does that work in such a clearly patriarchal where the men are numbered and the women are the, after the decimal system? The point ones. The point ones.

[00:16:38] How did she get this power? Do you think? And that's what I think I've become more and more fascinated with because it is such a male dominated church, right? But she was the leader's second wife. And I think that he was more at the time from the stories, cause I wasn't alive at the time, cause this is the generation before me, but she was not going to be a part of the order, but it sounded like she, he was like obsessed with her in a weird way. But, but like how obsessed can you be? You still lived polygamy.

[00:17:08] He still married his niece before marrying her. So I don't know how much of it she was like slowly going crazy too, because he was crazy, like doing all of his weird shit in the name of the Lord. And so then she started to do all these. I think that a lot of these mental disorders too, like schizophrenia, you can have that laying dormant and never even see signs of it. But when you're in a place like the order, all kinds of mental disorders will come to fruition because you're in such a survival state.

[00:17:37] Does that make sense? I don't think she genuinely was this crazy bitch. I think it was that she was put into this situation where everyone was like masking all of their, you know, depression, anxiety, all this is now direction from God. And like everyone's kind of just projecting. And then she, she fell heavy into it. And then she just started to believe I am that bitch, you know? But it's also to your point, survival. Yeah. And they're isolated, right? Oh yeah.

[00:18:04] And, and it's also like at the time too, um, I didn't know we were going to be getting into all of this history of it, but at the time there were people getting prosecuted for living polygamy. And so they were even more isolated because they, they, you had to come up with lies. Like I was lied to about who my dad was. Cause there was still like a lot of people being afraid that we're going to get prosecuted, even though I've never seen anyone to this day, like in my lifetime. And the times that I'm learning about of other people going to like jail was really for like

[00:18:34] fraud, food stamp fraud and stuff, because they were not claiming the kids and like getting, collecting welfare. But that's a story for another day. Basically, I don't know. Cause I wasn't there with the whole Adana thing, but I feel like she definitely figured out how to take advantage of her, of being the favorite wife. Right. And then she set her kids up for taking on the order and they are the ones now who run the order. Her seven brothers, her seven sons and two daughters.

[00:19:02] And they basically have all of their, all of the properties, everything is under their control. And if a member starts to fight and be like, wait, I want my property. Why can I have, will you sign this piece of paper that said it's ours? So, and if you try to take it, then you, you can get out of the order, which means you lose your entire family, right? Your entire community. Cause they do that also on top of, um, lie to the outside world because they're not going to accept us. They want to isolate their members by saying you were born in the kingdom of God.

[00:19:32] It's kind of like giving you a little bit of narcissism, right? Give you a chip on your shoulder. Like you were born in the kingdom of God. So don't give these, um, don't cast your pearls before swine. So I was taught as a young, young kid, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie to the outside world. Okay to lie to protect the group. Hey, Kalti listeners. As you probably know, Nippy and I are working on a manuscript for our first book together. And as you probably also know, maintaining control is important to us.

[00:20:01] That's why we've decided to produce our book with the self-publishing agency or TSPA. Unlike traditional publishing, where you're often left waiting for months or even years to get your story out, the self-publishing agency lets you take control of your timeline. You'll have complete creative freedom with insights and guidance from pros in the publishing world. So if you're like us and you have a story or a message that's burning to be told, we highly recommend TSPA as your go-to partner.

[00:20:29] They offer everything you need from expert editing and eye-catching cover design to marketing and distribution strategies that really make a difference. They make the entire process seamless and inspiring. So you can focus on what matters most telling your story, go to the self-publishing agency.com. That's the self-publishing agency.com to start your very own publishing journey today. Enjoy.

[00:21:02] This podcast wouldn't exist without our fantastic, supportive, generous patrons. Come find us over on Patreon. We're at patreon.com slash a little bit culty. Go there for bonus episodes, exclusive content, and the occasional Zoom with our fan favorites from our past episodes. Subscribe now and join us. That's patreon.com slash a little bit culty. And now a brief message from our Little Bit Culty sponsors. Remember, when you support our sponsors, you support our podcast.

[00:21:35] You've heard from our sponsors. Now let's get back to a little bit culty, shall we? And so when I left and I'm going on escaping polygamy, like ratting them out, I was worse than they said, it is worse to leave. It's better to leave the order and just live your own life. You'll still go to hell. But it's better than if you leave and tell the order secrets, the kingdom of God on earth secrets. And that's why actually it was hard to get anyone to even talk about it.

[00:22:03] Because I think that you bring that shame with you when you leave. That indoctrination stays. And we're definitely going to get into your leaving and escaping polygamy and all that stuff. But back to your upbringing, I don't think we've explicitly said it yet, but the sort of tenets of this bloodline and lineage from Christ and racial purity, we haven't really said explicitly that because of that, there was incest. Oh, yes. Can we just touch on that? There seems to be a feature.

[00:22:33] Yeah. So not just pedophilia, but also incest. Oh, yeah. How rampant was that? And how was it normal? How was it justified? So my first case of incest that I, as I'm doing like order history and stuff, and I've interviewed a bunch of people, I believe or have come to find out that the first case of incest was Ortel. So it only took the second leadership to start incest. He started marrying his nieces and his own half sisters.

[00:23:00] And there was a lot of talk about the pure bloodline and he would compare cattle. Like you get the best cattle if you breed the best bulls with the blah, blah, blah. And so he was comparing the women to cattle and the members to cattle and talking about the greatest bloodline you need to. And that's where I think direction from God and your choice in marriage is so important that you marry that number one choice so that you have those perfect cattle. But great analogy.

[00:23:29] Yeah. I know they have so many of those. He's not cattle. He's not, but we are just kidding. Got it. But because they're Kingston, that Kingston bloodline is direct descendants of Christ. I know when I left, I was like, can we like 23 and me? Like, how do you, can you show me where that's at? And when I tell my dad, like, you know that Jesus Christ was like, it would make most sense that he was Middle Eastern. And my dad started laughing. I'm like, am I crazy? Like, I don't think that he's white with blue eyes, you guys.

[00:23:59] But they want to believe that he's like their great, great, great, great grandpa. And that he lived polygamy, by the way. And I think Mary Magdalene was one of his wives or something. That tracks. So you have to keep the bloodline pure, meaning a lot, you'll see the women marry up in the bloodline. So because my dad is half brothers to the leader, I was supposed to marry one of the leader's brother's kids. So full brother's kids. But his parents were half siblings. So his mom was my dad's full sister.

[00:24:27] And his dad was my dad's half brother. Does that make sense? Half siblings married each other. So that means I'm even closer related to him because I have the Kingston bloodline. So I have to marry someone who's even closer into it. And that's why you'll see like, once you get closer and closer in there, the women are like marrying their uncles. And it's like so much incest happening. There's like three generations of mom married uncle, mom married uncle. Crazy. What was happening physically? Like, was there... This is a good question. It's not going to work.

[00:24:56] Or tell when he first married his niece before LaDonna, the babies would not go to full term. They would either die at birth or they would have miscarriages. And he's like, why can't I have babies with my nieces? I wonder why. So then they started doing blood testing. And now I actually just interviewed on my YouTube channel, just came out with Catherine's story. She married her uncle. They basically forced her to marry her uncle as a third wife.

[00:25:21] And she said that they, because she married her uncle and her mom also married her uncle, the baby that she was pregnant with, and I think this happened a couple of times, they did tests and the baby was going to have disabilities. And so the leader promoted abortions. So he was like, it's okay, we'll just abort these ones and then you'll eventually have a good one.

[00:25:46] So making the women go through abortions so that they can keep that bloodline pure. But then they also, on top of that, I remember, and they don't teach us this. I mean, I wasn't taught it, but I remember all my friends were getting blood tested before even getting married, like little kids getting their blood drawn. And come to find out is to see who they were compatible with. So they're doing that. And then on top of that, there's so much inbreeding that they're having to do abortions. But then it's so weird because there's been members who secretly got abortions because they

[00:26:14] were trying to like leave their husband and they're shamed for that. Like you baby murderer. But here the leader is telling them to do it. It's just so twisted. It's classic hypocritical. There's no morality. It's convenience ethics. Okay. So before we get to like the, you know, your journey out, just a couple of the things I want to delineate between traditional Mormon doctrine and the Kingston doctrine.

[00:26:39] Is there anything else that's starkly different other than the polygamy and the inbreeding? The incest is best. Your sister to the test. Yeah. Sorry. It's very similar in the Old Testament, I guess, stuff. But like the racism. Yeah. The N word is used rampantly there. It's very old school. They also taught to not go to the doctors. They do have a doctor now that works in the church. And so they're coming around a little bit more.

[00:27:09] But my mom had all 10 of her kids at home. They're very big on at-home births, on just not going to the public if you don't have to. But it's so weird though because it's like they'll bleed the beast. So they'll do food stamp fraud. They'll do tax fraud because you can only claim like six kids on your taxes. So then they would have – and a lot of them have 17 kids. So then they just have another kid or someone else they know claim the rest of the kids. And then they collect on – does that make sense? Yes.

[00:27:34] And bleed the beast, correct me if I'm wrong, is basically the idea that it's okay to scam the government because the government is against you. Right. So basically – Eat it as best you can. Yeah. We don't want anything to do with outsiders except if we can take advantage of them. Right. Then we do. Yeah. So I'm trying to think of anything else that I didn't cover. Yes. The incest is the biggest thing. They're not like going out and having missions like the LDS church because no one's going to join that. So they basically don't have to recruit. They just keep growing their own.

[00:28:04] Because of the incest. Enslaving their own. Literally. And when you have women that are on average having 15 plus kids, you're growing at a pretty rapid rate. Yeah. But the inbreeding is going to cause – there is now men who are sterile, who cannot have children. And I think it is because there's been like what, four generations of incest happening. So now they can't even – That's not a sustainable model. Right. Exactly. Biology, you can't cheat. Totally.

[00:28:29] One thing I did see is as we were commenting on this earlier is like, you know, not only is it classic in every cult, but similar or the same in both traditional FLDS and the Kingston clan is that both of them think that they are the one true church. Yeah. Right? So there's this collective ego and narcissism and righteousness on both sides and against the other. And it's how all the polygamous cults are in Utah.

[00:28:55] So there's – I think there's – the statistics probably more than this now, but when I was hearing about it, there's at least 40,000 polygamists in Utah alone. And that's the AUB group that Cody Brown's from, right? That's in Bluffdale. That's the Order. That's the FLDS. For a while, there was the LeBarons there. And all of them believed they're the true church of God. So you guys know who each other – Oh, yeah. We're related to a lot of them. Okay. So how do you guys – are there rivalries there? Is it like – This is what's so weird.

[00:29:23] It's like high school revolutionary. Like, we hate that school. We like our school. But the Order has been known to try to poach women from the other groups. Like, they'll try to, like, loan off their workers to help work. They won't give their women. They do not want to give their women. But they'll try to poach women from, like – when the FLDS had that flood in Colorado City, all of a sudden the Order men were, like, running down to go help. And I know better because I'm from the Order. I'm like, they're there for another reason.

[00:29:52] They're not trying to help. They don't care. They want the women. And they would, like – they gave safety and sanctuary to the women. And then there were FLDS women. I think there's only a few because it's also – it is hard to convince someone from another cult to join your cult because they're so staunch in their cult. No, it's, like, primordial behavior in modern times. It's caveman behavior, like – but with, like, modern rules and modern laws and – right?

[00:30:20] Because, like, if I see someone in another tribe or clan – You go steal them? You go steal them. You go steal them. You're a real bad of the cave bear? No. It's a fiction book about different tribes back in, like, the caveman days. Yeah. It's totally tangential and not relevant. Get back on track. But they were taking women from – they grabbed them because of women of property. The fact that it's so open, Utah is known for this, like, in a tongue-in-cheek way.

[00:30:48] But, like, why can't they get it in order in their own state? I think that they're – one, the state's run by LDS people. And two, the polygamous – at least the order – has a lot of money. And when – we'll probably get into my escape story. I'll tell a little piece of this. There was a point where I knew that a police officer – in my escape, I knew he was getting paid off by the order or he was in cahoots with them.

[00:31:10] So they definitely have friends in high places because of the order – I mean, I can't tell you exactly how much money they have, but they have been – there's been rumors from ex-members and people trying to put the numbers together that have worked in the banks and stuff for the order. They have their own bank, by the way. I forgot that part. There's so much that we could go into. But there was rumors that the order is worth over a billion. Billion. We heard that when we were out there. Yeah.

[00:31:34] And I believe that because how many members they have and how much they're so into bleeding the beast and how they pay their own members, their specific members who are paid to try to do more research on how they can bleed the beast more, on loopholes in the system to where they can get free government funding and stuff like that. Wouldn't it seem to be in their best interest to provide good living conditions for their wives and their kids? Like why – You would think, yeah. And you do see – If there's resources for it. That's one thing I didn't understand. It seems to me if you're trying to keep people. Give them better conditions, right?

[00:32:04] Give them some perks. Yeah. Well, I think it's – they can't leave even if they want to. Like these people are – their whole life and everything they've ever known is so invested in here. Your bank is the order bank. The schools that you've been to your whole life are the order schools. The people you know are the order people. You have been – even if you knew people on the outside, you have been cut off to all of them. So what do you get when you leave? Nothing.

[00:32:28] But it's also a double-edged sword for Paul because now the people who left, you just made an enemy out of someone who has nothing to lose. Which I'm honestly shocked no one's assassinated him. I think that he has been that we don't know of or tried to. Watching the series, hearing the stories, to me it just seems like at some point someone's going to snap. Yeah. I was surprised that violence hadn't been resorted to by at least a handful of members. I know.

[00:32:57] Especially when I – after I left and I started researching different cults and like Krishna Venta and how there was a suicide bombing on him with his own members. And there's a lot of times where people retaliate and I'm shocked. And I honestly don't believe that people have not retaliated. I think that there have been things that maybe we haven't heard of because Paul doesn't want people to get ideas. Because it's just hard to like how do you go against something when there have been cases where there's lawsuits and then they get the members to lie on the stand. They have so many people willing to lie for them.

[00:33:26] So there's that aspect of it too. But yeah, for my mom living in poverty though, that's the – it's so crazy. And she would talk about it a lot because she came from kind of wealth. Like my grandpa had the Better Built company with his dad. It was like a potato cutter company and they were like inventors and they came into a lot of money and they had a lot of properties.

[00:33:48] And then my mom joining and marrying her sister's husband, they got the – my grandpa when he was senile to basically sign over everything to the church and then he died. And he wasn't even a member till towards the end of his life when he goes senile. And then all of a sudden everything goes to the work of the Lord and so my mom doesn't get anything. And this is very common though. Like they've also had – I just did an interview with my cousin Andrew Robinson. He wrote a book and he – his mom died of cancer.

[00:34:18] And she had a will that all of this stuff was supposed to go to the kids. But in the will that the order had fake notaries, by the way, they have a bunch of people that – well, there's been a lot of rumors, I have to say allegedly, that they have people that are doing fake notaries. Because when his mom died of cancer, they were waiting to get the stuff that was in the will. But the leader's brother, which is the one that she married, made sure to get everything for the church, nothing for the kids.

[00:34:47] To the point where they told the kids you have to buy the stuff back from the order. Your own mother's things, you have to buy it from the order. Like that's how greedy they are. I'm so – one of the things I was most shocked about in researching for this podcast is how many illegal things that they're doing that they're still going. I know. It's the same kind of feeling I have around Scientology. I don't know how much you've studied about that, but – But it's overt. It's overt. And like there's so many clear whistleblowers on escaping polygamy and people like yourself.

[00:35:16] I feel like the IRS would have a fucking field day. Never mind – That's what the IRS lives for. Yeah. IRS, if you're listening. Don't get them. They're not. They are slow because you'll never see Paul put his name on anything. Yeah. He has pawns. Keep them up too. Yeah. So the leader that you were a part of, he would put everyone else's name on? Everyone else's name on in all the companies. He wasn't even – Didn't have a license. Yeah, didn't have a driver's license. But you didn't need to if you have so many loyal followers willing to take the fall for you. Yep.

[00:35:45] In which they do. Like the leader's brother, there was this whole case that happened, a really, really sad case where a little girl died. A baby died. To this day, no one knows exactly what happens, but I talked to a girl in the family and she believes 100% that her dad beat the baby to death. But the mom ended up taking the fall for him. Like there are so many members that are willing to take the fall or even be manipulated into taking the fall because of lack of education, lack of awareness of the situation.

[00:36:15] And then also a lot of them are in this state of fear, right? And so when you're always in this state of fear, you don't think rationally. The mind frame that they put you in in the order you're not – when I left, I was like, why the fuck was I doing all that shit? Well, probably also there's a system of like the brownie points or like the gold stars that you get. Do the thing in the moment and the little piece of dental floss because you're going to get all the – The dopamine. Yeah. And then you get the – you know that you're doing it for like eternal salvation in the afterlife, right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:44] And being that loyal follower. There's so many different avenues we could go into with this. But yeah, I think that they're untouchable because – sad to say it, Paul was a little bit smart when he became the leader and he figured out how he went to become a lawyer. He went to – you know, did attorney school, did some classes on psychology. Like he figured out how to keep his flock. He definitely couldn't find a flock to start a cult. He doesn't have the charisma for that. Like honestly. Outsource that though.

[00:37:13] Yeah, that's true. You can do that. But yeah. For more context on what brought us here, check out my memoir. It's called Scarred, The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life. I narrate the audio version and it's also available on Amazon, Audible, and at most bookstores. And now, a brief message from our Little Bit Culty sponsors. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you're supporting this podcast.

[00:37:45] Break time's over, people. Let's get back to this episode of A Little Bit Culty. It's a good one. Well, like we keep saying, there's so many different sort of things we could focus on. But in terms of your story and growing up on it, one thing that seemed quite clear to me is that having your mother, who had a taste of the outside world, in many ways I feel like possibly gave you a glimpse. Oh, yeah. To like what things should be and was honest with you about how shitty it was to be a second wife. Yeah.

[00:38:14] I'm so grateful that she was honest with me. And sometimes I feel bad because I'm like, thank you, mom, that you helped me leave. And I know that the order watches my stuff and they give her shit for that. Like, you're the reason she left, including my dad. But her honesty of, because I would ask her and I was a very, I would question a lot as a kid. I was like, something's not adding up, you guys.

[00:38:37] And I would ask her, I'd be like, so how does, what do you feel when dad leaves and he's going to your sister's house? And then years later, it was his own sister because his third wife is his half sister. My mom didn't grow up in that being normal. So I would ask her, like, how do you feel like he's going to stay the night at his sister's house or your sister's? I don't know which is worse to you. And she would be honest. She would be like, I just pretend he's on a work trip.

[00:39:04] And I just, I, and then when he comes home, he's coming home from his work trip. But it's like, you can only pretend so long. We're in church and he's sitting between you and your sister in church in front of everyone. Your kids are, the kids are, think of this too. So I'm giving you so many visuals because this is what I, I'm a visual person. Me too. As a kid, my mom's saying, oh, I'm pregnant. And then this, her sister's saying, I am two. When are you due? Nine days apart.

[00:39:31] What was nine months prior to this November babies was Valentine's Day. Like, can you imagine your sister who's also your sister wife being like, I'm pregnant. Oh my God, I'm so happy for you. So my special. How long would he be gone at a time? So he would rotate. So when he had three wives, he would come to, he would go to the first wife's house, stay the night there, go to my mom's house, stay the night there, their best house, stay the night and then rotate. Unless there was a birthday, then he would, they would swap nights. Unless there was a trip.

[00:39:59] Unless my mom was mad at him throwing his clothes out on the lawn, which did happen. I think that my mom and a lot of women in the order do have to be in La La Land and like kind of fantasize about he's just on a work trip because you go insane. Yeah. It's not normal. And then the fact that there's that double standard of you can't step out on me, but I'm going to go ahead and step out on you. And I'm going to go look at my daughter's friends too and go forward on them, which going forward is when you have direction on a woman from God, you go forward and present yourself as

[00:40:27] a choice for marriage for them, which he did do to my sister's best friend. Well, one of her best friends who was only 17. And so we were, as a kid, I was like, oh, I'm so happy that we get to hang out with this family, especially because they were like one of the bad families. Cause they, it's a long, there's, there's so much lore in this, but I was like, why are we getting to hang out with them? Even though there's like a lot of shame around this family. I even got shamed for hanging out with this family. Come to find out that dad was, my dad was preying on the daughter, like trying to marry that one as his fourth wife.

[00:40:56] So it's like, not only does my mom have to deal with, he's sleeping with my sister and his own sister, but she's also dealing with his perverted eyes looking at, who is he looking at next? And this is not like the TV show Sister Wives where the houses are next to each other and they like have a shared backyard. They're in different parts of town. Right. Yeah. And, and honestly, if we all lived in one home, someone would have killed someone. Like, I think my mom would have pushed the other wives down the stairs. I think they would be physical. It's 30 kids though, right? Yeah. My dad has 32 kids now. Yeah.

[00:41:26] But it's definitely, I think the order's more, they try really hard to be invisible to society. So they'll have like one home here, one home there, one home there. And I think it benefits the leadership too, because there's like more properties too, for him to gobble up. They lied to the kids so that the kids would not tell like outsiders who the dad was and stuff. So my whole childhood, I thought that like, I didn't know who my dad was. And I asked him to his face and he was, I was like, are you my dad?

[00:41:53] Because I saw the first five kids calling him dad and they're my cousins. I thought they were just my cousins because they're my mom's sister's kids. Come to find out they're my siblings. But he, when I asked him to his face, he was like, no, I'm not your dad. So that, when I found out he was my dad, that created a very, I don't trust you. Like you fucking lied to me. Do you think that was the first sort of schism for you or the first? I think it was something I didn't realize that was planting a seed.

[00:42:21] Because even after I left, that's when I started to realize, okay, that's, the seeds were planted very young because this person who I was taught to trust my whole life and they do, they really idolized them and they put, they put them on this pedestal. So my mom would, when, cause he was gone all the time, she'd be like, your dad loves you. He gave you this gift for your birthday. I'm like, he doesn't even fucking remember my birthday. Like be so fucking for real. Even as a kid, I was like, uh, so they put him on this like pedestal, but you're also being lied to about him.

[00:42:49] So I think that that was something that I struggled with my entire childhood that I didn't even realize till after leaving, like how deep it was. But yeah, having a dad that lied to me and then having a mom that was helping life for him or like enabling him to be this. But then her also crying about her life and being shy. So many nights of her being like, just be a first wife, be a first wife. You do not want to be a second wife. I was like, bitch, I don't even want to be any of this.

[00:43:16] But like, if you think of it realistically though, which I had to do so many nights crying, praying to God, like, why did you make me? I thought God hated women. I'm like, I did something wrong in heaven before I came down here because you made me a woman in this. And this is like the dumbest shit ever that I have to do. And to think of my kids doing it was like, I would think about it realistically. And I was like, if I was a polygamous wife, I would be like, I'd way rather be like a 10th wife. Cause you know what you're walking into. The first wife has it worse in my opinion.

[00:43:45] Cause if you fall in love, there were some that just married him and was like, okay, get away from me, go get another wife. That's probably best case scenario. But there were some that I watched that fell in love. It was the first guy they were ever with because that's the standard, right? You first kiss, you save it till your wedding day. So they fall in love and they're infatuated. And then they watch him fall in love with someone else and someone else and someone else. And God forbid, like, who is that someone else?

[00:44:11] Your younger sister, you know, your niece, his niece, like nightmare. And also I'm like only cause I have the only thing I've seen in, on a portrayed in, you know, in Hollywood is sister wives, like the show. Yeah. Which I don't remember how far we got into it, but like, I hope this is. Is it called sister wives? Was it called? Oh no, big love. Sorry. I don't think I've seen that one. You should watch it. It's really interesting. It's about 15 years old. It's old now, but he, the way that it's set up is that it's like

[00:44:40] these three houses sort of side by side. And he kind of only comes in and out of one of them for the neighbor's point of view. But the homes in the back are kind of all joined. And, and I, and I hope. They're communal. They're communal, right? So he's, he's got these three wives and it's sort of like the interdynamics and interpersonal challenges between his three wives. And I joke about this and I hope this isn't offensive, but you know, you tell me, you've probably heard it all. But like when I hang out with one of my best friends and we're like, we have kids the same age and we're like cooking together, like if she's staying over,

[00:45:09] I'm like, I joke about how like, oh, sister wives. Sister wives, yeah. Like that's the benefit of like being here, the kids together and like sharing the, you know, sharing the housework in a fun way. Obviously not the sex part of it. Yeah. To be clear. That part is definitely the, the most traumatizing part. That's super traumatizing. Like who, who wants to sign up for it? I mean, maybe there's. Sharing the husband? Yeah. Sharing the husband. Like if, especially if you're in love with the husband, like that's so funny. That's why I think that it does make sense if there's no love. Right.

[00:45:36] And this is what's, I, it's just such a, it doesn't make any sense, any of it because the men want to be this idol, right? And they want to be so loved and appreciated. But if, if you're in love with someone, it's going to be hard. There's going to be jealousy, but then they teach don't be jealous. Right. That's just your issue. There was one specific family where the sister wives actually seemed like they really loved each other, but they put their relationship above the man. Like we, they would kind of make fun of the man and be like, go take care of the kids. Hey, we're going to go on a trip together. And they were also sisters.

[00:46:06] So they would kind of shit on him and then go on vacation together. They made the most of it. Right. And honestly, that's probably the best case scenario, but that that's still not equality. Right. And it's still like the women are supposed to be loyal and faithful. And the same thing, he gets to go look around and try to pray on the next and the next and the next. And I really liked Jessica. So Jessica was on Escape and Play Me With Me. She was one of the main girls. I looked up to her so much when I left. I'm so grateful she was in my life. It still is. And one of her points was when we were,

[00:46:36] I can't remember if we were fighting for like the HB99. There was like a law in Utah that we were, we've been to a lot of events together, but she said, because there was polygamists arguing their point. And then we were arguing our point. And she said, you guys say you're so happy. If you're so happy, then why do you keep looking? Why are you still looking right to this day? You're still looking for more and more and more. And it's so true. Like the, it's like the men are never, ever satisfied. Paul Kingston has 27 wives at least. Some of them are his own half-sisters. Some of them are his own nieces.

[00:47:05] There is no limit. And once, I think once you get to this like power and control, it's just hunger. You just, you're never satisfied. How did you put that together? Like what were some of the things that stacked up on the shelf for you to start to see that this was not for you? When did it start? What age? I think when I was conscious of it, 15. But like I said, with my dad lying to me, that was like a traumatizing memory. I remember I was like in the car, like, okay, so either this bitch is lying or like, and also like, who the fuck are you then?

[00:47:35] Why are you coming over my house every, every day then? Mom's brother. Um, so there's those little lies that happened that I was subconscious, like didn't know that those were putting planting seeds, but then I was conscious of it at 15 when I first started getting hormones. And I, cause before this I was, I would laugh with my friends in first grade and be like the sister wives thing. Like it just would be so, but serious. Like we could be such good sister wives. And I, I think I had direction on the same guy as you. Wouldn't that be awesome? And then once I got my hormones and I started actually liking someone and he liked me, I was like,

[00:48:05] hell no. I would rather go to hell than have to share him with someone. And also like to, even to add salt to the wind, what if it was my sister? I was close with my sisters and me and my older sister ended up pinky promising that we would never marry the same guy. Cause we saw it tear my mom and her sister apart. So 15 was when I was really starting to consider like the lifestyle and understand it. And then I was starting to run away a lot because I was like, I don't know.

[00:48:34] I don't know if I can do this. And I remember praying. One of the times I ran away, I ran away with this little boyfriend I had. He was not of the Kingston lineage. He was from Idaho, like the potato farms. And I honestly think that they put the less Kingston men on the farms away from us so that we couldn't interact with them. So we wouldn't marry them because we were saved for the Kingston men. Right. But I was running away with him. My dad did not like him. I think my dad ended up getting a restraining order on him. Even though he was a little kid too, we were like the same age,

[00:49:03] but I remember running away and I bought my little quad Bible, which has like the doctrine covenants in there too, like the Mormon stuff. And I was praying to God and I was like, if this isn't the true church, please just tell me. But if it is, I'll live polygamy. Like I'll do it all. If you can guarantee me that I'm going to get into heaven. But if this is a lie, I'm not wasting my life here. And I had such a weird experience. And I kind of hate telling this story because I don't know where, what I believe in now. But this is just what happened.

[00:49:33] After I was like crying, praying, like snot dripping out of my nose, like, please God, tell me what the answer is. I opened the Bible. Or my quad. And I can't remember what verse it is, but I remember it started with, there will be false prophets among you. And chills. I was like, that's my answer. God is watching. And to this day, I'm like, I don't know what that was. If like, if I believe in like an angel watching over me or if it just happened to be that, but that moment was like all I needed. And I was 15 and I was like,

[00:50:02] I do not know how I'm going to get out of this cult, but I'm going to get out. Did you call it a cult? When I was in it, I didn't ever use the word cult, which is fascinating, right? It's like when you're in it. It was bad. Yeah. And when people, when I was on Escaping Polygonian, people started to call it a cult. And they would even say, can you, can you phrase it as this? Like, and I would not want to phrase it the way they were phrasing it because I still didn't come to terms with it was a cult because it's all you ever knew. Right. I want to know about when you figured out it was a cult and how you got out,

[00:50:32] but let's save that for the next episode. So thank you so much for coming and telling your story. We'll be back next week with part two with our special guest, Amanda Mary Grant, and we'll find out how she got out, how she left and everything she's doing now and see you then. Bye. If you liked the show, please consider supporting us by giving us a rating, a review and subscribe on iTunes. Cults are commonplace now,

[00:51:00] and we're looking at them all and every little bit helps. Hit that subscribe button. So you don't miss an episode. Thanks everyone for listening. Come on back next week for part two of Amanda Ray.

[00:51:19] A little bit culty is a trace 120 production executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy aims in collaboration with amphibian media. Our co-creator is just temple. Tardy audio engineering by red Cayman studios,

[00:51:45] and our writing and research is done by Emma deal and Kristen reader. Our theme song cultivated is by the artists, John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.