Allison Mack, the former star of Smallville, has spoken out for the first time since her imprisonment, reflecting on her involvement with the NXIVM sex cult. She openly acknowledges using her celebrity status to manipulate others to fulfill her desires.

In 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy due to her participation in NXIVM. Now, she is sharing her experiences and life post-incarceration on the podcast Allison After NXIVM.

The podcast’s inaugural episode, which was released on November 10, revisits Mack’s sentencing in 2021, where she received a three-year prison term in federal court. During the episode, Mack emotionally recounts that day, expressing deep remorse for the impact her actions have had on her family.

“My poor brother and mother had to hear all of this about me,” she tearfully recalls. “I’m so sorry. I can handle it, but it’s devastating for them. I don’t see myself as innocent, but they were.”

Mack confessed to exploiting the fame she acquired from her nine seasons on Smallville to lure individuals into the cult led by Keith Raniere and to exert control over other women.

“I think that I capitalized on the things I had. And so the success I had as an actor, I think I did capitalize on that, yeah,” she told journalist Natalie Robehmed in the podcast. “And it was a power tool that I had to get people to do what I wanted… I think that I was very effective in moving Keith’s vision forward.”

Allison Mack Was Introduced to NXIVM By Smallville Costar

According to Mack, she was first introduced to NXIVM, a purported self-help group, through her Smallville costar and friend Kristin Kreuk at a time when she was feeling “unsatisfied” with her own life.

“‘It’s the science of joy. It’s the most amazing thing,’” she recalled Kreuk telling her. “‘It’s made everything so much better in my life. You’ve got to do this.’”

Macked added, “It was all she could talk about. She was super excited about it.”

After a weekend long course, Mack was intrigued and agreed to fly to Albany, New York to meet NXVIM leader Keith Raniere himself at one of his many midnight volleyball games. 

“I thought, ‘He’s an older, geeky dude.’ He looked like somebody that my dad did opera with when I was in Germany,” she recalled on the podcast. “He just looked like a normal white dude, and I mean, yes, he’s a total geek with his headband and his glasses and his volleyball thing, whatever.”

Yet, she admitted that she was moved to tears during that meeting when he told her that “art is a reflection of whoever you are and whatever you are inside” and soon found herself deeply entrenched in the group. 

Kreuk has not commented on Mack’s account, but said in a 2018 statement on Instagram that she was only involved in the “self help/personal growth” aspect of the group to tackle her shyness and left the organization sometime around 2013.

“The accusations that I was in the ‘inner circle’ or recruited women as ‘sex slaves’ are blatantly false,” she wrote. “During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity.” 

Allison Mack Calls Involvement With NXVIM Her “Biggest Mistake”

Meanwhile, Mack was accused by federal prosecutors of acting as Raniere’s top lieutenant, capitalizing on her acting success to recruit members and controlling other women known as her “slaves” in a female-only subset of the group, known as DOS. Women in the clandestine group were coerced into having sex with Raniere, branded with his initials and were forced to hand over damaging “collateral” to ensure their cooperation, prosecutors sald.  

Raniere was later sentenced to 120 years behind bars and ordered to pay $1.75 million in restitution fees after being convicted on a series of federal charges including racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.

After her own arrest, Mack publicly apologized for her role in the group, calling her involvement at the time“the biggest mistake” of her life.

“It is now of paramount importance to me to say, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry,” she said in a 2021 statement previously obtained by Oxygen. “I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Rainire (sic) with everything I had. I believed, whole-heartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself. I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and greatest regret of my life.”

Allison Mack and Husband Frank Meeink Bonded Over Prison Time

Mack—who was released early from prison in 2023 as a result of “good conduct”—has since tried to rebuild her life, marrying Frank Meeink earlier this year. 

Mack told Robehmed that she first met Meeink, a self-described former Neo-Nazi and one time member of a white supremacist gang, at a dog park in 2024. 

“The first thing I heard was he said, ‘Your dog has such pretty pink skin,’” Mack recalled of their initial meeting. “He has a very thick East Coast accent and so I immediately was like, ‘Are you from New York? ‘Cuz I love New York.’”

According to Mack, the two later bonded over their shared prison experiences and their desire to move away from their past. 

“He was like, ‘Oh, I’m a public speaker,’ and I was like, ‘What do you speak on?’ and he was like, ‘Oh, just like tolerance and de-radicalization and police reform,’” Mack shared. “And I was like, ‘No way. I have done time and I’m really passionate about prison reform. That’s crazy.’” 

Meeink has addressed his own experiences as a Neo-Nazi in the book, Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead. 

“From the work that I’ve done with former jihadists, former gangbangers, former neo-Nazis, I mean, I’ve worked in that world for a long time,” Meeink explained on the podcast. “People don’t understand what it’s like when you get stuck in something like that. And it’s the one thing that validates you. It’s hard to get out.”

Meeink’s openness about his own past, paved the way for Mack to share about her own experiences. 

“She wasn’t defending anything,” Meeink said in the podcast. “She was just like, ‘Here’s the deal. A bunch of women got branded. This is one of the reasons why I went to prison.’”

According to Meeink, Mack also admitted to once being in a “cult.”

“I just looked at her and said, ‘I’m a former neo-Nazi who used to kidnap people,’” he said. “‘Do you think I have any room to judge you?’”

The podcast promises to dive into the “gray zones of influence, accountability, and redemption” as Mack and others recount her time in the group through “raw interviews” and “revealing conversations.”