'Smallville' actor Allison Mack details role in NXIVM sex cult in first interview since prison release

Allison Mack, the "Smallville" star who pleaded guilty to her role in the sex trafficking case linked to NXIVM, has admitted she used her fame as a "power tool" in her first public comments since leaving federal prison two years ago.

Allison Mack, the "Smallville" star who pleaded guilty to her role in the sex trafficking case linked to NXIVM, has admitted she used her fame as a "power tool" in her first public comments since leaving federal prison two years ago.

In a new seven-part podcast produced by CBC’s Uncover, "Allison After NXIVM," Mack chronicles her journey from child actor to top lieutenant in NXIVM, a purported self-help group in upstate New York led by Keither Raniere that prosecutors said was a sex-cult pyramid scheme that enslaved and branded women.

Mack, 43, was sentenced in July 2021 to three years in prison for her role in the group after pleading guilty to several crimes, including extortion and forced labor. She was released early from a federal prison in California in July 2023.

"I think that I capitalized on the things I had," Mack said in one episode about using her celebrity to recruit women into NXIVM. "And so the success I had as an actor, I think I did capitalize on that, yeah. And it was a power tool that I had to get people to do what I wanted."

At Raniere’s trial, former NXIVM members described how he established a secret sorority within NXIVM called DOS, in which women described as "slaves" were kept on near-starvation diets, branded with his and Mack’s initials, and ordered to have sex with him.