One Tree Hill alum Bethany Joy Lenz has praised her followers for the “heartwarming” response she obtained since sharing her fact about spending years in a cult whereas filming the hit teen drama.
“I have been pleasantly surprised,” she tells HELLO!, including: “It’s just always a scary thing to talk about and I think the biggest thing is not wanting you or your heart to be misunderstood, so it’s really lovely to hear that people are supportive and aren’t being judgmental, and that’s really heartwarming.”
Bethany made the cult revelations on her podcast Drama Queens – which the proficient multi-hyphenate hosts with former co-stars Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton – a number of months earlier than it was picked up on by the media, and has beforehand shared that Sophia and Hilarie each knew on the time of the present being on air that she was in an abusive surroundings.
But Bethany says they did not know she could be breaking her silence through the particular episode.
© Emily Assiran“Sophia laughed and she said something like, ‘I didn’t know if you were going to bring it up!,’ and we all just kind of laughed and [it was just part of] what I was saying about the episode we were watching so I just threw it in there,” the Hallmark star admits.
In the previous 12 months, Bethany has moved from Los Angeles, California to Nashville, Tennessee, rediscovered her religion, and damaged her silence on the years she spent trapped in a cult – it has been, she says, “cosmic divine timing” to start dwelling and talking her fact.
As nicely because the podcast, the 42-12 months-outdated is releasing new music, and her single ‘Strawberries,’ launched on Friday August 18, is a enjoyable nation track about jealousy and the way comparability is the thief of pleasure.
© Emily Assiran“It’s the first song I wrote when I landed in Nashville and I wanted to write something that felt really raw and authentically me, that dropped into the playfulness and excitement that I was feeling about being here in Nashville,” Bethany shares.
“The song itself was born out of a quick moment with a girlfriend, when I was looking at her skinny little ankle and got jealous, then I was just imagining another things [to be jealous of] and began playing with the idea of comparison and boosting ourselves up and then just being happy at the end of the day with what we have.”
Bethany, who starred as Haley Scott in One Tree Hill between 2003 and 202, can also be a mother to 12-12 months-outdated daughter Maria, and she or he acknowledges that though in her songwriting she does not got down to affect, she deliberately lives her life in a approach to be an excellent function mannequin for the tween.
“When I am posting on Instagram or if I’m talking with a friend at my house, then I always try to lead by example and conduct myself in a way that I would be okay with her acting like at some point,” says Bethany. “I don’t want her to hear me gossiping about someone because I don’t want her to gossip. I just think, ‘What kind of a person do you want to be?’ And let’s just try and live that out, as practically as we can.”
Moving to Music City has additionally opened up a brand new lifestyle, one that’s slower and extra targeted on group, and that’s additionally impacting her songwriting; Bethany has been working with Jeffrey Trott on new songs, and just lately performed on the iconic Bluebird Cafe.
© Clementine WeldAs an artist, her songwriting will all the time be impressed by her life, and there “have been songs and stories and things that I’ve written just out of the need to process [the trauma],” praising the apply of journaling as a beneficial software for serving to her to interrupt down her personal perception methods.
One of these methods was her non secular religion. When Bethany moved to a brand new state in her early 20s, she joined a brand new church and a Wednesday evening Bible research that she says was quickly being led by “sociopath,” beforehand admitting that she was “very committed to my faith and just got some really bad advice.”
© The WBThe transfer away from Los Angeles has helped, nonetheless, with the singer revealing that it’s the slower Southern lifestyle that has given her the possibility to search out group once more and construct belief.
“It probably could have happened in a dozen other places because anywhere, anytime you force yourself to get into a space where you’re slowing down, you’re going to have more opportunity,” she says.
“But I’ve found so many wonderful friends here because Nashville is less transient so there’s a sense of settlement,” she says. “Plus, because of the trauma that I’ve experienced with friendships, to be able to find people that I really trust and where I can trust my gut on them has brought me much closer to an understanding of God’s love.”
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