[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
- 21 minutes after the hour of 8:00.
This is the Sunday night
Hall of Fame Special Edition tonight,
as we play some of the greatest hits of Christmas.
- ♪ Dreaming of a white Christmas ♪
- I've got a whole thing here with our Christmas cards.
My mother took great pride in our Christmas cards.
At Christmas, you got to have heart, you know?
Every year there'd be a photo,
and then there would also be a newsletter.
This is 1974.
My mother writes, "John, age 12, 7th grade.
"This fall he has thrown several boy-girl parties
"in our game room, which have been quite successful.
He's very careful how he combs his hair and dresses."
[laughs] Yep, that was me.
But this was Christmas 1987.
And that's the last time I went home for Christmas.
My mother writes, "John lives in Manhattan
"but seems to spend most of his time in Europe.
"We see him in pictures, but we're saddened
to report he has broken off all family contacts."
The next year-- "Still no word from John,
"except what we see in the magazines,
but we keep loving and praying for him."
And this one--it was a card that I had never seen,
because at that point,
I had broken off contact with my family.
You know, they got returned.
And this one--it says, "Because I'm your mother."
"You're going to be 28 years old.
"We have hardly seen you for years.
"We may not have been the perfect parents,
"but at least you know we loved you.
And we don't want to die without ever seeing you again."
[sniffles]
[groans]
[sighs, sniffles]
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- In 1990,
when the "Vanity Fair" article came out,
we found this exit counselor to...
help set up an intervention.
- My older brother, Rory, had contacted me
and said, hey, let's have a boys' weekend
up in Newport, Rhode Island.
It was definitely not something
I would have normally done,
but, you know, Rory--he had always kind of been
in my corner, so I trusted him.
[dramatic music]
- The exit counselors had explained
that people attempt the intervention,
and it drives the person away.
You got one shot to make it work.
- Spent the first day sailing--
all these sort of things we would do on Nantucket.
But the next day, we're at breakfast,
we're having a good old time,
and all of a sudden, these three guys...
come in.
I just remember feeling like,
okay, what the fuck's going on?
- We said to John, hey, we're concerned about you,
and these counselors are here to help you.
- All of a sudden, my peripheral vision left,
and everything just got very, very small.
I just felt like a trapped animal.
But we went back to the hotel room and talked,
I think, for, like, 12 hours.
- And we thought we made pretty good progress.
So everyone went to bed, and we were gonna continue
the discussion the next morning.
Then we got woken up at, like, 4:00.
John's gone.
We took off to the airport, and sure enough,
over in the corner, hidden, John was there,
waiting for this flight.
So now we go into it, you know, with a full press.
This is your life. This is your family.
You need to leave that other group alone.
And then they call for the plane.
You know, again, we tell him, hey, don't go, don't go.
- But the sense of betrayal was so intense,
I just turned and left.
♪ ♪
And they looked at each other, and they said, you know...
I don't think we're ever gonna see him again.
That's not the way you hope an intervention goes.
♪ ♪
- WBAB with Frederick Von Mierers,
and let us break now briefly, give Frederick's voice a rest.
- It's a little bit low
because I've had too much work to do.
- Ah, don't say a word. You've got to rest your voice.
- I've been talking to you. - I know.
- No one ever knew the full story,
but Frederick had gotten weak, and he started to lose weight.
- We were thinking, he's just got this inner-ear infection,
this weakness that was in there returning.
He had the night sweats.
He's not doing well, losing weight.
I'm thinking something's wrong.
I knew Frederick had many partners.
That was his prerogative.
But I said, I think we should get HIV tests.
♪ ♪
I tested negative...
but he wouldn't acknowledge
that he tested positive.
I was absolutely terrified.
But do I really need to tell the world?
No. No, I wouldn't. I didn't.
We kept the whole thing secret.
But Frederick was still wanting to have
casual sexual encounters.
- Wait, did you believe he was having sex with people
while he was HIV-positive?
- I think so, but I wasn't really seeing it directly.
And at the same time, I'm thinking, this is insane.
I was afraid,
but I decided it was absolutely necessary
to confront him.
So I said to him, Frederick, I'll stay with you
all the way through this.
But, you know, you got to let me know,
are you really thinking clearly?
But that really pissed him off.
And then he cracked me over the head with a plate.
[plate shatters]
He's hitting me in the face, and I'm getting a bloody nose.
And he's like, you stupid fucking cunt,
get the fuck out of here.
I'm thinking, perhaps he's tricking me.
I promised I'd stay with him to the end.
- Paul Hinton.
- I'm the one person who knows Frederick's really not well.
Shouldn't I help him?
But there was a certain look in his eyes.
It wasn't human, and it wasn't Frederick.
♪ ♪
- I'm surprised Paul didn't break his skull.
Paul went to the local precinct,
but he didn't want to push the matter any more
because he was afraid
that it would go poorly for him.
- My fear was that Frederick
would then turn my decision to leave against me.
What if Frederick could blame all of us for things?
Hmm, after all, I've done X, Y, and Z--
running errands and cash
and doing the gemstones off the books,
3/4 of a million in sales.
You know, well, let's spit it out--
half a pound of psilocybin mushrooms in the freezer
and different things.
So, if anybody does snitch or you get into trouble,
you're screwed.
But when I left, I thought to myself,
I'll be quiet and silent.
It was very difficult for me to leave,
because I second-guessed myself for the rest of my life.
♪ ♪
Well, I ended up joining the military.
I joined the U.S. Army.
25 years old, and I had to, you know, regroup.
♪ ♪
- Around that time,
Frederick's body started deteriorating pretty quickly.
His immune system couldn't handle whatever was going on.
- As Frederick started to get sicker and sicker,
I thought, oh, he just needs to get down to North Carolina.
He'll bounce back, and everything will be fine.
- I personally drove Frederick
from our apartment in New York City to Lake Lure.
He was in bed 24-7,
to the point where we had to roll him over
'cause he started getting bed sores.
- We didn't know he was dying of AIDS.
We thought it was this staph infection.
He didn't tell any of us.
And, ultimately,
as Frederick's health continued to wane,
the primary caretaker was a guy who was in Eternal Values--
this guy, David Seaman.
- With us today, we have Dr. David Seaman.
- The idea behind chiropractic is to balance
the body's structural system.
- When David got involved with the group,
he was a chiropractor.
- Frederick was starting to have certain physical issues,
and David would use his chiropractic
and, you know, treat him.
And then he kind of became the in-house chiropractor,
where we'd all get adjustments here and there from him.
- But I never had a really good feeling about him.
Frederick would say, in a past life,
David Seaman chopped Frederick's head off
and that the reason why David was here
was to work out the karma.
- Did you come here from another planet as well
or another solar system?
- I did. - You did.
- But the point is, that's not important.
- As Frederick got sicker,
there's now a power struggle.
David was the one trying to grab power,
and there's another guy named Fritz.
Fritz was a senior executive
for German television in their New York office.
He and Freddy were the same age.
And he was second in command.
He'd hold court, and he would act
as the de facto vice president, so to speak.
And...
yeah.
♪ ♪
- Time-out? - Yeah, I need time.
- Okay. - Yeah, fuck.
- I was in Reno, Nevada,
doing a job for "GQ" when I got the phone call.
Frederick was on his last legs,
and I needed to come back and basically see him
and say my goodbye.
I was in complete denial about the fact
that he was on death's door.
♪ ♪
- Fritz and David started taking over
and exerting their control.
I mean, Frederick was a living skeleton at that point.
♪ ♪
- It was not easy to even look at Frederick.
I was given this little vial of--
They said it was water--
you know, with a little dropper.
And they said, you know, he's struggling.
You know, just give him drops when you think it's necessary.
Keep him hydrated.
But later, David Seaman divulged to us
that what we were all giving him
was actually some form of morphine or some sort of thing
to try to accelerate his death.
But none of us were told that at the time.
- It was, like, poison in those bottles
and that we were actually giving him poison...
while we were supposedly just wetting his lips.
- And then we were sitting in the kitchen.
Fritz walks in
with a very, very somber face and just says, you know...
Frederick's passed.
I really just went numb.
I didn't know what to think. I couldn't believe it.
In his own ephemeris,
Frederick marked the dates
between January 28th and February 9th of 1990
and wrote "end of life."
And he died on February 4th,
so it was right in that window.
I mean, make of it what you will.
♪ ♪
- Realize that this Earth is only a way station.
As you die, you slowly shift into the next octave
of vibration.
The places to which you go--
and this is very important-- are determined by your life.
This is why many people, before they die,
see their entire life flash before their eyes.
♪ ♪
- Do you remember the last interaction you had
with Frederick when he was lucid?
- [voice breaking] I told him I loved him.
That's the last thing I remember.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- Do you remember his reaction?
- He smiled.
He wasn't talking at that point.
♪ ♪
- We found out later that when Frederick passed away,
David Seaman and Fritz Diekmann
were in the room,
and David said Fritz put the pillow over Frederick's head
just to end his life.
♪ ♪
And when we confronted Fritz, he admitted that.
But there was discussion amongst us
that it was kind of a mercy killing.
Fritz--you could see, it was not something
that he wanted to do.
It wasn't something that was easy for him to do.
And I actually felt some compassion for him.
- Well, ladies and gentlemen,
that's a great deal to think about--ascended masters,
space people, and resurrected beings.
Good night with another platform of the Eternal Values.
- Within hours of Frederick passing,
Fritz would come over to people
who were huddled up in twos or threes,
and we were trying to laugh and remember our good times
with Frederick.
He would say, don't do that.
Frederick died. We've got to move on.
And he was just very abrupt and cold about it all.
Like, Frederick's out of here,
and now that whole life is over.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Initially, David tried to get Frederick cremated,
but before that could happen,
we had to get an autopsy done.
And that's when, supposedly,
it was diagnosed that he had the AIDS virus.
- Once it went public that he had AIDS,
the mercy killing certainly wasn't something
that we were gonna talk about.
So it kind of became one of these secrets within the group
that we all knew but certainly you wouldn't go public with.
♪ ♪
After that, we had to completely reconfigure
Eternal Values.
And that was the point when Fritz took over.
But he didn't have any of the savvy or personality
that Freddy had.
And within six months, the rest of our group--
we kind of started to push back on him,
and we had this kind of a mutiny.
♪ ♪
- We went back to New York City,
and they locked him in his apartment,
and they wouldn't let him leave.
This was, like, for two or three days.
They told him that he had to leave,
and they got him to sign over his ownership
of the Eternal Values assets.
And he left.
- And through that fracture, the group kind of split.
Some people aligned with Fritz,
and some people aligned with our side.
I temporarily was in a leadership position
for about a month or two,
where we were like, okay, what do we do next?
But to really maintain...
a leadership position at Eternal Values,
you had to be willing to put other people down,
confront them.
And that is not, fortunately, the way I'm wired.
And so I was quickly demoted.
- At this point, what are you thinking about
in terms of the group?
- [scoffs] I'm thinking, things are pretty fucked up.
- Was it recognizable from what it was before?
- Not to me.
♪ ♪
There were a couple individuals
that I felt that had no interest
in any spiritual growth at all
but were there only for their self-gratification.
Something inside of me, you know, said, this is wrong.
You have to get out.
But when I told them that I was leaving the group,
they tied me to a chair
and started grilling me for a day and a half.
Frederick wouldn't want you to do this.
You're not following your path.
- Were you awake the whole time?
- [voice breaking] I don't remember ever going to sleep.
But they thought I might be leaving
with Frederick's gems and things like that.
So, before I walked out the door,
they stripped me down to my underwear
and let me walk out the door in my underwear
with a bag of clothes.
So that's how I left the group.
♪ ♪
- At that time, the district attorney's office
was investigating and pursuing this,
to bring it to court.
- Frederick was in the middle
of a multimillion-dollar gem ring.
- But I was told that although there was a money trail,
because Frederick had passed away,
the case that they thought they could bring to court
was no longer sufficient, and they dropped the case.
♪ ♪
But once Frederick died, I really thought
that the group would lose its momentum.
That would be the end of it.
So it was very surprising to me
that it continued so much longer.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- After Frederick died,
most of the crew moved down to North Carolina.
You know, Freddy's gone. Fritz is gone.
No one's got the space people on speed dial,
so we've got to figure out how to survive
the coming apocalypse, and how are we gonna do that?
This is written on this stationery,
where I was in London.
"Frederick told us repeatedly that we have an opportunity
"to do something in our lifetime
"that hasn't been done before.
"Exactly what that is, none of us is sure,
"but we know that it is meant to be achieved by us
"by staying together, working together,
"and caring for each other.
"The only real means of survival in the future
"will be through communal living,
"and we all know how critical Freddy said that this would be.
"Therefore, we are free individuals
joined together in a common cause--self-realization."
The North Carolina lifestyle was,
everyone lived at the lake house.
There were, like, six bedrooms.
But each room had two twin beds.
You had zero privacy,
but we'd been doing such communal lifestyle for so long,
it wasn't something that felt weird anymore.
That was just the way we lived.
- In North Carolina, it was much more grounded
in the day-to-day life.
But when Frederick was alive, for all the insanity,
there was always an undercurrent
of a spiritual purpose.
- Love everything unconditionally,
and you become part of God's higher cocktail party on Earth.
- Frederick always had that kind of ethereal,
tonal music playing.
You were transported out of New York City...
[exhales sharply] Into this oasis.
But I remember one morning in North Carolina,
David got a boombox
and a copy of the song "Mandolin Rain."
- ♪ The song came and went... ♪
- And he played that fucking song, I swear to you,
for a week on repeat.
And it was like, can you please turn that fucking song off?
And then it would start--
♪ Listen to the mandolin rain ♪
- ♪ Listen to the music on the lake ♪
♪ Oh, listen to my heartbreak ♪
♪ Every time... ♪
- It was a different vibe.
The core group had gotten down to ten people.
There were no women around.
And so we're aware that we're different,
that we hold some very strange beliefs.
- Dr. David Seaman. The life of a chiropractor--
- We decided to not promote ourselves as Eternal Values,
'cause that name had been quite soiled.
And that kind of started a whole new era for us.
- And they were gonna start
some kind of construction company
to give a look of normalcy.
- At that time, I knew they had this office
called the Lotus Group.
They were very professional, very polite.
And I'm like, well, people are saying y'all are aliens.
You know, I mean, come on.
There was certainly nothing scary or dangerous...
to me.
- The locals called us bead-wearing,
homosexual stargazers.
So it was decided that it would be a good idea
for some of the guys to have girlfriends.
And one of the guys was with Meg.
- It was just this instant chemistry.
I mean, it was just boom.
I was so madly in love.
You could have told me anything about them,
and I wouldn't have believed it, you know.
I just wouldn't have believed it.
♪ ♪
- I was in North Carolina.
It was almost through happenstance
that I ended up here, ended up getting a job here.
And after about a year or so,
I started to see these familiar faces.
But I was consciously healing myself from this experience
and was quite content not knowing anything about them.
And then I found out a woman in the arts community
got involved with the Lotus Group.
- Elissa came in my office one day,
and she said, I know these guys from New York.
I've had dealings with them.
Do you have any idea who these people are?
They're not who they appear to be.
You don't want anything to do with them.
Just steer clear.
- I looked at her, and I said, just be careful.
And she cut me off.
She didn't want to hear that.
She wanted to hear how wonderful it was.
- At the time, I just--
I guess, I just attributed it to small-town gossip
and that sort of thing.
I mean, to me, we're all friends.
We're working together on these projects.
We were just like a family.
- I still was modeling full-time and traveling a lot.
So, when the E! Channel was doing a special
on male models,
I suggested they come down to North Carolina
and see this life I had.
Hey, come on in. This is the Lotus Group.
Our office is down here in North Carolina.
- We thought, he's getting press,
and he's getting a whole segment.
This could be good PR for everyone in the group.
- You're watching E!, the entertainment authority.
I've always wanted to do-- [laughing]
- Basically, the general note was,
don't be a weirdo.
But the whole thing was staged and fake.
- One of the great things about working here at Lotus Group is,
you're greeted every day by our lovely Blair.
- I mean, they'd hired a woman
to be the receptionist.
She was not a part of the group.
I don't think Hoyt spent seconds in his life
before that shot...
talking to Blair.
- She takes care of all the phones down here.
She's a lovely lady.
- And we had this awkward dinner,
where, for some reason,
I've got a fucking suit and tie on.
I remember looking over at Hoyt, like, seriously?
When's the last fucking time we sat down
and ate dinner at the table?
[indistinct chatter]
- He's reportedly the highest-paid male model
in the world, but after nearly a decade in the business,
success has not gone to Hoyt Richard's head.
- The E! TV show--we didn't see the finished edit
until it went live on the air.
- When Hoyt's not working, he's here,
among the calm and quiet
of the North Carolina mountains.
- E! Made it all about Hoyt.
- Hoyt also manages a construction company.
- Hoyt's got these businesses,
and he's employing his friends.
That created tension amongst all of us
in the group...
- Well, we won't bother you too much longer.
But Dave's the authority on all this stuff.
- Because you had to remain humble.
You know, he's getting a big head.
- In that group context, I was always on eggshells,
like a lot of us were.
We became like a more dysfunctional family
that was kind of holding out for the apocalypse.
This is our production office.
You know, in many ways, when Frederick was alive,
he definitely...
kind of spoiled me to some degree,
and that built up a lot of resentment
in some of the other members.
♪ ♪
- The irony of it is, he's still funding shit.
He would be gone on the road.
Caribbean island one week, next week he's in Sweden.
The next week he's in Los Angeles.
- When I was on the road,
there were friends and relationships I was developing
outside the group.
And I met a woman named Donna in L.A.
She was a beautiful brunette,
and I was very intrigued by her.
And so we just started to see each other,
and it was very kind of sporadic.
I was traveling so much,
and I could only see her maybe once--
even sometimes once every two months.
But I had developed these real feelings for her,
and I realized that these things
that had been so demonized over the years,
this idea of romantic love--
I'm like, it doesn't feel so bad.
I'm like, I really feel like she's in my corner,
and she cares about me.
And that relationship with Donna was something
that started to unlock my heart in a way that I never expected.
But I did it covertly.
No one in the group knew about that.
[spacey music]
- In the year 1999, the magnetic poles will shift,
and humanity will be decimated.
- In 1999, the group was getting smaller.
And for the remaining members--
everyone was very reliant on each other to survive.
Here it is.
These were some of the notes I wrote.
"Operation: Safe Place."
- There was a lot of talk after Frederick died
about the pole shift.
- 1/10 of 1% of the population will be saved.
- That's how the plan started to get rolling.
- We needed to start stockpiling food
and be able to live off the grid.
- They believed that there was gonna be
some major earth-changing,
catastrophic world event
and that Lake Lure
was one of the safe places.
They owned some property way up on the mountain
that had caves.
And that's where everyone was gonna go.
- How was it gonna happen?
Was the timeline right?
And then the conversation began to turn
towards guns.
[gunshot]
- We learned how to shoot guns.
- I had a shotgun, and I had a .45.
- It was just-- accumulate and provide
the best defense for the future.
- And it just devolved into this quickly.
[dramatic music]
- Oh, yeah, they had quite an arsenal.
They had stockpiled storage units
just chock-full of all the survival stuff,
to be safe until the world settled back down,
and then they would come in and help everyone
and save everyone.
♪ ♪
So I was the only girl that was left.
And my boyfriend sat me down one night and asked me,
we're all gonna be together to survive.
It would only be fair if you were willing to have sex
with the other guys,
and who would you be willing to have sex with?
And I remember just being so...
absolutely shocked and appalled.
And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
And I wouldn't give him any names.
And he was getting angry with me.
And I was like, no, I would never consider it.
- There at the end, we thought we needed women
to help repopulate the planet
and raise enlightened beings.
It's like a bad sci-fi script.
♪ ♪
- As the millennium was approaching,
there were gonna be all these Earth changes,
like tidal waves and hurricanes.
We were starting to buy gold and silver
'cause that was gonna be
the only tangible money source.
Meanwhile, I'm, like, flying to London for a gig,
and I'm like, economies aren't collapsing...
[chuckles] No tidal waves, no earthquakes.
It all sounds ludicrous,
but part of my critical thinking
started to come back.
And that's when I started to approach the group
with the idea--
you know, you guys are here in North Carolina.
You're kind of in a bubble.
I'm telling you, nothing's happening out there.
And so I got attacked for that.
And in that same conversation--
I thought it couldn't get any worse--
I'm like, oh, and by the way, I've been seeing someone.
All hell broke loose.
What do you mean you're seeing someone?
♪ ♪
At that point, they just said, you got to break up with her.
You're being selfish, and you're being unfair to her.
You know, what are you doing?
And they painted it like,
you're just being a motherfucker to this girl.
She has no idea what you're involved with.
And, you know, I told Donna,
I thought I wanted to be in this relationship,
but I've decided I don't.
And it was incredibly harsh and severe.
And treating her that way really did not...
[somber music]
[voice breaking] Did not sit well with me.
And that started this whole period where they're like,
okay, we got to save Hoyt from himself.
He's clearly losing his mind. He can't survive out there.
We've got to bring him back here to North Carolina.
We have to watch him under lock and key.
- They were having him do
every menial job possible
to teach him humility.
- You know, I had to be the first one up,
the last one to bed.
I was doing all the kind of shit work
that no one else wanted to do.
- I got a call saying, you know,
come over to the lake house.
John was in serious trouble.
And I walked into the kitchen,
and John was sitting there, very submissive,
sitting at the kitchen table, and his whole head was shaved.
I mean, he was bald.
And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know,
what happened to your head?
And they were like, yeah, tell Meg about what happened.
- The guys had instructed me
that I was gonna have to move to North Carolina
and give up my career.
I knew, like, in my heart, I'm not ready to do this.
But they said, just so you have no temptation
to even think about leaving here,
we're gonna shave your head so that you can't model anymore.
[dramatic music]
I remember, you know, looking in the mirror,
and I kept thinking to myself,
If I had hair, I could actually probably, like, be
in Milan right now...
or Paris, you know, with, like, Claudia Schiffer
or Cindy Crawford, making 25 G's a day.
I guess I'm not spiritual, 'cause I'd rather be there.
I became, as they called it, the bald hausfrau.
I interpreted it as, like, it's my own fault.
If I would just pull my head out of my ass
and be more like them,
I wouldn't have to go through this.
But because I'm somehow flawed
and because there's something wrong with me,
I just feel like they're never gonna give up.
I was like, I don't think I'm ever gonna measure up
to what they're asking me to be.
I just got to the point where I'm like,
I just can't take this.
And so I mapped out a plan to just escape,
and I went to the airport and left.
I got to New York.
I was putting my things together.
I was gonna be there one night before I left.
And sure enough, man, they appeared at that door
in New York City.
♪ ♪
I remember one of the guys sat in the doorway
to make sure that in the middle of the night,
I couldn't leave.
And so I was sleeping by the window...
[voice breaking] And I thought about jumping.
[swallows hard]
But I didn't.
And they brought me back to North Carolina.
And I lasted, I think, three, four more weeks.
And I was like, this time I'm not getting caught.
No fucking way, man.
♪ ♪
It was actually the weekend of July 4th.
And when I left, I constructed a letter to leave
for the guys in North Carolina to alert them,
to kind of say, I've gone.
"It's official, I quit.
"Everything you've ever said about me is true.
"I'm hopeless and totally selfish.
"I'm the laziest person in the room.
"I've wasted my life.
"I deserve to spend the rest of my life with the trash,
"just like myself.
"David, you've always said, at this time,
"when everything is falling apart,
"people's true colors will be shown.
"I cringe to think of the penalty that I will pay.
"It was not bad enough to betray Frederick
"and all he stood for, but now all of you.
"As I've said many times,
"you're the only real friends I've ever had.
You will never see me again."
Signed, Dipshit."
♪ ♪
So I had organized a call to a cab--
meet me at 2:30 in the morning,
hoping that at that point, everyone would be asleep.
We had two German shepherds,
so I had to creep and stay quiet,
keep the dogs calm.
And we had a gravel driveway
about a mile and a half down the hill
through forest.
But when I felt like I was out of earshot,
I just fucking bolted.
♪ ♪
And I was gone.
Yeah, and that time, I never came back.
♪ ♪
- I remember asking one of the guys, where's John?
I haven't seen him around.
Or has he gone back to New York?
And he said, yeah, he's left, he's gone.
And I was not to talk about John.
I was not to ask about him.
- I left. I went to California.
I put as much land between me and them.
I had about $3,000, but I didn't know where to go.
- I remember Hoyt-- he called me,
and he told me, you know, he was really in bad shape.
He was really beat up.
I mean, his brain went blank.
He was, like, a straight line,
morally, spiritually--
just like a zombie.
And I said, listen, you know,
you can stay here until, you know, you figure out
what you want to do in your life.
You can stay in my place
so you don't have to worry about bills.
- Fabio is incredibly loyal.
It's like, you're his friend, you're his friend for life.
I don't know if he just knew instinctively
or whether he had so much going on in his own career.
But at the time, he played it off like, you know, nothing.
Come stay. You know, let's go to the gym.
No questions asked.
Didn't even ask me why my head was shaved.
I made up some story about some extreme modeling job.
- Hoyt was being an extremely successful model
and, all of a sudden, was left with no money, nothing.
These people-- they were like piranhas.
I mean, they left him with nothing.
♪ ♪
- Being at Fabio's...
just gave me a place to incubate
and start to process some of my feelings.
I was still contemplating, maybe I should return.
- Hoyt was very honest and very open about it.
And I knew that they will come.
Eventually life will slap you in the face,
and you realize, oh, my God, you know,
it's like, I've been taken for a ride.
I told him, I said, listen,
what people do most of the time in life?
They always blame somebody else.
It takes two to tangle in life.
He got sucked in...
but he was smart enough to get out
and realize, I made a big mistake.
You know what? What I gonna do now?
♪ ♪
- After about a year, I went to meet a friend
at a lunch place in Beverly Hills...
and the maître d' there recognized me.
And he said, are you Hoyt Richards?
And I said, yeah, yeah.
And he's like, I'm friends with Dar.
And I didn't really know how to respond.
So I said, please tell Dar
I'm living in L.A. and I'm alone.
And I'm like, God, I hope he gets the message, man,
and I hope he knows what I'm saying.
And three weeks go by,
and I get this phone call I don't recognize.
Hey, Hoyter, it's Dar. I'm like, hey, Dar.
He's like, yeah, I'm calling from my therapist's office.
[laughing] My therapist said I should call you.
- When we finally ended up meeting,
I told him, no more North Carolina for me.
I began to explain--
in North Carolina, just before I left,
I was in a bar and having a good time.
But when I got into the car... [imitates siren wailing]
We had a loaded assault rifle in the car,
and we didn't pull over.
We drove down the driveway into the lake house and parked.
I jump out of the car.
This guy had called for backup.
And I got tackled from behind.
- I mean, it was Highway Patrol,
sheriffs, police, siren, lights everywhere.
And the guys were screaming and yelling,
don't tell them your name.
Don't tell them your name.
They don't have to have any information.
- After we got out on bail,
we filed this paperwork, which I wasn't even really clear on,
but it was the same type of paperwork
that these militiamen and the guy at Ruby Ridge
had filled out,
telling the government, you don't have any power over us.
We're sovereign people.
But we really pissed off the entire state.
And they let the lawyers
and they let the private investigators know
that we were considered anti-government terrorists.
♪ ♪
After that happened, I woke up,
and I thought to myself, fuck this.
And I called up my folks,
and that was my out from the group.
And I was scared to death when I did it.
[plane engine roaring]
- Dar and I ended up becoming roommates,
and we spent the first six months
just trying to deconstruct the whole Eternal Values experience
as best as we could.
Like, hey, man, do you remember when this happened?
What do you think was going on there?
Like, that was weird, right? Like, what was that?
- We really started to reverse engineer
what had happened.
We start to revisit things
that had been said by Frederick.
- As we've said before and we wish to emphasize again,
these platforms are to bring knowledge
to the general public to prevent...
the spread of cults through information,
instead of fear and guilt and superstition.
You cannot stop cults
through fear and guilt and superstition,
only through radiant, glowing, shining universal knowledge.
Anyone who has you bow or worship them
as a physical form
is an instrument
of the most dark and diabolical forces on the Earth.
- You know, people have been saying for years
this thing's a cult.
You think maybe there's some chance it could have been?
- My head just... [imitates explosion]
And I couldn't even hear what Hoyt said for a good minute.
- I'm against cults.
Don't anybody try to tell me that I am a cult.
- I said, do you know much about cults?
And he's like, well, no, no.
I'm like, well, neither do I. I don't think it was a cult.
Let me just try to do a little bit of research.
And the best-selling book was this book called
"Combating Cult Mind Control."
- Mind control exists.
Intelligent, bright people can be deceived...
- Steve Hassan, who's a former Moonie...
- Indoctrinated into committing
horrendous acts.
- I thought to myself, that's definitely a cult.
- But I got the book.
The first 60, maybe 70 pages
was how he had been indoctrinated.
Boy, you could have just changed the names,
and it was my story, and I'm like...
- That was a seminal moment in my life.
And I needed that like I needed oxygen.
And even if it hurt and it was painful,
I needed that.
- I made a few phone calls down to North Carolina.
Like, you're all in a fucking cult.
You're brainwashed.
And I knew it was all falling on deaf ears,
but, man, it felt good.
- John reached out to me,
and he said, Meg, it's a cult.
It's always been a cult.
And I remember my boyfriend kept saying, it's not a cult,
you fucking blah, blah, blah.
And he's calling me every name in the book,
and he's screaming at me.
And, of course, I mean, I was hysterical.
I am shaking, and I'm thinking, can I get out of here now?
Well, I had my dad's pistol,
and I shot the gun off in the ceiling.
And the second I did that, I was like, holy crap.
You know, it's just shock.
♪ ♪
- When things went south with Meg
is when my wife and I became involved,
and then you could see the dark side of...
of Eternal Value members.
And they were certainly threatening to Meg.
♪ ♪
- I just--I couldn't. I was done.
I was terrified.
So I packed up, and I moved home.
♪ ♪
- At that time, I was virtually broke,
but I always had in the back of my mind,
I have a cushion 'cause I've got these gems
that I've probably paid close to $200,000 for.
I got them all evaluated,
and out of the six or seven gems,
I think they were worth $11,000 total.
And that's when I realized
that I had been taken.
All the guys in North Carolina were still living in a house
I helped pay for.
They had businesses that I had financed.
I got really angry,
and I ended up suing the remaining members.
You know, I'm gonna be litigating
against the individuals that are left,
because not only--it's not really even the money.
It's the issue of what they're doing and what they stand for.
I mean, I--
I didn't know how it was gonna end up,
but, you know, my lawyer's like, you know,
this might be a real battle.
- He was hell-bent on getting his money back,
'cause the guys in North Carolina
were trying to sell the lake house.
They're just trying to sell off everything.
- We had 36 corporations,
which is one of the most damning things.
It just shows that, you know, something funky's going on.
We just went after them, and it led to a mediation.
- John Hoyt reached out to me,
and he said, I'm suing everybody,
and I'm trying to get this money.
Can you help me?
And I think he wanted me around
because he knew that I was the accountant back then.
For me doing that, he said,
I'll give you $10,000,
you know, once everything is settled.
So John and I drove to the lake house.
This is the first time I'd seen the lake house
in 13 years or so.
- At that point, I think there were about five of them.
And we were having this whole talk,
and they're just lying out of their mouth.
But I think what was most disturbing for me
was knowing that just two, three years ago,
I would have been on that side of the table
and lying the same way they were.
Everything was shady because we didn't pertain
to the world's standards.
We were on a different standard.
And I finally got to the point where, like, listen, I can't--
I can't be a part of this anymore.
And I left, thinking that I was a failure.
♪ ♪
- That's where it stood, on that property,
the lake house.
The guys thought they were gonna be walking away
with a million dollars for this property and this house,
but they were stopped in their tracks.
♪ ♪
- In 2002, my lawyer had been contacted by their lawyer,
and so we knew there was an opportunity
to kind of resolve this.
And so we settled the case
and basically liquidated every asset
that was attached to Eternal Values,
and, effectively, Eternal Values was dead.
And that, I could live with.
♪ ♪
After that, I didn't know what would happen to those guys,
and I really, at that point, didn't particularly care.
But I just wanted to move forward with my life.
♪ ♪
I think for me, the hardest part
is knowing that I hurt a lot of people
when I went down this path.
You can't heal other people's wounds,
but I tried to make a sincere effort
to reconnect with my family.
And by the time I came back,
my mother-- she was fighting cancer.
[indistinct chatter]
That's my mother, you know, towards the end of her life.
And...
[voice breaking] At this point...
she was wearing a wig... [sniffles]
because she'd been doing chemotherapy, and...
[sighs]
You know, she was so brave.
- We couldn't reach you.
And I was the one that realized you were in a cult.
- When John came out, he came and joined everybody
for Christmas that year.
That would have really been the first time
that he would have had an opportunity
to meet my wife and my son and my daughter.
Well, this is Helen. This is Matthew.
It took a while for John to get back to his old self.
It's difficult for anybody.
I don't think anyone snaps out of it quickly.
- Okay, hi, I am John Hoyt.
I'm now 41 years old.
[crying] And I was so terrified of coming home.
My mother--as her illness started to really take hold,
I chose to become her primary caretaker.
In some crazy way,
I had been prepared for that,
going through it with, you know, Freddy
when he was dying.
All she said was...
[voice breaking] That she loved me...
[inhales sharply] And that she understood.
- I'm very grateful to God, and I thank God.
And I think that prayer really made the difference
in bringing you home.
- I didn't see her for 12 years.
She goes, and I kept--
[sighs] I kept feeling like...
like you were in this prison.
You know, I was able to tell her that...
that I think her prayers were heard
and that it really did help.
And I felt so bad.
You know, I had missed so many weddings and graduations.
I was always invited.
But I let them all down.
It's just time you just can't get back.
[sniffles] But...
my mother's illness gave me an opportunity
to prove to my family...
[sniffles] That I was back.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
It's extraordinary for me now to look back on things
from the point of view that at age 16,
going to the beach to meet your buddies
could take your life down the road of being in a cult.
I live in Nantucket in the summer,
and I have many people who come and stay with me.
I mean, they're from...
Today my recovery path was very much
about trying to not only forgive myself...
but also educate myself on how it happened
and how to possibly give others
some of the red flags to look out for
that I didn't know existed.
[applause]
- Hoyt, tell us how this is like other cult behavior.
- You don't join a cult.
You know, no one ever tells you it's a cult.
It's a bait-and-switch maneuver.
The more I talked about the Eternal Values
and Freddy, in particular,
people start playing a version of that story
from their lives,
going, wait a second, this sounds like the relationship
I had with my dad or my mom or my boss or my coach.
I mean, I was only 16.
I was coming up with a lot of things in my life.
The person you're seeking love and approval from is,
in some way, abusing and controlling you.
In the thousands of conversations I've had,
I actually haven't met someone who hasn't had
some sort of relationship like that.
I mean, unconsciously, I was a recruiter.
That's what I did.
You know, there are a lot of people
that I am responsible for having introduced
to, you know, Freddy and Eternal Values.
And that's just something I have to live with.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- It's only recently that I took Hoyt's call,
and I got to tell you... [chuckles]
I poured myself a glass of Irish whiskey,
and I drank it down,
and then I took that call.
And it was a good talk.
And he did express remorse.
And I told him, the things I've been victimized on
or someone hurt me-- those don't define me.
Getting involved in a cult
and being one of Freddy's victims
is definitely not my story.
♪ ♪
I had this thing happen,
but I have learned to make better mistakes
and keep risking and not stopping challenging myself.
♪ ♪
And I realized from talking to Hoyt
how very sensitive he is.
And I can appreciate what he's doing--educating people.
- Unfortunately, mind control works on everybody
once you're receptive.
You just won't even see it coming.
- The idea of the cult is not a new one.
Political systems use these tools.
Our religious systems use these tools.
Our most primal fears are being used.
[indistinct chatter]
- When I was in Eternal Values,
we'd look at other groups
and say, well, that's definitely a cult.
- They're lying. They're lying.
But we never looked at ourselves at all that way.
- I have with me four eternal cohorts of mine,
all whom I've known since they were 16 years old--
John Hoyt, who just graduated from Princeton University.
- It's not easy to go back to the first time
when you met either Freddy or someone from the group
and just really kind of say, yeah, I got taken,
and start to reframe your life.
I mean, this was a guy from Brooklyn
who lied about who he was, lied about what he did.
He said he was an orphan,
but his mother was alive until recently--I think 2023.
[dial tone drones]
- When people meet John,
the first thing that he says is, I was in a cult.
I know what I felt
and what I learned from the Eternal Values.
And it wasn't my stopping point.
It was just my starting point for my spiritual journey.
So I want to defend
who I thought Frederick was and is
and what I've learned from Frederick.
- When I think about the Eternal Values,
if I'm being honest,
I don't even know that I really call this
a cult myself yet.
- You have to remember,
Frederick was my friend.
When I was separated from him and was left to my own devices,
I actually did about 100 times worse.
But maybe if I had taken the teaching
to its conclusion,
I would have accomplished a great deal.
- Who is it that is experiencing
this television program this moment?
- Frederick would be thrilled about this right now,
thrilled, because he wouldn't see anything
particularly wrong with it.
He would love the fact that he kept his place in line,
that people who are still talking about him
this many years later.
[chuckles]
This is the supreme message
the Eternal Values has for all of you.
If you can't love each other unconditionally,
you're all frauds.
In the Eternal Values, we are Jewish, Muslim,
Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu.
We all love each other and work together.
We're trying to tell you that you, too, can do it.
- And that's what we believed.
Freddy, I think, was very damaged.
And I don't think he understood love.
And because of that, there was a lot of carnage
that occurred around him.
But I can't go back and say,
oh, well, you know, they brainwashed me,
and, therefore, there's no fault on my end.
I'm still accountable for everything I said,
everything I did,
the abuses I either partook in
or stood by and did nothing as they happened.
You know, you carry a lot of shame,
and you carry a lot of embarrassment.
And I've learned that the antidote to shame
is...
vulnerability.
And the way you, you know, express that vulnerability
is to tell your story,
you know, and just own it and...
Warts and all, just tell the story.
[John Lennon's "Mind Games"]
♪ ♪
- [singing along] ♪ We're playing those mind games ♪
♪ Together ♪
♪ Pushing the barrier ♪
♪ Planting seeds ♪
♪ Playing the mind games ♪
♪ Forever ♪
♪ Some kind of druid dude ♪
♪ Lifting the veil ♪
- ♪ Doing the mind ♪
♪ Guerilla ♪
♪ Some call it magic ♪
♪ The search for the grail ♪
♪ Love is ♪
♪ The answer ♪
♪ And you know that ♪
♪ For sure ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Love is... ♪
[bright tone]