AS darkness fell, 15-year-old Daniella Mestyanek Young snuck out of the house – but she wasn’t a rebellious teenager pushing the boundaries with her strict parents, she was fleeing a notorious sex cult riddled with paedophilia.
Now 38, she reveals the horrors she faced after being raised in the infamous Children of God cult – the same sect a number of Hollywood stars escaped from – and how it was plagued with allegations of child sex abuse and incest.
By the tender age of five, Daniella had already experienced sexual abuse – masked by warped leaders as Christian discipline and divine love.
She told The Sun: “I had a moment when I was six where I was like, I don’t care if this is love, I don’t care if this is God. I’m getting out of here.”
At its height, the cult had 15,000 members across around 130 “colonies” – including several in the UK.
It was originally founded as Teens for Christ by priest Avid Berg in 1968 – attracting young runaways and hippies, as well as rogue famous actors and musicians, such as Fleetwood Mac‘s Jeremy Spencer.
Hollywood stars Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan were also born into the sinister organisation – with McGowan telling how the “completely unacceptable became normal”.
What developed was Children of God, where Berg was hailed as Moses David or Grandpa by his brainwashed followers who worshipped orgies.
Berg’s twisted requests included encouraging followers to imagine Jesus was present when they were having sex, including masturbating, and for children to perform stripteases.
But Daniella said, despite its image of God and free love, the reality was much more disturbing.
The cult became plagued with allegations of child abuse, incest and religious prostitution, and several victims have spoken out about the horrors they faced in the sect.
One survivor, Verity Carter, told how her experience as a child was “hell on earth” – and said she was abused from an early age by four members – including her own father.
Daniella – who now lives in Washington and is the author of chilling memoir Uncultured – told how she became a three-generation member after her mother was forced to get pregnant.
She said: “My grandfather joined in the 1970s, my mother was one of the first 10 children born into the group.
“And then by 14, she was pregnant with me by an adult man from the group.”
Daniella said that from a very early age, she knew something wasn’t right, and she would be “incredibly punished” for questioning the adults and leaders around her.
Banned from any education that wasn’t about the Bible, and with physical, sexual and psychological abuse disguised as love, Daniella faced a hellish upbringing.
In one haunting incident, Daniella says she was dragged away by a paedophile – and nobody questioned it when she was gone for 10 hours.
Others as young as two or three years old were also reportedly being sexually abused.
The feeling of not belonging doesn’t really go away
Daniella added: “We (the youngsters) were slave labour on a commune. I was the cook myself at 11 for 25 people.
“The Children of God was the entertainment cult, and we were like full-time dancing, singing, performing beggars for God essentially.
“We were expected to be perfect little soldiers all the time as children. And if we weren’t, we were beaten, isolated, or had our mouths washed out with soap. A lot of things, I think, qualify as torture.
“The specific problem in Children of God was that they didn’t call it abuse, they called it love.
“When you’re telling kids that sexual activity is love and then you’re directing sexual activity toward children… we felt that was wrong, but we didn’t know that was wrong, if that makes sense.”
‘Trafficked in plain sight’
As far back as 1974, Children of God had been branded a cult by the New York attorney’s office.
Long-haired Berg was being hunted down by the FBI and Interpol – with swathes of younger members leaving.
Investigations into the cult largely hit a wall when Berg died in 1994.
Since its beginning, the movement has gone under a number of names, including Teens for Christ, The Children of God, The Family of Love, and The Family.
A British court case previously found the group engaged in systematic physical and sexual abuse of children.
The cult went underground and rebooted itself by the 1990s with a new name, The Family.
In her memoir, Daniella claimed that a lot of children were killed as a result of beatings and other brutal punishments or medical neglect.
Kids inside the “colonies” were routinely whipped, beaten, deprived of their parents and forced to beg for donations on the streets.
Daniella – who was sexually abused from a young age – says she was even trafficked as a child actress throughout Asia and Latin America, and forced to sell and beg on the streets.
She said they were only exposed to the outside world in a warped attempt by leaders to show how “wrong” it was.
The mum-of-one recalled: “They were so focused on teaching us that we were a family, the Children of God, and that this was the right way to live.
“Which means they had to tell us about other people – so we were told the outside world was really, really bad, and that people did drugs, smoked cigarettes, didn’t love God and were going to hell.
“But then we would also perform. That’s the thing about the Children of God that I think is so crazy – that we were being trafficked in plain sight.
“I grew up performing on the streets of the world.”
Inside the Children of God cult
THE Children of God is one of the world’s most infamous cults – dogged by accusations of rape, child abuse and incest.
It emerged in the late 1960s when David Berg created a little-known movement called Teens for Christ.
It gained notoriety under the name Children of God after its leader claimed that he’d had a revelation that California was to be struck by a major earthquake.
Initially calling themselves Teens for Christ, it soon evolved into the Children of God movement.
At its height, it is believed that Children of God had some 15,000 members.
Advocating a lifestyle of “group living”, the movement had hundreds of communes spread across the world.
They combined worship of Jesus Christ with the 1960s “free love” era whilst preaching a prophecy that the apocalypse was coming very soon.
As a result, he encouraged members to live a hand-to-mouth existence with no-one encouraged to make long-term plans.
But former members of the cult have alleged childhood abuse as they lived on the communes.
By her teenage years, Daniella knew she had to form a plan to escape – or face pregnancy by 17.
She says: “When we were 16 in the Children of God, that was considered adulthood, so the year you were 15, you would read all these secret documents that were only for adult members.
“There was an entire 12-part series, probably 100,000 pages -basically a book on the law of love, why everyone sleeps with everyone else, why you’re not supposed to say no.
“So I very dramatically snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, climbed over the commune wall and left.
“Looking back now, I was overwhelmed, terrified, completely not knowing how to function in the world, but at the same time, it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know.”
Escaping hell
Daniella fled to Texas with only her passport – and tried to enrol herself in a school.
But without any education records, she was told: “We can’t enrol you because you don’t exist.”
Despite her courageous battle to overcome the intense brainwashing she had been subjected to, Daniella was able to put herself through school and later graduated from university as valedictorian.
She said: “I definitely always felt like I didn’t belong, and I remember when I was graduating, thinking I can’t believe they’re giving me a degree – like I’d fooled everybody – not like I’d worked super hard and earned this.
“The feeling of not belonging doesn’t really go away.
“It’s one of the most heartbreaking things to realise that it’s true, what the aunties and uncles told you, that you’re never going to fit in the outside world, and that’s because they specifically made us not fit.
“There’s no amount of headlining that you can do where you can go back and have a childhood that just lets you develop as a person.”
Trying to find her place in the world after university, Daniella signed up for the military while struggling in a toxic relationship.
She went on to spend six years as an intelligence officer – meeting her husband along the way.
Daniella said: “I really enjoyed my time in the Army – I was an intelligence officer, which is just the expert on the bad guy. It’s something that I’m good at.
“On my first deployment in 2011 I was one of the first women to be on a deliberate ground combat team in US Army history.”
After leaving the military, Daniella and her partner welcomed a baby, and she set about paving her own way in society.
In a proud moment, Daniella received a master’s degree from Harvard and released her memoir in 2022.
She has spent several years building up her brand as a content creator called Knitting Cult Lady, where she says she “knits and teaches people about tyrants and cults and bad guys”.
The mum has also been working on another book, The Culting of America – due to be released on January 20.
Daniella said: “It is intended to be me showing all these things that are in cults that are also in our military and in the groups around us, then with our last election, we got on this timeline – and it is kind of a book about where we are right now in our country.”
Joaquin Phoenix’s childhood in the cult
JOAQUIN’S parents, John and Arlyn Bottom, crossed paths while Arlyn – who later changed her name to Heart – was hitchhiking across Mexico and John picked her up in his Volkswagen.
Both were free spirits who spent years travelling all over the US and South America as missionaries – spreading the word of Children of God, a religious cult.
When they got married, they changed their names to more biblical variants: Jochebed and Amram, and had five children – all born in different states.
Joaquin was the third, born in Puerto Rico, but by the time he was three his parents had started to get suspicious of the Children of God.
They were right to be wary: it later emerged that the cult encouraged sex between adults and children, as well as group sex and incest.
Joaquin’s eldest brother, River, once claimed to have lost his virginity aged four, although the Joker star is adamant that his parents didn’t know about the inside goings on of the cult.
“It’s guilt by association. I think it was really innocent on my parents’ part,” he previously said.
“They really believed (in the religious aspect), but I don’t think most people see it that way.
“I think my parents thought they’d found a community that shared their ideals – cults rarely advertise themselves as such. The moment my parents realised there was something more to it, they got out.”
eaving the sinister sect brought a whole raft of new problems – the family, who were all vegans, had no income and were barely surviving in poverty.
The family moved to Florida and changed their surname to Phoenix, to commemorate their new lives and to symbolise their rise from the ashes.
Yet Joaquin – who briefly changed his name to “Leaf” – was still denied a normal childhood when he was forced to busk on the streets for money alongside brother River and his sister, Rain.
However, it wasn’t long before the talented kids were scouted by an agent, and soon they were given a shot at acting.
And she has no plans to stop there, revealing to The Sun that she is writing a musical based on her experiences that she hopes one day will reach the stage.
Brave Daniella said: “I want to be the most famous expert on bad guys and tyrants in the world.
“I’m writing a musical and it’s called Cult Baby the musical – Veterans included.
“The first half is children growing up under religious extremism, and the performance culture that is in all cults.
“And then the second half is like women soldiers taking down white supremacy and patriarchy, and it’s loosely based on my life.”
Two British survivors described life inside the Children of God to the BBC in 2018 as “hell on earth”.
The movement is now known as The Family International.
It released letters of apology to former members and previously said it “has had a zero-tolerance policy in place for over thirty years for the protection of minors”.
But Daneilla said its survivors are still dealing with the trauma they faced.
She added: “It’s interesting dealing with friends who had like normal, nice childhoods.
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“They love you, they accept you – but I think they think at some point you’re going to be healed, you’re going to be normal.
“But when you don’t have a childhood, that affects your whole life.”
