'My early childhood inside a cult': Rose McGowan reveals how she escaped Children of God sect



Cult: Rose McGowan, pictured last week, has revealed she spent her early childhood in the Children of God sect

She is currently starring in the Conan the Barbarian remake and has appeared in the film Scream and TV series Charmed.



But Rose McGowan's early life ran along a more difficult path.



The actress, now 37, has revealed that her first nine years were spent in the confines of the controversial Children of God sect, a group which blended free love attitudes with preparing for the second coming of Jesus.

'At a very early age, I thought: "These beliefs are absurd," she tells this week's issue of People magazine about her upbringing with the group in Italy.

Her American parents Terry and Daniel were 'passionate about Jesus' and lived with Rose on a large commune.

'Like in most cults, you were cut off from your [outside] family,' she tells the magazine. 'There were no newspapers, no television. You were kept in the dark so you would obey. It was not a wealthy existence.'

Although she did believe in God, the star did not buy into the group's fervent philosophy or their attitude towards women, and recalls how she once lit a wall of bibles on fire.



'I remember watching how the cult's men were with the women, and at a very early age I decided I did not want to be like those women.They were basically there to serve the men sexually.

'The women would go to bars as lures (to pick up recruits) - they called it flirty fishing.'

Eventually, McGowan says she and her family left the cult after it began to advocate sex between children and adults.



Starring role: McGowan plays powerful witch Marique in the new film version of Conan the Barbarian

'I was not molested because my dad was strong enough to realise that this hippie love had gone south,' she says.



The Children of God

The Children of God was founded in 1968 by California-born minister David Berg who advocated free love attitudes and the second coming of Jesus.

The cult is said to have used sexual sharing and methods like 'flirty fishing' to recruit new members to the sect in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

After Berg's death in 1994, the group's name was changed to The Family International and is said to now be led by Berg's former partner Karen Zerby.

The family had to flee in the middle of the night and returned to America where McGowan went to live with her mother and stepfather after her parents' divorce.

Following an uneasy assimilation into American life, McGowan says she ran away from home and was temporarily taken in by drag queens, before returning to live with her father.

'There are people who will read this story and think I had a strange existence,' she says. 'I think they've had a strange existence.

But she is pleased she and her family left the controversial group when they did.



'There's a trail of some very damaged children that were in this group,' she says. 'As strong as I've always been, I'm sure I could have been broken. I know I got out by the skin of my teeth.'



Other famous children who spent part of their early childhoods inside the Children of God include Joaquin Phoenix, his late brother River and their family .

However, they left in 1977 after their parents became disillusioned with the sect.

Former members: Joaquin Phoenix and his brother, the late River Phoenix spent their early years among the group's ranks







