It was a moment that filled Catherine Oxenberg with horror and despair. In May 2017, as she was driving her daughter, India, to a doctor’s appointment, she asked her: “India, have you been branded?”
“Yes, Mom, I have been branded,” India told her. “But why is that a problem? It’s been a good experience for me.”
“I was horrified,” Oxenberg tells PEOPLE. “It was horror and disbelief. I could never believe anything like that could have happened to my daughter. It seems so aberrant and it was so twisted. And how had it gone from a group about ‘self help’ to suddenly being about branding women? “
Allison Michael Orenstein
Catherine and India Oxenberg.Tracey Morris
In the process of trying to get her daughter out of Nxivm, Catherine learned that India was part of a secret group of women within the group, who were recruited to be “slaves,” put on a starvation diet and were branded with Raniere’s initials with a cauterizing pen.
• For more on Catherine Oxenberg and Nxivm, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on stands Friday
Oxenberg, who costarred onDynastyin the ’80s, had been careful about how to approach the issue with her daughter. Their relationship was strained after Oxenberg fought to expose Nxivm, contacting law enforcement with a plea to investigate the group. At the same time, she did not want to alienate her daughter, who had moved to Albany, where the group was headquartered, and was then home on a rare visit.
“When I confronted her, I was concerned. I wasn’t angry at her,” says Oxenberg. “She admitted it was true and she didn’t think there was a problem with it and I explained gently that there was a problem that she didn’t think it was a problem. How they had ‘normalized’ it. And then I began to realize how indoctrination really works — and it works because it can change the way you think.”
“I told her it was Keith’s initials and she seemed surprised,” notes Oxenberg. “She thought it was something else and she said it was a Latin symbol. And I said ‘You mean you don’t know what is marked on your body permanently?’ And she said whatever it was, didn’t matter and they were told whatever it was, would be ‘strengthening.’”
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All of the defendants have pleaded not guilty to their charges.
Meanwhile, Oxenberg is in the gradual process of rebuilding her relationship with her daughter, who has left the group: “She is moving forward with her life and will share her story when she is ready.”
source: people.com
