Glenn Close has revealed some very personal things about herself lately and she has decided to reveal one more thing. The actress revealed to the Hollywood Reporter that she spent part of her childhood in a cult known as the Moral Re-Armament.
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“You basically weren’t allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire,” Close told E! News. “If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you’re supposed to live and what you’re supposed to say and how you’re supposed to feel, from the time you’re seven till the time you’re 22, it has a profound impact on you.”
The actress, who is currently starring on Broadway, said her father, Dr. William Taliaferro Close, was the one who joined the cult. She wasn’t able to escape from their control until she left for college. And although she never looked back, it haunted her for years.
“I would have dreams because I didn’t go to any psychiatrist or anything,” she explained. “I had these dreams, and they started with betrayal, a sense of betrayal, and then they developed into me being able to look at these people and say, ‘You’re wrong. You’re wrong.’ And then the final incarnation of those dreams was me being able to calmly get up and walk away. And then I didn’t have them anymore.”
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Although Close says the trauma suffered while in the cult became a part of her, she was able to leave and have the successful career she has had. The cult never tried to win her back, but she said her different childhood is still something she has to deal with.
“I always thought, the way life works, the burden of forgiveness is on the child,” she explained. “That’s the way it goes. Forgiveness is probably the most revolutionary concept there is right now in our world. Because without forgiveness, you just perpetuate what has been before. You [have to] say, ‘It’s going to stop with me.'”
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