Welcome to the second in our new series of Bonus Thursday Drops—aka, your new favorite excuse to stay in on a weeknight. These episodes are an extra dose of A Little Bit Culty on the main feed every Thursday (Patreon subscribers get them a day early, because perks). Sometimes it’ll be a follow-up to a two-parter. Other times, like today, we’ll check in on the ever-expanding Cultiverse with a mix of headlines, hot takes, and your voicemails.

In this episode, we’re serving up a “current-ish” roundup of three high-profile cases making waves right now, drawing parallels to our own culty past:

Sean “Diddy” Combs and the disturbing sex trafficking allegations tied to coercion and blackmail
OneTaste and its founder’s upcoming trial, with former members speaking out about manipulation and forced labor
Harvey Weinstein’s retrial, dragging survivors back into the courtroom and into public scrutiny yet again

These stories echo so many of the same power dynamics, abuse tactics, and systemic failures we’ve explored since our NXIVM days. We also answer some big listener questions, from “Would you have stayed in NXIVM if DOS never happened?” to “Did I just get kicked out of a culty improv troupe?”

It’s a packed one. It's a timely one. And yes, there’s a man bun running club cult theory in the mix, too.

Got thoughts? Keep the voicemails coming. We’re listening.

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Writer: Kristen Reiter

Associate producers: Amanda Zaremba and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

Ep. 23: The Community Speaks