Actress fights to rescue daughter from 'cult that brands and starves women'
An actress is fighting to rescue her 26-year-old daughter from a "brainwashing" cult that brands women with initials and "starves" them.
Catherine Oxenberg, from the 1980s television series Dynasty, took her daughter, India, to a meeting for the self-help group Nxivm in 2011.
Oxenberg, 56, said she found the group "creepy," but India started regularly attending meetings in New York, spending more and more money.
The alarm was raised when the actress met with a former Nxivm member in April 2016, who said she needs to "save" her daughter, People reported.
Oxemberg said she then called India who said her hair had started falling out and wanted to see a doctor.
The actress said when India visited for her birthday she was shocked at how "super skinny' she was.
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Oxemberg has turned to the media saying she is "helpless."
“I’ve lost my child and will do whatever I can to get her back,” she said.
Since the 1990s, about 16,000 people have enrolled in Nxivm courses, The New York Times reported.
A woman who recently left the group claimed the women in the inner circle were not allowed to eat more than 800 calories a day.
Another described the branding process, saying they were restrained while lying naked on a massage table, The New York Times reported.
She said they were then told to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honour.”
The New York governor's office is conducting a review of the complaints against Nxivm.
