While it is a fact that ‘The Vow Part 2’ has been having dismal audience numbers, much lower than the first season, it is also undeniable that the new season has once again ignited the fire of curiosity among mainstream media readers about everything NXIVM.
The press is keeping the interest going, and trying to inform the average mainstream reader about the many aspects of this saga of deceit and criminality the best they can, which I’m afraid to inform, is not very well.
The Vow Part 2 has brought back attention to the NXIVM saga.
What we have here are two news sites seemingly attempting to gather ‘every scandalous detail’ of this story in a single article, which is, as we know here in the Frank Report, quite impossible.
Fashion magazine ‘Elle’ has been covering the new ‘Vow’ season in their ‘culture’ section, subsection ‘Celebrity News’. That alone should tell you everything there is to know about their warped perception of this case.
Elle is covering NXIVM in its ‘celebrity news’ section.
They now put out something called Every Wild Allegation From the NXIVM ‘Sex Cult’ Trial. Pretty ambitious, right?
The piece states that ‘Prosecutors claim NXIVM was an illegal pyramid scheme, which Raniere used to recruit women and force them to have sex with him.’ I know for a fact that if I attempted such an imprecise and overly succinct explanation of the ESP-NXIVM-DOS axis of crime, I would not have a place here in the Frank Report to write about this case.
The list: For ‘Elle’, ‘every wild allegation’ in the NXIVM trial equals just seven.
‘At his trial in May 2019,’ the Elle piece continues, ‘jurors heard a seemingly endless slew of lurid testimony, including detailed descriptions of how he had sex with underaged girls and forced three women he impregnated to get abortions. It took just five hours of deliberation to find him guilty of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit forced labor.’
So, right after talking about the ‘endless slew of lurid testimony’, Elle appears to forget the size of the problem and states: ‘Here are all of the harrowing, and at times disturbing, allegations that have emerged about NXIVM’s sinister sex practices.’
ALL the allegations, in their not-so-learned opinion, are seven. Yes, you read it right. Seven.
· Actress Allison Mack was in a secret sect of the organization called a “master-slave” sex ring by prosecutors and which allegedly branded women.
· One member claimed Mack told her that having sex with Raniere would “get rid of” her sexual abuse trauma.
· Raniere allegedly groomed a 15-year-old girl who went on to become his first “slave.”
· The female sex “slaves” allegedly arranged themselves naked in front of Raniere while he lectured them.
· One member was kept isolated in a bedroom for two years. She claims that Raniere had sex with her and both of her sisters—and asked them all to get abortions.
· NXIVM leaders kept tabs on members by monitoring their usernames and passwords.
· An heiress to the Seagram fortune harbored an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, and stole a dead woman’s financial information.
Because ‘The Cut’ put their list from The Vow documentary only, they missed half a million dollars in the shoeboxes. That’s extreme, right?
New York Magazine’s ‘The Cut’ basically tried the same trick, only instead of advertizing their completeness (‘Every Wild Allegation’), they tried a different approach by emphasizing the extreme nature of their compilation.
The Cut was also careful to explain that their ‘list’ was not put together from real life or even from judicial records, but simply from ‘The Vow’ documentary series.
The Most Disturbing Details From the NXIVM Docuseries is a nice read, apart from a sensationalist tone that sounds funny to the fully informed reader.
‘Get ready for part two’, writes ‘The Cut’.
‘Get ready,’ they start. ‘The Vow, HBO’s unsettling documentary about the infamous self-help turned sex cult NXIVM, is back for part two.’
Once we have duly prepared ourselves, they continue: ‘When the series first aired in 2020, it chronicled the rise of the group’s founder, MLM con man and sex offender Keith Raniere, detailing how he’d established influence over Seagram’s heiresses and Hollywood actors alike.’
Once again we see the need to be covering famous people, zooming past the horrors involving everyday people to chronicle what ails the celebrities.
Allison Mack cries and sings: in the end, mainstream media only cares for the troubles of celebrities.
‘After a 2017 New York Times exposé revealed that Raniere had founded a secret inner sanctum of women called D.O.S. […] who were allegedly forced to have sex with him, treated as slaves, and branded with his initials above their pelvic areas, a Justice Department investigation ensued, leading to his arrest (he is currently serving a 120-year prison sentence) and to NXIVM’s downfall.’
Don’t you just love how ‘The Cut’ bypasses all of Parlato’s (and so many whistleblowers) hard work to unveil the NXIVM’s crimes, and share the credit solely between the NYT and the prosecutors? That’s the ‘celebrity’ view of the world.
The Cut’s list has only five items.
Their list of ‘the most disturbing details is as follows:
· D.O.S. member Nicki Clyne denies D.O.S. was a sex cult.
· Multiple NXIVM members believe Nancy Salzman knew about D.O.S. despite her denial.
· Nancy Salzman says she was “so angry” at the women of D.O.S. and that she only learned about the group in 2017.
· Nancy Salzman claims Raniere got “more controlling” with her as time went on.
· Nancy Salzman says everything she did “was damage control about Keith’s sex life” and that multiple NXIVM women fought over who would have his “special babies.”
Prosecutor Moira Penza is featured on ‘Part 2’.
As I have written in another article, everybody wants a piece of the NXIVM pie – including, of course, most mainstream media vehicles.
The problem seems to be that they cater to an audience with the shortest attention span imaginable, so everything has to be condensed and explained, and it has to be sent into the world with the maximum sensationalism possible, to try and keep their readers awake.
How about you, Frank Report reader? What are the details from this story that you feel had to be in any such list? Let us know in the comments.
