Melanie Williams hadn’t even turned 10 when her father arrived residence to his three wives and communal brood of kids with a fourth bride in tow.
Bride No. 4, she remembers, was simply 14 years previous – the identical age as Melanie’s massive sister.
It was the Eighties in Utah, and this was the way in which issues had been completed within the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist cult Melanie, like each of her mother and father, was born into.
Her father’s new teenage spouse had been deemed ‘wild’ by the lads working the cult, Melanie tells the Day by day Mail, which means they ‘take a look at it like she’s depraved and he or she must be married off instantly and locked down with a child and impregnated… she will’t exit and sow her wild oats,’ she says.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than the younger bride ran away from her new residence, the place jealousy between wives was rife, Melanie says.
Melanie broke free from the cult when she reached younger maturity, escaping to California in 2001 to pursue a profession in Hollywood.
In 2008, whereas making ends meet as an actress in LA, Melanie tried out for a sport present hoping to win some prize cash.
She was virtually immediately chosen as a contestant on Fox’s short-lived Second of Fact, which was recognized for hooking members as much as lie detectors and asking deeply private, probably damaging questions.
Melanie Williams, an actress who’d fled a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist cult, appeared on Fox’s 2008 sport present Second of Fact the place she mentioned she believed her father had sexual relations with a minor
Melanie, in crimson, is pictured along with her father and two sisters throughout her time as a member of the Second Ward, an offshoot of FLDS, which had already break up from the mainstream LDS church after it outlawed polygamy
Melanie’s look on Second of Fact’s second season made historical past, regardless that it by no means aired within the US. She was the one contestant to ever reply all questions honestly for the $500,000 prize cash.
Dwelling on by way of clips of the taped present, which ultimately aired over seas, she stays a viral sensation to at the present time.
‘For $500,000, Melanie Williams… do you imagine your father, as an grownup, has ever had sexual relations with a minor?’ the host may be seen asking within the viral clip.
Melanie tearfully solutions the host: ‘Sure.’
Her father, John, who flew to California for the taping and was within the viewers, is seen shaking his head on digicam in shock and dismay.
The clip alone is surprising, however Melanie’s life earlier than that was equally dramatic.
The Day by day Mail tried to succeed in John Williams a number of occasions for remark – every try was unsuccessful and members of the family declined to place us in direct contact.
Rising up in a cult
Melanie’s childhood in Hildale, Utah, had been cloistered and stifling. She was born in 1979, delivered by a famed midwife who’d introduced hundreds of infants into the fold of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) – which had established a thriving, hierarchical and sophisticated society within the southern Utah space.
The cult, selling polygamy and guidelines set down by a dwelling ‘prophet,’ had break up within the early twentieth Century from the mainstream church of Latter-Day Saints, which outlawed plural marriage.
FLDS was present process one other schism within the years surrounding Melanie’s start: A brand new offshoot calling itself the Second Ward, or the Work, cropped up in the identical space, ruled by a priesthood of a number of male elders, relatively than the FLDS prophet.
Melanie mentioned she was raised Second Ward, although her maternal grandfather remained FLDS and always hounded her mom to ‘come again to the true church.’
Polygamy, obedience and girls’s subservience had been central tenets of each, Melanie informed the Day by day Mail.
Melanie’s mom was her father’s third partner. She recollects every spouse having her personal room within the residence, the place her father ‘would flow into from Spouse One, Spouse Two and Spouse Three.’
Melanie is the seventh of her father’s 40-or-so kids, of which her mom birthed 14, she mentioned.
‘They train us we’re full-blood sisters, full-blood brothers – that we’re all equal rising up,’ Melanie informed the Mail.
However from a younger age, she might inform in any other case.
Her father’s second spouse was a daughter of The Prophet, and Melanie observed her kids at all times appeared higher taken care of.
The group undeniably favored what Melanie calls ‘spiritual royalty’ – simply certainly one of many issues she had with the life-style.
She knew her group was totally different
Rising up, Melanie’s mom would take her to Walmart in close by St. George. There, she discovered herself ‘mesmerized’ by journal covers that includes fantastically done-up ladies, whereas her personal prairie clothes attracted stares.
‘I might really feel the glares,’ she informed the Mail. ‘I might really feel the stares. I might really feel that folks had been whispering.’
Melanie, proper, poses along with her sister, left. She says all ladies she was raised alongside had been taught ‘When you dwell polygamy, you go to heaven… that’s what God needs you to do. That’s the highest regulation’
Melanie, left, knew that she and her group had been totally different from an early age, and felt ladies had been the second-class residents of the cult
Not one of the ladies had been allowed to put on pants, she remembered, and their legs needed to be coated always.
Her mom would say, ‘You might be chosen to stroll this path. You might be an elitist. You’re higher than them. God loves you, and it’s not going to be straightforward.’
And it was arduous.
Melanie recollects waking up at 5 a.m. to plant corn every day, describing how ‘we needed to work two hours within the yard… to get cheese on our omelet’. She’d keep up all evening making mandalas for spouse No. 1 to promote within the desert.
She additionally recollects figuring out her gender was a barrier from a younger age. The lads, she mentioned, had been the ’ones that had all of the clout and energy.
‘We had been nothing. We had been handled like filth and traded like pawns.’
She informed the Day by day Mail that, amongst fundamentalist Mormon polygamists, ‘the lads are informed to get as many ladies as they will.
‘They’ll keep within the quick lane and take as many ladies as they need, however the ladies have to simply select one man and construct his empire.’
Coming of age within the Second Ward
From start, Melanie mentioned she was taught: ‘When you dwell polygamy, you go to heaven… that’s what God needs you to do. That’s the highest regulation. You sacrifice your jealousy. You undergo all these checks and trials the place you study love for the opposite ladies and also you don’t have jealousy.’
She mentioned that at 15, her father tried to marry her off to a wealthy, 71-year-old cult member – she nonetheless chokes up serious about it. Melanie mentioned her father satisfied her to go on a date with this man, saying, ‘What’s the worst that may occur?’
What occurred, she informed the Mail, was the person drove her out of the state, took her to a on line casino and mentioned ‘God informed him [she] belonged to him.’ He mentioned he’d organize their marriage the next week and tried to stress her into spending the evening.
Melanie mentioned her father inspired the wedding – although she efficiently resisted.
John took a fifth spouse after his teen bride fled, however Melanie notes he was wrestling with abiding by cult teachings – and that had an affect on her, too. She remembered him getting in hassle for transgressions together with watching broadcasted Dodgers video games.
‘He began going his personal manner, which they name “the way in which of the world”… which is watching tv, studying books which are forbidden, taking up extra freedoms that they don’t need you to have for management causes,’ Melanie mentioned.
Melanie’s mom, proper, was her father’s third spouse. Melanie mentioned left him and remarried within the FLDS group after he started disregarding strict guidelines
She mentioned her mom left John due to it, heeding her personal father’s recommendation and getting remarried by way of FLDS. By then, the cult was being run by Warren Jeffs, who’s now serving life in jail for youngster sexual assault.
However Melanie was additionally going ‘the way in which of the world,’ saving up cash to depart. At 22, she packed up her automotive and drove to Los Angeles, having fun with the liberty however shocked by the novelty.
Breaking free
Duties resembling paying lease, placing cash in parking meters and even driving in a metropolis had been all international to her.
‘I needed to deprogram my mind of the issues they put in – the worry that they planted deep into my psychology,’ she mentioned. ‘I used to be slowly saying, “That is okay to strive… God’s not going to strike me down lifeless if I do this.”’
In the meantime, she mentioned her mom despatched her hate mail, although she ultimately stopped. Siblings again residence informed her she was being preached about at providers as a cautionary story, Melanie informed the Day by day Mail.
Melanie left Utah and the fundamentalist group in her 20s. She is pictured right here throughout her time auditioning as an actress in California
After a interval of partying and self-destruction, Melanie mentioned she started auditioning, doing stand-in and appearing work and waitressing to pay the payments. She informed no certainly one of her upbringing, afraid of what they’d say or suppose.
Till she turned up for Second of Fact.
The since-cancelled present primed contestants by asking 50 deeply private questions – pre episode taping – whereas hooked as much as a lie detector. They then chosen 21 to re-ask in entrance of an viewers throughout the episode’s taping. Appropriate solutions – a lot of which might be hurtful or damaging to contestants or their family members – gained cash starting from $25,000 to $500,000.
‘The primary time I talked about it was on this audition,’ she mentioned. ‘I’m going in there and I’m like, “I’m not comfy speaking about these items, however… I left this cult.”
‘And so they had been like, “What?!”’
A Texas FLDS ranch had just lately been raided by state police and youngster safety authorities, and the polygamist group was atop the 2008 media agenda, typically within the headlines.
Producer Howard Schultz – greatest recognized for Excessive Makeover – ‘checked out me, and he regarded on the different [producers], and he’s smiling actually massive,’ she mentioned.
When producers started calling Melanie’s household to enlist their participation, many refused – however her father agreed. That they had a very good relationship on the time, and Melanie informed him she’d share a few of the prize cash if she gained.
He was within the studio as Melanie answered query after query appropriately, cheering his daughter on.
After Melanie gave her twentieth appropriate reply, producers shut down the set.
No contestant had ever gotten to date.
She was whisked as much as a set with executives, she says, and requested three new questions that had been ‘extraordinarily disturbing,’ she informed the Day by day Mail. She was informed that closing query of the present could be picked from these three in an unprecedented transfer.
‘They modified the entire present guidelines proper there on the spot,’ she says.
One query was about her dad’s sexual historical past with minors. She answered, then begged them to not embody it as Query 21.
She argued that they’d flown her father out to California for the taping simply to ‘betray me and him on nationwide tv,’ additionally begging them to think about the backlash she was positive to endure from her household and members of the cult she’d efficiently fled.
‘They promised a number of occasions they wouldn’t go there – they’re like, “Your dad’s secure,”’ she mentioned.
‘In order that they blindsided me… on the finish of the day, they simply needed scores.’
Schultz died in 2014, and the present president of Lighthearted Leisure, Jeff Spangler, informed Day by day Mail that ‘the baseline dialog and polygraph was with the preliminary 50 questions.
‘Per the foundations, they might be requested extra polygraph questions, and people might be used,’ he mentioned, insisting that ‘she wasn’t cornered in any manner.’
After Melanie answered the dreaded final query, she tried to elucidate to the host: ‘It was males telling him what to do. They gave him a spouse, he took it. You step up and take wives on this society, and he did, and… he feels very guilt-ridden and really responsible about it. It’s killing him, I do know it’s.’
Her father chimes in on digicam, saying, ‘Gosh, I’m undecided after I did this I knew what a minor was. That was a very long time in the past.’
Whereas the crime was a felony, the statute of limitations in Utah would have expired. And producers had additional couched the allegation by phrasing the query to ask whether or not Melanie ‘believed’ it occurred, which didn’t set up reality.
Within the quick aftermath, Melanie recollects to the Day by day Mail, ‘household battle’ broke out. She claims her father ‘emotionally’ referred to as certainly one of her brothers and mentioned, ‘She betrayed me on TV, my very own daughter.’
The household ‘informed me that I owed them,’ Melanie mentioned, and he or she claims that she wrote checks that despatched her into debt – ready for cost from a present that by no means aired. Second of Fact was cancelled after one season, and Melanie was left in limbo in regards to the $500,000 from her Season 2 victory.
Then, she bought a name from a stranger in Sweden claiming to have simply seen her present – she realized it offered internationally. It wasn’t lengthy afterward that Fox invited her to choose up the verify.
She did, although she was ‘nonetheless very mad’ – and reaped the advantages regardless of her episode by no means materializing on American screens.
Within the years since, she married and divorced a grandson of Jeffs, who’d additionally left the cult, and have become estranged from her father.
Melanie, 46, treasures the freedoms she now enjoys after breaking free from the cult’s practices and teachings – together with her current solo journey to Italy, pictured
She wrote a guide referred to as Time to Girl Up, chronicling her upbringing within the ‘patriarchy’ and inspiring ladies to seek out their voice and energy.
She’s posted about pedophilia, polygamy and different issues on social media, however each time was ‘attacked’ by each cult and members of the family.
‘We will’t maintain brushing it underneath the rug, or it goes into the following era,’ she mentioned of the life-style. ‘We have now to have these troublesome conversations.’
Now, Melanie resides in Missouri close to her brother and his household, who’re lively in an area polygamous spiritual group. She needs to point out by instance how independence may be achieved, with out shoving her escape in anybody’s face.
‘The ladies discover this very fascinating,’ she mentioned, noting that native moms ‘have many youngsters.
‘They don’t have their very own land… They don’t also have a respectable automotive that works. They’ll’t even go to city.’
She teaches those that strategy her that ‘it takes so much to struggle and make your personal cash – you’ve bought to have that grit.
‘A few of them are open to me, and a few of them are threatened.’
Regardless of the threats and vitriol, Melanie is dedicated to persevering with her mission.
‘My objective is to seek out ladies and empower them – give them the instruments to be assured, imagine in themselves and succeed,’ she mentioned.
‘[They] should have a greater life… they will have it if they simply lean into that perception system.’
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