5. Rose McGowan
Like River and Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan was raised in the Children of God cult, but, unlike them, she was in Europe rather than South America. Her father ran the Italian chapter. She spent a lot of her childhood traveling through Europe, visiting the various communes with her parents and two siblings. McGowan told People: “You had no contact with the outside world. Things that are completely unacceptable became normal. I remember watching how the [cult’s] men were with the women, and at a very early age I decided I did not want to be like those women. They were basically there to serve the men sexually — you were allowed to have more than one wife.” McGowan got by with her smarts, running away from home after her parents divorced and taking up with some drag queens in Oregon.
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