Sometimes children are not brought up in the most conventional or idealistic manner. I am talking about cults. What is that exactly? For those who don't know, there are two definitions. The first one: it's a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies. The second one: a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with its members living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.

There are even some celebrities that have come out and admitted to growing up in a cult. Some of these cults have been known for their 'unethical behavior' or for treating women secondary to the male members. And for some of these cults, the men are allowed to have multiple wives while the women are only allowed one husband. Some of these celebrities were even members of the same cult, but just in different sects.

It is simply amazing how some of these celebrities and their families managed to escape the grasp of these cults and managed to turn their lives around and made something of themselves in the spotlight. They found a way to exercise their art and turn it into a career.

15 Joaquin Phoenix - Changed His Last Name

Joaquin was born in Río Piedra’s, Puerto Rico. He became famous for his starring role in the movie, “The Gladiator.” He was raised in the religious hippie style called the Children of God. However, he was only there until he was four years old. Children of God was founded by the former Baptist pastor David Brandt Berg and was popular with members of the hippie movement who were searching for a new spiritual life. Joaquin traveled all over South America with his family when they were members of Children of God.

Joaquin said that he really doesn’t have any bad memories of the cult and that his parents removed their entire family when they started to sense that something wasn’t quite right. Not too long after Joaquin’s family left Children of God allegations went soaring about how they would kidnap their young members. Joaquin’s birth surname was actually Bottom, but when his family escaped the cult, his parents switch their last name to Phoenix to represent a new beginning in life.

14 Michelle Pfeiffer - Didn't Know She Was In One

Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California. When she was 20-years-old, she moved to Los Angeles and met an eccentric couple who believed in Breatharianism, which was a cult who believed that people could live without food and water, because they believed that sunlight and air would give them all the nourishment that they could need. This couple would work with other people and put them on a strict vegetarian diet and teach them how to lift weights.

With breatharianism, they believed that only people who had reached the absolute highest enlightenment where true breatharians. Michelle has said that they were very controlling and that they took a lot of her money. She did not realize that she was even in a cult until she was helping her first husband, Peter Horton, research the Moonie’s, who were followers of Rev Moon’s Sun-Myung’s Unified Church, for his role in an upcoming movie.

13 Winona Ryder - No Electricity Allowed

Winona Ryder was born in Minnesota state. When she was seven years old, her family relocated to Rainbow, which is a commune in Northern California and while they were there, they lived on a 300-acre plot of land with seven other families. Winona and her family were only there for three years. Rainbow commune is one of the more innocent cults, but they did demand that their members live a spartan-like lifestyle.

The Rainbow commune was loosely a loosely affiliated group of people who were committed to the principles of nonviolence and egalitarianism that would get together a few times a year to pray, meditate, and observe group silence for world peace. There were no TV’s or electricity within this commune, but Winona’s mother would occasionally show her movies on a screen in the family barn, which is what peaked Winona’s interest in an acting career. Winona has said that as soon as her parents left the commune, she rushed into the profession of acting.

12 Leah Remini - Causes A Stir

Leah is an actress and a comedian. She is best known for her role on the TV sitcom “The King of Queens.” After Leah’s mother divorced her husband, she found meaning and solace in the Church of Scientology and signed herself and Leah up as members. Leah was an active, practice member of Scientology for 30 long years. That is three decades!

Leah left the Church of Scientology in 2013 because she had stated that she couldn’t stand the fact that they were trying to tell her who she could talk to, and who she couldn’t talk to. When Leah did finally break free from the cult-like organization her husband, her sister, and her mother followed her lead. In November of 2015, the former Scientologist released a memoir she wrote detailing her personal truths and titled the book, “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.”

11 Rose McGowan - Escapes Before The Storm

Rose McGowan was born in Florence, Italy. Her father, at the time, was the head of the Italian chapter Children of God. The Hollywood actress traveled to several of their communes with her family all throughout Europe as a young little girl and for a part of her childhood. If you don't know who or what the Children of God is, they combine hippie like ideals with religion. They were also rumored to violate and mistreat its members.

Children of God was built upon the foundations of salvation and spiritual revolution against the outside world. They say doing the deed as the greatest gift that God has given to them, and that it was an under-appreciated activity condemned by mainstream churches. Interesting... Thankfully, Rose and her family got out before any mistreatment could happen to her or her siblings.

10 David Arquette - A Dreary Childhood

David Arquette was actually born in the Skymont Subud commune in Virginia. David lived in the commune with his family until the late 1970’s. David, at the very young and impressionable age of four, starting to use substances himself that he had stolen from his father to escape his dreary life. Skymont Subud was a nonsectarian spiritual, social experiment that was created to be a kind of utopia. However, there was no bathroom, no running water, and electricity.

The Subud movement was started in the 1920’s in Indonesia by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, and he based it off of the spiritual direction of “the Great Life Force.” Subud does not classify itself as a teaching or religion itself. Its practitioners are encouraged to choose an existing religion and learn how to communicate with God differently. The Arquette family only left Skymont Subud was because David’s father became a regular on the TV series, “The Walton’s.”

9 Angel Haze - Not Allowed To Be Herself

Angel Haze was born in Detroit, Michigan. She is a rapper, singer, and songwriter. She was raised in a community of Greater Apostolic Faith, a Pentecostal Christian denomination. Angel Haze has said that all of its members lived in the same community within 10 minutes of each other and that they were not allowed to talk to outsiders, they weren’t allowed to wear jewelry, listen to music, eat certain items, or even date people. She claimed that they were not allowed to do much of anything.

Angel Haze and her family escaped the cult when she was 15 or 16 years old, all because her mother had a falling out with some of the leaders. She became famous after she uploader her version of the Eminem hit, “Cleaning Out My Closet,” where she described the details about the things she went through while she was a member of this cult. At one point, Angel Haze even dated Ireland Baldwin for a little, who happens to be Alec Baldwin’s daughter. Angel Haze also released her debut album, “Dirty Gold,” in 2013

8 Glenn Close  - A Member Until She Was 22

Glenn Close was born in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is best known for her role in, “Fatal Attraction.” Glenn grew up in a cult better known as Moral Re-Armament (MRA), and she was not able to break free until she went off to college as an adult. She was part of MRA from the ages of 7-years-old until she turned 22-years-old. Her family remained active members for 15 long years, and they had even lived in several communal centers.

Moral Re-Armament centers on the Absolutes and its practices and beliefs were based on absolute purity, absolute honesty, absolute love, and absolute unselfishness. Glenn stated that as a member of MRA, she was made to feel guilty for feeling any form of desire and that she wasn’t allowed to do much of anything growing up within the cult. Glenn also happened to travel the world with, Up The People, the MRA singing group until she went to college. Glenn also stated that MRA helped her acting career because she always had to pretend to believe what the cult was telling her.

7 Lisa Marie Presley - After The Green

Lisa Marie Presley was the daughter of the late Elvis Presley and the former wife of the late Michael Jackson. She had a long career in the music business as a vocalist and a songwriter. She has dabbled in blues and folk, country, and rock music. Lisa used to be a member of the Church of Scientology. However, it is known how when she actually became a member, or when she even became a member because she has remained tight-lipped about most of her experiences and about the details of her time in Scientology, like many people who have left the cult-like organization.

Lisa’s father, Elvis, once said, “Eff those people. All they want is my money!” after he had a meeting with some Scientologists. Lisa did not heed her father’s warning, however. She was in the Church of Scientology until 2014. She said she was starting to self-destruct, and that she had gotten some bad advice and was losing touch with reality. She also said that Scientology was taking her soul, her money, and everything else. Lisa had spoken poorly of the cult in a song she had written about them, basically stating that they were corrupt.

6 River Phoenix - Blocked Out His Childhood

River was born in Madras, Oregon. He grew up in the popular cult called Children of God until he was eight years old. River was an actor, an activist, and also a musician. He was also the big brother to Joaquin, Rain, Summer, and Liberty, Phoenix. River’s family had settled down in Caracas, Venezuela where Children of God stationed them to work as fruit gathers and missionaries. River and his sister rain used to have perform on the streets to try to make enough money so that the rest of their family could eat. The very rich leader of Children of God would not give them any financial support, so the family was left to starve.

River had said that with the Children of God, that they were ruining people's lives, especially his, but that he mostly blocked it out. River’s parents took the family out of the cult in the late 1970’s, and there moved their family to Florida. They had also changed their last name from Bottom to Phoenix to symbolize a new beginning. Sadly, river passed away at the young age of 23 from an overdose on October 31, 1993.

5 Christopher Owen - Rejected Technology And Medicine

Christopher Owens was born in Miami, Florida. He is a musician, a singer, and a songwriter. He was best known as the frontman for the former Indie band called Girls. Christopher’s older brother had passed away from Pneumonia when Chris was just a baby because the members of Children of God did not believe in health care. Christopher’s family suffered from such extreme poverty that at times, she was forced into working the street to try to earn money for her family.

Christopher traveled all over Europe and Asia to help recruit new members into Children of God before he left the cult when he was 16-years-old. He had said that living in the cult was like living in the Taliban, that everyone on the outside was bad, and that they should reject technology and medical research, to be devoted to God, that America was bad, and that the end of the world was coming. Christopher said that the Children of God had all the same principals.

4 Emily Schromm - The Rebel Of The Family

Emily became famous by being a reality TV star on MTV’s “The Real World: D.C.” She grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult-like religion that was in Columbia, Missouri. Emily and her two older sisters grew up in the cult together. Emily had said that it was a very oppressive group that did not allow its members to be individuals or to have their own personal identity.

Emily left the cult when she was 14-years-old and just tried to be a normal teenager like everyone else who wasn't raised inside of a cult. She started partaking in activities that the cult for forbade its members to do such as playing football and rock climbing. Emily became a daredevil of sorts and tried to make up for lost time. She now identifies as bi, liking both men and women, and she enjoys doing extreme sports and CrossFit. She is even a CrossFit coach, and she stated that she is very skeptical of any religion because of how she grew up.

3 Jason Beghe - Influenced By Science

Jason Beghe is well known for his role in the movie, “G.I, Jane.” He broke free from the Church of Scientology after being a dedicated, active member for 13 long years. Jason had a public falling out with the cult-like organization. When Jason left Scientology for good, he released a video, claiming that, in fact, they really were an actual cult.

In the video, Jason had stated that Scientology was really a destructive rip-off and that it was extremely dangerous for a person’s mental, emotional, spiritual, and psychological well-being and health. He also said that he was very dangerous to evolution and that it probably stunts a person’s evolution. He said that if Scientology is real, then something is really screwed up. Jason had made claims that the cult actually brainwashed its members and that they wanted deserters to be put down. Jason also requested a refund for $70,000 but he never actually received even a penny of that back.

2 Susan Justice - Worked Up The Courage To Flee

Susan Justice, whose real name is Susan Cagle, was born in Aruba. She is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Susan was born to members of a religious sect called The Family, which was part of the Children of God Cult. Susan was a part of this cult with her family. She spent most of her younger years moving around from place to place while she was a member of Children of God.

Susan and her family would perform on the streets to earn money while they were traveling around doing their missionary work for this cult. In 2001, Susan worked up enough courage to finally flee from the Children of God and run away to New York, where she would perform in subway stations with only her guitar. Her debut, self-recorded, the album was titled, “The Subway Recordings.”

1 Paul Haggis - A Member Scientology

Paul Haggis is an Oscar-winning director who found himself involved in the Church of Scientology, which is basically a cult-like organization. The only problem was that it took Paul 34 very long years to realize that he was, indeed, a part of a cult. There have been tons of celebrities that have come forward and confessed that they were either former members of this cult, or that they were currently devoted, active members of the Church of Scientology. The only difference is that Paul called it as he finally saw it, and came outright and said that, yes, in fact, Scientology is a cult.

Paul questioned the cult-like organization when one of its chapters endorsed banning same-gender marriages in the state of California. Paul conducted his own personal investigation into the policies and perspectives of Scientology. That is when he finally came to the conclusion that he had been in a cult all this time. He said that everyone else was able to see it, and he questioned why he wasn’t able to see it.

Sources: Suggest.com, Ranker.com, Thebrofessionals.net, Moviepilot.com, Zimbo.com