‘I was in the infamous NXIVM cult – even when I was branded I didn’t leave’

Sarah was in the controversial cult NXIVM cult for 12 years (Picture: Trevor Brady Photography)

Sarah Edmondson is a normal working mum. She spends her days rushing around after her sons Troy, 11, and seven-year-old Ace, taking them to baseball games and working on her podcast with her husband.

However, a trace of her former life remains in the form of a pale white line on her left hip, beneath her bikini line. 

It appeared on Sarah’s body as part of an ‘initiation’ into a secret women’s circle, where she was blindfolded, told to strip naked and branded with the logo of the controversial NXIVM cult.

Led there under false pretences, she had been entrenched within th...