Sounds Like A Cult

This week, Chelsea and Iman investigate The Cult of Bellum Entertainment, the true crime production company whose founder, Mary Carol McDonald, allegedly spent years building a very different kind of crime empire behind the scenes. True crime podcaster Jami Rice (@jamionair) joins us with an especially wild perspective: she was working at the bank that approved McDonald for a $15 million loan after she allegedly posed as an heiress to an $80 million fortune. We get into bouncing paychecks, unpaid freelancers, fake family lore, suspiciously persuasive baked goods, a lawyer with his own bonkers backstory, and the sunk-cost psychology that kept employees hanging on even as the red flags started multiplying. Come for the Hollywood labor exploitation, stay for the revelation that apparently even the pies were part of the grift. Granny Delvy, your table is ready.

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Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com!

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Thanks to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit h⁠⁠⁠ttps://www.article.com/discount/cult ⁠⁠⁠and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
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This week, Reese dives into The Cult of Celebrity Wellness Brands, where skincare, mental health, spirituality, supplements, and good old-fashioned celebrity worship have melted together into one extremely Instagrammable belief system. From Goop and Rhode to Rare Beauty, Kardashian supplements, children's skincare, and the spectacularly messy rise and fall of Selena Gomez's mental health startup Wondermind, Marketing critic and Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults author Dr. Mara Einstein (@drmaraeinstein) joins us to unpack parasocial trust, brand cults, wellness grifts, scarcity marketing, and why the most effective sales pitch is just convincing you that something is wrong with you first. Enlightenment is only a 12 step skincare routine, GLP-1-adjacent supplement, and celebrity approved app away.

The Cut: What Happened at Wondermind by Angelina Chapman

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Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.

Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!

Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com!

Thank you to our sponsors!

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This week, Amanda is joined by author and travel writer Sheila Yasmin Marikar (@sheilaym) to descend into The Cult of Dark Tourism, the booming travel industry built around vacationing where very, very bad things have happened. From Chernobyl excursions and serial killer pub crawls to war zone tourism, suicide forests, nuclear disaster sites, and the "haunted house" where people willingly sign up to be tortured, we’re asking what possesses someone to look at human tragedy and think: I should book a trip there. Helping us to unpack the cultiness is dark tourism legend David Farrier (@davidfarrier), documentarian and creator and host of Netflix’s Dark Tourist, to share what he learned after traveling to some of the strangest destinations on Earth. We discuss the bragging rights, rubbernecking, questionable ethics, and impressive mental gymnastics required to turn death and disaster into a bucket list. Because apparently, a beach vacation just isn’t enough for some people.

Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.

Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!

Sounds Like A Cult is coming to you LIVE from The Elysian in LA on October 15th! Get tickets at soundslikeacult.com with code CULT!

Thank you to our sponsors!

If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order

Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at https://Quince.com/slac

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Prepare to be love bombed by a bath bomb. This week, Iman follows her nose into the aggressively fragrant Cult of Lush with the Scam Goddess herself, Laci Mosley (@divalaci) . Beneath the glitter, naked packaging, and promise that an $18 Sleepy Bear can fix the economy, they uncover corporate “family” language, personality based group interviews, mandatory hand washing rituals, limited edition scarcity, alleged union busting, and enough employee horror stories to stain a tub permanently. So light a candle, protect your coworkers, and keep the bathwater out of your eyes. Is Lush a harmless cosmetic revolution, or is something murkier bubbling beneath the surface? One thing’s for sure: watch your back, wash your front, and for the love of God, wash your tub.

Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.

Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!

Thank you to our sponsors!

Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live, at https://joinbilt.com/cult
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This week, Chelsea, Reese, and Iman dive into The Cult of Sister Wives. Join us as we entice you with a little TLC chatter, before diving a bit deeper into the actual belief system that inspired it. We chat with Calvin Wayman (@calvinwayman), who grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist family with one dad, four moms, and 44 siblings, to unpack why plural marriage is tied to the highest level of heaven and what it actually takes to leave a community where your entire life exists inside the bubble. From wife rankings to celestial kingdoms, church arranged marriages, and the staggering cost of starting over, this episode straddles the line between reality TV guilty pleasure and actually living in this reality. One thing's for sure: if an angel shows up demanding your husband collect more wives... maybe ask a few follow up questions first.

Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles, @imanharirikia.

Pre-order Iman's new book, Once in a Timeline, here! Your pre-order helps make more books possible!

Thank you to our sponsors!

To Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain, Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.squarespace.com/CULT⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order

Thanks to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit h⁠⁠ttps://www.article.com/discount/cult ⁠⁠and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

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