Comedian Spring Day used her platform of the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 to share her harrowing experience of being drawn into a fundamentalist Christian cult in Missouri at the age of 13.

For the next 13 years, she remained within the cult, a period she has rarely discussed publicly until now, according to the Metro.

Spring, who moved to the UK seven years ago and also lives with cerebral palsy, told the outlet that joining a cult isn’t about intelligence, but rather about vulnerability and optimism.

She emphasised that those with an optimistic outlook can be particularly susceptible to such groups, which remain surprisingly common in the US, with up to 10,000 cults still in existence according to experts.

At just 13 years old, Spring sought refuge from an abusive home environment and was taken in by a local fundamentalist church.

There, she was "love bombed" by a woman she calls her "church mum," who discouraged her from pursuing acting, claiming that actors are "possessed by demons". 

She was also manipulated into believing that her mother’s abusive behavior was rooted in her feminist beliefs.

The church, which Spring did not name, allegedly played a role in significant political events in the US, including the 6th January Capitol attacks and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which legalised anti-abortion laws nationwide.

Spring recounts how, at 16, she was given a distorted "sex talk" by her "church mum", who told her that premarital sex would make her like "chewed-up gum". She was also pressured into signing a contract dedicating her body to the church.

Spring eventually left the cult and forged her own path in life, saying she now seeks to be guided by the teachings of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.