Hannah Murray, the 36-year-old actress known for playing Gilly in ‘Game of Thrones‘ and Cassie in ‘Skins‘, is finally talking about a terrifying time in her life. She ended up in a psychiatric hospital after a cult leader convinced her she was “possessed by a demon.”
In her new memoir, The Make Believe, and in recent interviews, Murray opened up about how looking for meaning during her busy acting career led her to an alleged wellness cult. Apparently, things got so bad that she had a psychotic breakdown and had to stay in a mental health ward.
How An Energy Healer Led The ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Down A Dark Path
The whole thing started in 2017 while she was filming Kathryn Bigelow’s movie ‘Detroit‘. The movie was intense and violent, and it was really getting to her. A personal trainer introduced her to an “energy healer” named Grace. A $150 session led to more and more expensive courses that promised to help her find herself and gain spiritual power.
Soon, she was part of a group run by a man she only calls “Steve.” She said he had a kind of “magical power” she had never seen before. “I discovered that magic was real,” she writes. “After my time with them, I had never felt so powerful or alive.“
“I had no idea I was going to go through any of the things in the book,” Murray told The Guardian. “I was well educated, from a middle-class family; everything should have been fine. I thought, ‘I’m smart. I make good choices.’ Well, I made terrible choices.“
Inside Hannah Murray’s Terrifying Exorcism and Hospitalization
Things came to a head during a five-day course at a hotel in London. Murray was talking “at a million miles a second” and started to hallucinate. She was in serious psychosis. In her memoir, she describes the pain as being like “giving birth through my skull.“
In case you missed it: Jon Snow To Flea Bottom, All The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Spinoffs That Never Happened
She hid in a bathroom stall, but members of the group found her. They surrounded her and chanted, “Be gone, evil spirit in Hannah.” A group of men eventually pinned her to the floor and took her to the hospital. This happened just hours before she was supposed to go through her initiation ceremony into the cult.
Even from the hospital, where she was committed against her will, she was still under Steve’s control. He told her she had been “possessed by a demon” while making ‘Detroit‘ and that he had performed an exorcism on her.
Believing The Cult Leader Even From The Psych Ward
Murray spent 28 days in a psychiatric ward under the Mental Health Act. But instead of focusing on getting better, she was obsessed with the “energy” in her body and what Steve thought of her. She sent him a bunch of texts, sometimes calling him an “evil cult leader” and other times thanking him. He would just deny being a cult leader, jokingly saying he could not be one because he did not even have a compound.
“I believed him. I believed he was not a cult leader. I believed everything he told me,” she admitted.
While she was recovering, Murray was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She says getting that diagnosis was actually a huge relief because it finally explained all the extreme highs and lows she had been dealing with for years. “I did not enter ill and leave well,” she said. “I entered extremely psychotic and left somewhat less so.”
Hannah Murray’s Mission To End Mental Health Stigma
These days, Murray has retired from acting. She is focused on fighting the stigma around severe mental illness, especially for people who have been “sectioned,” or involuntarily committed.
“There’s such a taboo around the idea of people who are sectioned. They are beyond the pale,” she told The Guardian. “It felt really important to say, ‘I went through this.’ Lots of people go through this. That doesn’t mean they are bad or f—ed up forever.“
Murray’s memoir comes out July 11. Her story is a warning about how dangerous the unregulated wellness industry can be and how even smart people can get pulled into these groups.
You might also want to read: “That’s Usually When They Kill You Off”: Emilia Clarke On Hiding Her Brain Hemorrhage From HBO During ‘Game Of Thrones’
