15 Celebrities With Shockingly Tragic Pasts

14. Rose McGowan

The actress has become famous worldwide by playing Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series “Charmed”, and Ann-Margret in the CBS miniseries “Elvis”, but her childhood was a bit strange, to say the least.

The actress has revealed back in 2011 that she was a member of the controversial cult called “Children of God”, a group which blended free love attitudes with preparing for the second coming of Jesus.

Even at an early age, Rose noticed something suspicious in the cult’s practices when she saw that women were treated as sex slaves for the men of group, and knew she did not want the same fate for herself. Her father managed to pull her out of this notorious organization when the group began considering allowing sex between children and adults.

“At a very early age, I thought ‘These beliefs are absurd,” said Rose on one occasion. “Like in most cults, you were cut off from your [outside] family. There were no newspapers, no television. You were kept in the dark so you would obey. It was not a wealthy existence.”

“I remember watching how the cult’s men were with the women, and at a very early age I decided I did not want to be like those women. They were basically there to serve the men sexually. The women would go to bars as lures (to pick up recruits) – they called it flirty fishing.”