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'I made terrible choices'

‘Game of Thrones’ Star Reveals Dark Descent Into Cult

The retired actress attributes her terrifying psychological breakdown to her experiences in the group.

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

PublishedMay 25, 2026, 8:18 PM EDT

UpdatedMay 25, 2026, 8:22 PM EDT

Updated May 25, 2026, 8:22 PM EDTPublished May 25, 2026, 8:18 PM EDT

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A Game of Thrones star revealed a terrifying psychological episode she experienced after joining a what she now refers to as wellness cult.

On Saturday, Hannah Murray, 36, discussed her upcoming memoir, The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness (available on June 23), with 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,” she said.

The British actress became famous at 17 for her portrayal of Cassie Ainsworth, a troubled teen with anorexia, on the Skins. She later starred in HBO’s most popular series, Game of Thrones, for seven seasons, in which she played Gilly.

In 2017, while filming the thriller Detroit in the U.S., the then 27-year-old began to struggle with her mental health.

In Detroit, Murray’s character is sexually assaulted, and filming the scenes was at times grueling.

“My breasts were exposed to the room and to the camera. I covered them immediately with my arms. Then we did it all over again… So many times that I did not keep count,” she told the outlet.

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Murray recalled being filled with adrenaline, her heart beating fast, and her stomach and chest hurting. She began seeing nightmares that woke her up at night, and were so vivid they caused her to vomit.

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A personal trainer from the movie set introduced her to an “energy healer,” and Murray paid $150 for her first session. After, she slept for 14 hours.

The experience built trust, and when Murray returned to the U.K., she met with another person the “energy healer” had told her about.

Murray ended up paying thousands of dollars to attend classes such as “Ritual Master Novice,” “Ritual Master Apprentice,” and “Ritual Master Magus Hermeticus” with the person. She chose not to name the organization.

After completing enough courses, she was allowed to attend a five-day course at a London hotel, led by a charismatic man she learned was the leader.

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Some things, such as the man’s sexual jokes, raised concerns with Murray, but other members were quick to ease her worries.

Over the five days, Murray did not sleep much, and her thoughts began racing.

First, she began seeing symbols and hidden messages everywhere, and then she started hearing the leader’s voice in her head.

Murray started to believe that the leader held special powers, that he was her father, that they would get married, and that she wanted to have sex with him.

She started to experience terrible headaches. The other members attributed her pains to “an evil spirit,” and tried to chant it out of her.

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One day, when Murray was running around the hotel looking for the group’s leader, she was stopped and held to the floor by uniformed men.

She spent the next 28 days detained in a hospital under U.K.’s Mental Health Act.

While there, Murray says, she tried to reach out to the leader for answers, but he told her that “a bad guy got inside [her]” and that she was ”possessed.”

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Now Murray, who has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, lives a sober and private life.

She told the outlet that growing up with fantastical books like the Harry Potter series made her more impressionable to believe in alternative worlds.

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“When I was going through psychosis, my brain was a cocktail of those stories, this idea that I had discovered the truth, which was that I had this incredible destiny. I was going to save the world. I could fly,” she said.

Adding, “Not to say that those stories are bad or anything. I just think we are fed on a diet that makes us want this.”

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The diagnosis came as a relief to her.

“Everything made so much more sense,” Murray recalled.

Murray no longer participates in activities like meditation, yoga, or buying crystals.

“Even the tame stuff can feel quite distressing,” she said.

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Murray said that wellness culture is now “everywhere” and that it “might be causing some of the problems it claims to be able to cure.”

“There are harmless or positive versions,” she said, adding, “But as someone looking for something to fix me entirely, a magic wand or silver bullet, the promise felt seductive and addictive.”

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

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