Spring Day has come to the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 to share her story for the first time: of how she was sucked into a fundamentalist Christian cult in Missouri at the age of 13, and stayed there for the next 13 years of her life.
The comedian, who lives in the UK having moved seven years ago, is opening up about her unique and rollercoaster experience for the first time after years of keeping tight-lipped on the topic for fear people wouldn’t understand.
The fact is, as Spring – who also has mild cerebral palsy – told a room of 30 or so people: joining a cult has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with optimism. The more optimistic you are, the more vulnerable you are to them.
Getting indoctrinated into a cult is more common than you’d think. According to some experts, up to 10,000 cults still exist today in the US. Spring notes at the start of her set that Americans are eternally optimistic.
At 13, the Live At The Apollo star was taken under the wing of a local fundamentalist church having suffered violence from her mother at home.
She was looking for a safe place to call her own and thought she’d found it.
There, she was ‘love bombed’ by her ‘church mum’ who convinced her not to become an actor, because they’re ‘all possessed by demons’.
Rather than going to social services, the police, or any authority, she also convinced Spring that her mum was abusive because she was a feminist.
It became clear Spring’s only path was to bring children into the world under the fundamentalist teachings of a church she isn’t naming because these places have power in America, she says.
Her church was involved in the January 6 attacks on the US Capitol, and it also had a hand in overturning Roe vs Wade, which shocked the world when it made anti-abortion laws legal across the USA.
How to see Spring Day’s show
How to see Spring Day’s show
Spring Day: Exvangelical is showing at the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 from August 9 to 12, and from August 14 to 25 at the Pleasance Courtyard at 6.05pm. Tickets available here.
At 16, Spring’s ‘church mum’ gave her the sex talk, informing her that pre-marital sex would make her the equivalent of chewed-up gum. She even signed a contract promising to commit herself to God, giving over her body to the cause.
Spring was also sent to healers – who talked in tongues, which she now refers to as ‘Latin for bull****’ – in order to get rid of her cerebral palsy, which was labelled demonic.
Once Spring knew she didn’t want children and was therefore useless in the eyes of the church, she left. Now, she follows her own path. And – jokingly – the teachings of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Edinburgh Fringe 2024 runs until August 26.
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