Theo Pratt - Blue Dresses, Smacking Ladies, and an Isolated Compound: Surviving Gloriavale

This week's guest is Theo Pratt, survivor of Gloriavale, an isolated Christian cult hidden deep in rural New Zealand, and author of Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale. She'll talk about being raised on the strictly controlled commune where people were assigned new names, women wore identical dresses and head coverings, and children weren't taught the real days of the week—or even where they were in the world. Theo shares about the leader Neville Cooper's self-proclaimed divine authority, how "smacking ladies" kept the kids in line—and guards kept the compound controlled, and her rebellious streak that led her to planning an escape attempt on a tandem bicycle. And of course, the moment she realized she couldn't stay, and what it felt like to step into the outside world she'd been taught would destroy her. SOURCES: Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale

You can listen to Theo Pratt - Blue Dresses, Smacking Ladies, and an Isolated Compound: Surviving Gloriavale online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Theo Pratt - Blue Dresses, Smacking Ladies, and an Isolated Compound: Surviving Gloriavale is an episode from Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and the Abuse of Power by iHeartPodcasts.

This episode is 74:32 long.

This episode was published on Dec 17, 2025.

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