Actor Andrew Keegan has finally addressed rumors that he began a cult.
Appearing on iHeartRadio’s “Pod Meets World” podcast Monday, the “10 Things I Hate About You” actor said he became “immersed within the culture and the community” of Venice Beach after moving to California in his 20s.
“There was this interesting group of hippie types, in case you will, in Venice,” Keegan, 45, told hosts Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle.
“I’m sure in case you went on the west side, there’s definitely a lot of spirituality. I used to be connected with some folks and we had this chance. There was the old Hare Krishna temple… and it was sitting there empty and we were like, ‘Yo, why don’t we just get some people together and let’s open this place up?’”
Keegan and his pals went on to open a “spiritual community center” in 2014 which they called Full Circle.
“Looking back, it was insane. I used to be putting down 10s of 1000’s of dollars, but we opened it up and spent three years and really did construct an incredible friend group,” he shared. “We went through something really significant from 2014 to 2017.”
The “seventh Heaven” alum said opening the middle was his way of doing something “positive for the community.”
But just months after Full Circle’s doors opened, rumors of cult-like activity began to swirl, which were only heightened by a Vice article titled “One of the Stars of 10 Things I Hate About You Began a Religion.”
“I look back at it now and I’m like, I don’t know anybody else who’s being called a cult leader, so it’s kind of like a badge of honor,” Keegan quipped, adding that Full Circle was the “opposite of what you could possibly imagine.”
“They simply really created a very interesting, colourful story and put it together,” he explained.
“We did almost 1,000 events in three years, and it was actually really hard. It was really useful to a lot of people, I still hear about it now, where individuals are like, ‘That was such a great time.’”
“There was no doctrine,” Keegan continued. “We were just getting people together. The Co-Creator’s Handbook was the handbook we used. For all intents and purposes, it was a really cool community center for a bunch of people in Venice for a few years.”
Full Circle’s community center permanently shut its doors in 2017.