Full interview: Rebecca Musser opens up about life from the FLDS to Fruitland, Idaho

what is your life like now you're a beautiful home you're in fruitland i mean when did you make it out here and how do you describe your life right how do i describe my life my life is so good it really is idaho's been good to me and my life is everything that was impossible 20 years ago right now today i was owned for everything i understood i was owned for this life and for as long as eternity would last for me and so to imagine that now here we are in 2022 and i have a home where it's my name on the deep and that it's a safe place for my children where i get to choose what happens in my world and it's just a gift it is an absolute miracle that i have my life today so i know when you met with michelle in 2013 way back then you had security with you do you still travel in that way do you has your how does how has that changed do you feel more safe now yeah you know here we are i mean it's been 10 years since warren jeffs was convicted in texas and up to that point in time there were threats on my life if they could have made me stop testifying then men would not have gone to prison at that time so while it has been a concern in the past i think as time has gone on more people have realized about the lies they've seen that all of his prophecies have not come true and so the really great thing about all of that is things have changed certainly he still rules some people but things have changed for a lot of people i had men who have come to me and said i would have been the first to put a bullet in your head but i want to tell you thank you for what you've done you saw what was going on before the rest of us and now we have choice because of what you did so people have left yeah people have left the confines of the church some of them have gone to other areas like me but some of them have stayed in utah and the town has changed a tremendous amount and it's interesting to see the resilience of the people there to see the growth to see them healing i mean it's messy there's it's not perfect anywhere but they are building businesses they have high schools and education happening again they have sports opportunities they're going on to get higher education there's a lot that has opened up in that town and it's thrilling to see is there still a lot of polygamy yes there is there's a lot of polygamy i think that um certainly i have my own opinion about polygamy i don't feel like it's just a lifestyle choice like some would like them others to believe i think when you have a society that says god will love you a little bit more if you live this way but i just can't imagine that a self-actualized woman who knows what choice is who has a strong sense of identity would be thrilled about sharing her man with someone else so do you still speak to your parents uh no my mother both of my parents have they stand in different places in regards to the church my father has was told to leave and but he still believes a lot of those principles and he still thinks that polygamy is okay he would like for me to get permission to speak before i speak as if as a strong female and i just i honor where they are at but they are not in my life my mother is somewhere in montana and of course i wish that she could meet her grandkids and have them in their life she's missing out on some amazing beautiful moments that could be had but at the same time i have to honor and respect their choices have you seen or talked to them since you left the last time i saw my mother was in 2006 okay and i have i talked to her i think the last time i spoke with her was in 2006 and i've seen my dad a few times since and i've had it i saw him within the last year and a half and um you know we feel differently about different things how many wives does he have currently he did at one time have three wives he only has his first wife with him now okay um you obviously grew up in a very different world than you live in right now how do you like kind of simply put compare your life now and the ability to make choices for yourself and do what you want from sun up to sun down versus how you were raised and and what the expectations were for you how how do i compare that yeah i think growing up in a society where every part of your life was dictated and it was dictated by men from what you wore to what you could say how you could how you could be educated how you could speak um and what you could do where you could go everything was dictated by men and i was always frustrated with that i i didn't like it even though that's all that i knew it was hard for me i was really probably kind of angry a lot um and so to have the life and the choices that i have now every single day is kind of like this let me start there again it's hard to put it into words no i get it it's worlds apart the life that i have today where i can choose where i want to live whether i want to be married or not or whether i want to have a baby or not if i want to dye my hair or what i want to wear like to have gone from a world with no real choice other than to obey or be cast out to having this life where daily i get to choose what the standard of living that i want to have and what i want to do with my time um it's nothing short of a miracle and every and i'm grateful i think that it's it's one of the greatest gifts of having a past like mine is that i don't take anything for granted are you religious now in any way it's an interesting question i believe in god i do not go to any one church i i respect how anybody chooses to worship in as much as they are not violating someone in the process of their worship i think that we all most if not all have this desire to connect with something greater than ourselves i feel like for me for my past experience i find reverence and connection with god in nature and and that's where i go to worship um to to feel connection more than anywhere else more than any temple more than any church building and that's where i go for me and you do that a lot it seems like you're very outdoorsy like is that really a form of like therapy and like finding yourself and like your peace a lot yeah so it was kind of interesting i from i left in 2002 and then went straight into absolute survival and then from there became a mom and then spent from 2006 to 2016 in and out of a courtroom in utah arizona and texas and then in british columbia and i had gone from one thing to the next to the next to the next just getting through and giving giving giving and then i found myself in this place where i went through a really just heart obliterating breakup and i'd always loved being outside as a kid and it was a really tough time and i remember just my heart felt so shattered and i thought i need to do something so that i need to go do something so that my body hurts worse than my heart hurts and i thought what's the biggest meanest mountain that i could find and it was malbora and so so i climbed mount borah the first time it was really really really hard i anybody who's climbed mount borah knows about the route and then the last push to the summit and it's intense it's well worth it it's well worth it but it really did the job and my body certainly hurt worse than my heart was hurting and and it's been interesting because i think as i it just planted a seed and i here in idaho we are so lucky because we have this tremendous amount of wilderness to go and explore and at first it was because i was hurting but i think just hiking for me it simplifies everything and it when you're walking along just on a dirt path and you have the ability to just take notice of everything around you and it's a teacher it slows everything down where you can be present with yourself you get to explore who you are when the path is easy and when the path is hard and for as i climbed a mountain and then another one and another one i think that certainly here in idaho with our mountains here they have a way of dealing with overconfidence and but they also have a way of planting hope in those aching places of our hearts too and little by little even though i didn't intend i didn't plan on if i just go climb this and i'll feel better but as i went out and slowed everything down and and took time to just be with myself while i walked on this dirt and rocks it healed my heart it was like this this opportunity to gather up all of the pieces of me and it went from going to the mountains because my heart was hurting to where now it's just joy yes there's a lot of suffering on those big mountains there's not a lot about them that feels really good in the moment it's type 2 fun and there's been plenty of times when i've been on a big mountain and i thought what part of this was a good idea yesterday because this is really kicking my pants right now doug's like you won't catch me up there anytime soon i'll drive to it it's okay i'll take pictures in sunday but um but it's it's now such a joy so even this last weekend climbing around in the mountains east of sun valley and seeing the views and just looking out with nobody around and just realizing my gosh i am so lucky to be here and just to take it all in to go places where you're only your own two feet can get you there there's something really special about that for me i'm very curious when you meet new people now that know nothing about your past or where you've come from at what point do you share that with them so that's a good question i don't i do not just lead off and say hey my name is rebecca oh by the way i grew up in a cult and i escaped so no i i just meet people i love that people generally have no idea sometimes i'll be somewhere and someone will say you look really familiar and i just say oh i just have one of those faces really um yeah like if you run i guess you meet someone in the grocery store and they're like oh you grew up around here you're like well actually and i just say uh no i didn't and i just kept pretty vague because once at what i have found in the years it certainly has gotten better but i think initially it was so wildly bizarre for someone to look at someone my age and realize whoa you were married to an 85 year old man and then it kind of felt like i was this circus freak and part of that probably was my own perception because i was still processing it as well that how did this happen certainly it wasn't my choice but it also what i had found is once people found out about that then it for a while it kind of felt like it changed the way that they saw me they didn't know quite where to put me and that always made my my heart sad because i you know and you just realize i'm just me i'm the same me who i was before you knew this about me and since uh since testifying then i think it has helped educate people because the reality is i mean the flds is one of the largest cults in the nation and one of the most extreme however there are so many extreme religious situations and in any given day any one of us and me now i see women and and young men too in stores and i intentionally put myself in their path to look them in the eye and just smile i want them to know there's goodness out here i didn't know that when i first left and so back to your question about how when do i choose to i never lie i never be like feed someone a line of i'll say yeah i grew up in utah and there's a few questions that happens after i'm like nope i'm not mormon no you know and it's easy to kind of sidestep that and um every once in a while though because that you never want to be disingenuous and yet how do you land this bombshell because it's not like oh hey by the way some small thing it kind of usually lands pretty big when people's eyes get big and but what i have found is more and more um i have so many people that they'll say i just want to get to know you i don't i mean i don't have to read your book i'd rather just get to know you and whether someone that i know reads my book or watches something or watches netflix now i just so appreciate when people are just genuinely them and give me space to be genuinely me we all come from somewhere and much of it wherever someone is born that's not necessarily our choice but what we do with that and the life we create sometimes it takes time i mean i was 26 when i finally was able to leave and now here almost 20 years later it's taken time to get my feet underneath me mentally physically like in all the ways and yet i just have so much appreciation for what that journey has been and i appreciate when other people just welcome me with with um no pretense and just kindness is there anyone that you know that has been in your life for some time that you know maybe randomly saw this netflix series and like oh my gosh is that my neighbor like has anyone said anything to you yes yes so um i i am part of uh here in idaho we have a great hiking community and um there's a few facebook groups that i've posted on and they only know me as someone that just goes out and hikes and and likes to share route information or whatever and um when netflix launched i got this plethora of messages like i thought someone looked familiar i had no idea and i and mo so much of it has been very kind and very reassuring and just like wow you know i respect what your journey has been i'm sure you've gotten a lot of good messages about like go girl right overwhelmingly good throughout all of it it's been um i think a lot of just i think it's taken people back a little bit because if they were to meet me now and see me and or hike with me or even in real estate as as a realtor then i had clients that we were working on and then they're like first we need to talk to you about something because this is the elephant in the room and i'm like yep that's me yeah and lucky me i get to help you find your home yeah and so now we're on to business right yeah i i think one of the struggles uh that happens when i talk with other people and if there was one thing i wish they could know among a few but i wish that people could know there's no hierarchy amongst pain pain is pain and for whatever people's experience has been or will yet be none of us go through life without knowing what betrayal is or sorrow or loss and i think that that's part of the human experience and sometimes people will say well i haven't been through anything that like you've been through and maybe not but that's irrelevant there are people who've gone through way worse than me and some people and i hope it's tons that won't go through anything close to what it was to grow up in the place i grew up in but i think in the end we're all so much more alike than we are different one of the gifts of having the extreme nature of my life and the the situation growing up it's easy to teach from and since writing my book or this netflix series has come out a lot of messages have come in of people saying i didn't grow up there but what you described was so much about my life it was so similar to the life that i had and i've had the most the whole reason for me of speaking out not just in a courtroom but publicly like to to write a book and to open up about the personal experience of that was because i want anyone in that kind of a situation whether it's oppression through religion or domestic violence or something else to know that it doesn't have to stay like that and for everything that i knew my life could have been 20 years ago the fact that i could have choice like i have now that was impossible yeah and yet here i am that's an impossibility that happened but it didn't happen by accident and i think when it comes down to some people will say you're so courageous and when i look back on those moments i was scared out of my mind and whether it was anger or hope or a mix of both that led to taking the actions that it took to first escape and then to speak out if someone would have spoken up for me i would have never stayed in a cult if i could have known that a woman could leave that there would be help out here i would have never been married to an 85 year old man and i think that that's one of the things i'm most proud of that at the time that i left women did not leave they were just caged pretty much mentally and with all of the security and and constriction the walls and and the fear that they had of the outside world so what did you know about the outside world i mean you grew up most of your time in salt lake city right so you were around other people outside of flds at that point right well it's it's interesting yes and no we grew up in the heart of salt lake city um and i even went to public school for kindergarten and first grade and i loved my teacher and i think um she i was just had a flashback of that's probably where one of my loves of mountains came because i remember being in eastwood elementary and my first grade teacher talking about mount whitney and she was saying that is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 and you could climb it when you grow up and i think she talked about her husband climbing it or something and so somehow in my little first grade mind i linked up if you can just get to the top of that mountain you can have freedom and so we did have through a little bit there i had this experience because we were told the whole of the outside world was evil that it was only a matter of time before everyone was destroyed and that they would want to hurt us and don't be tricked by any kindness and so growing up i also had the opportunity to take violin lessons from someone who was in the outside world and that was a rarity that was not normal and what a gift for me and my sisters to have had that so we had these small little interactions but at the same time we were very much removed it's certainly when my dad took us out of public school and put us in the flds private school and then where warren jeffs was the principal and every single day was doom and gloom you will be damned the outside world is going to hurt you and everything's about to be destroyed like at any given day could have been the last day on earth for us and so growing up with my whole life where the world's about to end and um but i think that as time went on and then being forced to maryville and jeffs and realizing my gosh if this is heaven i will take hell over this any day and even if i'm destroyed that's fine at least i chose it because this is not heaven to me and so i think that to to say what did i know about the outside world um i knew that there was some goodness and i i remember looking out over the salt lake valley thinking how can all these people be bad and if god just created them to be destroyed what a cruel thing and i think my mind got me in a lot of trouble growing up but the ability to ask questions even though we weren't supposed to was probably my saving grace at what point so i realized now you know looking back at your life then and growing up flds like you use the word cult which i think most people would at what point did that switch for you and your brain that this isn't normal this isn't family this isn't religion this is a cult and i need to get out so it's interesting we knew what the word cult was because in the when i was in high school at that time that's when the situation in waco with the branch davidians happened and warren jeffs called them a cult he would come into our school every day and say this is what they're saying and um it's kind of like that idea well we're the only true church and everybody else is just counterfeit and wrong and they're the cult but we are not and um they would tell us this is what's going to happen to us and and we are one god's one true church and that's why the world's against us and i remember leaving and just you know essentially running for my life and i really thought it was 50 50 at best 50 50 chance that i would die but at least i was okay with that because there still was 50 chance that you wouldn't die by getting killed by someone like the urge yeah just not making it on your own well i didn't know i i didn't know what it would be like to live in the outside world i mean we were terrorized by all these stories of how you'd become diseased and and damned and destroyed in the flesh like all of these things and for me to have been the prophet's wife to have had the chance to marry warren or someone of his approval and then to leave to forfeit all of that that was like the greatest sin and so according to warren jeff's words certainly and even some of their doctrine then i there's no reason that i should be alive even today even just for leaving let alone testifying against their prophet and so i think that um sorry what was your question i don't know oh i'm not sure i don't remember when we started there when did i start calling it a call yeah so after i left and it took a little bit of time to just gather my bearings and i think um got a job kind of started to just live day to day but every day was so hard so hard and thank goodness i had a job where we had a uniform where it's just white and black and i didn't have to try and decide what to wear and um but then when i started to kind of meet good people and realize this is nothing like warren jeff said and when i was contacted about pursuing charges for my sister elisa where she was the child bride but was not at a point where she would be even close to willing to talk to law enforcement and i think that there's there's a well-defined list of behaviors that regardless of labels if it crosses these lines in behavior it's defined as a cult and and the gentleman who contacted me about speaking with an attorney was saying i mean he grew up there he had children there and was now out and was trying to help other people build a life especially the boys that had been kicked out and he said he said that the way that evil flourishes is when good people do nothing and the weight of what that meant because we were always told that it wouldn't be the outside world that could hurt us it would be one who had grown up inside that who could do the most damage and i had people i loved it wasn't like i wanted to tear someone else's world apart and yet i wanted that to stop i knew what my experience was i knew what my sister's experience was and so many others and it's not just abuse toward women men are abused too and it just that they would mock warren jeffs would mock the legal system he would mock utah and say how can you prosecute me when you yourself are the product of polygamy and he said they won't touch that and so i think when i did go and talk to the attorney and they spelled out when that's all that you've known and that's what's normal and then when they spell out and speak to the behavior and you realize wow and and the flds hits every one of those markers not just a handful yeah it has every single one and i think that that's when i realized it really was it wasn't just in my head that it was messed up that it really was an abusive situation for everybody involved and do you still have family who is still very much in flds yeah i i do i mean in a group like that my mother was part of a family of 65 kids wow and um my dad was a convert there but i think i have thousands of cousins and but i have aunts and uncles and i have nieces and nephews and sisters who are still there yeah and my mother is still there fortunately um [Music] of my mother's 14 children all of them except two have left and i would never go to anybody whether it's a sister or anyone and say listen you must do this but i do want them to know that there's choice and then they can make that choice i think that for what the journey is when you leave something like that you better want it because with choice comes responsibility and it's not an easy path to to go from leaving everything you knew the world to be your sense of belonging what you understood about yourself to completely cutting cords and leaving that behind it feels very much like tumbling through space and not having anything to anchor to and the it's exciting to see that that it's more and more as more people have left that process there's more support there's more knowledge about things like hey don't get involved with drugs or alcohol college is a really great idea so it's getting more and more streamlined and seeing people get on their feet faster and get a career faster and get involved in in building a powerful and good life instead of just being lost and constantly escaping in drugs or alcohol so you um just trying to get like quick timeline wise so you were 19 when you married roulan jess and at that time you guys were still in salt lake city area yeah and then they moved down to shore creek and then you left when you were 26 is that right yeah how long after rouland died was born trying to get you married again with someone else yeah that was crazy so um ruined just died september 8th and within one month of that it was october 7th then he called us all into this room and he said last night seven of you married me and then it was every single day was pressure and he didn't want to stand up and say pick me but he was he is keenly aware of how to manipulate people he is so good at implying things and utilizing pressure the unspoken nuance and unspoken but well-known agenda that he has and just getting people to acquiesce to that and i think that the shock of something i mean now i think back well of course roland jeffs wouldn't have died it's you know he was 92. and but going back to that mind where i was then and realizing what i thought about the world that was never supposed to happen and so when that happened the utter shock of it all um i think it rocked everyone to the core but especially his young wives and warren even told us when he died none of you were going anywhere and i thought okay that's fine with me i'll just be like a nun in a convent that's fine but then there was so much pressure to get remarried and that's when i was like no so that's when you decided like this yeah i'm getting out well and it wasn't initially it was not that i i didn't plan on leaving i and i i mean like i always wanted to be a good i wanted to go to heaven and in order to go to heaven i knew what was going to be required of women certainly and i just kept you know replaying it is there any other way is there any other way around this issue of having to be married again because i think for me um i had seen some of my sister wives get married to other men and i would see that man set aside his entire family because now there's this it was it was a big honor to have married one of the prophet's wives and i saw what went through the other women i'm like there's no way i can do that to another man's family yeah not a chance and and i just i i saw what my mother went through and i knew my experience and i just i didn't really have any awesome experiences or examples of marriage or polygamy and there was no way that i would be a first wife so [Music] in the end the gift of it though by warren being so putting so much pressure on me it took that for me to even consider leaving even though i didn't like it it's still it was the only thing that i knew you were pushed so hard that yeah like it was like do or die yeah and i'd rather die than this yeah so i mean the whole reason of course timing-wise that we're here is the whole keep sweet yeah um did you know going into it that that's what they were going to call it no oh no does that phrase just like when you hear that phrase i had yeah so we did filming and and when i first was contacted about the project then the director rachel dresden i had a great conversation with her and i i said what is your intention like what do you want the end product to be and she said you know there's been a lot said about warren jeffs and these other men but we want to do something that is a bit of a history about the flds how did it get where it is today but also about the human experience of it a lot of times people think it's just stupid dumb people in there why don't they just leave and what they don't realize is that can be anyone when you control the education and you control people's perception of what the world is we're all very vulnerable and so she said we'd like to be able to talk about that and the resilience of people if they get their chance and so that intrigued me and um i flew to salt lake and they were phenomenal to work with very respectful and really wanted to know that i'd been asked questions in a courtroom very factual questions and then even writing a book that was more like when i processed wow what did this feel like and i went through that was cathartic in a way because for the first time i was like that's messed up but i was really mad about a lot of things as i went through the process of writing my book and then doing this documentary i think having a few years behind me and also having a daughter and being able to put it into perspective it's given me the opportunity to uh it's like dying and living again only remember your previous life and you realize how different life could be it's and and how fortunate i am to have my life now and so it doesn't bother me to talk about it i don't it's not a part of my daily thinking yeah like how often does it like cross your mind you know every once in a while i'll have dreams that i'm back there really and let the hair and everything and and i have this small memory of like wait this isn't my life still which one is the dream kind of and then i wake up and they're like wake up i'm so glad to be here but i think that um yeah it's now i have it it used to be a really painful thing to think about now i think after a lot of therapy some time a lot of effort a lot of tears and some time in the mountains i have just a tremendous amount of appreciation for what the journey has been and i think that when realizing it now and when i'm asked questions about it and i'll just you know say what it was but then i take a sp i almost hear myself talking i think my gosh that really was my life and and it's it's almost jarring sometimes and um so when we did the filming and certainly the the production crew was just a total class act top-notch to deal with and they were always very respectful of myself and others i didn't even know who else they had interviewed i knew my sister was in there and but i didn't know the other people that they had interviewed and one of the producers her name is grace and i said so how's everything going and she would give us updates and i said do you have a name yet and she said oh yes yes it's keep sweet pray and obey and i was like oh i feel like i got punched in the stomach like you've got to be kidding me oh trigger phrase like it's so i don't hear those words very often and and it did it felt like i got punched in the gut the first time i heard it and i was like kind of reeling like oh gosh okay well i could have puked in my mouth right now yeah i wasn't thrilled and i i just i there's i have no um that phrase like the word sweet i like that but i do not like keep sweet it just that is like this cage that just locks around someone and i can almost hear it and feel it click where there's no emotion there's no honesty there's only absolute obedience and and there's every part of me that wants to buck and bolt and i just have to have a minute where i realize hey that's okay it's okay that's not my life now but i like that they did put it in there because it was such the iconic description of what our life was the mentality and the teaching right yeah and so when you watched the show i mean like have you seen those old photos and videos that they used was that surprising to you oh gosh so i oddly enough it launched on my mom's birthday and i was leading up to it i knew that it was launching and i thought well um [Music] do i want to just go out of service and someone can text me a thumbs up or thumbs down because i didn't know what it was going to end up being yeah and but i did trust the production company and um and that morning i started getting a lot of messages so i thought well i better i better just watch it and it's kind of cringy like okay do i turn it on do i just listen to it so i turned it on and um it was i think they did a phenomenal job of weaving together the stories uh i think when i didn't know that they interviewed my dad really yeah and that was interesting because my dad um certainly he has his own viewpoint and while i respect his right to have that viewpoint i do question whether it's my dad or anybody if they are not willing to be on the receiving end of what they're so willing to dish out is that really a respectful society and that's hard for me as a daughter as a as a mother of a daughter it's hard for me to respect my dad in that regard so when they showed the home videos and i mean i didn't know they had them i haven't seen those since i left i don't and i think they must have gotten from my dad um it was bizarre it was this flashback because i remember as corny as those look on film those were some of the best moments that we had and and there was this warm sense of nostalgia really that of remembering where you belonged even though there was so much about our life that wasn't good there's that sense of belonging and and i think that that's that's a sobering thing because how often do we stay in bad situations just because it's familiar and we feel like we have roots there and so seeing your 15 year old self on tv like you're awkward like oh my gosh 15 year old self and i mean on the one hand um it was it was surreal to see that because there's part of me that was like my gosh i remember her and if i could just go back to her and tell her a few things um and it just gave me this deep sense of appreciation for what my journey has been and i think that uh and also even in such a constrained society the effort that my mother had really gone through to try and make good moments for us i admire her resilience for that and so it was it there's i think it's easy to forget so much about our life certainly especially when it's traumatic we get so far removed from oh yeah i remember those moments and when my dad so then it cuts to the scene where my dad is sitting in the rocking chair and he says he said we had 30 good years and i had kind of i had my head down in my head shot up and like what what did he just say and then for his first wife to say well they were rocky and i'm like rocky are you serious well okay you know that was interesting but uh you know i think that um i don't harbor hate or resentment it is shocking that so much of what our experience was is so easily forgotten um but the most the the the most amazing part when because i've audibly loudly said what and then my daughter comes out she goes mom and she's it's summertime so she's not up early and she it's like eight o'clock in the morning and she came around the corner she goes mom i was like oh hey sorry and she said oh is this netflix and i was like yeah so here she comes and she's sitting on the couch by me and we're watching these home videos of me and she's like is that you and and watching the stories of our lives unfolds of those early years and realizing this is my 14 year old daughter and and that's old your sister was when she was married and also ruby and hearing their stories and sitting next to my daughter and realizing it was this moment of just my the sorrow that you feel for the young girls any of them elisa ruby but there are so many and then to realize here's my daughter who has never known flds life she has never lived that she's never seen polygamy and the life and the choices that she has versus what it could have been and i was sitting there just crying on the couch more at that that the gratitude that the cycle stopped with me yeah and so that was the most surreal moment of watching it i can only imagine just so many emotions yeah i mean you mentioned wishing that you could tell that young like past you something so when you look back at videos and pictures of 15 year old you with poofy sleeves in the big hair like what are you what emotions does that stir up what would you want to tell that past you oh wow you know when i one thing i realized i used to be really angry at god because if ever an innocent heart prayed for someone an angel to come through the door i did and no angel came to save me and i realized certainly after testifying and seeing some of the evidence that came out of what had happened after i left and in talking with some of my sister wives who have since left one thing i realized is that i was exposed to just enough to have this fire in my belly that change needed to happen and also to be able to stand in a courtroom and say i saw i heard this happen to me [Music] because without that i couldn't have my testimony wouldn't have been valid to be able to help tell the story and to this day still none of those girls would stand up and say this happened to me and so there was such grace in that and i think that if i could go back to the young me um given the circumstances of the world that i was born into i mean there is this part of me that fantasizes wow what if i could have said look just go i promise you'll be okay and i could have gone to college and had all of these experiences uh who would have known what my life would have been but that's not the ship that carried me i think that if i could go back knowing what the path was i would tell myself listen it's going to be hard it's going to be really really hard but i promise you it will be worth it and you will be okay and there is so much ahead just don't quit and and i think for anybody there's lots of moments where we wonder really um is this really worth it and i think that it's easy now to look back and and i'm so grateful for the opportunity for whatever reason that i had uh the experience and truly the responsibility and the opportunity it wasn't just me that convicted warren jeffs and others it took an incredible team of attorneys and investigators both in utah and then in texas texas really were the ones that picked up and and took care of business and thank god for texas and but they couldn't have done it without me i could not have done it without them and i'm just i'm just so grateful i'm grateful that's behind me i'm glad my life is not planned around trials and and testifying and i'm really humbled to see the changes that have happened is there anything that you saw when you were watching it that you didn't know about or hadn't heard before or anything that was surprising to you um i think that uh one it it was comforting to hear from some of the the men that were in the series that they also were questioning that they would have stood up and not let any man let alone the prophet come and take their young daughters and i was comforted by that because i think that it's easy for people to get in a situation where everybody else is doing it so i guess i should you know kind of a thing yeah that there were people con that were actively thinking and questioning um i think probably because of my involvement with testifying i was very familiar with what the evidence was because i had to testify about it so i wasn't shocked by that i think overall the part that was most surprising and meaningful was the way that when they only had four hours and certainly there's more that could have been said there's more about the town that could be said now for how it's changed and the resilience of the people now but when you only have four hours to fit in all of that information i think they did a really wonderful job of focusing on [Music] the experiences of the people certainly the women because there's been so much focus on the men did this the men did this the men did this and um but to capture the humanity of it and i think when i asked one of the producers so what did you what's your take away from this and she said i used to think that it was only like you know a pretty unfortunate circumstance for someone to be involved in a cult but what i realized after talking with all of you that could be anybody if the circumstances were were correct or incorrect if the if if the circumstances were such that someone was exposed in a vulnerable time or they were born into it yeah that's all you know yeah yeah and i think that they just did a beautiful job of weaving together from the early days of the church to now a somewhat of an understandable history and i've had people who were in the flds who have messaged me after watching it and saying wow that filled in some spaces that i had no way of knowing really and it makes more sense now and i've had a lot of certainly this the surprising one is men who were in the courtroom when i testified a lot in texas and to have them reach out and say i should have said something sooner but i want to say thank you now and i think more than anything it's just i when i testified in texas because i was never paid for testimony i was never offered anything as far as that goes but when i when i talked to eric nichols and my one request of texas was to them look i'm not asking for anything except this one thing and that is do not admit only as much of warren's record as possible or is needed to convict this man or to prove them guilty or innocent i am asking you please admit as much of that priesthood record as possible because that is the only way that those good people amongst them will know what's really going on and i remember the moment in texas sitting there on the stand and i had this big stack of files right in front of me and because they would go piece by piece yeah and it was warren just he had fired his council and he the judge was very particular explaining to him the damage that that could be and that was he willing to take that risk and of course he was and out of the blue he stands up and he starts spouting off this prophecy damning me damning the judge saying that god was going to destroy us and you have the judge banging on the gavel mr jeffs sit down mr jeffs and this whole courtroom is just kind of jarred like what is going to happen and finally after he kept rambling for a while cursing us he sits down and he was just kind of pouting he had his head down like this and the attorney looks at me and he says your honor i moved to admit the entirety of the priesthood record unredacted into evidence and it was silent normally if there was counsel they would have said objection your honor blah warren had just sat there pouting like a baby and there was silence in the courtroom for a minute and then she said admitted and that was my that was the moment when i knew that change could happen yeah it wasn't ever just about these few men going to prison yes they needed to be held accountable but there were so many other men that also should have been held accountable but because they didn't have witnesses come forward um i think it's systematic abuse in a cult like that but the most important thing has been that that priesthood record has now public record and the good men and women in there realizing what was going on and they're like i never signed up to be faithful to this and now they're making their own choices and certainly i'm just grateful to have been a part of what gave them that opportunity to make their own choice what they do with it is their business and i respect that but i think that that was the greatest gift that i could have been a part of is there anything that didn't make the final cut that you made it in there or that you want to share with us now i think that um i gosh there's so much that didn't make the final cut they i had hoped that there was more time to talk about what our lives are now to not just show the really hard things that people have gone through but like to share the joy of what people's lives are too and i think that um we did the the film crew came here to my house and we did some hiking out in the mountains and that was fun um showed him some idaho hot springs really nice yeah yeah that was a good time and it was funny their their perception of like wow who knew idaho was so amazing and but i had hoped that there was more about my kids and the life that they have now and i think that that the ability for them to to come from to see me my 15 year old self and then to see the life that my kids have that is something it's is it was such an impossibility and yet here it is and so i have a lot of hope for the future so the whole time they grew up did they always know about your past or did you choose to share that with them in small doses as they got older or how did they learn about how did they learn i think that uh well one of the hardest things was um you know with kyle he only knew what he knew he didn't i think a lot of times little babies or kids have grandparents and when i remember his first grandparent day in kindergarten and he's like mom how come i don't have grandparents and he's a smart kid and he knew that every kid came from somewhere every kid has grandparents and he said he asked if they were dead and i said no and i remember him saying why don't they want me and and so um having and i think that we ben and i have shared with them age-appropriately i think it was a while before kyle or natalia realized that i was married to an old man really yeah and my son has been fiercely protective of me and you know um and with my daughter she she's very thoughtful i ne neither one of them have read my book which i remember kyle he said mom can i read your book and i was like not yet there's there's just i think at the time there was some you know some pretty hard experiences and i'm just like i don't want him to have to carry that yet so there's still things they don't know yeah probably because you know they're teenagers and they're like oh it's just mom but but they they have they've come to this quiet place of acceptance and i think that one of the really beautiful things of my life now is and one of the things i would go back and tell myself that young me is i would say it takes a tremendous amount of courage to trust yourself and anybody can be brave but you might have to be the one that is brave and anything that you lose because when you stand up for yourself there are beautiful things that are broken and there are ugly things that are broken and we can't always negate that certainly we want to break chains of abuse but in the act of doing so some of the beautiful things we also lose but i would also tell her the people that you feel like you're losing you will find again in and there we have some people in our lives that are like family my kids where there's a beautiful couple that have basically adopted my siblings and i they are the grandparents that my children know and that's where we go for christmas and easter and birthdays in idaho i think oddly enough they grew up mennonite and they live just around the corner in payette and i think that that was divine intervention that brought them into our lives and you know when i've had um they had a couple siblings pass away and anytime that that happens it's so jarring for everyone and they are the parents that stepped up to help support us to guide us through this experience because and they've been far more parents to us than than our biological parents have been and i think that that's not an uncommon thing um i think that there's a lot of people not just in our country but in this world that we don't have the parents that we deserved and i think certainly i'm a better parent because of the parents that i have had and also the grace of having other people come into our lives and fill that space and i would tell myself that that you will find joy there will be friends you will find connection and i think that that's probably one of the most special things about even like our hiking community here in idaho where i remember when i first left feeling so lonely and just kind of realizing okay i will probably never have friends and just having to accept it that was still better than the life that i had known and and if i could i would tell myself you will meet some of the most amazing people and there's so much kindness and goodness in all of them and your life will be full so i know a lot of you know becoming a parent is like reliving childhood through the eyes of your kids and and seeing things that you did as a kid through your kids eyes but your kids have such a different life i would imagine than what you grew up with how was that like as a parent teaching them things that maybe you had no idea about as a kid oh my gosh that would be a good question to ask them they would say you know for a long time uh when my kids hit like fourth grade and they're starting to really dive deep into history and sciences and they'd be like mom what is this and i'm like well hang on a second and i would be googling because i didn't know and my son finally said how come you don't know this and i'm like kyle i didn't go to a real school i don't we never learned this stuff lucky you like what kind of stuff was it like oh man everything from a lot of stuff about world history what happened around um the i mean we knew enough a little bit about christopher columbus and then a little bit about world war ii and that was pretty much it but even that was always skewed everything of our learning in the flds school was funneled through this lens of of your god's people yeah and the whole reason that christopher columbus found america was so that joseph smith could get the truth so that you could be here today like the utter arrogance of all of that is phenomenal but but for my kids um certainly a lot of it is in regards to history and science and physics and um because i it's just like a blank spot and i read and study all the time but i think for them to watch them go through year after year of diving deep and studying a certain section of history or literature and they're like don't you know who this writer is and i'm like i should know tell me about them and so so it's kind of like being a kid again and getting to learn right along with my with my kids and i i love seeing their minds blossom and even though they're still you know they're great teenagers they are great kids and and they are teenagers and but seeing the way that they are growing and expressing themselves and having their own thoughts and their own actions i just tell them you get to choose but you also have a consequence with this so and i've told both of my kids there will be times you are faced with a choice that i may not agree with that in your heart of hearts and you know that's the right thing for you and you make it i respect that you do have a consequence so choose wisely you know but i really do try to give them the room to within certain bounds to explore who they are and give them the opportunity to express it even though i may not always agree and did they both watch the whole series on netflix they did and um when natalia had come out i think it hit her harder than it hit kyle i think that for her because she's at that age realizing her aunt and the other you know ruby realizing that could be her and she talked about it a little bit like and i said natalia that would mean that no more school that would mean you don't get to choose what you wear you don't get to choose where you go you don't get to have your friends you don't get a read i mean and just like i think the gravitas of that realizing even just contemplating what life could have been i think it it's given her more appreciation for what my choices were and her dads you know i could not have left without ben's help and even though we aren't together now um we're really good friends and we co-parent you know our kids come first and i think that it's helped both of our kids realize that maybe we do know a thing or two even though it's not like book knowledge to the depths that they are getting in history-wise but but there's some common sense that they could glean and you said your son is getting ready to go to college yeah yeah how does that make you feel proud oh my goodness so there were so many times um we were sitting at his graduation and you realize i remember people saying enjoy these days because they're going to go so fast and there were lots of times i was like oh my gosh are we really going to make it through this like is he ever going to get to be 12 years old is he ever going to turn in his homework on his own and then and then to watch your handsome son walking up to get his diploma i was just crying like a baby because education is so important to me and to see him have come through his own personal struggles with everything and then to stand and to to do that it's this surreal moment of like wow this really happened all those years and it did go by so fast and then when we went to register him for college and i think there's this this moment for me as a parent where you realize we raised them to be on their own and there's these benchmark moments along the way they get their driver's license and then they're driving their own selves to school like that's okay mom and then mom you can't come to my class anymore and then to come through it's just i i mean i'm delightfully excited to see what they do in life and i hope that it's something that's meaningful and hopefully leaves the world a better place so um backtracking a little bit so in watching the series you mentioned um you know your sister your parents was everyone interviewed in there familiar to you was there anyone that you didn't know or recognized uh no everybody was familiar yeah i knew everybody there was certainly some that i was closer to um oddly enough i mean it was kind of crazy that they interviewed two of my sisters yeah and my dad and his first wife um but yeah i was familiar with everyone there were a couple people that were in there briefly that were just talking about uh where they what happened in church when they went to go and they were kicking out men in church and um and it there's i think that there's a level of validation where you realize oh it wasn't just me that that saw this and um but everyone even for me because of my involvement in the trials even sam brauer the private investigator and my mike watkiss i saw him plenty of times in the courtroom and i i'll tell you this like mike watkiss there was that space of time where utah and arizona wanted to turn a blind eye just like that's happening down there we're not going to disrupt even if some of the law enforcement were in it yes yes like that muddy's the waters quite a bit yes there's conflict of interest for sure and mike watkiss i i will be forever grateful to him because he just would not drop it and there were times where in real and jeff's home they would say everybody go inside there's reporters in town and mike would be walking up to roland jeff's front door and then and asking you know he just wouldn't quit and thank god he wouldn't quit because i think he helped raise awareness for what was really going on and i remember even ruling jeff's er roon and warren just talking about mike that that reporter that's like a burn someone's saddle and someone just needs to shut him up you know and i'm so glad he didn't and i think through the years realizing because i remember seeing him through the kitchen window and then fast forward a few years and there i was on a witness stand and seeing him in the audience and championing to see a man standing up for women i hadn't seen a lot of that previous you know certainly in my life growing up but um you know and i think that that was one of the things that really i mean it was a gift to see investigators that had no vested interest it wasn't their family and it was really hard and i'm sure it would have been much more convenient for texas to just be like utah and arizona had done like no let's just keep moving let's not look at that too deep yeah and the fact that they didn't and all of the man-hours every investigator every single attorney everyone on that team i am forever grateful to them and the changes that are that have happened in colorado city in the flds now they are directly correlated to all of those people's work and sacrifice have you been back there kind of crazy yeah so um this november um this november will be 20 years since i left and previous to this past spring the only time i went back was for a funeral or for work of some kind whether i was doing filming or something and my really dear friend was getting married and so i went down there for no other reason than just that and previous to this any time that someone i would go into town and someone would recognize me i would get a lot of like why are you here you ruined our lives we hate you get out of town kind of thing and so you kind of just brace yourself for people still flds yeah but even people oddly enough i mean it wasn't just warren jeffs that went to prison there were other men that were fathers and brothers and uncles and cousins and it's it's overly convenient to think well it's just warren and and the state of texas charged people who did the crime not just their profit and as they should have as they should have it wasn't if warren had been the only one that went to prison other men would have thought well we can get away with it they'll just have him pay the price and so um so it hasn't always been a kind or warm welcome but i never held that against them because i understood where it came from right so going back to town there's so much change that has happened and i didn't really tell a lot of people that i was coming into town because i didn't know the reception i was going to get and i went into they have this big new store and the most amazing thing happened i needed to get some real estate work done and i needed some internet so i go and i i found this little corner in this upstairs section of their kind of a coffee shop corner of their store and i was working away and i look up and i see across the room this girl's eyes just got big i thought okay i hope that's a good one yeah and she came over and she gave me this big hug and she's like it's you it's really you i said yeah i'm here for this wedding and she was it was so good to see her after all this time and then she had to go back to work but then ruby jessup that was in she comes walking by and she stops and she turns and she said what it's huge she sat down and the most amazing thing within 30 minutes we had this whole circle of people that from way back when that were so dear to my heart and that you you have good memories with and you hope on some level that they there was some understanding that you never wanted to hurt them and then there i was surrounded by this whole circle of people laughing and and remembering when and that was such a gift to me so there were good memories there were yeah yeah people that you connected with yeah i think that that's one of the things that is important for people to understand there is a tremendous amount of abuse of all kinds in a cult like the flds and other faction groups like them but not everyone is the abuser there's a tremendous amount of abusers but not everybody is all bad and there's a lot of good there's so much good and even in a constrictive society i think we as humans hunger for having some you know even though it's such a small amount that you can have that you have the ability to work with that they really do strive to have connection just we as humans hunger for that and so not every there were some beautiful times there and i think that that's that goes back to that thing of when i was making the decision to testify it wasn't from hate it was i wanted change to happen but my heart really hurt because there were a lot of people i loved and i knew i knew they would be hurt by me speaking out and so now 10 years later to see not only the change that has happened but to have the opportunity to reconnect with so many and to say i never stopped loving you and i always cared and to have them say thank you and that was that was a healing gift yeah when you look back at your whole journey through flds growing up being married leaving testifying do you have any regrets anywhere in there oh that's it um i i think are they regrets or are they lessons i do if i could go back i would change a few things one of the things i think um i don't think is talked about very often growing up in a society like that where manipulation is normal it's familiar and i remember when i left i thought well i've seen the worst of manipulation and but in in growing up it was dangerous to ask questions it was dangerous to listen to your gut essentially and i think one of the the toughest things that i've experienced after leaving is i wasn't prepared for the people that would come to me and say i i think what you're doing is important i want to help you when in fact they were the most manipulative of all and um i wish i had i learned some painful lessons with that but i'm all the wiser for it now and so is it really regret or do we just take the lesson and be grateful that we learned do you wish you left sooner oh well i mean the selfish part of me kind of wishes i left sooner if i could have left at the age that i was in the videos and who i would be or who i think i would have been what i would think i would have done knowing me um i would be i would love to see who i would have become not having had the experience of being married to roland jeffs and having to go through all of that and and but there's this other part of me that knows sure i could have had a better life but the lives of other people who i loved dearly would still be under warren's rule so do you like if you would have left at 18 um never been married off never had the experiences you also would have not witnessed a lot of what you saw yeah and would not have been able to testify to things you saw so i mean part of sticking around really put instrumental change into flds as a whole and warren just yeah going to prison right yes i think that that's that's the thing i mean there is this part of me i look at my daughter and i'm so loving watching her become and grow and learn both for my son and my daughter and there's this part of me that kind of wonders i wonder who i would have been if i could have gone to the schools that they've gone to or had the opportunities that they have but at the same time i think that if i would have left i couldn't have been apart and it how much longer would it have been how many more generations would it have gone on before someone did stand up and say no more do you think it'd still be right now if warren if warren was not incarcerated i think well with the flds and so many many cults there's an end of times and you can only make so many prophecies that the world's going to end on this day oh just a minute god gave us a little more time for him to keep moving the gold coast and and so i think one of the sobering things that anybody who's been totally honest and not not grandizing anything or being i think anybody who understands the teachings of that group in particular knows that there was a day coming where a mass suicide would have been very likely really yes because when even when i watched a documentary on jim jones in this documentary there was a audio of the last time before they all took cyanide where he says and it chilled me to the bone because i have heard those words verbatim out of war and jeff's mouth where he said where can we go the world will not have us something like that and and i think that warren when you the by the time he was in power when you're taking children away from parents and using mental terrorism to get them to do the things that they were doing they don't have a whole lot left to live for anyway and so when this world is about to be destroyed and when they are so removed from their ability to do any kind of critical thinking or any kind of having real awareness of what's going on in the world what they understand is so distorted that seems like the best option and there was there were plenty of times where i myself stood in church in colorado city where warren would have everyone stand up and raise their right hand when he would say who is willing to die for our prophet those people were primed for that and if he had not been incarcerated when the raid happened in texas i think that that very likely if he could have been actively giving orders it could have happened then i don't think that's a big stretch and certainly even if the raid hadn't happened in texas you know already the damage he was doing removing any man that was a threat to him and just leading people down a path to so far removed from what they had ever signed up for or known and by that time they're so confused with what matters most and they don't have their kids um i think that a mass suicide would have been very very likely are you still close with or in touch with your sister who was in the with you yeah yeah when i was just down in southern utah [Music] i had the chance to spend some time with her and i admire her i admire her for like i admire her vision with that town to go back and i think this is one thing that's really important that whether it is a group like the flds or other things in today's society when change needs to happen if everybody does something it doesn't just fall on the shoulders of a few and [Music] real change can move forward i think that [Music] it's beautiful to see the way that she and others have returned to the town and are actively building it back giving opportunity bringing in so she left and chose to live there yes back where yeah okay yeah she went back to the town to help to help rebuild it and i think that there's is it is it the the best thing for everybody to leave and then come back i don't think so i think that everybody has to honor what they feel called to do and if we all contribute something look at the beauty that can happen so i love my life here in idaho i'm glad i mean it's beautiful you've built like something like you've said 20 years ago today you were still the stairs yeah owned yeah yeah i mean so you're coming up on like 20 years is a pretty big milestone are you doing anything to like mark the occasion so november 3rd i think that everybody has an independence day certainly for me it was it and and i don't think we only have one that was a big one for me of leaving and but every november 3rd there's something i i mark that day for me with something um probably this year for 20 years uh i haven't decided yet it will likely i know will likely involve a mountain somewhere and with my kids and but i think that it's important to there's as how do we carry forward the experiences that have shaped who we are while we still leave behind the pain and now coming up on 20 years i look back and there were a lot of times where i was really hard on myself like why can't i just get this figured out or why can't i do this why can't i do that and i'm just you know really harsh and i think that we as humans we're the first and the meanest to ourselves and now at at 45 i look back on the last 20 years and i have a lot of appreciation for even the fire and the audacity to dare and it's one of those things where we don't just dare once and do something really hard i didn't just climb a wall and then everything was okay i didn't just testify in court and then everything's okay i think for me and like everybody we have to dare again and again and again and the beauty of that is who we become in the process and certainly we'll make mistakes but giving ourselves permission to make those mistakes and to grow and to learn i think at the end of life we don't get out of it alive and so to make our days to be a life count and make them beautiful make them wild and have as much joy as we can

Channel: Idaho News 6

Views: 61,307

Keywords: boise, flds, idaho, netflix, rebecca musser

Id: kP9eKWDEsj0

Length: 87min 11sec (5231 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2022