10 Things I Hate About You star hits out at speculation he was a 'cult' leader
Andrew Keegan has dismissed speculation that his former spiritual community formed part of a 'cult'.
An article published by Vice in 2014 claimed that the 10 Things I Hate About You Star star 'started his own religion' in the form of Full Circle, a Californian-based group Keegan formed in the mid-2010s.
The actor sat down with Josh McBride for the McBride Rewind podcast recently to discuss the group and the noise that surrounded it back in the day.
"I led a spiritual community in the heart of Venice, and it was called Full Circle," Keegan said, before criticising the press for 'clickbait headlines' surrounding the group back in the day.
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Keegan continued: "There's just a lot of bulls*** out there. You do a good thing, you bring people together, and sure it's a church, sure I'm an actor, and sure there are some horrific stories around people handling control and power and spirituality in the wrong way, but that is not at all what it was."
The 47-year-old went on to claim that it's 'unfair' what the 'definition of a cult is, before adding: "Cult is also the core word for culture, and Venice is a culturally diverse and culturally rich area, but spirituality can mean many things to people, and it's important. We had a saying at the temple, 'It's not serious, it's important'.
"People should look deep into themselves as they're growing in life to heal because we've all had traumas, and it was just very simple in a lot of ways, just getting people together."
Keegan went on to say Full Circle was 'based on a book that was about building community', before he began to reflect on modern times and the feeling of community that he feels has vanished in recent years.
"The more we're disconnected with devices and technology, the more we're missing what we really are, which is like we're a village, we're a community," the 10 Things I Hate About You star added.
Speaking about running the group, the film and TV star went on to discuss the challenges he faced and the amount of time and effort he put into it.
He added: "It was a lot of work. I put a lot of money into it, just to support the idea, and it was three years. A lot of people, even to this day, I get messages about how it was such a great experience in their life, and there are a lot of things from sound healing to yoga to meditation, you know, we did 1,000 events in three years."
Callum Jones