Hello
Almost fifty years ago, a man put his towel down next me while I was sitting on my favorite beach with my buddies in Nantucket. We were sixteen years old. From that moment forward my life took a path that I never could have imagined. Even though the journey presented me with heartbreak, confusion and trauma on a scale that I never thought I’d ever have to endure, it also gave me deep insights into myself and the world around us. In a remarkable way, the opportunity that a false prophet tempted me with on that innocent, sunny day has manifested itself into a body of information that I now share with others. My story is a cautionary tale but also one of redemption and awakening to the realization that ultimately the universe is friendly and tends to conspire in our favor.
My Story
Born and raised outside Philadelphia, Hoyt graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Economics, where he also competed as a scholar-athlete. In the mid 1980s, he was discovered by Ford Models and went on to a fifteen-year modeling career that made him one of the most recognizable faces in fashion, earning the designation of the world's first male supermodel. He worked alongside contemporaries such as Cindy Crawford and Fabio, appeared in hundreds of campaigns and was photographed by the great photographers of the time including Bruce Weber, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, Horst, and Albert Watson
What no one knew during those years was that Hoyt was simultaneously embedded in a high-control religious cult called Eternal Values, led by Frederick von Mierers, to which he surrendered the majority of his substantial earnings for nearly two decades. The group operated from a Manhattan apartment and later a lake house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Hoyt's escape in 1999, and his subsequent recovery, led him to become one of the most articulate and accessible public voices on cultic life, coercive control and cultic relationships.
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During his recovery, Hoyt has worked as an actor, writer and producer and has found that the creative arts are a powerful tool to foster and compliment an effective and safe path towards healing and rebuilding one’s self esteem and sense of self agency. He sits on the board of Living Cult Free, where is a sponsor of a writing symposium that encourages survivors to use the written word as a means to facilitate their healing. He was co-host of the cult survivor podcast WhaTheFlok. A documentary series about his experience will be released on HBO June 1st.
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Hoyt is one of six children and will marry the love he lost at the hands of the cult in September, 2026, 30+ years after they met.​​​