Grace Park: Her Ties To A Sex Cult After Battlestar Galactica
Grace Park made a name for herself with roles in Battlestar Galactica and Hawaii Five-O, but she was also involved with the Nxivm sex cult.
For the bulk of Grace Park’s career, she has spent time mainly on the small screen. Sure, there’s a movie thrown in here or there, but for the most part, she’s made her bones in television. She came to prominence as Lt. Sharon “Boomer” Valerii on the TV series Battlestar Galactica, but she may be better known for her character in an even longer-running television series. That was with Hawaii Five-O. Oh, and there was a sex cult controversy thrown in there, as well.
This is the Grace Park you know and the Grace Park she has become.
GRACE PARK STARTED WITH SMALLER TELEVISION ROLES
Grace Park’s career began 20 years ago and while her first role was in a feature film, a bit part in Romeo Must Die, she immediately moved on to the small screen. She began her small-screen career on Secret Agent Man then grabbed herself a recurring role on the Lorenzo Lamas-led series The Immortal.
For the next few years, Park then found herself bouncing from series to series, appearing in The Outer Limits, Dead Last, and Dark Angel. She even appeared on an episode of Stargate SG-1.
In 2001, while she was jumping from series to series, Grace Park also landed a starring role in the TV series Edgemont with Kristin Kreuk. The series ran for five seasons and Park was seen in 69 of the series’s 70 episodes. The series also ran until 2005, which means Grace Park was very busy when she was first introduced to the Battlestar Galactica franchise.
HER BIG BREAK CAME ON BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Grace Park first played Lt. Sharon Valerii on the 2003 TV mini-series Battlestar Galactica. It was a two-episode series that was aimed at rebooting the original series that ran for two seasons in 1978-79. Thankfully it took and in 2004, the Battlestar Galactica reboot was in full force.
The series starred Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, and Tricia Helfer along with Park. When Battlestar Galactica ended its run, Park didn’t end her association with the franchise. In fact, before the series ended, Park was part of the 10-webisode series Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy where she didn’t play “Boomer,” but a character called Number Eight. She did, though, reprise her role as Lt. Valerii in the movie Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.
GRACE PARK STARS IN HAWAII FIVE-O
Grace Park didn’t waste any time jumping into another series as Battlestar was coming to an end. She had a recurring role in the series The Border and was also seen in the show Human Target. But it was her experience and the fact that she could handle a long-running series that got Grace Park her longest gig.
Grace Park must like reboots. After spending time with the Battlestar Galactica reboot, Grace Park then found herself in the role of Kono Kalakaua as part of the cast in the reboot of Hawaii Five-O. The series also starred Alex O’Laughlin and Scott Caan. Park, along with actor Daniel Dae Kim, was a huge part of the series for seven seasons when they were both abruptly written off the show.
For the longest time, Grace Park didn’t speak about her exit from the Hawaii Five-O, but she eventually gave in and explained her side of the departure. She told Entertainment Weekly, “There were a number of factors spanning the show that affected the non-renewal of my contract. I’m grateful for the lessons learned, but I chose what was best for my integrity.” She even went on to detail certain specifics. “CBS and I weren’t able to agree to terms on a new contract, so I made the difficult choice not to continue.”
Grace Park doesn’t offer much more information other than that, though she did speak about Five-O’s showrunner Peter M. Lenkov and his tweet that suggested Park left the show to spend time with her family. “The whole situation was just a bit too charged for me,” she told Deadline. “I let him know, ‘That wasn’t cool that you made a statement on my behalf.’ … I know he did it to be helpful, and I care about Peter as a person, but I didn’t leave for that reason.”
GRACE PARK ESCAPED A SEX CULT
Grace Park has been linked to the notorious sex cult Nxivm along with her Battlestar Galactica co-star Nicki Clyne, as well as Smallville actresses Kristin Kreuk and Allison Mack. While we know a lot about Mack and Clyne’s roles in the cult (they were top recruiters and leaders) and a little about Kristin Kreuk’s (she claims she was never deeply involved and didn’t know what they were doing), we know very little about Grace Park’s level of involvement.
Allison Mack has been brought up on charges and will likely go to jail while Nicki Clyne remained faithful to the sex cult’s founder Raniere. However, no charges have yet been filed against either Kristin Kreuk or Grace Park. Both Kreuk and Park also say they’ve cut ties with the organization and while that may be true, former members say they believe Grace Park and Kristin Kreuk also had important roles in Nxivm.
Grace Park says she left the organization in 2017 when a New York Times story broke, revealing that new members were being stripped and branded as part of the cult’s initiation ceremony.
GRACE PARK IN A MILLION LITTLE THINGS ON ABC
While Grace Park ended her run with Hawaii Five-O in 2017, her decision has not seemed to affect her career. She went on to star in two feature films, Adventures in Public School and Freaks, and then she found her next big gig, again on a TV series.
Then there was A Million Little Things. Grace Park plays Katherine who undergoes significant transformation throughout the series. The show follows a group of friends trying to overcome the death of a friend.
She starts off grappling with the emotional fallout from her husband Eddie’s infidelity. It was a fan favorite part of the story. Grace Park was joined by David Giuntoli, Romany Malco, Allison Miller, Christina Moses, James Roday Rodriguez, Stephanie Szostak, Lizzy Greene, and Ron Livingston.
The series ran for five seasons on ABC and came to an end in 2023.
