"I Was Married at 3 to a 68-Year-Old Cult Leader Who Asked for 'Cuddle Time with Grandpa' – And I Wasn't Alone"

EVEN before Serena Kelly was born, she had little chance of having a normal life as she was born into the notorious Children of God cult, and forced to marry her own ‘granddad’.

At just three years old, Serena wore a white dress as she married cult founder and preacher David Berg, 65 years her senior.

Serena Kelly was born into the Children of God cultCredit: youtube/@UnfilteredStoriesYT David Berg was the leader, and forced Serena to marry him at three years oldCredit: http://www.thefamilyinternational.org

Serena was born into David’s house as he had picked her older sister to be his chosen child.

And when he found out Serena’s mum was pregnant again, decided to take Serena in too.

In the cult, Berg believed and told members that God was love and love was sex, so there should be no limits, regardless of age or relationship.

With Serena still in the womb, he decided to take her in and document her childhood in the cult’s publications, sent to followers around the world to show what was possible when you raise a child ‘right.’

Serena added: “Berg believed that children should be sexually awakened as toddlers.”

At the age of three, Serena’s mum gave her away to be Berg’s wife.

“I was actually given to Berg by my mum to be married,” she explained.

“He gave me a ring, we had a whole ceremony and everything. It was considered a huge honour. Everyone was so excited.”

“I had just turned three and I had gotten this dress with puffy sleeves and I had gotten a doll,” she recalls. “I remember that was so special because you never got a lot of toys in the cult.”

Serena grew up being surrounded by sex and tells Unfiltered Stories that this was Berg’s ‘grooming tactic.”

“There would be women doing striptease videos around the house,” she added. “There would be meetings where they would have inspiration and they would have children 12, 13, 14 years old and they would literally be dancing for the home and taking their clothes off and adults would be cheering.

Serena still has the ring he gave her at their ‘wedding ceremony’Credit: youtube/@UnfilteredStoriesYT A young Serena was surrounded by sexual abuse in the cultCredit: youtube/@UnfilteredStoriesYT

“So I was exposed to a lot of it at a very early age. It was always terrifying to me because I knew at some point I would have to be doing the same things.”

And soon enough, Serena was targeted by Berg.

Serena was told she would have to provide wifely duties to Berg by the time she was seven, but even as a toddler, he took advantage of her.

She said: “He wanted to be with me and this was like cuddle time with grandpa, which was basically child abuse.”

“It was mostly in his bed fondling, groping, it never went past that because I was three thankfully, but yeah, it was full access to me,” she told Cults to Consciousness .

Serena said the cult leader had three other children he had ‘married’ and her mum would constantly remind her what an honour it was to be picked.

“She was proud of it, it was a huge honour, she was excited,” Serena said.

In the cult, sexual abuse ran rife as adults took advantage of the boys and girls living there.

Serena claims boys as young as 12 were forced to have sex with middle aged women in the cult, and children were forced to walk around naked.

To keep everybody under control, Berg had people move around the world, including Serena.

She was first in America, before being moved to a commune in away from her parents.

“I lived with two cult members – a man and a woman – who would grope and beat me,” she says.

In 1989, when Serena was just six, she was moved to and never saw the cult leader again, but her ordeal was far from over.

She was ‘brainwashed’ and underwent military-like drills to prepare for the .

When she wasn’t being subjected to training, Serena was cleaning or being sent out to beg for .

Five years later, Berg had died and his wife Karen Zerby took over.

Over the next several years, Serena was moved to various Central and South American countries.

Serena pictured singing for money on the streetsCredit: serenakelley.com

The Escape

By the time she was 18, she had moved back to America with her mum, but Serena wanted out and left the cult.

She got in touch with ex-cult members who offered her a place to sleep and work and has since cut communications with her mum.

“I was trying to figure out how to build a life. I needed to get a car, I needed to find a place to live. I didn’t even know what a bank account was,” she said.

Thankfully, Serena was able to build a life and enrolled at university in Austin, , in 2013, studying corporate communications and now works for a company.

Speaking of her past, Serena says that she tries to look at the benefits over the negatives.

She said: “I don’t wake up thinking of all the terrible things that have happened to me.

“I wake up so grateful that I speak three languages, that I’ve been to 42 countries, that I’ve lived in 10 countries long term, that I have an amazing worldview.

“And I have so much more empathy and understanding for others in different situations and in different cultures because of the way that I grew up.”

Now Serena has been able to start a new life away form the hands of the cultCredit: tiktok/@serkelley