Spreading kindness like wildflowers in a digital world.
People get confused by my last name. Christine Marie sounds like two first names, and I am married to Tolga Katas. But my last name is not Katas, and technically, it's not exactly even Marie. The story: When I divorced my ex-husband, I filed for a name change. Since I had written children's books and already had a nom de plume as Christine Marie which everyone knew me as, I just made that my legal…
Marie, with her blond ponytail, pink cowboy hat, pink boots and pink glasses, was a former beauty queen, ventriloquist and escape artist, now finishing her psychology doctorate. Tolga, once a rock singer, was a videographer, a city dweller who had never been on a hike. This is the starting point of the Netflix documentary Trust Me: The False Prophet – and unsurprisingly, the couple’s arrival is…
Esquire "Marie, who only dresses in pink, is able to build trust among the community thanks to her obvious empathy and sensible nature. She’s the sort of person you’d go to with a list of problems and return with a crossed-out list.. .That’s in no small part down to Marie, a main character if ever I saw one. Among her past jobs? She was a Miss Michigan, an escape artist, a ventriloquist. Sure! And…
Netflix Tudum Trust Me: The False Prophet follows cult psychology expert Christine Marie and her videographer husband Tolga Katas, who moved to Short Creek, Utah, to document and support a community in crisis. “Groupthink is so powerful,” Christine says. “It’s like superglue. You can’t just wake up when you’re getting your thoughts reinforced by other people you respect and love.” Read more at Dr.…
It was an honor to be on CBS Mornings with Gayle King speaking about the new docuseries "Trust Me - The False Prophet." Read more at Dr. Christine Marie
I originally started Voices for Dignity in 2013 as an online awareness campaign to create more awareness about human trafficking and online cruelty. I also wanted to create more humanity for those survivors who chose to tell their stories. In 2017, after I had moved to Short Creek, Voices for Dignity officially became a non-profit. Although we have been a tiny organization that has struggled…
Salt Lake Tribune The documentary, “Trust Me: The False Prophet,” follows cult expert Christine Marie and her videographer husband, Tolga Katas. Their work gathering evidence helped lead to the 2022 arrest of Samuel Bateman — the leader of a breakaway sect of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Read more at Dr. Christine Marie
When cult expert Christine Marie and her videographer husband, Tolga Katas, moved to Short Creek, Utah, they planned to support a fractured community still reeling from the imprisonment of Warren Jeffs, Read more at Dr. Christine Marie
KUER’s RadioWest features Tribune journalists talking about their series on the polygamous leader in “A Predator in Prophet’s Clothing.” My work and Voices for Dignity are discussed by three journalists in this podcast. LISTEN HERE Read more at Dr. Christine Marie
This is the second in a two-part series about the rise and fall of Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet who sexually abused girls he had taken as his wives. READ HERE Read more at Dr. Christine Marie