With Warren Jeffs in Prison for Sex Crimes, ‘Trust Me: the False Prophet’ Exposes the Evil Man Who Took His Place

As Jeffs (who inherited his role as “prophet” and president of the FLDS from his father, Rulon, in 2002) began serving a life sentence, Bateman, another self-proclaimed prophet, began marrying and sexually abusing female minors in the FLDS community. Meanwhile, Christine Marie, a cult expert, and her videographer husband, Tolga Katas, moved to Short Creek, Utah, in 2016. As two of the only non-FLDS residents, they saw an opportunity to endear themselves to this group and document Bateman’s crimes from within. The couple, who met Bateman in 2017, filmed him and his wives from 2019 through his 2022 arrest. Eleven of Bateman’s adult followers have also been convicted of charges related to child sexual abuse conspiracy.

“When I saw their footage, my mouth dropped,” Dretzin says of her winter 2023 meeting with the undercover filmmakers. “It’s truly some of the most extraordinary material I’ve ever seen as a filmmaker.” Their more eccentric qualities—“What should I wear when I take down a pedophile?” Marie asks her dog the morning of the FBI arrest of Bateman—made them additional assets. “I fully appreciated their colorful qualities from the start,” says Dretzin. “Christine wears pink cowboy boots. Tolga’s got the whole Turkish thing going. They’re really interesting, wild human beings.”

After this series, Dretzin’s work with women in the FLDS universe continues. “Waking up one day and being the star of a Netflix series is no small thing,” she says. “So there’s been a lot of effort to help them negotiate that. I was actually in the community last weekend, so I remain very connected.” In her first interview about Trust Me: the False Prophet, Dretzin shares why AI was integral to her powerful sequel, and reflects on six years spent in this complicated enclave. “I’ve worked hard not to let this get too deep inside me. It does, I’m not going to lie,” she tells VF. “This one in particular was very heavy because it’s still going on—it’s not over.”

Vanity Fair: After Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, why did you want to return to the world of extremist FLDS cults and what was most important to you in making a follow-up?

Rachel Dretzin: I knew I wasn’t done after Keep Sweet, in part because the FLDS community continued to be under the sway of Warren Jeffs even once he was in prison. In many ways, they were more vulnerable not only because they were leaderless, but because Warren had this decree that they could not have children or get married. So, you have thousands of people who couldn’t move forward with their lives. And that’s when I heard about Sam Bateman’s arrest.