Heather Gay Didn’t Set Out to Expose the Mormon Church—But She Wasn’t Going to Stay Quiet

Heather Gay has never been shy about telling the truth—but Surviving Mormonism marks a different kind of reckoning. On Scheananigans with host Scheana Shay, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star and New York Times bestselling author opens up about what it really means to interrogate the institution that shaped her entire life, long after leaving it behind.

In a conversation that moves fluidly between faith, family, fame, and fear, Gay reflects on why her docuseries felt necessary, the personal cost of telling these stories out loud, and the complicated grief that comes with outgrowing a belief system you were raised inside. 

Below are highlights from the conversation, adapted from Scheananigans.

Why leaving Mormonism isn’t a clean break—even years later

“We say ex-Mormons, but like, it’s really hard to ever be ex anything, you know what I mean, when you’ve been raised in it. When you’re in the church, you get advice from people within the church, you get instruction from people within the church…You don’t get objective people listening to your experience and saying, ‘That’s kind of messed up,’ we don’t have anybody to tell us that what our world is messed up. And so now that we’re like adults and we’ve left, or like we’re able to look at it, it’s really for many the first time that we’re talking about it objectively, like with perspective.”

Why did ‘Surviving Mormonism’ have to exist, and why now?

“The whole idea came when I did the book tour, and I mean, doing your book tour, people resonate to certain parts of your story that you didn’t even realize would be what they really hooked onto…everywhere I went, people were sharing their stories over and over that I started to realize that there was one power in sharing my own story, because writing the book helped me so much…

…I was completely inspired by Leah Remini and her series on Scientology. She was like a funny, normal person that was just shining light on something that she had access to and had experience. If there was a world where I could do this, I wanted to. So it’s been kind of a passion project for me for 4 years.”

How much fear actually goes into challenging the church’s power?

“I knew that they policed their brand and their image religiously, and so I mean, no pun intended, but I felt fear, mostly not from the church, because the church is nice. Mormons are nice. I felt fear from hurting the feelings of people who don’t want to know this part of the church, who don’t want to hear it, who are in their lives very much in a Mormon bubble of security and happiness, and this is something that they don’t want any idea that is going on. And so I just felt scared that I was gonna create more divide between my childhood friends and my family that I love that were estranged because of, you know, projects like this and being outspoken about the church. But the church itself, I’m not afraid of them ‘cause I feel like the victims and these survivors, the church should be afraid of not caring for them. And hearing their voices, like, no one’s gonna take the church down. That’s not like the goal here. The goal is just to make people aware that things could be changed and that the institution is using its power, its kindness, and its image, and its actual followers to perpetuate cover-ups because you cannot break a valiant Mormon.”

What did you realize after divorce?

“It was really when I got divorced that I thought, ‘Holy crap, I don’t fit in anymore.’ You’re like this dangling puzzle piece. Like everyone is a family, everyone is a unit. You don’t go to church, it’s just like, I knew no one that was divorced and thriving. Like, if you’re divorced, you get remarried immediately, because you can’t get to heaven without a husband. So I can’t just sit around, like I’m just gonna be single the rest of my life. If I want to get back into heaven, I need to find a man to take me to the temple and get me there…

…So that would be the first time that I thought, ‘okay, I don’t wanna be Mormon anymore because I can’t be Mormon the right way.’ So I started drinking and sleeping around and like I was devastated by the divorce. I was single for the first time in my life. I was a virgin when I got married, so like all of a sudden it’s like, oh, it broke down for me. The program’s not working now, now that I’m falling off the cliff, I might as well like, self-medicate while I’m here.”

How would you feel if one of your daughters married a Mormon?

“It would break my heart because it’s a false promise of equal partnership, but you have no power, you have no control, and the man is the head of the household, and marriage is an accessory to his salvation, not to yours, you know. I grew up with that with my mom. So I’m the youngest of five, and then my mom dealt with that whole relationship with my dad, and then with the church involved, and they were very much involved, and then through his misdemeanors and everything, my mum had to always turn up, keep the family together, and it was always felt like that.”

How do you feel about tithing? 

“I think it’s a religious concept that we all embrace, like to give back to your community and to God and for all of your many blessings, but, I was a single divorced mom and I was supposed to pay tithing on my alimony. And it’s like you’re supposed to pay tithing on any increase that you get, and it’s Mormon tax, and you can’t attend the temple or participate in the activities unless you are paying your tithing. So it’s very much like a country club. Like, if you want to see your children get married at the temple, you make sure that your tithing is paid in full…

…A lot of people lie because they want to be esteemed as wealthier. So like if you only made $10,000 you might go to your bishop and pay $2,000 so that he thinks you made $20,000. So people love to give their tithing because it’s a status and ranking within the church…It’s like, ‘oh, I paid 50 percent tithing this year,’ it’s a way to show your devotion to God and, and because everyone counts it, it’s like a way to like, kind of hedge how much you actually make.”

What do you want parents to understand about raising kids with faith?

“So much of my parenting was about teaching them about religion, teaching them how to pray, how to look, how to act…And I wanted it because it made me feel secure growing up, so I wanted them to feel like you can always pray to Heavenly Father, you have this community that loves you, you know, you have church, and like it made Christmas more special, it made Easter more special, they had a father’s blessing every year before school, like all of these rituals that really did unite us as a family and kind of our little milestones for life…

…It’s so hard because you want her to have the beautiful white dress, but you don’t want her to be indoctrinated with all the BS.”

Do you still believe in God?

“I believe in God. I don’t believe in like white bearded Mormon God anymore, but I absolutely believe in being spiritual and having religion and faith, and I think that there are good things and routine and family activities…I just don’t want to go to church for three hours and give 10 percent of my money and 40 percent of my time and then be told that whoever I am is unacceptable to whoever they want me to be.”

What do you wish you could tell the version of you at the start of your marriage? 

“Just get out, get divorced, just start over, clean slate, free him, free yourself, it’s not worth it.”

To listen to Heather Gay’s full conversation, listen to Scheanagans wherever you get your podcasts.

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