Since escaping the church Lauren Drain has married a model, built a fitness empire, and boasts nearly 4 million followers on Instagram
AN INSTAGRAM model has revealed how she fled America's "most hated family" at gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church because she didn’t want an arranged marriage.
Lauren Drain went along to the church’s notorious hurtful protests for seven years – where they would regularly hurl abuse and vile slogans at everyone from the LGBT community to attendees at soldiers' funerals.
The 33-year-old recounts how, at the young age of 22, she began to question the hate, and was immediately excommunicated.
Her own father, Steve, delivered the final verdict, banishing her from the family entirely.
It was the same man who first brought the family into the fold of the church, after filming a documentary on the cult-like group, and then converting to their beliefs.
Speaking to , Lauren said: “I didn't intend initially to leave my family behind. I love them dearly and never desired to separate from them.
“I did try and have many spiritual and biblical discussions regarding things I did not agree with but they were unwilling to discuss or hear."
A refusal to have an arranged marriage was also a sticking point, and the alternative of staying single also wasn’t an option, because Lauren said she didn’t want to “burn” for having extramarital sex.
Her banishment had one advantage – she was able to rebuild her life.
As a qualified nurse she had a good launch pad, but it was fitness that she found her fortune in.
She featured in Louis Theroux's hit 2007 documentary The Most Hated Family in America and its follow-up, America's Most Hated Family in Crisis, and had gone from strength to strength since.
In the last six years she has married a model, built a fitness empire, and boasts nearly 4 million followers on Instagram.
Lauren said fitness had allowed her to escape the damage inflicted on her by her old hateful religion.
She said: “Within the Westboro Baptist Church, I was constantly being criticised, scrutinised, humiliated and made to feel like not only would I never amount to anything but that any type of success is vain and ungodly."
At this time, the WBC, which was founded in Topeka, Kansas, in 1955 by Baptist pastor Fred Phelps, had become infamous for its frequent hate-filled protests.
Members have been known to picket everything from dead soldiers funerals to LGBT events while holding signs that read vile slogans such as: “fags doom nations”, “God hates America” and “Jerusalem shall be destroyed”.
For seven years, Lauren was a committed believer who regularly attended Westboro protests with her family, where they would urge “sinners” to “repent or go to hell”.
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