Woman born into Westboro Baptist Church reveals she’s a ‘flaming homosexual’ and ex-Marine
Woman born into notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church reveals she’s a ‘flaming homosexual’ who left the anti-military cult where she would ‘get her a** beat for looking the wrong way’
- Danielle Phelps, the granddaughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, has shared her experiences leaving the cult in viral TikTok videos
- Left homophobic group at 18 in 2014 because she knew she was a lesbian
- Former Marine is now living five minutes from the church with her girlfriend
A woman who was born into the notorious Westboro Baptist Church has revealed how she left the cult to join the Marines and is now living proudly as an out lesbian.
Danielle Phelps, 26, is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, the founder of the hyper-Calvinist homophobic and anti-military hate group known as the ‘most hated family in America’.
The group, which became known around the world following a series of Louis Theroux documentaries about them, is notorious for picketing and protesting funerals- particularly those of celebrities, young children, LGBTQ people and military – and holding up hateful signs reading things such as ‘God hates f***’ and ‘thank god for dead soldiers’.
But now Danielle, who lives just five minutes away from where she grew up in Topeka, Kansas, with her girlfriend Autumn, has revealed her life inside the church and how she left in a series of viral TikTok videos.
‘My childhood was hard, I spent years trying to pray the gay away, clearly it didn’t work,’ she says in one clip.
A woman who was born into the notorious Westboro Baptist Church has revealed how she left the cult to join the Marines and is now living proudly as an out lesbian. Pictured: A Westboro protest
In the clips, self-described ‘flaming homosexual’ Danielle, who is the fifth born child of Fred’s son Tim Phelps 10 offspring, has revealed she was homeless when she left the group aged 18.
‘I needed a way out so I joined the military and I haven’t looked back since,’ she explained.
She also explains that she has ‘severe anxiety’ and PTSD as a result of her traumatic childhood and that she ‘never believed anything her family told her’ but if she even ‘looked the wrong way’ growing up she would ‘get her ‘a** beat’.
Adding that she knew she was attracted to women from a ‘very young age’, she went on: ‘I had to keep that information about myself to myself.
‘I couldn’t even tell my closest friend, who was my older sister, who unfortunately is still in the church.
‘But I had to find humour somewhere, so I would intentionally grab the “God hates F-word” sign so that so I could have my own little joke.
‘That’s how I got through it with my own little dark humour.’
Danielle Phelps (pictured) , 26, is the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, the founder of the hyper-Calvinist homophobic and anti-military hate group known as the ‘most hated family in America’
The cult has an estimated 70 members in, most of them children, grandchildren and extended family of founder Fred Phelps – who died aged 84 in 2014.
In one video, Danielle explains that women had ‘no rights’ and had to ‘keep their head down’ while she also said she’s ‘lost count’ of the number of scars she has and times she’s been in hospital from people throwing rocks at them during protests.
She also recalls how she was told the details of gay sex from ‘kindergarten age’ and didn’t know how to deal with her feelings towards women.
Members of the family that leave the church are disowned by the family.
‘I don’t talk to anyone in the church, I’m dead to them,’ Danielle explains in one video.
The group, which became known around the world following a series of Louis Theroux documentaries about them, is notorious for picketing and protesting funerals- particularly those of celebrities, young children, LGBTQ people and military – and holding up hateful signs reading things such as ‘God hates f***’ and ‘thank god for dead soldiers’
In the clips, self-described ‘flaming homosexual’ Danielle, who is the fifth born child of Fred’s son Tim Phelps 10 offspring, has revealed she was homeless when she left the group aged 18.
While Danielle’s nine siblings are still in the church, her cousins including Megan Phelps-Roper and Libby Phelps, as well as her uncle Nathan Phelps have all left the organisation and been publicly critical of it.
The group became known internationally after Louis Theroux’s 2007 documentary The Most Hated Family In America.
The original documentary saw members holding placards with the words ‘God Hates F****,’ ‘F*** Doom Nations’ and ‘Thank God for Dead Soldiers’, at the funerals of US personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as publicly celebrating when a stranger contracts cancer.
The cult has an estimated 70 members in, most of them children, grandchildren and extended family of founder Fred Phelps – who died aged 84 in 2014. In one video, Danielle (pictured_ explains that women had ‘no rights’ and had to ‘keep their head down’ while she also said she’s ‘lost count’ of the number of scars she has and times she’s been in hospital from people throwing rocks at them during protests
In another clip, Danielle visits equality house, a home next door to Westboro Baptist Church which is painted in a rainbow gay pride flag, flies the transgender flag and hangs a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign.
Explaining some ins and outs of the church, in one clip she explains how the younger members of the church would tell elders about songs that are popular, which would then be made into hateful parodies that were released online.
‘One of us kids would bring them a song that’s big with the they’d figure out a way to make it hurtful to whatever demographic they’re attacking at the moment.
‘They’d figure out lyrics and someone in the church who’s best equipped to hate the song,’ she explained.
In another clip, Danielle visits equality house, a home next door to Westboro Baptist Church which is painted in a rainbow gay pride flag, flies the transgender flag and hangs a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign.
She kisses her girlfriend outside.
Steve Drain, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, holds up a sign showing Louis Theroux
Speaking to the All Out Attack podcast, Danielle also revealed that she wanted to leave the church as soon as she turned 18, but tore her rotator cuff a few weeks before her birthday and ended up leaving a few months later.
In the podcast, she also explains to host Harry Robinson that her grandfather is a ‘sweet man’ to his grandkids despite his hateful rhetoric.
She added that he was ex-communicated from the church shortly before his death due to his dementia.
‘He was in containment. It was weird, they put the bed in the front room of the house, and then like had cameras all over the house.
‘It was like he would just being watched. And then they would just go and like make sure that he was fed and cleaned and that was it, they wouldn’t like actually interact with him, so I’m sure like those last moments for him were were scary because like he was alone, he was alone most the time.
‘When he died, the whole world full finds out.
‘It was like how grenade explodes underwater so everything expands and then everything sucked back in. Like the word of him dying, got out to the world.
‘All these media outlets and everybody was sucking it and everyone was coming to the church and seeing it for a week or so after he died.
‘It was crazy, because we were just like constantly on watch, around the block.
‘People were on guard the whole time to try to make sure that nobody was you know trying to try to take advantage of the like the weak spot that we had in the church’.
Fred Phelps, Danielle’s grandfather and founder of Westboro, demonstrating in 1999. He died in 2014
Theroux first encountered the group – known for its inflammatory homophobic hate speech – for his 2007 documentary The Most Hated Family In America
She explained there were elders in the church, who consisted of the married men, but they didn’t make any decisions as it was ‘ultimately up to Gramps’.
‘Around this time that a lot of people were leaving and like realising that this wasn’t the place to be,basically church was falling apart.
‘There was this patriarchal shift. It was like all right, no more like Mr. Nice Guy.
‘It was it was almost like my childhood was over, once my grandfather died. Because you weren’t allowed to be a kid anymore,’ she added.
Discussing Fred’s ex-communication, Danielle added: ‘Because he was sick, he started talking different he started and viewing situations differently.
‘As soon as he started talking like that. Everyone was like “oh my god like everything, the foundation of our church is falling apart”‘.
