Untangling the Story Behind Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult

The story behind any alleged cult always has at least two sides: The ex-members who say it was a cult and the people still in the group who maintain they are in no way part of a cult.

Robert Shinn, the founding pastor of Los Angeles-based Shekinah Church, has maintained that he's just trying to bring his flock closer to God, and that his 7M Films is simply a talent management company.

But a number of former acolytes, including several dancers with millions of Instagram and TikTok followers, have accused the pastor of running his church like a cult. They've alleged he urged them to cut ties with family and manipulated them—emotionally, spiritually, financially and, in some cases, sexually—to keep them under his thumb.

"I needed spiritual guidance, and Robert could do that," dancer Aubrey Fisher, a former Shekinah member and 7M client, said in the new Netflix docuseries Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult, explaining why he found the dynamic attractive in the first place. "And he also handled the business side. I'm in, count me in."

The initial pitch that hooked the 26-year-old is representative of the other stories told by ex-Shekinah followers in the three-part series.

In October 2022, as rumors about what was going on behind the scenes at his church spread like wildfire on social media, Robert filed a lawsuit against several former members alleging conspiracy to commit defamation and trade libel.

A group including Aubrey filed a cross-complaint in March 2023, calling Shekinah "a cult operating under the guise of a religious institution," according to a copy of the lawsuit reviewed by E! News that accuses Robert of "building his personal wealth on the backs of the free labor or excessive fees from Shekinah members."

The litigation is still pending and, according to CNN, is expected to go to trial in 2025.

E! News reached out to an attorney for Robert for comment but did not hear back. The Netflix series notes he didn't respond to requests for comment and has previously denied accusations of sexually abusing any Shekinah members or 7M clients. Rolling Stone also reported in 2022 that 7M had denied unduly influencing or taking advantage of any of its clients. 

In March 2022, 7M said in a statement posted to Instagram that, while Robert was the company CEO, there was no business affiliation between 7M and Shekinah and clients of the former did not have to be members of the latter, and vice versa.

While no one still aligned with Shekinah participated in the docuseries, in audio clips you can hear Robert laughing off the cult accusations in his sermons—"We're quite famous...hallelujah"—as the congregation chuckles. And since the story originated on social media, there was plenty of video for the production to mine to illustrate the differing perspectives on what was happening under his proverbial roof.

Here is how the story told in Dancing for the Devil caught fire:

"'Are you in a cult?'" dancer Miranda Derrick asked in a 2022 TikTok, reading a commenter's question out loud. "No, I'm not in a cult. I'm in a house."

At the time, the 27-year-old was weighing in on the viral reaction to accusations made by her sister Melanie Wilking, 25, and parents Kelly and Dean Wilking. The trio had gone live on Instagram Feb. 24, 2022, to lament that Miranda had "cut off all ties" and they were out of options, other than to take their concerns public.

The trio asked for help from anyone who used to be a part of pastor Robert Shinn's Shekinah Church or the talent management company he founded, 7M Films.

Melanie "has been our rock," Kelly said in the video, "but we have two daughters. We don't just have one, and we will not stop fighting for the other one."

E! News reached out to Miranda—who's married to dancer James "BDash" Derrick—for comment on her family's characterization of their relationship in the series and the current state of her affiliation with Shekinah and 7M, but did not hear back.

In addition to denying that she was involved in a cult, after her family put 7M on blast Miranda posted a statement—"speaking for James and our friends who are in 7M," she wrote—that it was a "complete lie" to say they weren't speaking with their families.

"It is just a unique situation with my family where I don't speak to them as often as before," she continued, "because who would want to speak with people who completely disagree with you and who don't respect you?"

In March 2022, a spokesperson for 7M told The Daily Beast in a statement, "The false and sensational allegations about 7M stem directly from a dispute between 7M-represented dancer Miranda Derrick and her estranged family. Despite her family's claims, Miranda is a successful businesswoman and a loving wife and daughter who cares very much about her family. It is pathetic and contemptible to try to turn her private family matters into a tawdry public scandal for clicks and clout."

The statement called the "recent portrayals" of Robert and 7M in the wake of the Wilkings' video "wildly offensive and riddled with inaccuracies."

Miranda moved to L.A. from their native Detroit right after high school to pursue her dream of dancing professionally and Melanie joined her big sister right after graduation. They used to post their routines and other upbeat slice-of-life videos on their Wilking Sisters social media accounts and YouTube channel.

"It's hard for me to even remember, honestly, because it's just so different now," Melanie said in the series. "I miss my sister so much. I still love dance, but I feel like it's just different...It was Miranda and I together on this journey, and now I'm alone."

They were building their own following when, in April 2019, the sisters got a DM from James, an up-and-coming krumper who performed as BDash, according to Melanie. For awhile they all texted, she said, until eventually Miranda and James were in a chat just for two.

Miranda started going to Shekinah with James, Melanie said. The youger sibling recalled meeting pastor Robert when she was invited to a group dinner at his house in the fall of 2020.

At the dinner, Melanie said in the series, Robert asked if she considered herself a sinner, adding, "'What if I told you, you have already sinned a thousand times today?'"

He then said, according to Melanie, "'Well, you have, and if you died right now, you would go to hell. But we'll help you.'"

Then they sat in a circle and held hands, she continued, and Robert put his hands on her head and "everyone was kind of speaking in tongues."

Melanie said she wondered at the time if perhaps this was normal church stuff and, since all of these dancers she admired were there, "maybe this is a thing."

The dancers who gravitated toward 7M Films with James included his former krump group mate Kevin "Konkrete" Davis, as well as Aubrey Fisher, Kylie Douglas and Kailea Gray, all of whom now count themselves as former Shekinah and 7M members and participated in the Netflix series.

In the series, Kevin alleged they were all "perfect prey" for Robert's promise of spiritual salvation and financial gain.

And the pastor seemed to know what he was doing as a manager, according to his former 7M clients in the series, who said Robert picked out the retro songs they danced to in their videos that would rack up millions of views. They were booking commercials and all sorts of appearances, including on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

A group of dancers moved into a residence Robert owned in Sunland, Calif., and "we were just in the house creating content," Kailea said in the series. Also, she noted, they were invited to attend church services on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Melanie realized Shekinah wasn't for her, she said in Dancing for the Devil, when Robert's daughter called one Sunday and insisted she change her plans to come to church instead. Melanie said she was rubbed the wrong way by her tone and that was it for her.

But it really hit home that something was amiss when Miranda wouldn't fly back to Michigan after her maternal grandfather died in December 2020, the Wilking family said in the series.

When they pressed her, Miranda stopped responding to calls and texts, her parents and sister said, so they called police for a welfare check.

An officer got in touch with Miranda, who, per a recording of the call played in the series, said, "I just chose not to go home out of my own grieving purposes." As for her worried-sounding family, she added, "They're just not taking it well."

Miranda and James announced their engagement in August 2021. Melanie said their family found out from social media and ultimately Miranda got "married with none of her family" present.

Miranda seemed "hurt and broken from leaving her family," dancer Kylie said in the series, but she was in the process of—Kylie made air quotes with her hands—"'dying to herself.'"

Aubrey said in the series, "'Dying to yourself' means that, whatever you want or whatever you need, die to it, because whenever you die to something, it'll come back to life and resurrect." 

Added Kylie, "That way, at least, you can follow your walk with God." Kailea further explained, "You have to leave your family while you work on yourself, but the goal, supposedly, is to reconnect."

Aubrey said he cut ties with his mom as part of this program, and Kylie said she did the same with her mother and grandmother. Kevin said pastor Robert instructed him to "'die to my son,'" but that was a no-go.

"I was like, 'OK, how do you do that?'" Kevin said in the series. "I never got an answer. I couldn't do that. It's like they didn't care if we never see our family again." 

In a clip from a sermon, Robert is heard saying, "You're not Jesus's disciple until you die to your loved ones."

After Dean, Kelly and Melanie went viral airing their concerns about Miranda and Shekinah, it was open season on everyone involved via YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Some commenters observed that Miranda looked as if she was living her best life, so maybe it was her family who had the problem. But exponentially more people on social media—including some who claimed to know firsthand what Shekinah was like—agreed with the characterization that the church was a cult.

The dancers in the series don't go into specifics about anything they allegedly witnessed, but they cited the response to the Wilking family's video as what spurred them to eventually cut ties with Robert, Shekinah and 7M.

"That was the fist time we were hearing about how people were actually treated in Shekinah," Kylie said. "I realized I could be in an unsafe environment." 

Kevin added, "We realized we'd seen some weird stuff."

Aubrey recalled Robert changing course in the wake of the Wilking video, telling the dancers to get back in touch with their families—and make sure they posted about it on social media.

Recalling the mini-exodus from Shekinah in 2022, Kailea said in the series, "There's no way that all these close people to you are leaving and nothing happened. There has to be truth to everything else going on. Everybody can't be lying."

"Like everyone else, I watched the live and was like 'What the heck is going on here?' and then got on the phone with the Wilkings later that evening, and we ended up talking for quite a few hours," Dancing With the Devil executive producer Jessica Acevedo told Variety ahead of the series' May 29 premiere.

While she and director Derek Doneen dove in pretty quickly, they needed months to earn the trust of the series' various participants, so filming didn't get underway till the end of 2022 and they kept crew members to a minimum.

"We were extremely nimble, and didn't want to come in with a lot of people, or strangers that they'd never met before asking them to be vulnerable and do the things that we knew they'd be doing," Doneen explained. "It was the people that they spent a lot of hours and a lot of days with getting to know and getting to trust already. There's really no substitute for time. It just takes a lot of time."

The director also said he tried to contact Robert, his associates and other Shekinah members and/or 7M dancers mentioned in the series many times and they didn't respond, though he did have one super-brief exchange with the pastor.

"We called all of them on the phone, left voicemails for those who didn't pick up, texted all of them, and then sent emails as well," Doneen said. "We did our best to give them every opportunity to participate and tell their side of the story and would have entered into those conversations with as open of a mind, that I think that we would have with any subject. We talked to Robert for all of 10 seconds, and as soon as he knew who we were, he said, 'I have another call, I gotta go' and hung up and never responded again."

In Dancing for the Devil, Melanie Lee said that she left Shekinah in 2011 after 10 years, while her sister Priscylla Lee cut ties in 2022 after spending the better part of 23 years with the church.

"I was having less nightmares about my past and I was making progress, until all of this started coming up on social media," Melanie said in the series, recalling her reaction to the Wilking video going viral in 2022. "I honestly thought I never had to talk about it again."

In the show, the sisters described an environment where Robert would call out members of the congregation by name during services if they'd made some sort of mistake and the wrongdoers would be duly shunned. "He created a system where everyone was fighting for his attention," Priscylla said. 

After Melanie left the church, Priscylla said in the series, Robert assured her that her little sister was going to hell. After that, Priscylla said her health declined and she stopped leaving her room. She attributed her illness to demons, she continued, and papered her walls with pages of Scripture. "Robert would just show up to do whatever he wanted me to do," she said.

Dancing for the Devil executive producer Jessica Acevedo told CNN that, when they first spoke to Melanie Lee, the former Shekinah member said her older sister was still with the church and she "feared for her."

Priscylla ended up leaving Shekinah during production of the series, Acevedo said. And according to both sisters, Priscylla wasn't ready to reconnect with Melanie right away.

Priscylla (named in court documents as Elisha Priscylla Leigh) and Melanie were among the former members on the receiving end of a lawsuit Robert filed in October 2022 alleging defamation and trade libel. Per court documents reviewed by CNN, he accused the sisters of wrongfully characterizing his church as a cult and trying to "cancel" him through "flagrant, defamatory attacks on social and other media."

And Priscylla, Kylie, Kailea, Aubrey and Kevin are among the plaintiffs in a cross-complaint filed in March 2023 accusing Robert of operating his church like a cult.

The suit alleges Robert subjected Shekinah members "to brainwashing, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation, and exploitation," according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by E! News.

He preached to the congregation that, "without submitting to him and without Shekinah, their lives will be cursed," the suit contends. "Robert required full physical and economic...control over Shekinah members."

The Netflix series notes that Robert didn't respond to requests for comment but has previously denied sexually abusing any Shekinah member or 7M client.

Kylie, who along with Aubrey was with 7M between 2020 and 2022, told Rolling Stone after the cross-complaint was filed, "We just no longer want him to be able to do that to anyone: the brainwashing, the manipulating, running people down—giving their time, giving their effort, giving their money, giving all they got for something that is a false hope."

Aubrey told the magazine, "I don't want my friends in there anymore. I don't want anybody to be around this person. If they hate or love me or whatever, it doesn't even matter. I just don't want them to be a part of that environment."

The dueling cases are scheduled to go to trial in 2025.

Miranda is in contact with her family, according to her sister and parents, though they said in the series that their communication has remained on her terms.

"We made the promise not to talk about it," mom Kelly said, "it" being pastor Robert, Shekinah and 7M, "and we haven't talked about it with her since."

In any case, Miranda posted May 27 on Instagram about having "such a great time" at Melanie's wedding two days prior, when her little sister married NFL player Austin Ekeler at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa.

Melanie mentioned in the series that she'd always dreamed her sister would be her maid of honor, "but right now I don't trust that she can do that."

Dancing for the Devil director Derek Doneen told TODAY.com it was "pretty rare to find a story that's unfolding in real time like this."

He said that, if Robert or anyone else still affiliated with Shekinah and 7M had agreed to participate, he would have "given them the same time and respect that I would give anybody."

But, he added, "there's a part of me that's also happy that the attention is on the families and former members, because that is who we wanted to uplift."

Watch E! News weeknights Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m., only on E!.

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