"Smallville" 25 Years Later: Allison Mack Served Time Over the NXIVM Cult, Sam Jones III Over Oxycodone, and Tom Welling Retreated to a Horse Ranch

In October 2001 "Smallville" began - a series about Clark Kent before he put on the cape and became Superman. It ran for ten seasons, until 2011, and a whole generation grew up with the Kansas teenager who had superhuman strength and problems like any boy his age. Twenty-five years later, American tabloids talk about the "Smallville curse." You only need to look at what happened to the actors to see why.

The heaviest story is that of Allison Mack, who played Chloe Sullivan, Clark's best friend. Mack joined NXIVM, an organisation that presented itself as a personal development programme, behind which, according to the investigation, stood a sex cult led by Keith Raniere. Mack played a significant role in recruiting women, who were then pressured and intimidated into submission. She was arrested in 2018, pleaded guilty in 2019, and in 2021 was sentenced to three years in prison. She got out in July 2023, after serving less than two years. She later apologised to the victims and said following Raniere was the biggest mistake of her life.

Kristin Kreuk, the show's Lana Lang, also joined the same organisation around 2005. She says she believed it was a programme that would help her overcome her shyness. She denied taking part in any illegal activities or recruiting women and said she left the group years before the scandal. She has never been convicted. Today she is 43, lives in Canada, keeps her private life away from the cameras and works in television, including on the series Murder in a Small Town.

Sam Jones III, who played Pete Ross, was arrested in 2009 during an investigation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. He admitted to taking part in a conspiracy to distribute more than 10,000 oxycodone pills and got a year in prison, of which he served about ten months. Later an intimate video he had recorded with his then partner Carissa Shannon leaked to the public. Since 2018 he hasn't had a major role, and today he mostly posts fitness content on social media.

Even the grown-ups from the series didn't get away without scars. John Schneider, on-screen father Jonathan Kent, spent a few hours in jail in 2018 for failing to pay alimony in his divorce. His wife Alicia Allain died of breast cancer in 2023, after an illness he openly shared with the public. In July 2024 he married Dee Dee Sorvino, widow of actor Paul Sorvino, and more than once he has found himself in controversy over his public statements.

And Superman himself? Tom Welling got the role at 24 and became an international star. He later played in "Lucifer", then slowly withdrew from Hollywood. He lives on a ranch in northern California with his wife Jessica Rose Lee and their two children, where they raise horses. In January 2025 he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, but the charges were dropped a few months later. Now, at 49, he posted a photo from a hotel window in New York in which his naked reflection was accidentally visible in the glass. The photo went viral and was deleted after a few hours.

Erica Durance, who played Lois Lane from the fourth season, went on to series such as Saving Hope and "Supergirl." In 2023 she separated from David Palffy, to whom she had been married for 18 years and with whom she has two children - painful news, but far from a "curse."

Hollywood likes to sell this as a curse, because a curse sells better than ordinary life. But look at the list: a cult, pills, alimony, a drink-driving arrest. None of it has anything to do with kryptonite, and all of it has to do with decisions, company and bad luck. How much of the "curse" would be left if someone counted all the actors from the same generation who got through without a single headline in the crime pages?