Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult—a three-part documentary premiering on Netflix today—opens with a story that captured the imagination of millions on TikTok. For years, Miranda Wilking (now known as Miranda Derrick) and her sister, Melanie, had posted clips in which they performed viral dances, amassing between 2 and 3 million followers. But in early 2021, Miranda suddenly disappeared from the feed. Fans wondered about her mysterious absence until February of 2022, when Melanie and her parents posted a video alleging that Miranda had been brainwashed by a man named Robert Shinn. They claimed that Miranda and 10 other young professional dancers were trapped in a cult posing as a talent management company called 7M.
7M Dancer and Shekinah Church Member Calls Netflix Doc “One-Sided”
Director Derek Doneen (The Price of Freedom) began reporting and shooting shortly after the Wilking family first posted its accusations on TikTok; he was brought on by executive producer Jessica Acevedo, who has a background in dance. “This was more urgent for me because the story is continuing to unfold,” Doneen told Vanity Fair, adding that nonfiction filmmakers rarely get access to subjects as their lives change in real time. The series is not an academic exploration; it’s reporting on families trying to save their children and escaped followers’ efforts to rebuild their lives. In the second episode, though, Doneen does travel back in time—because, unsurprisingly, 7M is not Shinn’s first controversial endeavor.
The documentary covers how Shinn founded Shekinah Church—which is not affiliated with other organizations by the same name—in 1994, after leaving a medical career in Canada and immigrating to the United States. Viewers learn about the church’s early years from a different Melanie, a Korean American immigrant who attended services as a teenager. When she and her sister Priscylla joined Shekinah more than 20 years ago, there were only about 15 congregants, mostly comprised of Shinn’s family. The church convinced the girls to live in its housing, moved them around every six to eight months, and eventually separated them. It allegedly prevented them from visiting one another and controlled what and when they ate. After Shinn told Melanie she would have to “pay” her “price” by becoming his mistress, she says, she orchestrated an escape. That was more than a decade ago. (Shinn did not respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment. As stated at the end of the docuseries, Shinn has denied the allegations against him, including those of sexual abuse, no criminal charges have been brought against him, and the civil lawsuit—the claims of which he and his codefendants have denied—is ongoing.)
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