Can Jared Leto make cults cool again? The answer is affirmatively no, but he sure is making bank. California is acknowledged as a hotbed of cults, which makes sense as it is also the land where the cult of personality rules supreme. Should that nasty word “cult” sound too extreme or libelous, relax. Those are his words, not ours. The Thirty Seconds to Mars Twitter (not yet X) account left little doubt, invoking the epithet in 2019, stating “This is a cult.” When it comes to Leto, it is impossible to figure out if he is trolling the media or masterminding a David Koresh-lite style of messiah complex in plain sight — Koresh was also a rock star in his spare time, incidentally. This confusion appears to be the entire point.

The title “Oscar winner” and rock-star clout come with some very peculiar fringe benefits. Never one to disappoint the fans, at least musically speaking, the American performer isn’t content to rest on his laurels and go the boring podcast route or shill branded liquor. Sneering at the conventional meet and greets and photo ops, the 52-year-old actor turned singer has embraced his inner Jim Jones, basking in the attention from fans and detractors alike. Through his career ups and downs, the musical side project has maintained a very devout fanbase, with Leto jumping from movie roles to touring the world as one of the most dedicated artists on the planet.

Devout is the keyword here, as Leto has taken it upon himself to construct a home for and foster this small but rabid niche group that now borders on religious fervor. It’s normal, even expected, for a rock star and his audience to feed off each other’s energy. Framing himself as Jesus with cool sunglasses, and starring in incoherent Gucci ads instead of performing miracles, he doesn’t have time for squares. Donning a white flowing robe and leading his flock on an idyllic island getaway, the method actor is dooing a pretty good impression of a classical cult leader. Could he be staging the whole thing as a commentary on celebrity worship in the 21st century? It’s possible. So is a midlife crisis.

From Humble Beginnings to the Upper “Echelon”

It seems in line with a guy who humble-bragged that he got gout after packing on the pounds for his turn as John-Lennon assassin in Chapter 27, had a designated assistant on the set of Morbius to wheel him around to the toilet, and sent crew mates dead animals to help him get into character as The Joker in Suicide Squad in 2016. But, alas dear reader, the Jared-Leto iceberg goes far, far deeper than annoying everyone he works with, self-aggrandizing hashtags, and endangering his liver.

Meet “The Echelon,” the moniker assigned to his most zealous followers. For those not into the goth/emo scene, Leto has been the frontman and lyricist for the band Thirty Seconds to Mars for a quarter of a century. A prolific group, if not quite among the ranks of elite pop and rock royalty, their lyrical and stylistic content has generally been fairly innocuous.

However, as the ear story hints, Leto’s groupies are not your typical Swifties or Dead Heads. How insane? If Leto is to be believed, he once inspired a fan to chop off their own ear (we hope it’s theirs) and air-mail that bad boy to his door. Not wishing to disappoint the diehard Mars fanatic, he made it into a piece of jewelry, per the NME. Not exactly the reaction you’d wish for from a grown man, but whatever. This unhinged interaction set the stage for phase two of Leto’s career … spiritual guru.

Rock and Roll Messiah — the Ultimate Role

TStM’s fandom breeds a particular extreme variety of fawning fans. Yet, all those priceless photo-ops and one-on-one chats don’t come cheap. And this is where the pretentious rock-star VIP packages begin to blur into all-out exploitation and general Hollywood creepiness. In 2020, his band launched a fan event in Croatia, securing an island where fans could bump shoulders and do communal yoga with their idol, packages going up to as high as $6,500. Similar “camps” were also available in California. Though it seems he isn’t too big on photographs, as that’s not part of the package, and has sent cease and desist orders to anyone uploading older images from his past that he wants struck from the internet because he thinks they ruin his image.

It’s challenging to look at the official promotional shots for the band’s VIP shindigs and not get Kool-Aid and Cyanide vibes, with Leto holding court in a tropical hut surrounded by a crowd looking up to the bearded leader, eagerly hanging on his every word. What are the tenets of the pseudo-religion? From the available material, it’s the standard new-age stuff. The long-awaited manifesto/divine revelation will have to wait, unfortunately. He’s a little preoccupied.

Notoriously, he arranged a gross contest for followers — who appear to be mostly young women — to enter. The reward was sleeping in his bed with him according to a report by KQED. Mind you, thus far, there is zero evidence that Leto has broken any laws or caused any bodily or emotional harm. Despite some vitriolic comparisons to the outrageously crappy Fyre Festival, his paying fans seem to be delighted by his intimate get-togethers. His greatest moral failing has more to do with sleazy antics and gouging his biggest backers in service of pumping his ego. Or is there something more to the story?

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Is the Jared Leto Fanclub a Performance Art Piece?

Of course, it would be unfair to ignore Leto’s side of the issue. Over the years, cult scandals have popped up repeatedly, and his name is often lumped in among that crowd, along with a long list of various allegations and odd anecdotes leveled against him. It has yet to damage his long-term career prospects. There is the slight possibility that this is all an elaborate, dark joke. In a very old interview with The New York Times, he excused the mystical trappings as part of a modern-day Andy Kaufman routine in 2013, shrugging off the term cult as merely semantics:

“It’s for the believers who get the joke. … I hate the word ‘’fan’’; it just seems so dismissive. Because we have this cult, this family, these believers who understand, it seems fitting that there was a name to reference them.”

“Echelon,” the name he selected for his group of white-clad followers, also so happens to be the name of an international surveillance operation operated by the United States and its allies. His current residence so happens to be a decommissioned former US Air Force base in Laurel Canyon. This implies that Leto either did the worst job ever concealing his group or is leaning hard into the gag, using the controversy to further promote himself as the most unique personality in the business.

However, he also has stated he makes a point of lying in interviews, throwing every statement he’s ever uttered into question, leaving us with only his actions to judge him. And they are shady. Is Echelon a threat? Probably not, unless you mean to your bank account. Is it a corny, crass marketing scheme? Undoubtedly. But at this time, what’s really the difference between a cult leader and a social media “influencer” anyway?

In the event that this is revealed to be just for entertainment value (in the vein of Joaquin Phoenix’s fake documentary, I’m Not Here) or extensive research for preparation for an upcoming film role (think De Niro doing cabbie shifts to get into this role for Taxi Driver), all is forgiven. You fooled us, Jared. Maybe Joaquin put him up to it. In his defense, he does love disappearing into eccentric roles and having fun with it. But with 15+ years of hype under your rhinestone-studded belt, this cult movie project had better be as good as American Psycho and Fight Club.