There’s throuple in paradise.
The married self-help influencers behind the popular “Holistic Psychologist” empire preached peace and trauma recovery while boasting about their “throuple” lifestyle to millions of followers — until the third wheel in their relationship sued, claiming she was abused and cheated out of a fortune.
Clinical psychologist Nicole LePera, 43, and her spouse Lauren Galvin — creators of a mega-popular Instagram account and numerous books — are being sued by their former lover, Jenna Weakland, who claims she was erased from the brand and denied a $3.5 million payday when their Phoenix-area love nest fell apart.
Wives Lauren Galvin and Nicole LePera with their lover Jenna Weakland. Instagram / the.holistic.psychologist
Weakland alleged that she was instrumental to building the Holistic Psychologist brand — which boasts more than 9 million followers on Instagram alone.
She claimed she was bullied by her lovers and that LaPera threw her down the stairs in a moment of violence, according to the suit.
LePera and Galvin counter-sued and alleged that their ex assaulted Galvin, blew $1 million in fraudulent spending and sowed chaos into their lives while being little more than a customer service agent for the brand.
They also said Weakland threatened to harm herself and pen a tell-all memoir to extort millions from them.
Both parties categorically denied the other’s accusations after their throuple fell through — but it wasn’t always so fraught.
The trio started out as co-workers in 2019, with LePera and Galvin hiring Weakland to help run their “The Holistic Psychologist,” which had exploded from a series of popular psychology books to a subscription-based online community called “The Circle.”
Dr. Nicole LePera became a self-help superstar with books and social media. Paul Archuleta/Shutterstock
But Weakland gradually began to take a central role in the company’s self-help content, appearing with LePera on podcasts and videos while turning her own social media into an outpost for the self-help brand.
And by 2021 things had taken a dramatic turn — LePera announced on Instagram that she and her wife were in a full-blown relationship with Weakland.
“I am in a throuple. A 3 person committed relationship,” the psychology superstar wrote, adding that Weakland had begun expressing feelings for her and Galvin, and they let her into their marriage.
“It’s expanded me spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. It’s been raw. Terrifying. Filled with joy. Filled with tears. Filled with laughs. Filled with so much humbling learning about myself and what it is to be in an authentic relationship,” LePera wrote.
Jenna Weakland joined LePera as an employee first, and later a lover in a three-way relationship. Instagram / jennaweakland
From there, Weakland’s role within the brand appeared to grow, with her notably appearing in a series of mainstay videos in which she would role-play the part of a daughter — typically while kneeling in pigtails and clutching a stuffed penguin — while LePera berated her as an emotionally abusive mother.
“Given the underlying power imbalance of our actual relationship,” Weakland later told the New York Times. “Those just made me feel sick.”
But that work was central to building the therapy brand, Weakland alleged.
LePera and Galvin even referred to her as an equal partner who “would jointly build and develop the newly formed THP brand and the Circle from the ground up,” Weakland’s suit alleged.
Weakland and LePera in one of their role-play videos. Jenna Weakland/Instagram
The two older women were even so committed to Weakland as both a lover and a business partner that they promised to give her a one-third share in the business, according to the suit.
But while the throuple preached online about overcoming trauma, healing and connection, behind the social media scenes things were allegedly far from enlightened grace.
The promise of Weakland’s one-third share was never put to paper, and as she brought the matter up Galvin allegedly began waging a campaign of “psychological warfare,” the suit claimed.
The women announced their throuple relationship in 2021, but things went south a few years later. Jenna Weakland/Instagram
Galvin called Weakland the nickname “welfare,” and mocked the fact that she grew up in poverty while telling her “she would end up ‘cold dead and alone just like [Weakland’s] trailer trash family,” according to the lawsuit.
When further efforts to mediate the share dispute went nowhere, Weakland — saying she began to feel “manipulated” into the throuple — tried to call off the romance, only for LePera to promise a $3.5 million payout to settle the matter, the suit claimed.
But instead of paying up, Weakland’s suit claimed, LePera and Galvin began to do “internal bookkeeping gymnastics” to make it look like Weakland wasn’t owed anything — and even supposedly began to turn their teachings against her.”
“LePera (a licensed psychologist) and Galvin (who controlled THP’s messaging) used their ‘authority’ to gaslight Weakland and tell her that her concerns were mere projections of unresolved personal trauma she had to deal with,” the suit claimed, “rather than acknowledging Weakland’s concerns as legitimate issues within THP.”
Weakland accused LePera and Galvin of abusing her, which they denied and accused her of in their own lawsuit. Instagram / createvisions2day
Allegations of escalating harassment and violence followed, with Weakland claiming that Galvin regularly trespassed on Weakland’s property after she moved out of their Arizona love nest.
Galvin allegedly also threatened “repeatedly” to send nude videos of Weakland to a list of her closest friends, her suit claimed.
During one explosive confrontation, Weakland’s suit claimed, LePera shoved Weakland down a flight of stairs,” and she “fell the entire length of the staircase, landing face-first and sustaining injuries to her ankle and hand.”
LePera, Galvin and their legal team made their own arguments in return, painting Weakland not as a victimized co-founder but as a disgruntled customer support worker who brought operational mayhem.
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Weakland “used a combination of deception, coercion, and abuse to first integrate into the lives” of LePera and Galvin, according to their lawsuit, “and then into the ownership.”
They denied that Weakland had a major role in the company’s growth, and accused her of leveraging threats and “physical” behavior to force LePera to sign over her share in the biz — including “threats of exposure of false, defamatory narratives” and threats to draft a tell-all memoir about LePera.
The pair made “dozens” of claims of assault against Weakland, including that she once sexually assaulted Galvin while “grabbing her by the neck,” and “ripped” LePera’s glasses off of her face.
Far from shortchanging her, LePera and Galvin said, Weakland went on spending sprees using company money, and accused her of “revenge spending” over $1 million — including a “lavish” $20,000 Bahamas vacation in early 2024, tens of thousands in unauthorized wire transfers and demands of a $500,000 settlement.
LePera and Galvin’s attorney declined to comment, and Weakland’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
