'At 14, a stranger convinced me to become a neo-Nazi leader. He gave me a one-word promise.'

Christian Picciolini remembers exactly what his wife told him when she left. The words are seared into his memory, 30 years later.

It's one of the most painful moments in the former neo-Nazi's life, but it was the wake-up call he needed to finally confront the emptiness of the path he'd chosen.

In 1987, aged 14, Christian was recruited into America's first neo-Nazi skinhead group — the Chicago Area Skinheads (CASH) — after a conversation with the leader on the street.

He sat down with Kate Langbroek on No Filter where he revealed how he lost part of his life and his marriage, to an ideology of hate.

First, listen to Christian Picciolini on Mamamia's No Filter podcast. Post continues below.

"I can still remember the exact words, that 'I made her skin crawl'. Those were the words that she used when she left me," Christian said. "And this was, you know, somebody that I was in love with.

"I finally realised that what was good in my life had disappeared, had gone, and all that was left was hate."

How Cristian was recruited.

The sad truth is, white extremist groups are still recruiting young men into their ranks every day. This is something Christian understands all too well.

He recalled how he was recruited by a man twice his age, Clark Martell — America's first neo-Nazi skinhead leader.

Christian, who had been bullied for years, was lonely. He felt abandoned by his Italian immigrant parents, who were working up to three jobs to make a life for themselves in the US.

When Martell approached Christian on the street, the teen felt seen for the first time in a long time.

"Instead of focusing on politics, what he focused on was my sense of searching for an identity in a community and a purpose," Christian said.

"Because I was kind of a lonely kid, you know. I was ambitious, but I was also very shy and I didn't have a lot of self-esteem.

"He drew me in, and he promised me 'Paradise'. He gave me friends, he delivered very quickly on those things that were missing in my life."

In eight years, Christian quickly rose through the ranks of the group.

In 1989, Martell was sentenced to 11 years in prison. So, Christian took over the group, and began to rebuild its ranks.

He served as a propagandist and band frontman, writing lyrics and spreading messages of hate through his music.

But he admitted that something never quite clicked for him.

"Every day, from the time I was 14 years old until I was 23, there was an internal struggle inside of me that said, 'something's not right,'" he said.

It took the shattering words of the woman he loved for Christian to finally confront what he had become.

A relationship lost.

Christian married when he was 19 and by the age of 21 he had two children with his wife. He opened a record store to help support his family, which sold his own music and records imported from Europe.

There was no 'one moment' that led to the breakdown of his marriage.

"It was four years of her really trying to, or hoping, that she could change me, that I would eventually see the priorities of my family and my children and walk away, but the truth was I wasn't brave enough," he said.

"Instead, I was afraid of losing, you know, what I built around me to boost my own ego."

After the marriage crumbled, Christian closed the record store and walked away from white supremacy.

An 'epidemic' of extremism.

Today, Christian helps others leave extremist movements.

Christian said that we are in an "epidemic" of extremism and explained that "uncertainty" is the common factor that draws a person to radicalism.

"It's not just the United States that's experiencing this. We've got countries in Europe who are now turning to the far right and kind of reliving the past. In Australia and New South Wales, there are, you know, Nazi marches," he observed.

"This is happening all over the place, and I think it's because we are living in a climate of complete uncertainty.

Christian now helps others leave extremist movements. Image: Supplied.

"People are clinging to these life rafts that end up, you know, being time bombs, essentially. And they do go over the rapids with those ideologies, if they're not smart enough or very brave enough to find, you know, ways to disengage themselves."

Drawing from his own experience, he said the key to approaching an extremist is empathy and avoiding negative language.

"I sit across from literal Nazis on a regular basis, and I have to somehow see the child and not the monster," he explained.

"Nobody was born to hate. You know, in most cases, the people that I work with weren't even raised as haters. They weren't raised in a family of hate. It was something that they learned.

"I think it can be unlearned as well."

Christian admitted the weight of his past actions still haunts him.

"The things that we say and the things that we do, while they may not affect anybody at the moment, really do have far-reaching consequences," he said.

Christian's story is a powerful testament to the possibility of transformation — how even someone deeply embedded in a life of hate can find their way back to humanity through accountability, empathy, and love.

Feature image: Supplied.