It’s been almost 12 years since Leah Remini left the Church of Scientology — a daring and really public break from a company identified for its secrecy and management. Since then, she’s labored arduous to reveal the practices of the controversial faith, together with in her 2015 memoir, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology and her Emmy-winning A&E docuseries, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
However even after greater than a decade of talking out, the actress says the Church nonetheless holds a robust grip on a few of Hollywood’s largest names, a lot of whom proceed to remain silent or profit from the establishment’s huge assets. On the prime of that checklist, she says, is Tom Cruise, who stays the Church’s most distinguished ambassador — and, in keeping with Remini, its most protected. “Are you able to think about Tom being in a standard world? Like, with out Scientology doing his soiled work for him? No,” she tells Us Weekly of Mission: Unattainable star, who maintains an in depth friendship with Church chief David Miscavige.
Remini claims Cruise has lengthy relied on Scientology to guard his public picture, with the group going so far as to orchestrate his breakup with former girlfriend Nazanin Boniadi within the mid-2000s and suppress damaging media protection. “He’s given huge energy,” she tells Us. “It is a man who has a multi-million-dollar group utilizing all its assets to cease a guide being written about him.”
In line with Remini, when her Aftermath cohost Mike Rinder, a former senior member of the Church, left in 2007, he took hundreds of paperwork with him. Amongst these, she alleges, there have been “a whole lot” demonstrating how Cruise’s crew labored to close down information tales — even folks planning to fly skywriting over a film premiere. “They used all types of assets as a result of they couldn’t danger Tom’s valuable eyes seeing that,” she provides.
Cruise isn’t the one one, Remini alleges, who has benefitted from the Church’s safety. She factors to disgraced actor Danny Masterson — who was sentenced in 2023 to 30 years to life for raping two girls — as somebody whose conduct was formed by Scientology’s affect. “Scientology made Danny the best way he’s,” she says. “He was raised to imagine that no matter he did, they might determine it out throughout the partitions of Scientology.”
As for Masterson’s ex-wife Bijou Phillips, who Us beforehand reported had left the Church after his sentencing, Remini is skeptical. “She hasn’t spoken out as a result of Scientology might be offering her with a life,” she says of Phillips, who has been relationship businessman Jamie Mazur since June 2024. “She divorced [Danny] to guard her belongings — to not depart the Church.”
Remini additionally recollects an uncomfortable run-in with Orange Is the New Black actress Laura Prepon, who introduced in 2021 that she had quietly stopped working towards Scientology 5 years earlier. “Poor Laura noticed me at a celebration with Chelsea Handler and ran out,” Remini says. “It’s a excessive crime for Scientologists to talk to me. You’ll be able to’t even be in the identical room with me.”
Danny Masterson made headlines in 2017 when he was first accused of sexual assault. He has since pleaded not responsible after being charged in June 2020 with allegedly raping three girls. 4 girls claimed in March 2017 that Masterson sexually assaulted them within the early 2000s. A fifth lady got here ahead in December 2017, claiming […]
Then there’s John Travolta, one of many Church’s most well-known and dependable followers for many years. Remini believes his public affiliation with Scientology has taken a toll. “I imagine it’s damage Tom and John — and rightfully so,” she says. “In the event that they ever wished an actual life, to be who they are surely, they’d have to depart the group.”
John Travolta Amy Sussman/Getty Photographs
In recent times, each Cruise and Travolta have been noticeably quieter about their beliefs, however Remini doesn’t suppose that alerts a change of coronary heart. “They’re being uncovered for what they really imagine in,” she says. “They usually realized, ‘We higher shut up, or we’re not going to have careers.’ However that doesn’t imply they aren’t nonetheless in full settlement with what the Church does.”
Requested if she believes any of those celeb members will ever stroll away, Remini doesn’t sound hopeful. “I used to hope a variety of these folks would depart,” she admits. “However I form of really feel like they want Scientology. I don’t know in the event that they’d make it in the actual world.”
When reached for remark, a consultant for the Church of Scientology responded, “For years Ms. Remini has repeated advert nauseam unsupported and unfaithful allegations to monetize her hate marketing campaign in opposition to the Church of Scientology.” (Us didn’t pay Remini for this interview.) “There has by no means existed a shred of proof to help, not to mention show, any of her outlandish claims.”
