Crime Watch - Leah Remini On Leaving The Church Of Scientology (2020)
- 6 years ago
In a sneak peek at her sit-down interview on, the former King of Queens star Leah Remini gets candid about her experience in the church and how the environment became something she didn't want to be a part of. Wochit
In 2013, she joined director Paul Haggis as one of the church's most famous defectors. She explained what drove her to give up the only religion she's known since she was five.
She was part of the Sea Organization. Remini's mother, Vicki, became a Scientologist when she was five and brought both her daughters into the Church. When Remini was a teen, she moved them down to Clearwater, Fla., to Scientology's headquarters. At that point, she and her sister Nicole stopped traditional schooling in the eighth grade and studied their faith full time and signed a billion-year contract to serve the Church (throughout every reincarnation).
Later, both sisters faced ethics charges for getting involved with boys and narrowly avoided being sent into the Rehabilitation Project Force, the church's re-education camp.
“When you have screwed up royally in the Sea Org, it’s basically to reform you,” she explained. “You have to wear black. You have to run everywhere you go. You have to call everyone ‘sir.’ … So it’s pretty severe punishment for an adult, not to mention a child.”
The church treated her very differently before and after she became famous. Though they left the Sea Org, the Reminis remained in the church, becoming part of the Scientology community in Los Angeles. But not the Celebrity Centre crowd, as she was still a struggling to make ends meet.
"I spent thousands and thousands of dollars" on auditing and Scientology courses deemed necessary for "moving up the Bridge to Total Freedom," or higher levels of spiritual awareness.
Once her sitcom became a hit in the late 1990s, doors opened to her within the church. She was given trophies for her millions worth of donations and invited to take part in Scientology videos and entered the social circle of church leader David Miscavige and his wife, Shelly.
Remini says auditing, a sort of Q&A/counseling session for church members, helped build her confidence. “There’s tools that are... very helpful ... to you in your life, to you as an actor,” she said. “I walked into a room where some people might feel, you know, cower in front of a casting director, I wasn’t.” But auditing also provided the church with dirt on all their members that could be used should any step out of line.
Tom Cruise summoned Remini to teach him and then-girlfriend Katie Holmes salsa dancing. She got a call from Cruise's Scientology handler asking her to come to his house to give dancing lessons to the new couple. She found Cruise, who was still very much in his exuberant couch-jumping stage, hard to take.
“He was like forcibly kissing Katie and I said, ‘Hey, get a fricking room.' And well, I was written up for that, and I had to go into session for it.”
In 2013, she joined director Paul Haggis as one of the church's most famous defectors. She explained what drove her to give up the only religion she's known since she was five.
She was part of the Sea Organization. Remini's mother, Vicki, became a Scientologist when she was five and brought both her daughters into the Church. When Remini was a teen, she moved them down to Clearwater, Fla., to Scientology's headquarters. At that point, she and her sister Nicole stopped traditional schooling in the eighth grade and studied their faith full time and signed a billion-year contract to serve the Church (throughout every reincarnation).
Later, both sisters faced ethics charges for getting involved with boys and narrowly avoided being sent into the Rehabilitation Project Force, the church's re-education camp.
“When you have screwed up royally in the Sea Org, it’s basically to reform you,” she explained. “You have to wear black. You have to run everywhere you go. You have to call everyone ‘sir.’ … So it’s pretty severe punishment for an adult, not to mention a child.”
The church treated her very differently before and after she became famous. Though they left the Sea Org, the Reminis remained in the church, becoming part of the Scientology community in Los Angeles. But not the Celebrity Centre crowd, as she was still a struggling to make ends meet.
"I spent thousands and thousands of dollars" on auditing and Scientology courses deemed necessary for "moving up the Bridge to Total Freedom," or higher levels of spiritual awareness.
Once her sitcom became a hit in the late 1990s, doors opened to her within the church. She was given trophies for her millions worth of donations and invited to take part in Scientology videos and entered the social circle of church leader David Miscavige and his wife, Shelly.
Remini says auditing, a sort of Q&A/counseling session for church members, helped build her confidence. “There’s tools that are... very helpful ... to you in your life, to you as an actor,” she said. “I walked into a room where some people might feel, you know, cower in front of a casting director, I wasn’t.” But auditing also provided the church with dirt on all their members that could be used should any step out of line.
Tom Cruise summoned Remini to teach him and then-girlfriend Katie Holmes salsa dancing. She got a call from Cruise's Scientology handler asking her to come to his house to give dancing lessons to the new couple. She found Cruise, who was still very much in his exuberant couch-jumping stage, hard to take.
“He was like forcibly kissing Katie and I said, ‘Hey, get a fricking room.' And well, I was written up for that, and I had to go into session for it.”