For over 30 years, Leah Remini was deeply entrenched in The Church of Scientology, having been raised within its confines since she was 9. However, her steadfast dedication came to a sudden halt in 2006 when she attended Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding, where a seemingly innocuous question she posed led to her being targeted. In the months that followed, the foundation of her three decades of devotion to Scientology crumbled before her eyes, leaving Leah grappling with profound disillusionment and uncertainty.
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00:00 What exactly happened at Tom Cruise's wedding?
00:03 The biggest wedding in Scientology history.
00:05 Have you ever felt this way before?
00:08 Several guests claim one person ruined everything.
00:12 That I destroyed the wedding.
00:13 A liar, rude, and embarrassing.
00:16 What would Tom say to you?
00:17 He thinks I'm the devil.
00:19 But what did Leah Remini do?
00:21 I asked the question and I said, "Where is Shelly?"
00:24 He said, "You don't have the effin' rank to be asking about the leader's wife."
00:29 The wife of the leader of Scientology is still missing.
00:33 Where is Shelly Miscavige?
00:35 Apparently she was pretty close to Tom Cruise.
00:38 17 years of a person just missing.
00:41 So many people believe that she's being held captive.
00:43 So you think she's a prisoner?
00:44 What I uncovered was much darker than I ever expected.
00:49 She was Scientology royalty.
00:51 Now finding herself in the crosshairs.
00:54 For asking questions, I was getting punished.
00:56 For asking questions, my family started to get punished.
00:59 They're just totally staring at us.
01:01 What are you working for?
01:02 Years of harassment.
01:03 Have them beaten.
01:04 Horrifying nightmare.
01:06 I'm not gonna f***ing stand for it.
01:08 The church tells every claim Ms. Remini has made is ridiculous and stupid.
01:12 Once I have the information, I have to do something about it.
01:15 What did Leah find out?
01:17 Nobody wanted it to be true.
01:19 The year is 2006 and Leah Remini has been invited to one of the most coveted celebrity
01:26 events of the century.
01:28 Katie once told 17 Magazine that her dream was to marry Tom Cruise.
01:32 So you know, I've been in the dream making business this year.
01:37 Are you in the dream making business?
01:38 I don't want to disappoint her.
01:44 You've never had this kind of feeling before, right?
01:48 No?
01:49 Obviously not.
01:50 Yes!
01:52 [Screaming]
01:59 The boy is gone!
02:00 The boy is gone!
02:01 Not only was Tom Cruise one of Hollywood's biggest stars, he was the poster boy for the
02:07 Church of Scientology.
02:09 I think it's a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist and it's something that you
02:12 have to earn.
02:14 And because a Scientologist does, he or she has the ability to create new and better realities
02:24 and improve conditions.
02:25 The main goal of Scientology is to keep Tom in.
02:28 When Tom finally married Katie, Leah was proud to be there as a fellow Scientologist.
02:34 All of the top clergy of Scientology are there.
02:39 It was a big deal for the church.
02:42 But as the celebration unfolded, she slowly realized things aren't always what they seem.
02:48 I'm innocently standing by this fireplace in this big castle in Italy and I said, "Hey,
02:57 where's Shelley?"
02:58 Shelley was the wife of Scientology's leader, David Miscavige.
03:03 Over the years, Leah had socialized with Shelley many times, exchanging gifts and holiday cards.
03:08 Shelley was a prominent figure in the organization.
03:12 Shelley was always where David Miscavige was.
03:15 This was being called the wedding of the century.
03:20 So it was very weird that she wasn't there.
03:24 And their reaction was like, "I mean, that's the leader's wife.
03:28 You really shouldn't be asking about her."
03:29 Little did she know that one seemingly innocent question would put a target on her back.
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04:58 And now, back to Leah Remini's fight to uncover the truth about Scientology.
05:03 David Miscavige, who's the head of the Church of Scientology, his wife wasn't there.
05:10 And when I asked the question and I said, "Where is Shelley?
05:13 Why is his assistant here?"
05:15 Scattered.
05:17 People just scattered.
05:18 And then I was told I didn't have the effing rank to be asking about the leader's wife.
05:23 It wasn't that she was just an average person, that I didn't have the rank to ask about.
05:26 You didn't have the rank.
05:27 The rank.
05:29 Wow.
05:29 There's a pecking order in Scientology.
05:33 There are parishioners and there are Sea Org members.
05:35 But in my mind, I'm a parishioner, but I'm also just a human being asking where another human being was.
05:44 Although the response shook Leah, she tried to carry on as if nothing happened.
05:49 But she couldn't ignore what was in front of her.
05:51 It was just becoming weird.
05:53 I was seeing behavior from senior executives of the church that I thought was out of line with her policy.
05:59 In her memoir, Leah recalled watching high-ranking officials continuously break
06:05 Scientology policy for what she believed was the sake of Tom and his wedding.
06:09 My understanding and the policy is there is no celebrity that should be treated any differently
06:17 than any parishioner.
06:19 And I was seeing behavior and I was seeing things that wouldn't be okay,
06:24 that are not okay for the average parishioner, but were being made to be okay for Tom.
06:29 You left the wedding on a mission to save Scientology.
06:33 Right. I thought, I now see where the cracks are in our church.
06:37 I wrote reports on him, like internal reports on him, and it didn't matter to me that he was Tom.
06:43 To me, I saw him as a team member.
06:46 But when she returned home a few days later, Leah felt the consequences of what she'd done.
06:50 Numerous Scientologists had filed reports complaining about her behavior.
06:55 That I had disrupted the wedding, that I basically destroyed the wedding.
06:59 Leah showed us this document, which she claims to be a knowledge report from Katie Holmes herself.
07:05 It starts with, "I was dismayed at the behavior of Leah Remini during the events leading up to
07:09 our wedding and our wedding. The behavior as a guest, a friend, was very upsetting.
07:13 Basically, they were just trying to get me to recant what I said,
07:17 to apologize for ruining the wedding of the century."
07:22 I'm sent to Florida immediately. I fly out there. I'm in a room, you know, with cameras,
07:34 with my person who is armed with information, unbeknownst to me, of a stack of reports that
07:41 were written on me by everybody who worked for Tom. And I was asked, "Do you have sexual
07:46 intentions towards him? What are your evil intentions towards him? What are your evil
07:50 intentions towards David Miscavige?" And it was three months of this.
07:55 Three months of dealing with this?
07:58 Yeah.
07:59 Three months? Every day for three months?
08:01 Uh-huh. I had to write apology letters.
08:02 Ninety days?
08:03 Uh-huh.
08:03 So you're there for 90 days. You have a family. You're married.
08:07 My mother was there. My daughter was there. My husband was there.
08:10 And how much of the day are you spending on this stuff?
08:13 All day.
08:13 All day every day?
08:14 And the bad feelings she'd got at Tom's wedding only got worse.
08:19 I started going on the internet, and I started seeing
08:21 stories of senior executives getting beaten in the church.
08:25 Miscavige slapped me across the face, knocked me on the ground, kicked me a couple times.
08:30 Flailing fists, kneeing him in the stomach, getting him on the floor.
08:33 It was a poisonous environment. People were really frightened.
08:36 They hire private detectives to harass people.
08:40 I have been sued twice.
08:41 Financial ruin.
08:42 Years of harassment.
08:43 Beaten.
08:44 We chased her around. We followed her to the airport.
08:47 Gotten hold of personal phone records.
08:49 Dangerous, horrifying, terrifying fraud. A nightmare.
08:54 Why didn't you just leave?
08:57 My mother was in Scientology my whole life.
09:03 Most people don't know that we were raised in it. I didn't decide to get into it.
09:08 I was brought into it by my mom.
09:10 My mom and dad got divorced, and my mom met my stepdad.
09:19 And there's this new thing that he's introducing my mother to,
09:23 which is this thing called Scientology.
09:26 It boasts some of the most famous people on the planet,
09:30 claims to be capable of curing drug addiction,
09:33 and says that following its teachings will lead to a life of success and fulfillment.
09:38 The promise of Scientology is that you will reach your full potential in all areas of your life.
09:47 This is an organization that will save the planet from crime, from war,
09:55 from people hurting each other. And we're going to be part of the solution.
10:00 Going from a dad who tells me to, you know, shut the F up and talk when I talk to you,
10:07 and you sit in that chair and you don't have any thoughts worth listening to,
10:11 to you're very much an important being. You start to feel that you're powerful.
10:19 Scientologists view children as spiritual beings. You're not treated as a kid,
10:23 so you're given a lot of responsibility. Your ego becomes extremely inflated.
10:29 Leah thought her family was living the dream.
10:31 Dennis, my stepfather, and my mom had a baby when I was 14.
10:36 And then Dennis decided to leave my mother, and he moved in with somebody else.
10:43 Knowing that he was leaving my mom with a newborn,
10:47 you know, was hard. And, you know, what can she do?
10:55 It kind of pushed us, I guess, to stay in the church, because we didn't really have anywhere to go.
11:02 But the deeper Leah's family fell into the church, the more they grew apart.
11:06 The mother, daughter, son, father thing is taken away. Now, Scientology is your teacher.
11:14 Scientology is your parent. Those roles are taken away pretty early on.
11:19 They put very little significance on interpersonal relationships between family members.
11:29 Leah watched as her mom prioritized her work for the church over her and her sister.
11:34 She was never home, really, at the church, morning, noon, and night.
11:38 It changed the dynamic of our lives, needless to say.
11:42 What was told to me was, "Look at what you're doing for the world.
11:46 This is more important than your family."
11:49 Did you believe that?
11:50 Yeah.
11:50 I'm benefiting the planet by doing this. You know, it'll help my kids in the long run.
11:57 But even after Leah gave birth to her own daughter, she followed in her mom's footsteps.
12:02 I don't think people know the amount of dedication it takes to be in this organization.
12:08 I mean, it was every day, three and a half hours minimum, seven days a week, usually.
12:13 You know, I'm working most of my time.
12:15 And then the other time was spent at the church.
12:18 And so minimal time is really spent with your family.
12:23 But when Leah was interrogated after Tom's wedding, she realized nobody was safe.
12:27 My family started getting interrogated on this lie detector, the e-meter.
12:32 For asking questions, I was getting punished.
12:35 For asking questions, my family started to get punished.
12:38 They were interrogating my family now and trying to turn my family against me.
12:42 The church's biggest weapon is their policy called "disconnection."
12:48 It says that a parishioner shun their family member or friends.
12:53 Leah knew if she continued fighting for the truth, she'd be risking too much.
12:58 I walk away from everybody that I've ever known and cut ties with my own husband,
13:04 my own mother, because you don't know what they're going to decide.
13:09 Very often, my experience is people choose the church.
13:13 I had to retract everything I said.
13:15 I said I made it all up.
13:15 I didn't see any of it.
13:16 To get out of there.
13:18 After Leah was released, she tried to carry on as normal.
13:22 But one day while out with her daughter, she had an unsettling realization.
13:26 I remember I was on course one day and I was at one of these hotels in Florida and I
13:32 saw my daughter swimming for the first time while I'm doing, like, reading this thing.
13:37 And like a tear came down my face and I was like, "What am I doing?"
13:41 The moment hit me that I was now doing the same thing to my daughter
13:47 that my mother sent a message to me that what she was doing was more important.
13:51 No matter what's going on in your life, your child loves and needs you.
13:56 King of Queen's star Leah Remini opening up about her very public split from the Church
14:03 of Scientology.
14:04 For years, she was a staunch and high profile member of the church,
14:08 but left it earlier this month.
14:10 The church claimed that she was expelled for unethical conduct.
14:14 Leah denied the claims, saying it was her choice to leave.
14:17 But ultimately, there was a bigger question hanging in the air.
14:20 Would Leah's family disconnect from her?
14:23 Even after dedicating decades of her life to Scientology,
14:35 when Leah left, her mom decided to leave too, along with everyone else in their family.
14:40 Did you ever have a moment of thinking, "Well, maybe I'll stay with the church"?
14:44 Never.
14:45 It was never thought.
14:47 Finally free, the first thing Leah did was file a missing persons report for Shelly Miscavige.
14:52 It was sending a message to them that it's not okay.
14:57 I had given a letter with the police report that said it was to Shelly if they found her.
15:05 "Shelly, go with this man now. I'm going to take care of you. I'll take care of your legal fees."
15:10 So you think she's a prisoner?
15:13 If she's alive and well, the second best case scenario would be, yes, that she's being held
15:19 prisoner.
15:19 The LAPD said, told us after we covered the story, "Our missing persons detectives have
15:27 met with the alleged missing person. Within the past two days, we consider the case closed."
15:31 They said that they had made contact with her and she didn't want to be found.
15:39 I said, "Did you see her or was she speaking, was somebody speaking on her behalf?"
15:44 You ready for the answer?
15:45 That's classified.
15:47 Even after years of no news, Leah continued her fight for Shelly, inspiring others to join her.
15:54 Where is Shelly Miscavige?
15:57 Where's Shelly and what happened?
15:59 Where is Shelly?
15:59 We're looking at like 17 years of a person just missing.
16:03 She has not appeared in public since 2005.
16:07 So many people believe that she was murdered or is being held captive and like tortured.
16:11 Why wouldn't they prove that that is not the case for their image as well?
16:16 But it wasn't just Shelly who needed Leah's help.
16:19 My story pales in comparison to what happened to other people,
16:23 how people are bullied into silence.
16:25 What I have is I'm an actress and I'm able to speak and I'm able to give a voice to people
16:30 who might not have an Ellen to go on.
16:34 Yeah.
16:34 So for that, I feel lucky and I feel blessed and I feel it's kind of what my path is right now.
16:40 Now Leah is taking on the church again in her new docu-series
16:45 called "Leah Remedy Scientology and its Aftermath."
16:48 We deal with, you know, not only with our own pain, our own family's pain,
16:52 but we deal with contributors every day with dealing with their aftermath of Scientology.
16:58 We know all the people who are devastated by Scientology,
17:02 either by losing a family member, you know, through death,
17:06 and there was disconnection before that,
17:08 or having their family destroyed and their son or daughter lives down the street from them.
17:12 When the cameras turn off, these people don't have their sons and daughters.
17:16 We're disgusted by it. We're enraged by it.
17:19 It's a lot. It's a lot. But, you know, it's worth it.
17:24 With her family by her side, Leah could now discover who she truly was.
17:29 When you were raised in something and you were taught to think a certain way,
17:34 a lot of times you grow up thinking that's the way I think.
17:37 I'm learning there's a new world out here.
17:39 I'm still like everybody else trying to find my way.
17:43 Finding out who, what I really am about.
17:47 You know, we're so often taught to appear one way, but really secretly we're another way.
17:53 And finding out who you really are is not something that you do overnight.
17:59 That's part of getting out of any bad relationship.
18:03 There's a lot of work to do.
18:05 How does the experience of Scientology affect the way you parent now?
18:11 I think the biggest thing is the love.
18:15 Is the unconditional love.
18:17 Is that we all say, "We love you."
18:21 Like, it's a constant thing.
18:23 I always am very clear about, "I love you. I want you to know that I love you."
18:28 No matter what.
18:29 And that's something that we were not taught in Scientology.
18:33 And I think that's an important message that we now send our children.
18:37 That we love you no matter what you are.
18:48 [END]
18:49 [END]
18:49 [END]
18:59 [END]