‘Troublemaker’ Leah Remini: The thorn in Scientology’s side
Scientologist-turned-defector Leah Remini continues her campaign to bludgeon her former religion with the publication of her book, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.
Much of it has already spilled into the media, thanks to the promotional campaign of Remini, 45, former star of King of Queens.
“Leah Remini’s Troublemaker will put Scientology in the spotlight like nothing before. And Scientology never looks good when it’s flooded with revealing light,” says Tony Ortega, a former editor of the Village Voice and Scientology scourge, who has dissected Remini’s book by chapter on his blog, TonyOrtega.org, and calls it “landmark.”
The predictable contempt-soaked response from Scientology leaders has already landed. Remini has been excommunicated for numerous “ethical lapses,” so she should be ignored, a church statement says.
“She needs to move on with her life instead of pathetically exploiting her former religion, her former friends and other celebrities for money and attention to appear relevant again,” said the statement issued Saturday condemning Remini and her book.
One thing is clear: Remini’s title is apt. Her book is the story of her more than 30 years in Scientology, which she describes as often deeply strange. She was once a gung-ho Scientologist, rising to a prominent position in the church, and on familiar terms with the church leadership. But she kept getting into trouble for asking too many questions, challenging the wrong people and just generally being more rebellious than Scientology will tolerate.
So it’s the story of her messy, angry departure in 2013 from the religion most famous for its celebrity members, starting with Tom Cruise, whom she describes as a “god” for Scientologists, and who she says is the reason she quit.
Now on her book tour, she has already talked about many of the book’s juicy celebrity bits in interviews with the likes of ABC’s 20/20 and People magazine.
Among the boldfaced names are Cruise’s wives, including Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes; his children, Bella and Connor with Kidman and daughter Suri with Holmes; and other celebrity Scientologists such as John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.
Little of what she writes about will come as a surprise to either Scientology fans or its critics.
The story of Cruise and Holmes’ 2006 wedding in Italy (they’re now divorced) has made the most rounds: Remini describes how she was pressured to invite her friend Jennifer Lopez to the nuptials, in hopes, she says, the church could sign her up (Lopez’s father is a Scientologist, Remini says, but Lopez is not).
At the wedding, she says, she was blamed for delaying the ceremony by being late and chastised for changing her seat at the reception. She describes how Cruise waited for Holmes at the altar for an embarrassing 20 minutes, prompting Lopez to wonder aloud whether she was going to show up. And she portrays herself as the rescuer of baby Suri, crying in a bathroom while clueless Scientologist adults dithered about what to do. (“Warm up a bottle,” she snaps).
And on the way back to the airport, she shares a van with Con- nor and Bella and casually asks after their mother, Kidman, now remarried and with two other children.
“Hey guys, how’s your mom? Do you see her a lot?”
“Not if I have a choice,” Bella snarls. “Our mom is a (expletive) SP!” “Suppressive person” is Scientology-speak for a very bad person indeed. Connor says nothing, just stares out the window.
“My heart broke for him, his sister and their mom, as we rode the rest of the way to the airport without saying another word,” Remini says.
The upshot of the wedding is that Remini returned home to face furious church leaders and the retaliatory write-ups and punishments, emotional and financial, she describes as peculiar to Scientology.
(Even Holmes criticized her in writing, something she apologized for in a brief statement last week.)
Leaving aside the boldfaced names, one theme that runs through the book is Remini’s persistent attempts to learn: “Where is Shelly?”
Shelly Miscavige, wife of head Scientologist David Miscavige and a friend to Remini, has “disappeared,” Remini asserts, hasn’t been seen in years and may be locked up in some abusive Scientology re-indoctrination center for her sins, or even the victim of foul play.
Shelly wasn’t at Miscavige’s side at the Cruise-Holmes wedding, and every time Remini asked about her, she’d get angry looks or weird dodging or truculent admonitions that she didn’t have “the rank” to ask.
“I hadn’t seen Shelly for a few years now,” Remini writes at the time of the wedding. “I had heard she was on some type of special assignment, but I had my suspicions that the truth was far worse.” Later she writes, “But one thing still nagged at me: the fact that no one would tell me where Shelly Miscavige was.”
Eventually, she talks to David Miscavige, who tells her Shelly is fine but he had to keep her under wraps because “suppressive persons” are constantly trying to subpoena her.
In the end, Remini writes that all her friends from Scientology turned on her after she quit, but she keeps thinking of Kidman, who also left the church and was labeled a SP and is doing just fine.
“I am a combative, inquisitive, argumentative person, and I will never allow anyone to change that,” she writes.
“I still have anger, but I’m okay with that because it fuels me to continue to right any wrongs I may see. And it’s because of that and the support of my true friends and family that I was able to fight my way out of Scientology and see the world for the first time.”