Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

by Leah Remini

  “You gotta bring me in,” Stacy continued, almost insisting.

  I explained the basic tenets and courses and she said, “I want that Tom Cruise shit.”

  Having grown up as a preacher’s daughter, she was questioning her faith, especially how it was not necessarily helping her to obtain her goal of being a professional singer.

  I reluctantly brought her into the church, introducing her to some of the initial course work. I felt responsible for her well-being. I told her not to give out her address or phone numbers. The church is notorious for putting you on a mailing list—for the rest of your life—and piles of mail come to your house indefinitely. I had heard over and over again about people who signed up for only one single course and nothing more but who had to shut down their mailbox because they were inundated with so much mail and propaganda. If you failed to show up for a course and they had your phone number, they would call and harass you. I didn’t want Stacy to have to go through that experience if she chose not to move forward with Scientology.

  Stacy ended up joining the church, and from what I witnessed throughout our time there together, she was looking for validation and not getting it. While she was a bigmouth and a troublemaker, which I loved, she didn’t have the celebrity status yet and all that went with it.

  One time Stacy had brought her friend Brandy Norwood, the singer, to the church in hopes of recruiting her. After a few months Brandy started to pull away, and in an attempt to keep her engaged, she was asked by a church official, while she was standing next to Stacy, if she’d like to go to a barbecue at Tom Cruise’s house.

  Stacy immediately chimed in with “Where’s my invite? What the fuck do I look like?”

  She got sent for a sec-check for that one. (A sec-check—short for “security check”—is a hardcore form of interrogation using the E-Meter in which an auditor asks a long list of questions to make sure a person hasn’t engaged in any hostile activities or thoughts toward the church.)

  While I would often stick up for Stacy and others throughout my Scientology career, there were some people I would not stick my neck out for.

  One Sunday in early 2005, Sherry and I had finished playing tennis, like we did almost every week, and we got in our cars to head for breakfast per our usual routine. Except on this Sunday, Sherry phoned me from her car to say her brother was going to meet us at the restaurant.

  Although Sherry had left the church decades ago, we had an understanding that we’d leave Scientology out of our relationship. It was the only way I could justify maintaining our friendship. But now, by ambushing me with her brother, she had broken our code.

  In the fall of 2004, Sherry’s brother, Stefan, had left the church very publicly in a rift over his wife. Stefan and Tanja, who met in the Sea Org, had both been “up lines,” meaning they were high-ranking executives working for the church’s top leader, Chairman of the Board (COB) David Miscavige.

  In 1999, however, as punishment for financial and ethical transgressions against the church, Stefan was sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF, at Gold Base, the sprawling and remote five-hundred-acre compound near Hemet, California, also known as International Base. Stefan contended that it was because he had gotten on David Miscavige’s bad side that he had been assigned to the reconditioning program for Sea Org members, the RPF. As mentioned earlier, these are the people who wear black, are required to run everywhere, are not allowed to speak unless spoken to, and perform the most demeaning and arduous manual labor with no days off.

  I had met David Miscavige a number of times at various events, after which a few of us would go meet in the President’s Office, the special area of the Celebrity Centre reserved for celebrities and VIPs. David, short, trim, and well built with blue eyes and light brown hair, had always treated me with respect, and I liked his wife, Shelly, a lot. She was tough and something of a rule breaker like me, but I also found her kind. COB’s wife (also referred to as COB’s assistant) for nearly two decades, Shelly could always be found at his side at any public meetings or events. She was also cc’d on all of his correspondence. She was devoted to COB, as she had been to LRH (to whom she reported as one of his original Messengers), and assisted him in many capacities.

  I first met Shelly when we both attended a Tom Cruise movie premiere. She invited me to sit with her, and we quickly hit it off, afterward regularly exchanging cards and gifts at holidays. I remember she was so grateful when I had my makeup person get her ready for a CC (Celebrity Centre) gala. Meanwhile, she stuck her neck out for me when I brought a friend who was not a Scientologist to the Celebrity Centre to try and get some help with some issues he was going through. This was probably one of five friends I had ever brought into the church in my thirty-plus years with Scientology. My friend was struggling in his marriage, and I thought that perhaps he might benefit from some of the courses or auditing that the church offered. I was not trying to recruit him into the church, just trying to have him apply some of the technology I had learned in hopes of helping him in his marriage. I handpicked who I requested to be in charge of his service, but I was met with resistance and told that I didn’t have the right to decide who would work with him. I immediately went to Shelly, and she made sure that not only did I get the supervisor I wanted but no one pushed me out of being involved. I also didn’t want anyone I brought in to be dragged into regular church procedure. I wanted to protect them from that.

  The David Miscavige that my friend Sherry described that morning was very different from the affable COB David that I knew. According to Sherry, he threw Stefan in the RPF after Stefan objected to the amount of time COB demanded from Tanja, who was one of his secretaries. Stefan remained in the RPF for almost four years, during which time Tanja was encouraged to end their marriage. While they were apart, the couple ignored orders and remained in contact by cell phone. When David found out that his orders had been disobeyed, Tanja was removed from her position and demoted to a much lesser position. And that’s when Stefan “blew”—a term reserved for Scientologists who leave without approval and without letting anyone know. In theory it is possible to leave the church on good terms, but it involves a lengthy process that involves endless sec-checks and usually winds up with the Scientologist deciding to stay rather than pay a costly freeloader’s debt. Stefan had escaped, and for that he was labeled an SP.

  “Sherry, come on,” I said to her in my car. “You know that I can’t talk to him.”

  She wanted me to talk to her brother who had now been officially declared a Suppressive Person. The church forcibly stated that all parishioners had to disconnect from any SPs and cut off all contact with them.

  “Just listen to what he has to say.”

  “This is uncomfortable. Actually it’s worse than that. You’re putting me in a position that will have consequences.”

  “Please, for me.”

  Ugh. I was deeply conflicted. Despite our ups and downs, Sherry was one of my oldest and closest friends. We had known each other—and helped each other—when we had nothing but each other. Still, Scientology was now the framework for my entire life, and what she was asking me to do could get me in serious trouble, and my family as well. So I split the difference. On the way to the restaurant I called my MAA, Julian Swartz, to ask what we knew about Stefan.

  “Why?”

  “It’s my friend Sherry’s brother, and we’re meeting for breakfast.”

  I knew the minute I said this, Sherry was going to come up in every sec-check for every OT level I’d get for the rest of my life. “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I have to.”

  “Leah, I’m asking you not to go.”

  “I’m going, Julian.”

  “Well, then, we’re going to have to talk.”

  “Okay. Then we’re going to be talking.”

  I was so angry by the time I sat down at the table with Sherry and Stefan that I could hardly look
at the legal documents he wanted to show me. He wanted to get Tanja out of International Base, but when he left Scientology the church offered him $25,000 in return for a contract that would keep him from ever contacting another Scientologist again—including his wife. He signed the contract so he could make copies and show an attorney, and soon after that gave the check back and voided the contract.

  “I’m not taking the money, because I am going to get my wife out,” he said to me.

  “But I don’t know why you felt the need to come to me,” I said.

  I didn’t like Stefan when he was still in the church. I thought he was a terrible brother to Sherry and put her through the wringer when she left Scientology—so I certainly wasn’t going to help him now.

  “Stefan, look. What do you want me to do—pick up the phone and call David Miscavige? Honestly, it just shows how stupid you actually are. I don’t have any power to break your girl out! All that’s going to come from this stupid presentation is that I’m going to be thrown in a sec-check.”

  “Why won’t you just read the documents?” Sherry asked.

  “For what? You’re not hearing me. There’s nothing I can do—and Sherry, now I’m going to have to deal with why we’ve been friends all these years, and why I was lying about you not being against Scientology. So thank you for ending our friendship over this asshole.”

  With that, I got up and left. On the drive home, I called Julian, just as he had asked me to do and told him everything that had happened, which was nothing. When I got home, however, there waiting for me was a representative of the Office of Special Affairs, the legal branch of the church. For an hour or so, the OSA person grilled me on exactly what had been said and by whom, all the while taking notes that he slipped into a black briefcase before leaving.

  When I closed the door behind him, I was devastated because, as per the church, that would be the end of my friendship with Sherry. I felt I had no choice.

  Chapter Twelve

  AS A CELEBRITY SCIENTOLOGIST, you are expected to be an example not only to the outside world but also to other Scientologists. Moving up the Bridge is important in setting an example for the group. And so is donating money. A lot of money. I donated millions of dollars over my life to my church to help set an example.

  The church is relentless when it comes to fundraising and soliciting. The plea is always a variation on the same refrain: “You’re a celebrity. You’ve got to step up, because if you do it, people who are not contributing will start to. So you need to do this to save the planet.”

  I felt a combination of coercion and responsibility. When I heard from the church the causes my money was being put toward, I believed them. They ranged from protecting religious freedom to helping workers who were at Ground Zero after 9/11 through the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. In 2002, the NY Detox, as it’s known, began offering free treatments to firefighters, first responders, and police officers. Based on LRH’s writings, the detoxification regimen flushed poisons out of the body by employing an intense combination of multiple hours in and out of the sauna, high doses of niacin, jogging, and other elements. I donated over $100,000 to sponsor these first responders and fundraised on the cause’s behalf for additional donations.

  As my donations grew, however, so did my questions about where my money was actually going. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, I gave $50,000 for a special mission of Scientology Volunteer Ministers to take food, water, and supplies to the hurricane victims in New Orleans, an effort spearheaded by Kirstie Alley. When I asked to see some kind of evidence that actual supplies were handed out, however, I was given the runaround. Even though I knew church officials thought I was a pain in the ass because I complained all the time, I said, “Give me a picture of somebody from Scientology Volunteer Ministers handing out a fucking bottle of water in New Orleans, not a booklet about our beliefs.”

  “Why are you always questioning your church’s intention?” asked my “handler,” Shane Woodruff. (Shane had become my unofficial liaison with the church once I reached celebrity status.)

  “Because I see Volunteer Ministers, with their yellow shirts on, handing out Way to Happiness booklets, as opposed to the water that you told me you were going to give them,” I said to Shane.

  I wondered if we were helping anyone other than fellow Scientologists or just giving off an appearance of this for all the world to see. Were we actually helping the world at large in the way I had been told? Those questions gnawed at me all the time, but particularly when I agreed to help open the Inglewood Org in the neighborhood southwest of downtown L.A. I agreed to donate $100,000 to get the basic books needed for the org to be considered a church, but I had my own set of stipulations that I made very clear. In a meeting I held with all the organizers, I said that they had to reach out to the community to find out what they needed in their neighborhood. I also demanded that we create a children’s center, because mothers can’t go on course for two and a half hours and stick their kids in some bullshit nursery. “Let’s open up a center that’s wonderful for the kids, so Mom can feel like she did something great for her child,” I said. “You want my help? That’s what I’m willing to put my name on.”

  At a follow-up meeting to discuss the Inglewood Org’s opening, slated for Thanksgiving, the team presented me with its plan to meet the community’s needs.

  “We came up with this,” one self-satisfied Scientologist told me. “We’re handing out turkeys with a Way to Happiness book.”

  “First of all, the idea that you think anyone needs your fucking turkey is condescending. But on top of that, you have the balls to stuff it with The Way to Happiness?”

  The entire room went quiet. I knew they were shocked not only by how I was talking to them but also because I thought their idea was terrible. In turn, I was angry not only because their idea was shitty but also because they didn’t know it was a shitty idea. As I had felt many times before, I wished these Scientologists had better human technology.

  “I’m out,” I said.

  In the aftermath of that meeting, the group working on the new org begged me to go to the opening. David Miscavige personally requested that I be there, and there would be hell to pay for everyone if I didn’t show up. But they wouldn’t back down on their turkey-and-booklet plan, so I compromised. I agreed to attend the opening but said I would only sit there. “I’m not speaking, because I don’t want to be part of this org.” (They picked me up at my house, probably just to make sure I actually went.)

  There was always something the church needed money for. Nearly every single day when I came out of session at the Celebrity Centre, there was a member of the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) waiting for me in the parking lot. According to the official literature, the purpose of the group, formed in 1984, is “to unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard.”

  But the IAS is also the powerful fundraising arm of the church. The IAS rep waiting for me in the parking lot would say, “Can we talk for a second?” and my heart would sink.

  Did I care about mankind?

  Did I care about the state of the planet?

  Did I care about other Scientologists who were being persecuted as we spoke?

  It was just money, and as LRH says, you can always make more money.

  As I said, it was relentless.

  I had given here and there to specific projects, but it was when the IAS came into my own house to make the case for why I needed to give even more that I made my first major donation.

  I’ll never forget how the IAS representative banged on my kitchen table, saying, “Do you see this?”

  She had brought some anti-Semitic propaganda, used in Nazi Germany, that depicted Jews with large hooked noses and a caption that read, “The Jew i
s identified by their greedy long noses.” According to the IAS rep, they were using the very same propaganda against Scientologists. “Do you see this? This is what’s going on in Germany right now! They’re making Scientologists wear armbands. You’re Jewish. How can you let this happen?”

  I couldn’t let that happen—or any of the other crises the IAS brought to my attention. So I kept giving and giving and giving.

  It was after I made a single donation of $1 million to the IAS that I first saw Tom Cruise in the President’s Office. The mere fact that I was fit to be in Tom’s presence was a huge compliment. The actor wasn’t just an A-list movie star but a pillar of the church. Because of his good work on behalf of Scientology, he was called Mr. Cruise, which was a big deal, since in the church the honorific “Mr.” was reserved for only the highest executives, including women in the Sea Org.

  Usually when Tom came into CC, the building was locked down and the other celebrities who used the President’s Office had to come and go by the other entrance. When this happened, I would sit in the courtyard or the waiting room, but on this particular day, my handler, Shane, met me at my car before I entered the office to say, “I just want you to know that Mr. Cruise is here, but it’s fine for you to walk through.” I had met Tom before at public events, but here I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. I asked if I should pretend I didn’t see him; I honestly didn’t know how to act.

  Tom, who was already in the room, was on the phone. He gestured for me to sit down.

  When he trained his gaze on me, I felt very important. He was the perfect example of what Scientologists call “in PR” in the world—someone who’s highly regarded and brings goodwill and respect to themselves and to Scientology. We had a brief but pleasant conversation. He had that magical quality that makes the person he’s talking to, in this case me, feel like the only one in the world. You feel that he is super interested in what you have to say. He brings an intensity to the interaction. That’s very “Tom.”