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