Actress Leah Remini joined the Church of Scientology when she was 9 years old, according to the
New York Post, and in 2013, she reportedly left the church because of concerns about
its leader, David Miscavige.
Since her departure, Remini has become one of the most vocal denouncers of Scientology.
She wrote a memoir called Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, published in 2015,
but that was just the beginning.
Remini also united with a former church leader, Mike Rinder, to co-host an A&E docuseries
called Scientology and the Aftermath.
In July 2020, Remini and Rinder launched another project in the form of a podcast called Scientology:
Fair Game.
It's safe to say Remini knows a thing or two about Scientology and isn't a bit shy to speak
out about the group and its members, even its most famous one, megastar Tom Cruise.
That's right, Remini has voiced some strong opinions about how Scientology could impact
his relationship with his daughter, Suri.
Remini is weighing in on the high-profile divorce of Cruise and Katie Holmes, and according
to Remini, the church played a huge role in TomKat's sudden split in 2012.
She told the New York Post in August 2020,
"I knew Katie when she was in [Scientology] and she seemed very indoctrinated into Tom's
world but as time went on...I understood why she did what she did to protect her daughter...I'm
only assuming that there's some type of agreement to protect her daughter."
Suri was born in 2006, and Remini believes Holmes is attempting to shield her only child
from Scientology and, consequently, from her father.
Remini added,
"Scientology considers Katie a suppressive person which is an enemy and therefore Tom
believes, like all Scientologists, that he can't be connected to Suri."
Both Holmes and Cruise have been tight-lipped about their divorce and about how they're
raising their daughter, though that hasn't stopped others from speculating about the
dynamic.
There were even rumors that Cruise hadn't seen Suri in years.
Remini is skeptical, to say the least.
She explained,
"I'm sure his master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so that he can lure her into
Scientology and away from her mother."
According to a number of ex-Scientologists interviewed in 2008 by ABC News, the majority
of whom were born into or raised with Scientology's teachings from a very young age, the family
unit as a whole is always superseded by the priorities of Scientology and the objectives
of its leaders as a whole.
One subject of the piece was Jenna Miscavige Hill, the niece of Scientology's current leader,
who was raised as a Scientologist from the age of 2.
As high-ranking members of the Sea Organization, an organization within Scientology that has
frequently been compared to a paramilitary order, it was ingrained that Hill's parents'
work within the movement took precedence over their child.
Eventually, this led to Hill being sent to live on a specially designated ranch from
the ages of 6 to 12, where she and other minors were allegedly forced to engage in brutal
physical labor.
Hill told ABC,
"What we're told is that [Sea Org members and Scientologists] have to work so hard because
they're helping other people.
Your family isn't the most important thing."
In a 2018 exclusive with Us Weekly, an anonymous source who claimed to have access into the
inner sanctum of Cruise's circle stated that though the actor could see his daughter up
to 10 days a month, according to his custody agreement with Holmes, Cruise simply chose
not to.
The source added,
"Every person is allowed to see their child if they wanted to.
He chooses not to because she is not a Scientologist."
Though the source's framing of Cruise's alleged decision to distance himself from Suri doesn't
necessarily align with Remini's take, the optics seem to boil down to the same thing:
When it comes to choosing between Scientology and family, Cruise's allegiances appear to
lean a lot more in one direction than the other.
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