Just how religious are celebrities? Some of them, it turns out, ultimately choose to turn
their backs on their faith, so we decided to explore some of those cases in greater detail.
Keep watching to discover the real reasons these celebs abandoned their churches.
Leah Remini's relationship with Scientology is well documented. She served as the host
and co-creator of the A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,
which examined the questionable practices of her former church. Since leaving Scientology,
she's gone on record numerous times to criticize the system, and she even wrote a tell-all book.
Remini found herself in hot water for questioning the group's leader, David Miscavige, which led to
a series of interrogations and so-called "security checks." This proved to be the final straw. Remini
had been butting heads with church leadership for years leading up to her exit, including
questioning the process of excommunicating members. She was also reportedly scolded for
asking about Miscavige's wife Shelly Miscavige, who hasn't been seen in public since 2007.
"Do you know where Shelly Miscavige is now?"
"I do not."
In 2013, Remini told People Magazine,
"I believe that people should be able to question things. I believe that people should value family,
and value friendships, and hold those things sacrosanct. That for me,
that's what I'm about. It wouldn't matter what it was, simply because no one is going to tell
me how I need to think, no one is going to tell me who I can, and cannot, talk to."
Michael Jackson was a devout Jehovah's Witness from the age of 5. He performed door-to-door
witnessing into the early 80s, often wearing a costume to hide his identity as one of the
world's biggest celebrities. But his fame and faith clashed in 1983 with the release
of his album Thriller. For Jehovah's Witnesses, much of the album's content was questionable,
and the video for the title song, in which Jackson turns into a werewolf and dances with zombies,
was especially troubling. As a result, Jackson was threatened with disfellowship,
so he rejected the video's content. He told the Jehovah's Witness magazine Awake!,
"I realize now it was not a good idea. I'll never do a video like that again."
Jackson even added a disclaimer to the video that stated,
"Due to my strong personal convictions,
I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult."
Despite Jackson's efforts, the situation got worse, as an "MJ
Cult" developed among Jehovah's Witnesses. Leaders condemned celebrity worship and
called on the destruction of damaging materials. The rift was ultimately never mended. In 1987,
Jackson told his congregation that he no longer wanted to be a Jehovah's Witness.
Anne Hathaway had a devout Catholic upbringing, and her faith influenced her career aspirations.
In 2011, she told The Independent,
"When I was younger I thought about becoming a nun for a while. You know how it is when
you're growing up and you're going to be a lot of different things, but I actually
wanted to be an actress before I wanted to be a nun. The nun was more of a side-bar thing."
But ultimately a life of faith wasn't in the cards for Hathaway.
When her older brother Michael came out of the closet when she was a teenager,
the church's antiquated views on homosexuality stood out awkwardly.
In 2016, she discussed the current state of her religious affiliation with British GQ, revealing,
"The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out. Why should I
support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?
So I'm... nothing. F--- it, I'm forming. I'm a work in progress."
Brad Pitt has had several religious
changes of heart over the years. In 2007, he told Parade Magazine,
"I'd go to Christian revivals and be moved by the Holy Spirit, and I'd go to rock concerts
and feel the same fervor. Then I’d be told, 'That’s the Devil’s music! Don’t
partake in that!' I wanted to experience things religion said not to experience."
Four years later, he struck a somewhat different tone,
as he told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival,
"I got brought up being told things were God's way, and when things didn't work out it was
called God's plan. I've got my issues with it. Don't get me started. I found it very stifling."
In a 2015 interview with The Telegraph,
he identified as an atheist and noted that his Baptist upbringing was filled with, quote:
"all the Christian guilt about what you can and cannot, should and shouldn’t do."
A few years later, his views had softened, as he told GQ in 2019,
"I cling to religion. I grew up with Christianity. Always questioned it,
but it worked at times [...] Tried a few spiritual things but didn't feel right."
He added,
"Then I called myself an atheist for a while,
just kind of being rebellious. I wasn't really. But I kinda labeled myself that for a while.
It felt punk rock enough. And then I found myself coming back around to just belief
in — I hate to use the word spirituality, but just a belief in that we're all connected."
Rapper Ja Rule's family were devout Jehovah's Witnesses,
but his mother was eventually disfellowed from the organization.
The strict disfellowship rules bothered the rapper as a young man.
In 2014, he told The Breakfast Club,
"I was living with my grandmother at the time. My mom would get me on the weekends [...] And
then they were like, 'You're not gonna be able to go with your mom on the weekends anymore.'"
He added,
"I was like, 'Well that's not gonna fly, and I'm leaving here and gonna live with my mother' [...]
We were kinda like the black sheep ... Nobody was dealing with my mother, and that was crazy."
Ja Rule and his mother left the sect, and a wedge was driven between them and the
rest of the family. It wasn't until his career took off in the 90s that his family reunited.
Ultimately, the circumstances didn't matter to Ja Rule,
as he was just happy for his mom to have her family back in her life.
When Gabriel Byrne was 11 years old, he started seminary training to become a priest.
But about five years later, he went to London and discovered that his love for
the opposite gender was too strong to ignore. As he told The Guardian in 2010,
"We got on the bus and I walked up the stairs behind two girls in miniskirts.
That was the end of it for me."
While this moment made him fall out of love with the seminary,
it was a traumatic experience that pushed him even further away,
as he experienced abuse while he was still a child. As he explained to The Guardian,
"I didn't think it severely impacted me at the time. But when I think about my later life,
and how I had difficulties with certain issues,
there is the real possibility they could have been attributable to that."
Nowadays, Byrne isn't in a hurry to introduce his own children to
the church. As he told The Irish Times in 2013,
"I have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is a force for evil."
In 2008, the controversial ballot proposition known as Proposition 8
was passed in the California state elections. The success of the proposition, which sought
to ban same-sex marriages, was largely led by the support of churches in the state.
Among those who supported the proposition was a staff member of the Church of Scientology's
San Diego chapter. This led filmmaker Paul Haggis to write to Tommy Davis,
the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International. Haggis wrote to
Davis for ten months, finally sending one last letter on August 19, 2009. As Haggis saw it,
"Public sponsorship of Proposition 8 [...] is a stain on the integrity of our organization and a
stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us."
As Haggis received no communication back from Davis or the Church,
he signed off his final missive with,
"Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.
I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology."
"I can't be part of an organization that doesn't support human rights for everyone."
Miley Cyrus' views on religion and spirituality aren't strictly defined,
but what is clear is that she's no longer a member of a church anymore,
which she discussed during an episode of her Instagram Live show Bright Minded.
"I was raised going to church as a believer, and that was a really important part of
my life, and I kind of fell off that path a little bit."
Cyrus added that she had a difficult time finding
a relationship with God that worked for her as an adult. She further explained,
"I was also brought up in the church in Tennessee at a time in the 90s, so it was a less accepting
time with all that. I had some gay friends in school, that is the reason why I kind of left
my church. They weren't being accepted. They were being sent to conversion therapies. And
I had a really hard time with that and I had a hard time with me finding my sexuality too."
Cyrus did note, however, that if she could successfully find her own relationship with
God as an adult, she would be far less turned off from the idea of religion.
Whenever George Clooney is asked about his religious past, he seems to recall
it mostly with pride. For example, in 2006 he told The Catholic Herald,
"I was brought up with the whole bit, Catholic school, confession every week, everything [...]
You certainly learned discipline, and I grew up with a great sense of structure and respect."
But his beliefs and his commitment to the Catholic Church ultimately
diminished as he got older. In 1997, he told The Washington Post,
"I don't believe in heaven and hell. I don't know if I believe in God. All I know is that
as an individual, I won't allow this life — the only thing I know to exist — to be wasted."
In a 2006 interview on Larry King Live, Clooney spoke about his
changing faith while managing to remain diplomatic on the matter. As he put it,
"I'll tell you what's tricky about this. In talking about religion, if you're well known,
anything you say sort of ticks off a bunch of other people and sort of attacks their belief."
He added,
"So I always try to say that I, first and foremost, I think that whatever anybody believes,
as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, it's fair enough and works. And I think it's real and
matters. I don't happen to have those beliefs as much. I don't believe in those things."
At one point in her life, Katy Perry appeared destined for a gospel
singing career. When she was 13, she traveled to Nashville to record an album,
following in the footsteps of her musical hero, Amy Grant. As she told Vogue in 2013,
"Amy Grant was our Madonna. We knew about Madonna and Marilyn
Manson in my family because we picketed their concerts."
Perry's entire childhood was dedicated to church. As she described it to Vogue,
"My house was church on Sunday morning, church on Sunday night, church on Wednesday evening;
you don’t celebrate Halloween; Jesus gives you your Christmas presents;
we watch Bill O’Reilly on TV. That was my whole childhood and youth and early teens.
I still have conditioned layers dropping off of me by the day."
As Perry grew up, she ultimately grew away from her religious upbringing.
In 2013, she told Marie Claire,
"I don't believe in a heaven or a hell or an old man sitting on
a throne [...] But I still feel like I have a deep connection with God."
Perry's mother, though, has been a little disappointed to see her
daughter go this way. As the singer told Vogue Australia,
"My mom has prayed for me my entire life, hoping I'd come back to God. I never left Him,
I was just a little bit secular, I was more materialistic and more career-driven.
But now that I'm in my 30s, it's more about spirituality and heart wholeness."
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