Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

Sunday morning, I'm driving home.

I drive up,

and there's ten people standing in my front lawn.

You know?

It was a lot of my celebrity friends from Scientology.

You know, it was Anne Archer and Terry Jastrow,

and Mark Isham and his wife all showed up.

And they were there to handle me.

They were really upset. And I'm going, "Guys,

"I understand you're upset, I understand you're angry,

but there's abuse going on within the church".

And I thought, "You should know about this,

"that you would be outraged

by some of these things that I discovered".

But no, they were outraged that I'd criticized the church.

I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.

The aim and goal is to put man in a mental condition,

where he him can solve his own problems.

Without any Scientology organization,

things are not gonna change on this planet.

After years of slowly questioning Scientology...

Leah Remini and her very public break with Scientology.

Stop lying to people that they hold

their eternity in their hands.

Stop telling parents that it doesn't matter

what you do this lifetime other than Scientology.

If your religion is so amazing,

and doing all these amazing things for the world,

then it should stand up to some questioning.

I would repeat this line,

"I want to die. I want to die".

That was my first idea of, "I want to end my own life".

You gave me up

at 13 years old.

How could you think that this was okay for me?

These people are doing extreme things,

and they need to be held accountable.

For us to do more of this,

we wanted to do something that could help these people.

We need to do more

than simply document stuff.

You got this.

People will continue to speak.

People will continue to fight.

I could go on forever about Celebrity Centre,

but really, if I just have to say

in layman's terms what it is for me,

is it's like having a best friend

for life.

It's like the best friend who's always home,

the best friend who doesn't have a problem,

the best friend who's always there for you regardless.

And that's what CC has been for me and my family,

is a pure friend.

It's hard to dispute that from the very earliest times,

Hubbard was almost obsessed

with getting celebrities into Scientology.

Project Celebrity is an article that appeared

in one of the 1955 editions of "Ability Magazine".

The purpose of recruiting celebrities

was to give legitimacy to Scientology,

and to popularize the subject,

and hopefully get other people interested

because celebrities were interested.

The Celebrity Centre was created

with the idea that if you had some facility

or some operation that was focused on celebrities,

then you would get more of 'em involved.

And there was policy that talks about

getting celebrities into Scientology.

- Hi, there. - Hi.

Nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you. - Thank you.

I'm Karen Schless Presley,

and I was a celebrity recruiter

and commanding officer of the Celebrity Centre network

for the Church of Scientology.

When we would recruit celebrities in,

we were really looking for people

who could become mouthpieces for Scientology.

That's the bottom line.

Scientology was looking for celebrities

to endorse Scientology.

You could read "What is Scientology?"

It's a book about that thick, that answers every question

you could possibly think of, positive or negative.

We were all about building social capital.

We needed celebrities to recruit other celebrities

- for that social capital. - From your time there,

who was brought in by other celebrities?

Okay, for example, Kirstie Alley.

Anne Archer brought Terry Jastrow in.

And, of course, Mimi Rogers brought in Tom Cruise.

You know, David Miscavige, at that time,

was all over Tom Cruise's advancement in Scientology.

Now with the biggest celebrity icon

that Scientology has ever had,

management poured millions of dollars

into the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles to overhaul it.

And that started with Tom?

The whole goal was to make Scientology look beautiful

to the hopeful A-list celebs

that would be coming in

because of Tom Cruise's recruitment efforts.

The idea was, make Celebrity Centre look so successful

that anybody who walked in the door

would be convinced, "This is a great place to be".

Now, another thing to point out is

there were separate classrooms

- for A-list celebrities... - Right.

Even categories of celebrities.

Oh, I know.

Until I gave a $1 million donation

was I allowed to be actually

in an area of the church

when Tom actually walked in the building...

- Wow. - But then, after I gave

my million dollars, I was allowed to finish my lunch

and not have to get up,

and I was really excited about that.

It's very different from being treated

as a celebrity in the real world.

You know, in the real world,

George Clooney gets treated nice.

This is a different kind of nice.

Scientologists believe,

and they're shown this in their events,

that some of the celebrities in Scientology

are responsible for big changes

on this planet and for mankind.

These are the times, now, people, okay?

These are the times we will all remember.

Were you there?

What did you do?

They believe, in a way, that these celebrities are,

you know, deities, in some way.

I have letters of commendations

from David Miscavige himself,

saying what an amazing Scientologist I am...

From Tom Cruise...

To Jenna Elfman.

"You're the best Scientologist.

Thank you for contributing to mankind".

But as soon as Leah starts talking,

you go from being a celebrated member

to an enemy overnight.

So, what were some of the tactics,

other tactics, that celebrity centres

were demanded to do?

If you are a celebrity recruiter,

and you're called a field staff member, an FSM,

there is a commission involved.

Bringing in a new person

who does, like, the appetizer courses of Scientology,

those are very inexpensive.

$50 here, $100 there.

But the goal is to take your recruit

and move them to more advanced services

into Scientology.

And we were motivated by that 10% commission,

which really adds up.

So, there's an incentive to just civilian Scientologists,

but especially celebrity Scientologists,

who know people who have

millions and millions of dollars,

who, you know, it would behoove them

to recruit regularly.

Even if you just got one person in...

- Right. - Then you're set.

Now you're looking at the major motivation.

It was really about money, because, let's face it,

the celebrities were the cash cows,

and for one celebrity to bring in another celebrity

guaranteed financial success.

Tom Cruise specifically would have meetings,

and call all of us actors in, and say,

"We need lists from you, who you're bringing to

the Gala at Celebrity Centre".

And it's very coordinated.

They're befriending them, because they want to appear

as though they're the only ones in their life

that could offer them real help...

- Yeah. - And that is purposeful.

And I've done it. I've done it myself.

If you're not bringing people in,

they see that as a problem.

Like, I was asked many times over the years,

"Why haven't you gotten Kevin James in?

"Like, what are you doing on the set?

"Why is he not reaching to you?

"Why is he not confiding in you?

"Why are you not telling him

Scientology can help you with that?"

'Cause I was like, "'Cause he's Catholic".

But it was a constant "What are you doing?

You're doing something to not set a good example to him".

Who do we see right now in the news

promoting Scientology? No one.

- So what does that say? - That Scientology doesn't work.

But what you do have is celebrities now