14 DAY TRIAL // Almost a year ago, word got out that Lisa Marie Presley, one of the most high profile members of the Church of Scientology, had defected. While she’s still not confirming anything, her latest interview seems to indicate that this was really the case.
Scientology, as must be common knowledge by now, considers members who leave “suppressive” persons and one of the “punishments” for defecting is cutting off all access to family members who might also be in the cult.
In Lisa Marie’s case, that would be her mother, Priscilla, which would explain why she’s not coming out directly saying that she’s done with the Church.
However, in her new interview with Dame Magazine, she talks about a very “sinister” period in her life prior to moving to England, when most of the people she considered friends were actually trying to control her.
“Uncovering the fact that I was surrounded by people who were not well-intended, for one,” she says when asked what prompted her to move her entire family to another country.
“Confidants [who were] very, very intimately and closely involved with me and my life. And had been for years. Basically, it was a big sinister situation, where there was like, kind of intel and covert ops going on, and a whole effort to control me that I didn’t know about,” she explains.
“Lots of people (were) involved in that in various ways. And I uncovered it and it was mind-blowing, and I just was done with people at that point… It was just too much for me. I have a pretty high tolerance, and I’ve seen a lot, but I was just not ready for all that,” Lisa Marie explains.
The situation was “sinister” because the people who kept her “obscured” from the world weren’t doing it because they believed this was for her own good, but only because they were minding their own petty interests.
The ever-present paparazzi and the constant (and mostly negative) media attention also contributed to the decision to leave the US, Lisa Marie says in the same interview.
Asked directly about Scientology, Lisa Marie lets her publicist do all the talking for her: “[she] isn’t going to give a direct quote... many have tried and she refuses to answer.”
The full interview is here.