14 DAY TRIAL // In 2013, actress and comedienne Leah Remini made the shocking announcement that she’d defected from the Church of Scientology, the cult fronted by such celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. In a new Oprah special, she explains what led to this decision.
Scientology has a very checkered history and has been plagued by reports of unspeakable abuse, physical and emotional torture and blackmail at the hands of higher-ranked members, as a form to control lower-ranked ones.
Especially in recent years, the cult has been taking quite a beating in the press and online, with more and more people defecting and deciding to go public with their story. Remini is one of them.
Being a Scientologist is really hard work
Remini has spoken before on the topic, so most of the things she says in this new Oprah special Where Are They Now (see the video below) are not new. Her pain hasn’t changed either: she admits that after 2 years out of the Church, she is still in pain, struggling to adjust to her new life.
Unlike most celebrities, Leah didn’t choose to join the Church, she says in the interview: she was born into it. Her mother was a Scientologist and she brought her kids into it as well, including Leah. To her, being a Scientologist was all she knew for a very long time.
It was also very hard work.
“I don't think people know the amount of dedication it takes to be in this organization,” she explains. “I mean, it was every day, three-and-a-half hours minimum, seven days a week. I'm working most of my time, and then the other time was spent at the church. So, minimal time is really spent with your family.”
This was what eventually made her understand she was repeating the same patterns as her mother: one day, she was attending a class and she looked out the window and saw her daughter swimming in the hotel pool. She understood then that she was as absent from her daughter’s life as her mother had been in hers.
SP tagging is real
Whenever a member leaves Scientology, he or she is tagged a Suppressive Person, so all contact with him or her must be cut instantly.
Most of the time, this means that not even family members are allowed to contact the SP, who might as well be dead to them from that moment on.
Scientology has long denied practice, even having other Scientologists speaking up to argue that, in Leah’s case, she had not been “banned,” she was just being paranoid and had cut everyone else from her life.
In the interview, Leah recalls how, one day after exiting Scientology, she saw her goddaughter across the street: her first impulse was to go over to her, but the girl’s mother had already seen her and had turned her back to her, making sure she discouraged any such attempt.
That sounds an awful lot like Leah was SP tagged. Watch her explain it in the video.
