JBWriter
Happy Sapien
The Hollywood Reporter complete article here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leah-remini-fears-confidential-scientology-598028
A few quotes from the article...
Three weeks in and this story still 'has legs'.
JB
A few quotes from the article...
When Leah and her family made the decision to leave the church after having been members for decades, the church immediately used disconnection against them in retaliation," says Karen de la Carriere, who was one of Scientology's top executives before she left in 2010 after 35 years as a member. De la Carriere is one of several ex-church members helping Remini navigate this difficult and highly charged situation. "Leah and her family were suddenly cut off from friendships that had lasted 20 years or more."
While none of this is a comment about Ms. Remini, our general response is that the church supports families and has never had a policy which breaks up families, a myth perpetuated by individuals who are either misinformed or attempting to sensationalize their own life choices or those made by their family members," Pouw says. "While the church encourages close family relations, in the end church members decide for themselves whether to communicate or not with a person who is openly antagonistic to them or their religion. When [disconnection] occurs, that person is simply exercising their right to communicate, not carrying out any mandate from their church."
"The church is in a very dicey position right now," says Marc Headley, who spent 15 years working in the upper levels of the church before leaving and turning on the organization. "Leah's not Tom Cruise. She is famous too, but she's leaving, not staying. If they do anything to mess with Leah, it's not going to look very good for them."
After news of the split, first reported on July 8 by journalist Tony Ortega, a veteran investigator of Scientology, things became even more complicated for the church.
Leah Remini's sister Nicole Remini-Wiskow, who left the church in 2005, spilled secrets about the Remini family's experiences with the church, and Leah's former step-mother, Donna Fiore, has also begun to openly complain about the church's pressure on their family and how Leah's friends in Scientology have stopped speaking to her.
Amy Scobee, the former head of the Celebrity Center — the locus of the organization's activities with high-profile personalities including TV and movie stars — who left Scientology in 2005 after 28 years, says Scientology had accumulated files containing 300 different folders of documents and reports from her auditing sessions.
Regardless of what actions the church has or has not taken, former Scientologists say the organization may have met its match in the outspoken Remini.
"That girl has a lot of balls," says de la Carriere. "Complaining about Miscavige in that organization is like complaining about god."
Three weeks in and this story still 'has legs'.
JB