tom cruise scientologist crazy

The Crazy Things Tom Cruise Has Done For Scientology

While promoting Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) in London, Tom Cruise answered a question about Scientology by saying "I've been a Scientologist for over 30 years...without it, I wouldn't be where I am. So, it's a beautiful religion. I'm incredibly proud." It was a rare public statement for the actor, who has been noticeably silent on his embattled religion since following his own public foibles as its de facto celebrity spokesman and the release of HBO's unflattering documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015). But Cruise wasn't always so cagey when it came to defending his controversial belief system. In fact, there was a brief period when it seemed like his bizarre antics on behalf of the church were the only headlines running in the tabloids. Here's a list of the times Cruise went nuts over Scientology.

That "recruitment" video

During a ceremony to award Cruise the prestigious Freedom Medal from the International Association of Scientologists, the Mission Impossible star appeared in a pre-recorded video . That footage, which was leaked online in 2008 , claims Cruise introduced the church's "technology" to more than one billion people. Wearing a black turtleneck and addressing the camera confessional-style, Cruise manically rambles about the benefits of the church, switching rapidly from what feels like forced laughter to fire-eyed intensity. The effect makes him come off looking like he might be on another planet entirely.

The statements he makes about the abilities of Scientology practitioners are equally out-of-this-world. In addition to "getting people off drugs using the mind, rehabilitating criminals, and uniting cultures," Cruise also uses a hypothetical car accident to exemplify what sets a Scientologist apart from everyone else. According to Cruise, if you're a Scientologist you have to stop to render aid at the accident scene because "you know you're the only one that can really help." So, jokes on you if you've been studying to become an EMT.

Needless to say, the leaked video became publicity nightmare to the notoriously press-shy church. It reportedly scrambled to get the clip removed from YouTube, which only intensified the buzz about it, and even sparked a protest by the hacktivist group, Anonymous. The video remains online for all to see and is generally considered a jumping-off point for anyone seeking to understand the alleged benefits of Scientology.

The church may have helped destroy his marriage to Nicole Kidman

Around this time, Cruise allegedly "followed Kidman's lead away from the organization," Vanity Fair reported, and that supposedly did not sit well with Scientology head David Miscavige, who allegedly spearheaded an effort to bring Cruise back into the fold. Miscavige succeeded in "driving a wedge in Cruise and Kidman's marriage," according to a panel of former Scientologists and the filmmakers behind the HBO documentary, Going Clear . In the film (via Vanity Fair ), another former high-ranking Scientologist-turned-whistleblower named Marty Rathbun alleged that "at Tom's behest," Miscavige ordered him to "go and tap Nicole Kidman's phone." Granted, that's hearsay upon hearsay, and, of course, the church vehemently denies it all, but there is no doubt that Kidman is no longer associated with Scientology and hasn't been since the breakup of her marriage to Cruise. Something happened there, and we're willing to bet it was a fundamental disagreement over whether or not to believe the human race is actually made up of ancient, frozen, alien souls.

Did he enlist the church to 'cast' him a new girlfriend?

Though her romance with the Vanilla Sky (2001) leading man was a whirlwind—Boniadi supposedly even moved into Cruise's lavish mansion—the courtship was strange from the start. According to Vanity Fair , Boniadi was scrutinized and monitored by church officials and subjected to instructions about how to behave around Cruise and how to alter her physical appearance. (Cruise allegedly brought in a hair stylist for her and also wanted her incisor teeth filed down.) Their tryst was brief. The perplexing final straw apparently occurred over Boniadi asking Miscavige to repeat himself in conversation (she is not a native English speaker), which for some reason enraged Cruise past the point of reconciliation. He supposedly then shipped her away to a Scientology center in Florida where she performed grueling manual labor (e.g. scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes) to atone for her "errors."

You can't make this stuff up, or maybe you can, but that's the way the story was reported in Vanity Fair . A Scientology spokesperson told the magazine, "The Church does not 'punish' people, especially in [that] manner."

He attacked Scientology's nemesis: psychiatry

Aside from the time he jumped all over Oprah's couch like a nerd who just convinced the Homecoming Queen to be his date to the dance, Cruise's most infamous TV appearance has to be his fantastically bizarre reprimand of Matt Lauer on NBC's Today . What sparked the confrontation was Lauer's simple suggestion that psychopharmacological drugs couldn't be entirely evil if some people experienced a benefit by using them. It's important to note here that Scientology founder Hubbard despised the field of psychiatry so much that the church has a dedicated division called the " Citizens Commission on Human Rights ," which claims to be a "watchdog investigating and exposing psychiatric human rights violations."

With that in mind, it becomes a little more clear why Cruise, who was defending his criticism of actress Brooke Shields for using drugs and psychiatric therapy to treat her postpartum depression, would go so far as to declare psychiatry "pseudo-science." What's not so clear is why Cruise became so irritated with Lauer, calling the famous news anchor "glib" for not doing extensive research on Ritalin and the history of psychiatry.

We can't help but ask: why would either man be expected to do that? Let's be real: Lauer hosts a fairly light morning news program and Cruise starred in Days of Thunder (1990). Everybody could use a little medical advice from Cole Trickle , right?

Did he exile his 14-year-old niece from the family?

Lesavoy is Tom Cruise's niece, and according to Lister, she committed the egregious sin of kissing a boy at Cruise's house when she was 14. She was caught on security cameras, which Cruise and others observed. According to Lister, (via The Underground Bunker ), Cruise considered Lesavoy's behavior "unbecoming of a Scientologist and out-PR" (creating a bad image for oneself or Scientology)." Consequently, she was allegedly banished to a Scientology center and then sent to live with another family to work on "lower ethics conditions," which are "a series of steps one does to make amends for having done wrong," according to The Underground Bunker . This reportedly took two years, and Lesavoy was allegedly limited to only phone contact with her mother until she was deemed fit to return to her family. Lesavoy is supposedly still a Scientologist, to which we have to ask: what are they serving at the annual Cruise family potluck that made suffering through that kind of treatment worth it?

He may have offered to help discipline insubordinates

Church leader Miscavige has a reputation for a fast temper and for utilizing brutal tactics to enforce his interpretation of the religion. With Cruise's intense devotions, as well as the fact that he and Miscavige are extremely close, it's no surprise the Eyes Wide Shut (1999) star allegedly offered to " beat the living [beep] " out of some insubordinate members for improperly preparing the church's Hemet, Calif. compound for his visit. These claims were made public by Marty Rathbun, another former high-ranking Scientologist, who detailed the incident in a letter to Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, which was then excerpted by the New York Daily News . Allegedly, three men were "incarcerated" and repeatedly beaten by Miscavige and others after Miscavige threatened that Cruise was on his way to take part, as reported in the Daily News . The church has denied up and down that the punishment even occurred or that Miscavige threw Cruise's name into the mix.

Did he let the church assign Katie Holmes a chaperone?

Holmes' chaperone was reportedly Jessica Rodriguez , a long-time, high-ranking member of Sea Org, "Scientology's elite religious order, whose members commit to the church for one billion years," according to W Magazine . Rodriguez served as Cruise's assistant for a while, but by 2005, she was reportedly spotted at every one of Holmes' public appearances (right around the time Holmes and Cruise got together.) Rodriguez was also present for a now infamous W Magazine interview in which she says she and Holmes are "just best friends," despite the fact that they'd only known each other for six weeks at that point. According to Fox411 , Rodriguez was "front and center" at Cruise and Holmes' 2006 wedding, so even on the day she was marrying an allegedly controlling man, it seems Holmes still had to have an extra set of eyes on her. Did someone really want to drive home that whole "love and obey" vow?

He distanced himself from daughter Suri

In the years that followed, his track record does not seem to have improved. In 2015, TMZ reported that Cruise may not have seen Suri in nearly a year. The Daily Mail went even further and put the estimate at around 800 days. In 2016, he was noticeably absent on Father's Day . Supposedly, the reason for his distance has less to do with Suri and more to do with Holmes having allegedly been declared a "suppressive person " by the church. That makes Suri's lackluster relationship with her blockbuster dad somewhat of collateral damage.

Of course, all this could just be tabloid fodder. Perhaps daddy and daughter are hanging out right now, away from the prying eyes of the press. For the kid's sake, we hope that's the case.

Church members worked for him for little or no pay

Brousseau was also something of a craftsman, and over the years, he was tasked with many special projects pertaining to Cruise—projects that don't seem to have anything to do with spirituality. He claimed to have worked on the Honda Rune that Cruise and Holmes arrived in at the War of the Worlds (2005) premiere, as well as a custom Bluebird bus, Cruise's airplane hangar, a tricked-out Ford Excursion, and Cruise's home—and Brousseau has photos to prove it . Brousseau alleged that Cruise shelled out the cash for materials, but never a dime for labor, which was completed by church members. So, how much did the church compensate its laborers? "Only about $50 a week by the church, even though their hours could reach 100 a week," Brousseau said.

According to Forbes , Cruise made $53 million dollars in 2016 alone, and let's be honest, it wasn't his first year making that kind of scratch. And yet, if Brousseau's story is true, Cruise was okay with "servants" waiting on him hand and foot and facilitating his lavish lifestyle for a wage of roughly .50 cents per hour. That's not only crazy, it's downright criminal.

All that being said, Cruise has never acknowledged any of the aforementioned allegations and scandalous tales. For all we know, he could be a delightful Jerry Maguire -esque Scientologist who has simply become an easy target for a growing number of former church members, outsiders, and gossip hounds. Whatever the case, the actor undoubtedly remains the most famous and most embattled member of the institution.

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Tom Cruise reveals the ‘weirdest’ conspiracy theory he’s ever heard about himself

Mythology surrounding the star is often linked to his faith in the mysterious church of scientology, article bookmarked.

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Mission: Impossible : Dead Reckoning director Chris McQuarrie has recalled asking Tom Cruise what the “weirdest story” he’d ever heard about himself was.

Cruise has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories over the years thanks, in part, to his ties with the mysterious and controversial Church of Scientology .

In an interview about the 61-year-old action star for The Times , McQuarrie, 54, said Cruise told him the strangest myth he’d heard was that people on set “were not allowed to look me in the eye”.

Cruise’s M:I costar Simon Pegg added to the publication: “I’ve been able to hack my way through all the bizarre mythology that surrounds him.

“On one side he’s Tom Cruise – this enigmatic film star everyone wants to know about. And on the other, he’s just a guy. I like being normal with him.”

• F1 fans call out Cara Delevingne for refusing interview with Martin Brundle despite grid ‘rules’
• Fans can’t get their heads around number of celebrities in Kristen Bell’s dinner party photo
• Oppenheimer to feature ‘prolonged full nudity’ by Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy

In a recent interview with The Independent , another of Cruise’s Dead Reckoning colleagues, Hayley Atwell, attested to Cruise’s normalcy.

She said: “I truly feel you could meet him and go: ‘He’s nice; he’s charming; he’s charismatic; he knows how to make people feel good about themselves. So that’s just a tactic for total manipulation, because he’s probably just an egocentric.’ Or whatever bulls*** people want to make up about people.

“But over time, you’re just watching him, going: he really works hard, he really cares, he’s really interested in people and wants to engage with them, and he believes in the power of cinema as much as he did when he was five years old.”

Cruise is Scientology’s most famous follower, having joined the organisation in 1980. The religion and its leader David Miscavige have been accused of bilking supporters for cash, separating members from their loved ones, and harassing and threatening journalists and critics.

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At the Golden Globes in January, Cruise was roasted for his association with the Church , as host Jerrod Carmichael made reference to Shelly Miscavige, the wife of David who has not been seen in public since 2007.

Mission: Impossible is about to release its seventh outing, with the second part due to arrive in 2024.

Reviews for Dead Reckoning Part One have been glowing , with its score on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes currently sitting at 98 per cent after 112 reviews.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is released in UK cinemas on 10 July.

Find The Independent ’s review of the film here .

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The hollowness of Tom Cruise

How Tom Cruise went from superstar to laughingstock and back again.

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Tom Cruise has spent this year flying high, literally.

At CinemaCon in April, when Mission: Impossible 7 screened its first trailer for theater owners, Cruise sent along a video intro that he’d filmed while standing on top of a biplane flying over a canyon in South Africa. It ended with him launching into a barrel roll. When he arrived at the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick in San Diego in May, he flew there in a helicopter he piloted himself , emblazoned with his own name and the title of his film.

He’s also flying high on a metaphorical level. Cruise turned 60 on July 3, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Top Gun: Maverick has made over $1 billion since it came out in May , the first film of Cruise’s career to do so and just the second film to manage the feat since the pandemic began in 2020. (The first was Spider-Man: No Way Home .)

In the pandemic era, a lot of movies are making only the most cursory appearance in theaters before they hit streaming, if they make it to theaters at all. Not Tom Cruise movies. The idea of Top Gun: Maverick premiering on streaming instead of in theaters? “Never going to happen,” Cruise said at Cannes in May , even though the completed film languished for two years before seeing the light of day. When Paramount told Cruise that Mission: Impossible 7 would play in theaters for only 45 days instead of the three months Cruise was used to, Cruise hired a lawyer .

For his efforts, Cruise is being hailed as the savior of the cinematic experience.

“Can Tom Cruise save the old-fashioned blockbuster?” asked the Telegraph .

Empire magazine described Cruise’s fight as “the battle to save cinema,” with “the biggest movie star in the world” at the vanguard.

“Cruise is here to remind us that the industry will not die on his watch. Not if he can help it,” said the LA Times . “And honestly, who among us won’t be thrilled if Cruise triumphs in life as in the movies?”

It seems clear that Cruise sincerely sees himself as the savior of the big screen, and all the jobs that depend on it. (Or at the very least, he sees himself as the savior of Tom Cruise movies appearing on the big screen.) During the pandemic, he told audiences at Cannes, he called up theater owners to say , “Please, I know what you’re going through. Just know we are making Mission: Impossible , and Top Gun is coming out.” In December 2020, leaked audio footage from the set of Mission: Impossible 7 showed Cruise upbraiding crew members who violated Covid social distancing policies.

“They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us,” Cruise can be heard to shout on the footage . “Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherfuckers.”

“That’s what I sleep with every night,” Cruise concluded: “the future of this fucking industry!”

By now we should know: Tom Cruise is the hero of a movie that never ends. It’s one where he always, always saves the day.

That wasn’t always the case. Cruise’s stock plummeted in the 2000s after Oprah’s couch and Brooke Shields’ antidepressants . Yet today, Cruise is once again considered a bankable and iconic star. He is no longer a publicity liability for a movie studio.

There’s only one thing that Cruise might not be able to save. That’s the nagging, persistent sense that if the movie were ever to stop, when the lights came up, there would be nothing left of Tom Cruise at all.

“Cruise’s own laugh,” concluded Alex Pappademas in the New Yorker this May, “is the best Tom Cruise impression you’ve ever heard.”

But who says the movie ever has to stop?

Tom Cruise saves chivalry

“I like treating a woman the way that she deserves to be treated.” Tom Cruise to Oprah Winfrey, 2005 .

Here’s an oddity in the latest spree of killer Tom Cruise publicity: For once, the press is really into the way he’s interacting with women.

Over the course of his Top Gun press tour, Tom Cruise has been handed one positive headline after another for his chivalrous habit of taking charge of all ladies present, from Kate Middleton to his co-stars. If there is a woman in the same space as he is, Cruise will escort her up and down stairs and through doorways, present her to the camera, and make sure she is taken care of. It makes for incredible press. In her coverage of Cannes, gossip maven Elaine Lui remarked on how carefully Cruise looked after Top Gun co-star Jennifer Connelly. “I’m told he was never not attentive,” Lui wrote , “always focused on making sure she was looked after, never not ready with a hand to guide her from one place to another, never missing an opportunity to talk about how spectacular she looked, seemingly enthralled by her so that the cameras would pick up on his eyeline and transfer their focus to her.”

This display of “chivalry,” Lui concluded, was “very Tom Cruise.”

Chivalry is part of the old-fashioned action-hero masculinity Tom Cruise has long represented: the hero with the square jaw and faultless manners, kind and attentive to everyone around him. It’s also been central to Tom Cruise’s personal mythology for a long time, in both good ways and bad.

On the good side, Cruise used to be in the press on a regular basis for rescuing regular people: saving a family from a burning sailboat; getting the victim of a hit-and-run to the hospital and then paying her medical bills. Every actor who’s ever worked with him seems to have a Tom Cruise story about him making them some impossibly thoughtful gesture or gift .

On the bad side, quoth Elaine Lui , “Remember how he used to ‘present’ Katie Holmes?”

Cruise’s 2005 marriage to Katie Holmes was marked by its public displays of affection. Cruise was constantly presenting Holmes to the camera, cuddling up to her in public, proclaiming his love for her in ever more enthusiastic ways. Even before he jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch and sent his career into a precipitous downslide, he told Oprah that he covered a hotel room in rose petals for Holmes, and that he took her on a motorcycle ride on the beach.

“I’m a romantic, okay?” Cruise said at the time. “I like treating a woman the way that she deserves to be treated.”

Romantic or not, that marriage also represented a low point in Cruise’s professional life. In the wake of his couch moment with Oprah, Cruise’s popularity plummeted, his reputation took a hit, and he almost lost the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Then came the enormous and damaging wave of publicity in 2012, when Katie Holmes divorced Cruise. Stories rolled out by the day: that Holmes had planned the divorce for two years in order to make sure she would retain custody of the couple’s daughter, Suri; that she had to orchestrate the whole thing with burner phones and secret laptops and lawyers in multiple states ; that she had done it all — developed this whole two-year master plan — because that was how badly she wanted full custody of Suri . Specifically, the story went, Holmes wanted to save Suri from Scientology.

Cruise has since worked diligently to move past the so-called TomKat years. He’s been so effective that all his gentlemanly gestures on his current press tour tend to read as charming, not creepy. But there’s a clear and strong connection between Cruise’s love of chivalry then and his love of chivalry now. They are part and parcel of what appears to be a driving force behind Tom Cruise’s quest to be a hero, win the girl, and save the world: Scientology.

Tom Cruise saves mankind (from thetans)

“That’s what drives me: is that I know we have an opportunity to really help, for the first time, effectively change people’s lives. And I am dedicated to that. I am absolutely, uncompromisingly dedicated to that.” Tom Cruise, Scientology recruitment video, 2004 .

The controversial Church of Scientology, founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1953, appeals to the sort of worldview Cruise embodies. The world is under attack from evil forces, Scientology teaches, and all that stops them is one good man who’s not going to let petty rules get in his way.

Scientology is also, despite the number of celebrities it boasts among its ranks, a publicity liability. It’s widely suspected of being a pyramid scheme at best and at worse alleged to be an abusive cult profiting from forced labor and human trafficking , according to lawsuits and reports from former members. Its central cosmology, which teaches that human beings are plagued by immortal alien souls called thetans brought to Earth by the galactic emperor Xenu billions of years ago, is ripe for mockery.

The reporting that exists on Cruise’s connection to the church is both lengthy and damning. In September 2012, Vanity Fair published an exposé by Maureen Orth on the way Cruise outsourced management of his romantic life to the church. Tony Ortega, the closest thing there is to a beat reporter on Scientology, has a dedicated Tom Cruise tab on his website. In 2013, celebrated New Yorker reporter Lawrence Wright expanded his existing Scientology reporting into the book Going Clear , which prominently delved into Cruise’s status in the church. In 2015, Going Clear was adapted into an Emmy-winning HBO documentary by the director Alex Gibney, again featuring plenty of Cruise stories. The story they told is dramatic, and it plays heavily on Cruise’s apparent understanding of himself as a savior figure. (The Church of Scientology has strongly denied all these accounts , describing them as lies from disgruntled former members and journalists with grudges.)

Cruise joined the Church of Scientology during his first marriage to Scientologist Mimi Rogers, after Top Gun had already made him a star. According to now-defected former church officials, allegedly he began to drift away from active practice during the ’90s and his marriage to Nicole Kidman, only to drift back as that marriage foundered in the late ’90s. The clincher came, those former Scientologists say in Going Clear , when Cruise said he wanted to tap Kidman’s phone , and the Church of Scientology obliged.

Keeping Cruise happy apparently became a priority for the Church of Scientology. When Cruise needed a new love interest, the church reportedly recruited a young member for the job , gave her a makeover to Cruise’s specifications, and then broke up with her for him after he tired of her. When the woman told a friend what had happened to her, the church reportedly sentenced her to months of menial labor in punishment.

Around the same time that Cruise was making his grand return to the church, he fired his longtime Hollywood publicist, allegedly because she told him to stop talking about Scientology so much when he was on the publicity trail for The Last Samurai . He brought on his Scientologist sister to manage his image instead.

As Cruise was becoming more and more committed to the church, the tabloid industry was beginning to go rabid . By 2004, Us Weekly had gone from monthly trade magazine to weekly gossip rag, pitting itself against People magazine. In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, and OK! had all emerged. These magazines thrived on an endless diet of outrageous celebrity soundbites, and as Tom Cruise made the publicity rounds for The War of the Worlds , he kept offering them up, one after another.

“Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then, fuck you,” he told Rolling Stone . “Really. Fuck you. Period.”

Citing Scientology’s distrust of psychiatry, Cruise criticized Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants to treat her postpartum depression, and then told Matt Lauer he was being “glib” when Lauer suggested he might have overstepped his bounds.

Cruise’s public behavior became more and more erratic. On the same War of the Worlds publicity tour, Cruise infamously jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch, enthusiastically declaring his love for Katie Holmes.

Holmes seemed to be getting caught up in the Scientology swirl herself. A W magazine profile of Holmes saw her conduct an interview with a “Scientology chaperone,” who prompted Holmes with phrases about how much she adored Cruise when she seemed to fumble for words.

The spree of outré quotes took their toll. In 2006, one report found that between the spring and summer of 2005, Cruise fell from 11th most-liked celebrity in the US to 197th .

Fox News predicted the end of Cruise’s career. “It will be all but impossible now for a new generation of film fans to see past his erratic public behavior, the Oprah couch shenanigans, the decrying of psychiatry and now the rejection of Catholicism for a religion invented by a science-fiction writer,” they opined .

Cruise, seeing the writing on the wall, veered away from talking about his religion during his movie publicity tours. But for the next 10 years, Scientology would continue to haunt his public image.

In 2008, a video leaked to the press that was reportedly a Scientology conversion effort, filmed in 2004 . It featured Cruise glassy-eyed and grinning in a black turtleneck, talking about all the ways Scientology has changed his life. “Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anybody else,” he explains. “You know you have to do something about it.”

“Let me put it this way,” said Gawker, which broke the news of the video : “if Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch was an 8 on the scale of scary, this is a 10.”

In 2012, the Cruise-Holmes divorce cracked open the door of Tom Cruise Scientology stories. A host more came pouring out — and not just in the tabloids, but in legacy print magazines and prestige cable shows: Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Village Voice, HBO.

According to former Scientology officials, the Church has continued to manage Cruise’s life. Reportedly, it’s granted him the full benefits of its more unsavory enterprises, including the Church’s alleged use of slave labor .

Former Scientologist John Brousseau says the church has custom-built luxury vehicles and sound systems for Cruise and provides the staff who manage his many homes. Because this labor is provided by the Church, it’s done through Sea Org, the Scientologist association that’s been accused of human trafficking and forced labor . ( The Church has described these claims as “both scurrilous and ridiculous.”) According to Ortega , Sea Org members who worked on Cruise’s property “were paid only about $50 a week by the church, even though their hours could reach 100 a week.” Cruise has a net worth estimated at $600 million .

The picture painted of Cruise by former members of the church is not flattering. They tend to describe Cruise as a well-meaning man who, fundamentally, is not curious, and who is happy to have beautiful things handed to him without looking at their cost. Scientology is attractive to Cruise, in this account, because it makes his life easier while simultaneously flattering his ego with the belief that he is a hero.

But as damning as those stories are, they have largely faded out of public memory. In the 10 years since his divorce from Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise has been working hard to change the narrative.

Can Tom Cruise save Tom Cruise?

“People can create their own lives. … I decided that I’m going to create, for myself, who I am, not what other people say I should be. I’m entitled to that.” Parade, 2006 .

Cruise is currently experiencing a late-career renaissance. Cannes Film Festival feted him in May , awarding him an honorary Palme d’Or and marking the occasion with a red carpet air show. The press loves him again. Top Gun: Maverick is a major success, and the next slew of Mission: Impossible films are bound to be as well.

He’s even rumored to have a new girlfriend. If, as the tabloids claim, Cruise actually is (or was) dating his Mission: Impossible co-star Hayley Atwell , she would be his first public girlfriend since his divorce from Holmes 10 years ago.

So did he do it? How did Tom Cruise go from America’s 197th favorite celebrity to a bankable superstar once again?

The answer seems to be deceptively simple: He kept working, and he stopped talking — about Scientology, and about almost everything else too.

Cruise’s PR nadir came during a period of oversharing. Since then, he’s become known for his intense desire for privacy. “When was the last time paparazzi captured Tom Cruise on the street or anywhere but a film set or premiere?” wondered the New York Post in May 2022 . He heavily restricts the questions journalists are allowed to ask him before he agrees to an interview, and both his religion and his family life tend to be off-limits.

Meanwhile, Cruise has kept making movies. Tropic Thunder in 2008 and Rock of Ages in 2012 together proved he had a sense of humor. Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, which saw Cruise ceding much of the spotlight to co-star Emily Blunt, proved he knew how to share the screen with another star. And the Mission: Impossible franchise has churned out hit after reliable hit. “I can attest that I am alarmed at the extent to which I suddenly love Tom Cruise,” admitted GQ entertainment editor Ashley Fetters in 2015 , as Cruise publicized Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation .

Cruise has also benefited from the current cultural shame surrounding the tabloid culture of the 2000s. As the world agrees that tabloid targets like Britney Spears were hard done by in the heady, tacky days of Y2K, everything from the era has been painted with the same shade of remorse. Vilifying Tom Cruise for jumping on Oprah’s couch can feel like the same toxic impulse that led to a decade of mocking Spears for having her mental breakdown in public, even though what Cruise has been accused of abetting within the Church of Scientology is far worse than anything Spears has ever been accused of.

In most ways, this strategy has been successful. The tabloid spectacle of Tom Cruise, Scientologist has been covered over by four decades of hard work from Tom Cruise, one of the last great movie stars .

But it’s not clear that Cruise can ever again reach the heights of public adoration he enjoyed in 2003. There’s a persistent strangeness around Tom Cruise’s image that has never quite resolved itself, a sort of falseness that he’s never been entirely able to weed out. It’s a falseness that’s rooted not in his Scientology but in his movie star core. From the beginning, the world has refused to believe Tom Cruise when he breaks out his giant movie star smile. It especially refuses to believe him when he laughs.

In an early pan of 1983’s Risky Business , Cruise’s breakout film, New York magazine took aim at the young star’s mannerisms. “Cruise has a slight, undeveloped voice and a nervous smile, which he relies on whenever the script reveals one of its innumerable holes,” the review ran .

In HBO’s Going Clear , footage of Tom Cruise laughing in his Scientology recruitment video plays while one ex-Scientologist declares, “Scientologists are all full of shit.”

A 2004 Rolling Stone profile devoted paragraph after paragraph to the oddness of “the famous Tom Cruise laugh.”

“It comes on just fine, a regular laugh by any standards. You will be laughing too,” wrote Neil Strauss . “But then, when the humor subsides, you will stop laughing. At this point, however, Cruise’s laugh will just be crescendoing. And he will be making eye contact with you.”

It’s as though there’s a hollowness at the center of Cruise’s image, some sort of vacancy that he is forever restlessly seeking to fill. As though if he can only save enough people, enough industries, enough worlds — maybe then, at last, he can finally be whole. But can anyone, even Tom Cruise, do that much saving?

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Tom Cruise’s Dark, Twisted Journey to Scientology’s Top Gun

Photo Illustrations by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

As audiences take in Cruise’s latest hit, “Top Gun: Maverick,” top Scientology reporter Tony Ortega looks back on how the star became the Church of Scientology’s Maverick.

Tony Ortega

W ith Top Gun: Maverick debuting in theaters this week, Tom Cruise is available to the press again, which explains why I was seeing video of James Corden at 5 a.m. on a tarmac waiting to join Cruise in his personal jet aircraft.

The Late Late Show host’s antics on Cruise’s plane delivered the intended effect: Tom as cooler-than-you pilot really is like the superheroes he plays in the movies.

But for me, it had another connotation.

Seeing Cruise pilot his aircraft, I couldn’t help thinking of something Marc Headley told me several years ago.

Headley joined Scientology’s Sea Org as a child, signing a billion-year contract before working 365 days a year, cloistered at one of the organization’s secretive compounds known as “Int Base” near Hemet, California.

Around 1990, Headley explained in his excellent book about that period, Blown for Good , Cruise had come to the base to learn Scientology “auditing,” its version of counseling, and Headley was chosen to be his guinea pig.

Years later, in 2009, the FBI began an intense investigation of conditions at the base, interviewing dozens of former Sea Org workers, including Headley, who by that time had escaped.

The FBI was so serious about its investigation of the slave-like conditions at the base, Headley and other former Scientologists told me, that in the summer of 2010 the agency was making detailed plans for raiding the compound, rescuing workers, and seizing documents.

Headley says the special agents assigned to the investigation told him one of their main concerns was that Scientology leader David Miscavige , who lived at the base, would slip through their grasp.

So, planning for any eventuality, they tried to seal off all escape routes Miscavige might try to use—including, Headley said, the airplanes of his best pal, Tom Cruise.

The FBI agents told him they had taken the step of recording the tail numbers of Cruise’s planes that were at his private hangar in Burbank, California, just in case Miscavige tried to make an escape using them.

Ultimately, the FBI changed its mind about raiding Scientology and the investigation was dropped, for mysterious reasons. (Headley and former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder told me their version of what happened for a piece I wrote years ago. Also, even though I’ve published the full FBI investigative file at my website, Scientology continues to claim that there was never an investigation at all. The Church of Scientology did not respond to request for comment for this story.)

Even if the raid was cancelled, I’ve never forgotten that the FBI figured that David Miscavige and Tom Cruise were so tight the Top Gun actor might use his piloting skills to jet his two-time Best Man to safety from law enforcement.

That isn’t something you’re likely to hear in all of the press celebration of Cruise’s new movie. Top Gun: Maverick is getting almost universally positive reviews (a notable exception that is worth a look ) and is poised to be Cruise’s biggest movie opening ever. We’ll be seeing a lot of him on our screens in the coming weeks.

And it couldn’t come at a better time for Scientology, which, all signs indicate, has been hit hard by the pandemic.

It isn’t the first time that Cruise has come to the church’s rescue at a crucial time.

In 1986, when actress Mimi Rogers began dating Cruise and first introduced him to Scientology, the controversial organization was at a critical juncture: Its founder and source of all its written “scriptures,” science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard , had died on Jan. 24 that year.

For a group so focused on one figure, the death of that person can be an extreme challenge. Would Scientology survive it?

Complicating things was that the person exerting himself to push aside others and take over the reins of Scientology was a 25-year-old who was known only to a small minority of the movement. David Miscavige had joined the organization as a child, and had quickly become a favorite of Hubbard, but for years he had amassed power in the rarefied upper reaches of Sea Org—away from view of the vast majority of Scientologists.

So, when Miscavige stepped forward on the stage at the Hollywood Palladium to announce Hubbard’s death to the hastily gathered crowd of Scientologists on Jan. 27, 1986, many of the people who were in the audience that night had never even heard of him.

Miscavige was still consolidating control of Scientology later that year when Mimi Rogers began bringing Tom Cruise around to a North Hollywood Scientology satellite office. Cruise was already a movie star, with films like Risky Business and All the Right Moves under his belt, and the first Top Gun had hit theaters that summer.

Cruise must have taken to Scientology pretty quickly, because he and Rogers tied the knot a few months later, on May 9, 1987. May 9 happens to be one of the most sacred days on the Scientology calendar, because it was on May 9, 1950, that Hubbard published the book that started everything: his turgid, bizarre look at the human mind called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health . After its publication, Hubbard turned its popularity into a self-help empire that grew in fits and starts.

In 1955, Hubbard announced “Project Celebrity,” telling his followers that there would literally be a bounty on the head of famous actors and actresses brought into what by then he had decided was the “Church of Scientology” (so much for a “modern science”). Hubbard knew that attracting celebrities might help the organization seem more mainstream, and he encouraged members not to talk publicly about what was actually going on: Scientology was past-life therapy that promised godlike superpowers to those who could retrieve memories from millions or billions of years ago on other planets.

There had been some victories for Project Celebrity since then, with John Travolta (1975) and Kirstie Alley (1979) being among the most well-known bought into the church. But Mimi Rogers had outdone the rest by bringing in a star of Cruise’s stature, marrying him on Dianetics Day 1987, and right when Scientology was on shaky ground following the death of Hubbard.

Just a few years later, Rogers was repaid by being told by Scientology’s leaders to walk away from her marriage to Cruise so he could pursue his new obsession, Australian actress Nicole Kidman .

Kidman wasn’t a Scientologist, but she tried to fit in. Her former Scientology auditor, Bruce Hines, told me that in only a couple of years she was able to rocket up to an auditing level known as “OT 2,” which is pretty astonishing and suggests Kidman was probably putting in daily work to go up the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

But by 1992, Kidman changed her mind. She soured on Scientology, and not only pulled away from it but pulled Cruise with her . We only found out about this years later, but from 1992 to 2000, former high-ranking executives tell me, Cruise kept Scientology at arm’s length. Mike Rinder has spoken about how much this bothered Miscavige, especially while Cruise and Kidman spent November 1996 to June 1998 filming Eyes Wide Shut in London with Stanley Kubrick.

During this period, Miscavige kept an eye on Cruise with a spy in his household . In 1998, Cruise made a brief return to the Hollywood Celebrity Centre to take a course which had him sitting in a grocery store parking lot with Scientology official Tommy Davis, judging the “tone level” of people walking by, which Lawrence Wright wrote about in his excellent history of Scientology, Going Clear . But it wasn’t until Cruise broke up with Kidman in 2000 that he made his real return to Miscavige’s orbit.

Over the next three years, re-indoctrinating Cruise became Miscavige’s chief mission. And by 2003, Miscavige was ready to test out his newly-zealous celebrity minion.

That summer, Cruise traveled to Missouri to help Scientology hold a grand opening for a new headquarters for one of its numerous front groups, Applied Scholastics, which works to get L. Ron Hubbard’s materials into public schools .

Cruise continued to grow into the role of highly visible Scientology ambassador. The next year, in September 2004, he made his first and only appearance at the grand opening of a new Scientology “Ideal Org” in Madrid, Spain. The year before, Miscavige had begun a program of replacing older “orgs” (Scientology's word for churches) with gleaming new and very expensive “ideal” cathedrals, a project that continues today.

Although he had broken up with Spanish actress Penelope Cruz earlier that year, Cruise was invited to help Miscavige open the new Madrid building, and he even gave a brief speech in Spanish, which you can watch here . And it was also at this event that Cruise reportedly told Miscavige that he was having some trouble finding a suitable new girlfriend. The church leader then put his wife, Shelly Miscavige, in charge of a program that fall to audition actresses, some who were Scientologists and some who were not, without telling them that it was actually a tryout to be Cruise’s new mate.

By this time, October 2004, Miscavige was thrilled with how dedicated Cruise had become, and that he was willing to be the public face of Scientology. So that month he rewarded Cruise by giving him special recognition at the annual gala held in England each October when a few exemplary church members are bestowed “Freedom Medals.” For Cruise, Miscavige made a special showing, with a 30-minute video extolling Cruise’s qualities—which included a 9-minute interview with the actor talking about the privilege of being a Scientologist. At the conclusion of the video, Miscavige gave Cruise the unique, larger medallion he’d had made just for him, the Freedom Medal of Valor.

Four years later, video from the event would be leaked to the public in one of Scientology’s most embarrassing PR disasters. But for now, Cruise was being celebrated as the most gung-ho Scientologist in the world.

Meanwhile, Shelly Miscavige’s project had produced a winner: An attractive British-Iranian Scientologist-actress named Nazanin Boniadi was selected from the auditions, and she dated Cruise from October 2004 to January 2005, when, Alex Gibney reported in his HBO documentary Going Clear , things soured. Nazanin admitted she was having a hard time understanding David Miscavige’s thick New Jersey accent, and it was giving her headaches. Scientology had Tommy Davis break up with her for Cruise.

Only a few months later, in April 2005, Cruise and Katie Holmes announced that they were dating, and it happened to coincide with Tom’s most visible (and most disastrous) attempts to be promote Scientology. After firing his longtime publicist and hiring his own sister, a Scientologist, Cruise was doing the rounds for Steven Spielberg’s film War of the Worlds . He openly clashed with interviewers in the U.S. and Australia over Scientology, most notably with Matt Lauer during an episode of Today , appearing arrogant and unhinged as he lectured Lauer about the deleterious effects of psychiatric drugs. (Scientology opposes modern mental health treatments with a white-hot fury.)

And while it didn’t appear to have any connection with Scientology, Cruise’s antics jumping on Oprah’s couch declaring his love for Holmes was seen by the public as a sign that the Scientologist actor had lost his marbles.

Mike Rinder and other former executives tell me that Cruise’s bizarre acts during 2005, with his attempt to so aggressively promote Scientology, was pure Miscavige. And it backfired badly. Cruise has never since been so vocal about his involvement in the church.

Like Kidman, Katie Holmes had no experience in Scientology but she was determined, at first, to be involved in it for Cruise’s sake. The couple welcomed a daughter, Suri, twelve months after they announced they were dating, in April 2006, and then were married that November in a castle in Italy .

It was at that wedding that King of Queens actress Leah Remini , who had grown up in Scientology, noticed that Miscavige, who was once again Cruise’s best man, was there without his wife, Shelly. When Remini asked about it, she was told by Tommy Davis that she didn’t have “the fucking rank” to ask such a question.

It turned out that a year earlier, at the end of the summer of 2005, Shelly Miscavige had vanished from Int Base , the secretive compound near Hemet, and was no longer appearing with her husband at Scientology events .

Katie Holmes, meanwhile, was such a dedicated Scientologist at that point, she wrote up a Knowledge Report complaining about how Remini had disrupted the wedding.

Like Kidman, Holmes tried her best initially to immerse herself in Scientology, only to grow away from it, and in the meantime the church experienced several very public disasters.

The video of Cruise talking bizarrely about what it meant to be a Scientologist (which was prepared for the 2004 awards ceremony) was leaked to the internet in January 2008 and became a sensation. When Scientology tried to suppress the video, it motivated the internet collective known as Anonymous to target the church with months of high-profile protests and trolling.

In early 2011, New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright revealed that the FBI had investigated Scientology in 2009-2010.

And the next year, 2012, Holmes decided she’d had enough of both Cruise and Scientology . At that point, with Suri turning 6 years old, she would have been old enough to begin early Dianetics courses. And Katie would also have seen Cruise’s older children, Isabella and Connor, going through Scientology auditing and interrogations.

Katie then made her famous escape from marriage in June 2012 while Cruise was in Iceland shooting scenes for Oblivion , his first collaboration with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.

Eleven days later, she and Cruise had worked out a settlement to end their marriage. Katie got primary custody of Suri, and Cruise got generous visitation rights. But in recent years he seems to have largely cut her out of his life.

People often ask me if Tom Cruise is being groomed to take over Scientology from Miscavige, or if he’s the No. 2 figure in the church. But that ignores the basic structure of the Scientology movement—that it is run by the Sea Organization.

The Sea Org is not a legal entity, but it has ultimate control of the church, and the captain of the Sea Org is David Miscavige.

If Miscavige left, another Sea Org official would take his place. But in order to qualify for the Sea Org, a Scientologist has to sign a billion-year contract and work around the clock for the organization for pennies an hour, a commitment that Tom Cruise is not likely to make.

Tom Cruise’s value to Scientology is not as an executive, it’s as an ornament. That’s always what the celebrities have been: symbols. But he’s the most important celebrity, and an incredibly important symbol for the church.

There are plenty of secretive, high-pressure groups that some people call cults, but there is only one Scientology. Why? Because of its celebrities, and primarily because of Tom Cruise. He is Scientology, as far as most of the public is concerned.

And if he were to leave and speak out like Leah Remini has? I doubt Scientology could survive it. That’s how important he is to it.

The tabloids, every few months, publish stories claiming that Cruise is leaving, but it is never backed up with any evidence.

In fact, in 2019, Cruise for the first time since I’ve been watching attended not one but two of those international events, both the LRH Birthday Event in Florida in March and the IAS gala in England in October. And there was evidence that suggested he took his children Isabella and Connor with him to the IAS event, again for the first time ever.

So, based on that, my feeling was that as of 2019, Cruise was more dedicated to Scientology than ever.

It was harder to get information out in 2020 and 2021 because Scientology had to stop holding its international events owing to the pandemic .

People often ask me if Cruise is only staying in Scientology because the church is blackmailing him with information he has given up in auditing sessions. But again, that misinterprets the facts. The real situation appears to be that Tom Cruise is a true believer. He really does believe that L. Ron Hubbard was the greatest human being who ever lived, and that David Miscavige is the greatest human being living today.

In the words of John Brousseau, who worked closely with both men for many years, “Tom Cruise worships David Miscavige like a god.”

I see no reason to change that assessment today.

Finally, Suri. There’s no doubt that the way Katie Holmes left Cruise in 2012 caused a huge public relations disaster for Scientology. That would make it possible that David Miscavige might have declared her a “suppressive person,” which would make Suri a “potential trouble source” because she’s connected to her SP mother—as is common among those who’ve defected.

We don’t know for sure if Miscavige made this determination. However, it’s pretty obvious that if Tom Cruise were not a celebrity, he would probably be instructed by the church to cut off contact with his ex-wife and Suri.

However, Tom is a celebrity, and the most important celebrity, and celebrities get to ignore those rules if they want. As Scientology’s most important celebrity, he could continue to be a part of Suri’s life he wanted to.

But for now, he’s once again the most successful movie star on the planet, and he will face only highly-controlled interviews where none of this history will be raised.

His popularity will be a huge boost for individual Scientologists, who will see the success of Top Gun: Maverick as a vindication of Scientology, even if the movie has nothing to do with it.

They love it when a Scientology celebrity gets positive press.

And Miscavige will be beside himself.

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast  here .

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How Scientology Protected Tom Cruise and John Travolta—and Banished Nicole Kidman

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Mike Rinder served as a senior executive within the Church of Scientology from 1982-2007, both on the board of directors and as head of their Office of Special Affairs, lording over the cult-like religion’s public image. He often acted as the public face of Scientology, speaking to the media and putting out PR fires.

Since leaving Scientology in 2007, he’s become one of the world’s premier Scientology whistleblowers, appearing in the HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief , co-hosting the Emmy-winning A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath , and currently co-hosting the Scientology podcast Fair Game (also with Remini). His new memoir, A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology , out Sept. 27 from Simon & Schuster, chronicles his time within the shadowy organization, the alleged abuses he witnessed, and his dealings with its leader David Miscavige .

Inside Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Scientology School for Kids

In this exclusive excerpt from A Billion Years , Rinder writes about Scientology’s web of celebrities.

One thing Hubbard wouldn’t have wanted omitted was his brushes with celebrities. He was fascinated by them, and he name-dropped constantly, claiming association and interaction especially with Hollywood figures even during his time as a writer of pulp fiction. This fascination continued into Scientology, where he began to see them as a means of gaining publicity and acceptance. He even had a list of “target” celebrities to be lured into Scientology to help make it popular, and in the early ’70s he created the Celebrity Centre—a Scientology organization dedicated to the recruiting of celebrities in Hollywood. Miscavige also believed in the value of celebrities, and devoted a lot of time and attention to them. What was important to Miscavige became the priority for his underlings. –Mike Rinder

My days were endless, crammed with keeping track of Scientology’s enemies, conducting programs to neutralize them, putting out fires on the internet, and dealing with the constant celebrity issues.

Perhaps the strangest celebrity encounter I had was with Michael Jackson. I became the go-to person in Scientology for Lisa Marie Presley during her marriage to Jacko. Her mother, Priscilla, had become involved in Scientology when Lisa Marie was young, and so she had been raised a Scientologist. She enlisted me in her efforts to convert Michael to Scientology, or at least to convince him to accept it. I gave them both a private tour of the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition. Throughout the tour, Michael was extremely paranoid. He repeatedly dove to the floor, whimpering that he had seen someone taking photographs of him through the windows, though there was no line of sight to any publicly accessible location. Lisa Marie laughed it off and explained that he was always worried about the paparazzi. He was so soft-spoken I could hardly hear him, and his comments and questions were disjointed and childish. She had told me she thought Michael understood her because he had grown up in the media spotlight and never really had a childhood, similar to her own experience as the daughter of the King. But it was not to last—they divorced in 1996.

In March 1995 I flew to Wichita, Kansas, to attend the grand opening of a special Scientology mission. Miscavige had been pushing hard for celebrities to become more active in promoting Scientology, and Kirstie Alley was the first to take the step of putting money into opening a mission in her hometown. After the 1982 mission holder fiasco, few people had stepped up to open new missions, which had diminished the flow of new recruits into Scientology. Celebrities doing so would popularize the idea again. Alley was a longtime Scientologist who credited Scientology with curing her drug addiction. She had become a star on Cheers and was close friends with John Travolta , who had been at the top of the Scientology celebrity heap before Tom Cruise , though his career was now on a downward trajectory at the time when Cruise’s was heading to the stratosphere.

Travolta in fact piloted us all on his Gulfstream from LA to Wichita. I sat across from his wife, Kelly Preston, and played cards with Isaac Hayes and Lisa Marie Presley in the back (they would subsequently be persuaded to open a mission in Memphis). Kelly stunned me when she told me she had lived in Adelaide during her teen years, just a mile from where I lived, and had attended the sister school of the all-boys school where I had spent many years.

Tom Cruise didn’t attend, as he was shooting Mission: Impossible , but his presence in the Scientology orbit loomed larger than ever before. He was the biggest star in the world, and Miscavige was using this to his advantage. Despite the IRS victory, the German government still refused to recognize Scientology, believing the organization contradicted the country’s values and constitution. The idea of creating a world of supermen (Clears) and replacing wog law and government with Scientology principles cut too close to the bone of the earlier master race and its “Deutschland über alles” thinking for their liking. Miscavige wanted a campaign conducted against Germany, based on the Hubbard dictate of always attacking: in this case, claiming that the German government was persecuting Scientology just like the Nazis had persecuted the Jews. I was instructed by Miscavige to get Hollywood powerhouse lawyer Bert Fields, who was Cruise’s attorney, to help out. With Tom’s blessing, Bert took the cause of the supposed persecution of our religion in Germany personally. In January 1997, he bought a full-page ad in the International Herald Tribune designated “An Open Letter to Helmut Kohl,” signed by many of his clients and friends, including Goldie Hawn, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Stone, and others, decrying the acts of the German government against Scientology. The country stood its ground, but the attempt did prove the mettle in Tom Cruise’s star power.

Tom Cruise speaks during the inauguration of the Church of Scientology in Madrid, Spain, on Sept. 18, 2004.

With Tom as Miscavige’s most important asset, the actor’s concerns became Scientology’s concerns. When Cruise became aware of an unauthorized biography by British author Wensley Clarkson, Miscavige told Cruise, “I will take care of this for you.” I was dispatched to London with Scientology in-house lawyer Bill Drescher to deal with the publisher and make sure nothing negative appeared in the book. Yes, a church lawyer and the head of the Office of Special Affairs were acting on behalf of Tom Cruise, paid for by the Church of Scientology. With a lot of persistence and veiled threats, we persuaded the publisher to allow us to “review and correct” anything related to Scientology in the manuscript. We went to the Blake Publishing offices in West London and collected a copy of the manuscript from the editor. We took it back to our room at the Savoy hotel and spent two days cleansing it of anything negative in return for a promise not to sue. In truth, the book didn’t reveal anything new, but it did contain some of what we considered the usual “inaccuracies” about Scientology—calling the E-Meter a lie detector and saying that Scientologists believe in aliens and that it costs a lot of money. In the overall scheme of things, had we done nothing to the manuscript, it would have made no difference to Scientology or Cruise, but it was another “see what I can do for you” feather in Miscavige’s cap with Cruise.

In 1997, cracks started to show in the relationship between Cruise and Miscavige during the filming of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut . Costars Tom and Nicole were effectively cut off from the world for a year as the notorious perfectionist Kubrick demanded reshoot after reshoot on the highly secretive closed set in London. Losing the day-to-day interaction with Miscavige and spending his time with Nicole had an effect on Tom. He was not checking in with Dave or even returning his calls. Miscavige, fretting that Nicole was pulling Tom out of Scientology, sent me to London to meet with Tom’s sister Lee Anne at the Dorchester hotel to try to find out what was going on. Lee Anne, a dedicated Scientologist following in the footsteps of her brother (he got his three sisters and mother in), claimed everything was fine and they were just busy, but Miscavige didn’t buy it.

Kelly Preston, John Travolta, and Priscilla Presley attend the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center 42nd anniversary gala held at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center on Aug. 6, 2011, in Hollywood, California.

Not one to give up, Miscavige tasked Marty Rathbun with getting Cruise back in the fold. Rathbun began auditing Cruise under the direct supervision of Miscavige. As Cruise was gradually drawn back into the world of Scientology, he rededicated himself to the cause. This created a distance between him and Nicole. Rathbun worked with Bert Fields to hire infamous PI Anthony Pellicano to spy on Nicole and tap her phones. Rathbun also turned their two adopted children, Isabella and Connor, against Nicole by indoctrinating them into the Hubbard teachings of Suppressive Persons. When Tom and Nicole divorced, Miscavige was happy that the “negative influence” of Nicole was no longer dragging Tom away. Cruise thereafter became more fervent in his vocal public support of Scientology—and Miscavige.

While Marty was dealing with Cruise, I was tasked with the job of helping John Travolta with some public relations issues. Since the beginning of the ’90s, Travolta had been hounded by stories from various alleged male lovers, including one of his former pilots as well as a porn star. I met with John and his attorney, Jay Lavely, to help navigate these land mines. The National Enquirer reached out to Travolta and the church for responses. Realizing the potential PR damage a story of gay sex would have on the perfect Scientology couple of John and Kelly, we dug up dirt on the sources of the stories and threatened the media with lawsuits. The stories were shut down, and I became a trusted person in John’s life. Similar claims have continued to pop up over the years and they have been denied by Travolta or shut down. Gay allegations are land mines for Scientology. Scientology publicly claims it is not anti-gay (despite Hubbard’s writings to the contrary), yet the threat of a story describing a Scientologist as gay would cause panic internally because for a Scientologist, not being “cured” of homosexuality would indicate that the tech doesn’t work.

How Nicole Kidman Almost Got Tom Cruise to Leave Scientology

When convenient, our public statements were “We do not get involved in commenting on the personal lives of our parishioners, celebrity or otherwise.” In truth, we were very much involved in all aspects of their private lives. This was not reserved exclusively for the two big headliners, Cruise and Travolta. Kirstie Alley and her actor husband, Parker Stevenson, were brought to the Int Base to “resolve their marriage,” though Miscavige was not so interested in them personally—Kirstie was past her peak in Hollywood. I was the couple’s designated companion while they got their “marriage counseling.” I joined them for meals each day for the week or so they were there and engaged them in small talk. They ate in the tiny bar/café in the building that had been converted, theme-park style, to look like an old four-masted clipper ship, next to the large swimming pool reserved for Miscavige and his guests. Despite the circumstances, Kirstie was an entertaining mealtime companion—outrageous, funny, and sometimes inappropriately gross. Parker was an extremely pleasant man whose only apparent flaw was his lack of interest in Scientology. We didn’t talk about their marriage at all; that was off-limits. But I could tell Kirstie had decided there was no future for her with Parker and so the result was inevitable: divorce. Parker was “not into” Scientology. And to the organization, that was all that mattered.

Excerpted from A BILLION YEARS by Mike Rinder. Copyright © 2022 by Michael Rinder. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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She Escaped Scientology in the Trunk of a Car. Her Nightmare Is Far From Over

By Tony Ortega

Tony Ortega

“I’m literally shaking right now as I’m talking to you,” Valerie Haney says, speaking by phone from Florida.

Her 22 years in Scientology ’s hardcore elite unit, the Sea Organization, has left her with what her therapist has diagnosed as PTSD, she explains. And a court ruling on March 15 had left her trembling as those years of trauma were stirred up again.

“I was like, am I on another planet? Is this really correct? The court is OK with me having to go back to the place where I literally had to escape in the trunk of a car to get out?”

The episode explained that after Haney made it to Los Angeles, Remini hired her as an assistant, and once Scientology found out about it Haney was allegedly subjected to a frightening campaign of surveillance and stalking.

She also began talking to law enforcement.

“I went to the authorities three months after I got out. I went to the FBI. I was thinking, of course we’re going to court, because this is all illegal!”

No charges were filed, but Haney herself filed a lawsuit against Scientology in June 2019 alleging kidnapping, stalking, and libel, which turned into a legal nightmare that now has her facing the prospect of going to the church to submit herself to an internal “religious arbitration” proceeding.

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In her first interview since filing her lawsuit four years ago, Haney says she still can’t believe that a Los Angeles court granted Scientology’s arbitration motion, forcing her to take her case to Scientology itself, and without an attorney, or a court reporter, or even a friend by her side.

“Scientology literally abused me my entire life, I finally escaped, and I’m trying to use the U.S.  judicial system, and now they’re going, oh no, you need to go back and do everything that your abuser says.”

She’s fought back in interesting ways: Since the arbitration requires that she nominate an arbitrator, she’s suggested names like Tom Cruise , Elisabeth Moss , and Jenna Elfman — a total of 19 well-known and less well-known Scientology figures, drawing the ire of the church’s attorneys.

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Valerie Haney was born to Scientologist parents in 1979, and from ages six to 12 was raised in Scientology’s Cadet Org, a version of the Sea Org for children, at its “spiritual mecca,” the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.

At 10, she alleges in her lawsuit, she was subjected to “bullbaiting,” a common Scientology procedure that requires a subject to sit without flinching while insults are being hurled at them by a “coach.” Some of the things shouted at her were, “I am going to fuck you and your mother,” and “You are going to suck my dick,” she alleges in the suit.

Haney graduated from the Cadet Org to the Sea Org and signed its billion-year contract, promising to serve Scientology lifetime after lifetime, at the age of 15. She caught the eye of Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige , who then had Haney moved to Gold Base in California in order to serve the couple directly. Before she could qualify for such sensitive work, she was interrogated about her sexual history.

After passing that ordeal, Haney became “steward” to the Miscaviges, working in their quarters and serving their meals. She was with them nearly 24 hours a day for three years.

“I gave [David] his meals. I made his bed. I woke him up in the morning. I knew everything about their private lives,” she explains. She claims their relationship deteriorated in 2004 as David Miscavige and actor Tom Cruise , a prominent Scientologist, grew closer.

In the summer of 2005, Haney and others working with Shelly Miscavige were “busted,” Scientology’s word for demoted, to lower positions as Shelly vanished from the base. (Shelly was seen at the funeral of her father in Los Angeles two years later in the presence of a Scientology handler, and has not been spotted in public since. Scientology claims that Shelly is simply working on a special project and is not “missing.”)

Haney says she endured four months of manual labor, doing maintenance of the base facilities and other menial and physical tasks, before eventually being moved to the “Cine Castle” where Scientology’s video productions were filmed at the base, and she was assigned to the job of casting director.

After emerging from the trunk, Haney immediately went to Burbank Airport and flew to Portland, Oregon, to be reunited with her father. But as a Scientologist, he was unhappy that his daughter had escaped the way she did (called a “blow” in Scientology parlance), and he encouraged her to return to “route out” properly, or following a prescribed set of steps before being allowed to leave.

She refused to go back to Gold Base, where she had escaped, but agreed to go through the routing-out process at Scientology’s headquarters in Los Angeles, which she was told would last three weeks.

Instead, it lasted three months, and she says that she was treated like a prisoner, with a 24-hour guard. She says she was not allowed to go to her grandmother’s funeral during this time.

Finally, she was asked to be videotaped signing an agreement in order to leave. In the video, she denied that she had been treated poorly as a Sea Org worker, and she said that David Miscavige had been an “amazing” boss.

In the Aftermath episode, she explained that she was nearly suicidal at that point, would have said or signed anything in order to be allowed to leave, and that an armed guard was present to make sure she followed directions.

After she took the job with Remini, she underwent what she characterized as a scary campaign of harassment by Scientology. It included statements made about Haney that are still on Scientology-owned websites today, accusing her of “rampant sexual promiscuity” and that she was a “paid liar.”

The Aftermath episode aired on Nov. 27, 2018, and by that time Haney was already talking to attorneys about filing a lawsuit against the church that would not only accuse Scientology of holding her against her will in the Sea Org, but also for libeling her online and stalking her with the use of private investigators after she had left the church.

In 2013, a California couple, Luis and Rocio Garcia, filed a federal fraud lawsuit against Scientology that was forced into religious arbitration, the first the church had ever held in its 60-year history. The Garcias described the proceeding as a farce, saying they were prevented from bringing an attorney or smartphones, that no transcript was created, and 90 percent of their evidence was disallowed. Despite their objections, their judge accepted the result and the Eleventh Circuit upheld that decision on appeal.

Since the Garcia case, the arbitration clause in Scientology’s service contracts has become a major impediment to former Scientologists trying to sue their former church.

Some of Haney’s allegations — the stalking and libel she says she was subjected to for going to work for Leah Remini — took place after she had signed her exit agreement and had left Scientology. But she has been unable to get the judges in her case to take that into consideration, as they’ve ruled that a contract is a contract.

In Tampa, a labor-trafficking lawsuit filed by three former Sea Org workers is awaiting a ruling in federal court about whether they, too, must take their case to religious arbitration because of contracts they signed while in the church.

Scientology leader David Miscavige was found to be evading service of the suit by a federal magistrate judge, who on Feb. 14 declared Miscavige an official defendant in the case. Miscavige is objecting to that ruling, and District Judge Thomas Barber will soon rule on whether Miscavige is still a defendant in the lawsuit, and also whether the lawsuit will be forced into Scientology arbitration.

Even though the Garcias had gone through their arbitration in 2017, Valerie Haney says she still didn’t think the same thing would happen in her case when she filed her lawsuit in 2019.

On Jan. 30, 2020, that’s exactly what did happen when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Burdge ruled that the exit agreement Haney had signed while being videotaped that day at the Scientology headquarters obliged her not to sue Scientology in court, and that she would have to take her allegations to the church’s own internal court for arbitration.

Haney’s attorneys spent the next two years fighting the decision, asking Judge Burdge to reconsider his ruling — to no avail.

Then, the matter was reassigned to Judge Gail Killefer, who told Haney that she needed to get the arbitration process going or risked having her lawsuit thrown out altogether.

The first step in that process would require Haney to nominate a Scientologist in good standing to be an arbitrator.

So she nominated The Handmaid’s Tale actress and lifelong Scientologist Elisabeth Moss .

“I was thinking, OK, they’re trying to circumvent the judicial system and keep it all hush-hush, so I need to keep this in the public eye. Because otherwise they can do what they want and the law doesn’t apply to them,” Haney says.

She hadn’t met Moss in Scientology, but she had seen The Handmaid’s Tale and its portrayal of the dystopian world of Gilead. “It’s very similar to the Sea Org. I thought, OK, maybe she could sympathize with my situation. Maybe she has some decency as a human being and maybe she could see that my human rights were being violated. And she was a person I knew was in good standing.”

Moss had, after all, defended Scientology in a New Yorker profile just a few months before, in April 2022. But Scientology’s “International Justice Chief,” a Sea Org official named Mike Ellis, informed Haney that Moss was unavailable, and instructed her to nominate someone else.

This time she submitted two names, in case one of them was busy: Tom Cruise and Shelly Miscavige.

“I knew Tom was in good standing. He’s done a lot of things to support Scientology, and he spearheaded David Miscavige’s exploits,” Haney says.

“I knew him. He liked me. We were on a first-name basis. I knew Penelope [Cruz], and I knew Katie [Holmes]. I served Tom his meals,” she explains.

For Cruise’s 42nd birthday in 2004, Miscavige threw a party for him on Scientology’s cruise ship, the Freewinds , which sails the Caribbean, and Haney remembered seeing chefs being flown in from around the country.

“They probably spent $50,000 on it, minimally. All of it parishioner money. It was like a five-night extravagant private dinner. I was serving it. There was a sushi night, and the chefs came in from Nobu. There was an Italian night, and we had to wear costumes. And there was a French night,” she remembers.

“When Tom was first going out with Katie, Dave brought them to Las Vegas for an acknowledgment or celebration on church money, and he paid for the largest suite in Caesars Palace and had it for him and Shelly and me and Tom and Katie,” she continues. “That was the first time I met Katie. I just remember Tom bringing her in and introducing her to Dave and Shelly and me. I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then they left to go to dinner and I had to make sure the hotel rooms were spotless.” 

After Scientology told Haney that Elisabeth Moss wasn’t available, she nominated Cruise and Shelly, and not simply as a publicity stunt.

“After Elisabeth Moss, who I didn’t know, I was like, let me nominate people I was intimately connected to. Shelly was my dear friend and Tom was also a friend. And we were on a first-name basis. I was close with them,” she claims.

Again, however, Scientology said the two couldn’t act as arbitrators, and this time they complained to Judge Killefer that Haney was being “obstructionist” by nominating people who were so obviously unavailable.

Haney’s attorney, Graham Berry, responded that there was nothing in Scientology’s arbitration agreement that prevented Haney from nominating famous people.

And then Haney submitted another 15 names of Scientologists, many of them very well-known, others more familiar to the readers of Scientology news stories.

“I left years ago, and all the people I know, I don’t know if they’re in good standing. I don’t know if they’re still there,” she says.

She decided that figures like actors Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi, and Catherine Bell; designer Rebecca Minkoff; motivational speaker Grant Cardone; and prominent attorney and husband of Greta Van Susteren, John Coale, were more likely to be in the church’s good graces, based on her internet searches. Haney had also gone to school with Minkoff, and she’d had a conversation with Elfman.

Matthew Feshbach, a short-seller, was the first million-dollar donor in Scientology history. Haney says she added his name to the nomination list because she had known him and his son while she was in the Sea Org.

She had also known Matt’s niece Jessica Feshbach, who was known for being Katie Holmes ’’ aggressive media handler while the actress was with Cruise. “I knew Jessica when she was married to [former Scientology spokesman] Tommy Davis. I worked with her. We talked about the ridiculousness of the schedule, and the abuses going on,” Haney says.

Haney added Bob Duggan’s name because she saw him at Scientology events. By his own estimate , the pharmaceuticals investor has contributed more than $300 million to Scientology.

“Dave has a list of all the millionaires in Scientology,” Haney says, and she nominated Duggan and tech entrepreneur Craig Jensen, founder of Diskeeper, because they were both on Miscavige’s list.

She also included the names of Scientology officials who were spokespeople or members of the church’s notorious spy wing, the Office of Special Affairs.

“She was the one who did my retrieval after I escaped,” Haney says of one of the women she put on the list. “She harassed my entire family to have me come back to the cult to get interrogated for three months. She was the one there for my exit interview. She was a part of my abuse . She was doing everything she could to keep me there.”

And then, after Valerie Haney submitted her list of 15 names, Scientology came to court and informed Judge Killefer that one of the 15 had agreed to sit as an arbitrator.

The panel of three arbitrators is set, but Scientology isn’t releasing the names of any of them at this point, even to Haney, she claims.

At the hearing on March 15, Haney’s attorney Graham Berry asked the judge to order Scientology to allow Haney to bring a lawyer with her, a friend, and a court reporter who could also videotape the arbitration.

But Killefer refused. She set a hearing date six months out to consider the result of the arbitration. She admitted that she didn’t know what rules Scientology’s International Justice Chief Ellis had set up for it, but what mattered were “the rules of the arbitral forum.” In other words, Scientology sets all the rules.

It also became obvious that Haney wasn’t receiving notices about the arbitration because she’s now in Florida and Scientology is still mailing notices to a P.O. Box in California.

Judge Killefer told Berry to get Haney’s address to Scientology. “That’s an order,” she said.

“That was disgusting,” Haney says, reading an account of the hearing later and realizing that the judge couldn’t be bothered to make sure Haney had someone with her at the arbitration, but did order that she turn over her home address to the church she had escaped.

“So I sent a mailing address to Graham to give them,” she says.

Now, Valerie Haney is facing the idea of going, alone, into an arbitration set up by the Church of Scientology.

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For now, she awaits word from Scientology’s International Justice Chief about when and where the arbitration will take place.

“It’s the worst thing you could probably have a victim do,” she maintains. “Someone who has been abused her entire life, to go back into the abusive environment with the abusers. It’s appalling. And absolutely disgusting. It’s so crazy.” 

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For all the crazy aerial maneuvers and tricky stunts in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the most impressive one takes place on the ground.

Tom Cruise has piloted his way back into America’s hearts and made everyone forget his days as an unhinged Scientology ambassador with a penchant for jumping on Oprah’s couch.

The sequel — which was delayed multiple times due to the COVID pandemic — raked in a record-breaking $156 million its opening weekend.

Now 59, Cruise hardly looks like he’s scraping his sixth decade. He’s still performing his own stunts, showing off his impossibly ripped torso on-screen and flashing his trademark smile that seduced audiences early in his career. He’s been ubiquitous, working international red carpets in Japan and Cannes and even hobnobbing with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, whom he helped up the steps at the film’s London premiere .

Cruise’s fingerprints are on every aspect of the movie, including the intense flight training for actors and pushing for an in-theater release — the timing of which couldn’t be more perfect. Moviegoers are even welcomed with a prerecorded message from the actor thanking them for making the trip to see it in theaters.

It’s been such a triumph and testament to Cruise’s enduring movie magic that it’s difficult to remember the “Jerry Maguire” star had become almost toxic two decades ago and branded a wacky zealot.

While promoting “War of the Worlds” in 2005, the usually private star infamously stood on Oprah’s couch and proclaimed his love for then-fiancée Katie Holmes, whom he’d marry before divorcing in 2012 . He then sat down with Matt Lauer of “Today” and lambasted him over the use of antidepressants, saying, “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.”

The damage to his reputation was amplified at a time when celebrity blogs and YouTube were coming into existence, allowing his bizarre antics to go viral. He also was increasingly seen as the face of Scientology, which was starting to endure a p.r. crisis of its own. (An embarrassing video in which Cruise extolled the virtues of Scientology was leaked in 2008.) It didn’t help that he had parted ways with Pat Kingsley, his hard-nosed, controlling publicist, in favor of his sister, Lee Ann DeVette.

However, that was only part of the story.

At first, what happened off-screen didn’t affect his big-screen appeal. In fact, the Steven Spielberg-directed flick opened to $64.9 million. But then, the following year, Viacom head Sumner Redstone briefly ended Paramount’s working relationship with the actor’s production company , citing his “unacceptable” fanatical behavior, which he said negatively impacted ticket sales for “Mission: Impossible III.”

The effect on Cruise was profound.

“It was like he came out in front of the curtain, and he had tomatoes tossed at him, so he closed the curtain. He made his world very small,” Amy Nicholson, the author of “ Tom Cruise: The Anatomy of an Actor ,” told The Post.

He dropped his sister for veteran publicist Paul Bloch, who passed away in 2018.

Nicholson said Cruise, who had previously taken supporting roles in offbeat Oscar vehicles like “Rain Man,” instead opted for the safe blockbusters that continued to pull in money and adoration from the masses.

While he shut down any attention on his personal life, he used red carpet premieres to charm audiences across the world.

“I think Tom was always savvy about publicity. He was always that person who was going to do more country visits and more red carpets and set the template for the global star. Then Will Smith followed,” said Nicholson.

Cruise has also pushed back against the trend of celebrities becoming accessible and relatable on social media — and it’s been to his advantage.

“There’s a lot of pressure to make pasta on Instagram Live,” Nicholson added. “Do you want to be people’s friends or a movie star?”

Even people like Smith, who was riding in Cruise’s wake, joined in his wife’s salacious tell-alls — airing their dirty laundry and details about their open marriage — before slapping Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars . Add in Johnny Depp’s grotesque warts-and-all defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, and we’re watching the unraveling of our Hollywood A-listers in real-time.

According to Matt Belloni of Puck News , the “Top Gun: Maverick” premiere was highly controlled and media outlets were vetted to ensure they wouldn’t ask about Scientology issues.

“It’s almost exclusively TV, and outlets were informed they must use professional-grade cameras, no iPhone footage allowed. That’s unusual, but Tom is Tom, and Tom’s got to look great,” Belloni said.

If shaky iPhone footage appears, it’s Cruise with a fan, said Nicholson.

“When you work with Tom Cruise, you know it’s going to be a first-rate event,” said a veteran publicist who has worked many junkets and premieres with the actor. “Everything will be buttoned up. He is very focused.”

The publicist explained that he’s a singular force during the premieres.

“He’s genuinely a nice person to staffers, publicists and fans,” she said, recalling a junket in Vienna for a “Mission: Impossible” where it was roasting hot.

He wrapped up an interview, looked over at her and noticed she wasn’t comfortable. “He asked if I was OK and if I wanted to go stand in the shade. He’s very aware of his surroundings.”

And his controversial religion aside, he still has the clout of the a bonafide Tinseltown titan.

“When you are in his presence, you feel like you are in the presence of a movie star,” the publicist said. “There’s not many actors I can say that about.”

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The crazy story of how Scientology allegedly once groomed a girlfriend for Tom Cruise — and then tore them apart

In HBO's explosive new Scientology documentary "Going Clear," one of the most interesting and least discussed allegations is that Scientology once hand-picked and groomed a young church member to become Tom Cruise's girlfriend.

As former Scientologists explain in the documentary, the church does whatever it can to keep Cruise happy because "In the eyes of [Scientology leader] David Miscavige, Tom Cruise is the perfect Scientology celebrity," according to ex-Scientology executive Mike Rinder .

The church reportedly kept Cruise happy by  d oing him favors like  tricking  out all of his cars and motorcycles.

And decking out his airplane hanger in Santa Monica, California.

So when Cruise was looking for a new girlfriend after his breakup with Nicole Kidman, the church jumped to help, the documentary said.

"Tom was in Spain. They were opening a new Scientology church in Madrid, and he was overheard complaining that he needed a new girlfriend," said  Lawrence Wright, author of the  best-selling book  "Going Clear," on which the documentary is based. 

"Soon after that," Wright said, "a young Scientologist pre-med student named Nazanin Boniadi was told she was going to get a special assignment."

At this point in the documentary, director Alex Gibney chimed in via narration to explain: "Years later, Nazanin became a successful TV actress  ..."

"... and would have a small part in a Paul Haggis [ director and former Scientologist ] film."

"But at the time, she was a dedicated young Scientologist ..."

"... who believed in the church's claims for its humanitarianism mission."

"In fact, she set a monthly record for selling books for the church."

"Nazanin may not speak publicly about her experiences because of an NDA the church pressured her to sign," Gibney said, "b ut I discovered details from FBI testimony regarding her ordeal."

"David Miscavige assigned Nazanin's case to a key church official, Greg Wilhere," Gibney said. " He put her through a one-month program of on-camera interviews, intensive auditing, and some security checks."

"She was moved into the Celebrity Center, separated from her family, and certain problems were addressed during this period of time," adds author Lawrence Wright. "One was that she had a boyfriend."

"She is handed a transcript of his auditing session in which he admitted that he had an affair," Wright said, "so she broke up with him."

Now that Boniadi was single, it was time for her makeover.  

"Wilhere took her to an orthodontist to have her braces removed," Gibney said.

"At Burberry and other stores in Beverly Hills, he bought her $20,000 worth of clothes."

"At the Celebrity Center, a man who worked for Cruise's hairstylist colored Nazanin's hair to Cruise's liking."

"Nazanin was told that her makeover was part of the church's humanitarian mission, because she had to look her best for conferences with world leaders."

"Only after she was flown first class to New York, did she discover the actual role that the church wanted her to play —  she was to be the girlfriend of Scientology's biggest star."

"Within a month, Nazanin was living with Cruise. While at his house in Telluride, Miscavige came to visit."

"Overcome by a severe headache, Nazanin had a hard time understanding Miscavige, which infuriated him.  The next day, Cruise — inches from her face — pounded on the table and screamed at her for insulting the head  of the church."

"Two weeks later, church henchman Tommy Davis delivered the news to Nazain that her relationship with Cruise was over."

Director and outspoken former Scientologist Paul Haggis explained what allegedly happened next:  "According to her [Bodiani], they [the church] came to her apartment with her mum and found every photograph of the two of them together [Bodiani and Cruise] and took them away and every scrap, every letter, everything, they tossed as if it never existed."

"And she was really upset because she was really hurt by the whole thing. And she made the mistake of telling her friend, who immediately went to tell someone in the church. She agreed to do punishment, like cleaning out the public bathroom on her hands and knees with a toothbrush, while other people she knew were stepping over her.

She did nothing wrong, other than tell her friend she was heartbroken, and this is the way she was treated?"

After the incident, Bodiani pursued an acting career and has since appeared in "Homeland," "Scandal, "How I Met Your Mother," "Iron Man," among many other titles .

Neither she nor Cruise have ever publicly discussed their alleged relationship.

Despite Bodiani's story, "The church claims [leader] Miscavige has no involvement in Cruise's personal life and that the search for Cruise's girlfriend never existed," Gibney states in the film.

But Cruise and Miscavige's relationship is deep, going back decades.

"Tom Cruise was the guy," former Scientology exec  Mike Rinder said. " Miscavige and Cruise have been pretty buddy-buddy way back to 1990s ' Days of Thunder .' In the eyes of Miscavige, Tom Cruise is the perfect Scientology celebrity."

And it seems like Cruise also enjoys Miscavige's friendship.

In one clip during "Going Clear," Cruise enthusiastically congratulates the Scientology leader during a church conference by proclaiming,  "We are lucky to have you. Thank you."

Nazanin Boniadi's rep declined to comment on the story, and Cruise's rep hasn't responded to our request for comment.

Read Scientology's lengthy response to "Going Clear"  here .

Watch: 6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'

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Entertainment | Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri will soon be free to…

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Entertainment | more than 20 previously uncounted ballots discovered during congressional district 16 recount; san mateo county now charging more to count ballots, entertainment, entertainment | tom cruise’s daughter suri will soon be free to talk about their estrangement and scientology: report, with suri cruise turning 18 this week, she should be free to speak out about her father, his beliefs and their rift, a scientology expert says in a new report.

Tom Cruise’s three ex-wives, Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, probably would have a lot to say about being married to the famously intense mega-star and their time inside his beloved Church of Scientology.

But these women have mostly kept Cruise’s secrets, with experts in the inner workings of Scientology saying that Kidman and Holmes, in particular, probably signed non-disclosure agreements when their marriages to the “Top Gun” actor ended.

But no such agreement probably applies to Cruise’s youngest child, Suri Cruise, from whom he’s long been estranged, Page Six reported . With Suri turning 18 on Thursday, she and her mother Katie Holmes should no longer receive the reported $400,000 a year Cruise paid as part of a divorce settlement. Cruise also agreed to pay Suri’s college and health care costs, Page Six added.

As an adult, Suri Cruise should be free to speak out about her father, his beliefs and their rift, journalist and Scientology expert Tony Ortega told Page Six.

“Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement (when her parents divorced in 2012), but she will now be free to talk if she wants to and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say,” Ortega said.

Page Six said that representatives for Cruise, Holmes and the Church of Scientology did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It’s possible that Suri may choose to stay silent about her famous father. For one thing, if she gave an interview or published a tell-all about him, she’d probably have to give up the mostly private life she’s been able to enjoy thus far. People credit a protective Holmes with trying to give Suri as normal life as is possible under the circumstances, while raising her in New York City.

“Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom,” a source told Page Six. “This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

Suri’s life, though, started out in a very public way. As Page Six pointed out, she was once “the most famous baby in America” because of the very high-profile way that Cruise conducted his courtship of the “Dawson’s Creek” star, who was 16 years younger that Cruise when they began dating. When news came that Cruise and Holmes had become parents to a baby daughter in April 2006, a global frenzy erupted, with media outlets competing to be the first to publish the little girl’s photos.

At the age of five months, Suri Cruise made her debut on the cover of Vanity Fair, in a glossy photo taken by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.

For the first six years of Suri’s life, Cruise seemed to dote on his youngest daughter and enjoy being seen with her in public. He also is the father of two older children, Isabella, now 31, and Connor Cruise, now 29, whom he adopted with Kidman.

But Suri’s relationship with her father changed after Holmes reportedly “blindsided” him by filing for divorce in 2012. The following year, Cruise gave a deposition in his $50 million court fight against a pair of tabloid magazines and admitted that Holmes filed for divorce “to protect Suri from Scientology,” court documents revealed, Page Six reported.

There have been questions about whether Holmes and her daughter were declared Scientology “suppressive persons,” or SPs, after the divorce. According to Scientology , SPs are people who have “anti-social” personalities who seek to “upset, continuously undermine, spread bad news about and denigrate betterment activities and groups.” Scientology recommends that members stay away from SPs for their own well-being, but the church’s own website said it is “extremely rare” to label someone an SP.

“We don’t know for sure if Katie was ever declared an SP,” Ortega told Page Six. A regular church member, whose wife and daughter left Scientology, would be encouraged to disconnect from them, but Cruise might have been spared that option because of his “top celebrity” status. “He gets to ignore all this stuff,” Ortega said.

In any case, Holmes secured sole custody of their daughter, while Cruise retained “meaningful” visitation rights, according to The Blast . Yet, public sightings of Cruise with his daughter soon dwindled, with Page Six saying they were last seen together at Disney World in the summer of 2012.

Even if Suri has lived a mostly private life, paparazzi are known to follow her and her mother Katie Holmes around the streets of Manhattan. Still, as Suri reportedly prepares to head off to college, Holmes revealed in a 2023 interview with Glamour that she has grown up to be “an incredible person.”

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How Scientology almost ruined Tom Cruise's career and the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise saved it

• 2006 was the lowest point in Cruise's career.
• Audiences had enough of him talking about Scientology and his relationship with Katie Holmes.

In August 2006, it seemed like Tom Cruise was finished.

In an announcement unprecedented by the head of a major conglomerate, Viacom's chairman at the time, Sumner Redstone, publicly ripped into the star — who for years was one of the most profitable actors and producers at Viacom's movie studio, Paramount Pictures.

"We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot," Redstone told The Wall Street Journal . "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

The studio he'd called home for 14 years was parting ways with him following a string of bizarre outbursts.

Now, in 2023, that all seems hard to imagine.

Cruise is not only the face of one of the biggest action franchises ever, but film, "Top Gun: Maverick," might just have saved Hollywood following the pandemic.

This month, he's back with another "M:I," Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1," yet another must-see title from one of the last movie stars the industry has left.

But there was a time the veteran actor's career was at a low point.

The couch jump, 'TomKat,' and Scientology

Cruise's strange downfall and subsequent rebirth as one of the most bankable movie stars all began with a seemingly innocent act of love.

When Cruise agreed to go on " The Oprah Winfrey Show " in May 2005 to promote his film, "War of the Worlds," it was a big deal. Cruise rarely did interviews, especially on daytime TV.

As Cruise walked onto Oprah's stage, the crowd went wild. Oprah playfully tousled Cruise's hair, and the actor was clearly in a great mood.

During the interview, Oprah brought up Cruise's latest love interest, Katie Holmes, who was off-stage where no one, especially the cameras, could see her. The excitement of talking about his new girlfriend led him to leap up on Oprah's couch with joy (he did it a second time for good measure).

After the couch-jumping, Oprah even got Cruise to chase down Holmes and get her to come onstage.

It seemed harmless at the time, but thanks to a very young internet video-posting site called YouTube, the image of Cruise on top of Oprah's couch became a pop-culture phenomenon. To some, it felt off.

A month later, Cruise agreed to go on the " Today " show to continue promoting "War of the Worlds" and also talk about his religion, Scientology. When now-disgraced interviewer Matt Lauer talked about Scientology, and specifically to Cruise not agreeing with psychiatry, the tone changed. Cruise offered his opinion on Brooke Shields' use of antidepressants for postpartum depression .

Here's an excerpt of Cruise and Lauer's uncomfortable exchange:

Cruise: "Do you know what Adderall is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?" Lauer: "The difference is — " Cruise: "No, Matt, I'm asking you a question." Lauer: "I understand there's abuse of all of these things." Cruise: "No, you see here's the problem: You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Later in the conversation:

Lauer: "Do you examine the possibility that these things do work for some people? That yes, there are abuses, and yes, maybe they've gone too far in certain areas, maybe there are too many kids on Ritalin, maybe electric shock — " Cruise: "Too many kids on Ritalin?" Lauer: "I'm just saying — but aren't there examples where it works?" Cruise: "Matt, Matt, Matt, you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt. OK? That's what I've done. You go and you say, 'Where's the medical tests? Where's the blood test that says how much Ritalin you're supposed to get?'" Lauer: "It's very impressive to listen to you, because clearly you've done the homework and you know the subject." Cruise: "And you should. And you should do that also, because just knowing people who are on Ritalin isn't enough. You should be a little bit more responsible … "

Minutes later, the exchange was on loop all over the world.

Within a few weeks, Cruise had gone wild on Oprah and lashed out at Lauer, and by then, the tabloids had gone into overdrive with the Cruise-Holmes relationship, which they called "TomKat."

It was time for Cruise to get off the grid, but he couldn't.

Cruise's star power takes a hit

For most of his career, an experienced publicist named Pat Kingsley reportedly kept Cruise's private life out of the tabloids. According to a 2014 LA Weekly story, she even talked Cruise out of being more vocal about Scientology when he did press for his 2003 film "The Last Samurai."

A year later, according to the LA Weekly story, Cruise let Kingsley go after 14 years and formed a publicity team that included his sister, Lee Anne De Vette, and fellow Scientologists.

Now in a typhoon of backlash that Cruise had never experienced before, his team may have been too inexperienced to protect him.

Despite all the negative attention, "War of the Worlds" still went to No. 1 at the box office during its opening weekend ( $65 million ), and ended up with a worldwide take of $592 million.

It would be the last time a film starring Cruise would make over $500 million worldwide for the next six years .

Following the "War of the Worlds" release, TomKat was still daily tabloid fodder, especially with the news that the two were expecting a child. And then, in March 2006, Cruise went global again with the controversial "South Park" episode "Trapped in the Closet."

The episode originally aired in November 2005 and revealed what Scientologists believe is the origin of life, but it also depicted Cruise as an insecure person and played on rumors of his sexuality .

In the episode, one of the main characters on the show, Stan, is thought by Scientology to be the second coming of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard . This leads Scientologists, including Cruise, to flock to Stan's house to pay their respects. But when Stan insults his acting ability, Cruise hides in Stan's closet, leading to Stan saying, "Dad, Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet."

Comedy Central delayed reairing the episode in March 2006 because allegedly Cruise declared he would not promote "Mission: Impossible 3" unless Viacom (which owns the film's studio, Paramount, and Comedy Central) canceled the rebroadcast.

Cruise's reps denied he ever threatened not to promote the film.

The controversy made headlines all over the world and led "South Park" fans to declare they would boycott "Mission: Impossible 3" until Comedy Central aired the episode.

The episode was finally reaired in July of that year.

"Closetgate," in what it would become known, was the last straw.

The constant tabloid coverage of TomKat, plus rumors that Cruise and Holmes' relationship was allegedly arranged by the church had turned people off. (Cruise and Holmes married in November 2006 and divorced six years later.)

The bad press soon began to affect Cruise's career. "Mission: Impossible 3" opened in theaters in May 2006 and Cruise's Q score — the appeal of a celebrity , brand, or company to the public — was down 40% .

Though the film was No. 1 in the US on its opening weekend ( $48 million ), it lost appeal as the weeks passed. Ticket sales dropped 47% during its second week in theaters and 53% in its third week.

"Mission: Impossible 3" is the lowest-grossing film in the franchise to date, with a $400 million worldwide gross.

It was at this point that Redstone gave Cruise his wake-up call: "We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

The long road back to superstardom

After being kicked off the Paramount lot, Cruise hired a publicist with more experience and buckled down for a comeback. He brought his production company over to MGM and took partial ownership of the iconic United Artists studio.

Cruise also became less vocal about Scientology in public, though he was apparently still very much involved privately. In 2008, a Scientology-produced video went viral on YouTube of the actor explaining what the religion meant to him.

Cruise hit the pause button on doing action movies, turning to dramas like "Lions for Lambs" and "Valkyrie."

In between those films, he agreed to star in pal Ben Stiller's 2008 comedy " Tropic Thunder " as the overweight, bigger-than-life movie exec Les Grossman. It was the best move Cruise had done in years. In doing something so out of character, he began to win back fans.

"Tropic Thunder" reunited Cruise with his former studio, Paramount. Although Cruise's production company was kicked off the lot, it didn't mean he couldn't still be cast in the studio's films. The wheels were now in motion for Cruise to get back on Paramount's good side so he could make more "Mission: Impossible" movies.

Being a hit in "Tropic Thunder," the biggest comedy of the year for Paramount, was a good starting point.

Director J.J. Abrams, who directed Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 3" and was in Paramount's good graces after directing the studio's hit "Star Trek Into Darkness," was also working to get Cruise back in the franchise.

In the summer of 2010, news broke that Cruise would be starring in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," with Abrams as producer. But this installment in the franchise would not be titled "Mission: Impossible 4," because the idea was that the film would be a refresh on the franchise, with Cruise stepping aside as the lead and giving way to rising star Jeremy Renner.

Cruise didn't get the message.

Back in the Ethan Hunt role, Cruise cemented his place in the franchise by scaling the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, without a stunt double.

That, and the other insane stunts featured in the film, led to "Ghost Protocol" earning the biggest worldwide box office in the franchise's history — $695 million . It was also the second-highest earning film for Paramount in 2011, just behind "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

Following "Ghost Protocol" it wasn't all box-office wins for Cruise. " Knight and Day " and the " Jack Reacher " franchise didn't do as well as expected. And he could not help Universal's Dark Universe get off the ground as 2017's "The Mummy" bombed at the box office.

However, he laid the seeds of what could be another profitable franchise with 2014's "Edge of Tomorrow, which — even with a slow start when it opened — ended up passing the domestic $100 million mark (the first time in nine years that a non-"Mission: Impossible" Cruise film hit that landmark number) and only grew in popularity when it got onto home video and streaming.

And then there are the "M: I" movies.

In 2015, "Rogue Nation," with its insane stunt of Cruise hanging from the side of a plane as it took off, earned over $682.7 million worldwide and was the top-grossing film for Paramount that year. And 2018's "Fallout" did even better, taking in over $791 million worldwide .

And with "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" out this month, it doesn't seem likely that he'll be knocked off that mantel anytime soon.

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Suri Cruise turns 18 and is still estranged from Tom: ‘Not a Scientologist, never will be’

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Suri Cruise was once the most famous baby in America.

The arrival of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter on April 18, 2006, sparked a global frenzy for the first glimpse of the A-list infant.

But it wasn’t until five months after her birth that she made her debut — on the cover of Vanity Fair, wrapped in the arms of her doting parents, in glossy photos taken by photographer to the stars, Annie Leibovitz.

Now she turns 18 on Thursday and faces a choice: Whether to return to the level of fame she had as a kid — when there were blogs devoted to her fashion — or maintain the carefully-guarded life Holmes has built for her since she blindsided Cruise by filing for divorce.

The dark-haired teen has grown up in Manhattan largely shielded from the spotlight by her loving and highly protective mom, 45, far removed from her 60-year-old father’s Church of Scientology.

As Page Six revealed last year, Suri is estranged from her famous father and the pair have no relationship.

An industry source told us this week that the “Mission: Impossible” star has not seen Suri since 2012. “Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom,” the source said.

“This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

Holmes told Glamour magazine in 2023 that she likes to “protect” Suri from the public eye “because she was so visible at a young age.”

“I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person. She’s my heart,” she added.

Being the only daughter of a protective single parent is a stark contrast to how Suri’s life began, of course.

“My whole life I always wanted to be a father,” Cruise gushed to VF back in 2006.

“I always said to myself that my children would be able to depend on me and I would always be there for them and love them — that I’d never make a promise to my kids that I couldn’t keep.

“I’m not one of those people who believe you can spoil a child with too much love. You can never give a child too much love. There’s just no way.”

He already had two adopted children, Bella, now 31, and Connor, now 29, from his marriage to Nicole Kidman and after her Vanity Fair debut was happy to parade Suri for the paparazzi.

Cruise had famously declared their romance by jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch in May 2005, yelling “I’m in love!” 

But when Suri was just 6, Holmes filed for divorce after six years of marriage with the help of her dad, Martin Holmes, a fierce attorney, and through a secret plan that entailed using burner phones.

Cruise was taken completely by surprise by the filing while he was on the set of “Oblivion” in Iceland in June 2012.

He and Suri were last seen together at Disney World in the summer of 2012.

In November 2013, during a deposition in his $50 million court battle against a pair of tabloid magazines, the “Top Gun” star admitted that Holmes had filed for divorce “to protect Suri from Scientology,” court documents revealed.

Despite not having a relationship; as per their divorce agreement, Cruise, who has an estimated $600 million fortune, agreed to pay Holmes $400,000 a year until Suri turns 18 as well as future “medical, dental, insurance, education, college and other extracurricular costs”.

Scientology lies at the heart of the question over Suri’s future.

Holmes, who rose to fame in the TV hit, “Dawson’s Creek,” is believed to have signed multiple non-disclosure documents that will prevent her from ever talking about her marriage to Cruise — and her time inside Scientology.

But when Suri turns 18, NY state declares that she is at the age of majority, when an individual is legally considered an adult.

That would allow her to speak about her father, his beliefs and their rift.

Tony Ortega, who has covered Scientology in depth for decades, told Page Six, “Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement, but she will now be free to talk if she wants to and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say.”

We have reached out to reps for Cruise, Holmes and the Church of Scientology. 

“Part of why Katie left when she did when Suri was 6 was that Katie would have seen Isabella and Connor going through Scientology,” said Ortega.

Cruise is of course Scientology’s most famous follower and seen as one of its most powerful figures, possibly second only to its leader, David Miscavige.

That power has led Ortega and former Scientologists to question what action Miscavige and other top Scientologists may have taken against Holmes and her daughter.

Regular members who quit are declared “suppressive persons (SP)” and those who stay in Scientology are told to completely cut them off.

“We don’t know for sure if Katie was ever declared an SP,” Ortega said.

“If you are a regular church member you could be told to disconnect from your wife and daughter, but because Tom is a celebrity — he’s  the top celebrity — he gets to ignore all this stuff.

“Your average member would be kicked out, but David Miscavige can’t do that with Tom.”

Both Mike Rinder and Jeff Augustine, two high-profile former Scientologists, agreed with this claim.

Augustine is married to Karen de la Carriere, who was one of the highest-ranking church leaders until she left in 2010 and told Page Six, “The situation with Suri is a larger story about Scientology and the subject of how they make people no longer useful to them or threats to them non-persons.

“It’s like they cease to exist and that’s what happened to Suri.”

Back in August 2020, Leah Remini — one of the most famous celebrities to leave and speak out against Scientology — told us that she believed Cruise, who now lives mainly in the UK , was waiting until Suri is older so he could indoctrinate her into Scientology.

Remini, who attended Cruise and Holmes’ November 2006 Italian wedding at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle, said, “I’m sure his master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so that he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother.”

Suri has tiptoed very gently into her parents’ showbusiness world while attending her exclusive Manhattan day school, singing “Blue Moon” in the opening credits of Holmes’ 2022 movie, “Alone Together.”

“I always want the highest level of talent,” Holmes said. “So I asked her! She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it, and I let her do her thing.”

Suri also sang in the film “Rare Objects,” which Holmes also directed.

Holmes will this year return to Broadway in a revival of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”.

She has not remarried but had a six-year romance with actor Jamie Foxx which she kept under the radar before their split in August 2019 and went on to have a brief fling with  Nolita restaurateur Emilio Vitolo Jr. in 2021.

Holmes is careful not to speak out too much about her daughter, who is now preparing for college, once saying, “She came out very strong — she’s always been a strong personality.”

But she is now getting ready for her daughter to leave the nest.

“You want them to stay with you forever, but they’re these amazing beings, and you have to do everything you can to give them what they need — and then they’re going to go,” she told Town & Country in 2017.

“And that’s going to be very, very sad for me.”

As for the future, former Scientology spokesperson Mike Rinder, who has not seen his own two eldest children since he quit the organization, told Page Six, “Suri is not a Scientologist and never will be…she deserves love and sympathy.”

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Tom Cruise's daughter Suri still estranged from him ahead of her 18th birthday, Internet says 'better off without him'

N EW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: As Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' daughter Suri Cruise gets ready for her 18th birthday on Thursday, April 18, she is reportedly still estranged from her famous father.

An industry insider revealed to Page Six that the 'Mission: Impossible' actor is not close to his daughter and has not seen Suri since 2012.

After Katie and Tom got divorced, Suri's mother kept their daughter largely out of the spotlight, while her father gladly spent time with her in the spotlight.

Suri Cruise has remained estranged from father Tom Cruise since 2012

The last time Suri and Tom were spotted together was in July 2012, when they visited Disney World in Florida.

In June 2012, Katie filed for divorce from Tom while he was filming 'Oblivion in Iceland,' allegedly partially because she wished "to protect Suri from Scientology."

Suri was raised by Katie in New York City, far from the limelight, her father, and the Church of Scientology.

"Katie has safeguarded Suri and she's a devoted mom," the source told Page Six. "This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn't lived her life in public."

"What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her," Katie stated in an interview with Glamour magazine in 2023.

"I'm very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She's an incredible person. She's my heart."

The young woman with dark hair has spent her childhood in Manhattan mostly veiled from the public eye by her devoted and fiercely protective 45-year-old mother, who lives a long way from her 60-year-old father's Church of Scientology.

As previously reported by Page Six, Suri and her famous father are not in contact with each other and were last seen together at Disney World in the summer of 2012.

Suri Cruise was once one of the most famous babies in America

The world went crazy when Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' daughter arrived on April 18, 2006, hoping to catch a peek of the A-list baby.

However, she didn't make her public debut until five months after her birth. Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz captured her on the glossy cover of Vanity Fair, where she was cradled in the arms of her parents.

Tom and Katie reached a divorce deal whereby Tom agreed to pay Katie $400,000 annually for child support until Suri turned 18 in addition to "medical, dental, insurance, education, college, and other extracurricular costs."

During a deposition in his $50 million legal battle with two tabloid publications, court records from November 2013 revealed that the 'Top Gun' actor confirmed that Katie had filed for divorce "to protect Suri from Scientology."

Actress Leah Remini-who has been outspoken in her criticism of Scientology since quitting the group in 2013-stated to the New York Post in 2020 that she thinks Tom is holding off on indoctrinating Suri until she turns 18 years old.

"Scientology considers Katie a suppressive person which is an enemy and therefore Tom believes, like all Scientologists, that he can't be connected to Suri," Remini stated at the time.

"I'm sure his master plan is to wait until Suri gets older so that he can lure her into Scientology and away from her mother."

Internet claimed Suri is 'much better off without' her dad Tom

Social media users took to Facebook to express their opinions on how Suri has remained estranged from her dad with several slamming the 'Top Gun' actor and others asserting how Suri is better without her Scientologist father.

One user wrote, "She's much better off without him around and I agree with Leah Remini, he'll wait until she's 18 and then involve himself. At 18 she'll have more freedom, especially if she goes away to college and Katie won't be able to protect her all the time. He's biding his time until Suri "leaves the nest."

"He should be ashamed abandoning his daughter due to Scientology she is beautiful young lady I use to like Tom not anymore he is so rude," slammed a second one.

A third one chimed in, "Shame on him for ignoring his daughter. That is no religion that requires you to abandon your family. It's a cult"

"She's better off. He'd make her become a Scientologist," claimed another one.

One more exclaimed, "And everyone thinks Tom is so great....he's POS..Shame on him.. I refuse to watch any of his movies..."

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.

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Experts believe suri cruise may have ‘something to say’ about scientology soon.

by Delilah Gray

Delilah Gray

Trending News Editor

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“Suri would have been too young to sign any agreement, but she will now be free to talk if she wants to, and it’s going to be really interesting if she has something to say,” he said, adding that it depends on two factors: if Katie Holmes has been dubbed a “suppressive person” and if Cruise will reach out to Suri when she turns 18.

“Regular members who quit are declared ‘suppressive persons (SP),’ and those who stay in Scientology are told to completely cut them off. We don’t know for sure if Katie was ever declared an SP,” Ortega said, also adding that Scientologists typically can’t speak to those in your family who aren’t Scientologists. However, apparently, Tom can ignore this.

For those who don’t know, Holmes and Cruise welcomed Suri, 17, on April 18, 2006, with her ex-husband Tom.

On April 18, 2024, Suri will be 18, which will not only mean that she’ll be an adult, out and about in her next life step, but Cruise’s monthly support payments may stop. It’s been reported that the Mission Impossible star’s child support payments are reported to total just over $33,000 per month, totaling around $400,000 per year.

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