Leah Remini on Her Break With the Church of Scientology

By Published on November 1, 2015

Leah Remini spoke for the first time in an exclusive interview with ABC News 20/20 about what her life was like inside the Church of Scientology, as well as how Tom Cruise and the backlash she faced from the Church after his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes were factors in her breaking with the Church.

The former King of Queens star, who publicly severed ties with the Church in 2013, is the most high-profile celebrity to leave Scientology and go public with her criticisms. She spoke with 20/20 about her new memoir, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, and why she is no longer a member of the Church she served for 30 years.

“I know what my former Church– how they deal with people who tell their story,” Remini told 20/20. “And so I wanted to be the one to say it.”

This week, members of the Church of Scientology delivered multiple documents and emails and made numerous phone calls to ABC News containing highly critical statements about Leah Remini, calling her a liar, “self-absorbed, rude and embarrassing,” and saying she is attempting to “rewrite the truth” in order to sell her new book. Read the Church’s full statement to ABC News regarding the interview HERE.

This is her side of the story:

How Leah Remini Became Involved in the Church of Scientology

Leah Remini grew up in the tight-knit Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York.

“I always felt like I was kind of an outsider because I didn’t have the right things,” Remini said. “I didn’t have a Cadillac. I didn’t have, you know, plastic on my furniture. That was the right way to be, if you were Italian.”

Her parents divorced when she was 7 years old. Her mother Vicki Marshall, searching for meaning, became deeply involved in Scientology, the religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Vicki worked in the Scientology building in Times Square and said her understanding of Scientology’s goal is “to free mankind, to make a sane world.” She said she believed that she was “benefiting the planet” by working for the Church and that it would help her children in the long run.

“What was told to me … [was] look at what you’re doing for the world, this is more important than… your family,” Vicki said.

Eventually Vicki decided to bring her daughters, Leah and her older sister Nicole, into the Church. The girls began studying Hubbard’s teachings and learning Scientology’s unique terminology.

As a kid, this was a big deal, Remini said, because “Scientologists view children as spiritual beings.”

“You are not treated as a kid, so you are given a lot of responsibility,” she continued. “Your ego becomes extremely inflated.”

Read the article “Leah Remini on Her Break With the Church of Scientology” on abcnews.go.com.

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