Church of Scientology statement concerning US Weekly Story on Leah Remini

November 13, 2017

Travis Cronin
US Weekly

Re: US Weekly Story on Leah Remini

Dear Travis,

I have just been informed that you are doing a cover story on Leah Remini’s Season Two. You never said that in your request for comment. Season Two can be summed up in one word: FRAUD. That said, I have more to say beyond the statement I sent you earlier, and which I did not understand was commenting on a whole cover story. Please include a complete statement and a link to our website: www.leahreminiaftermath.com.

One for one, Remini’s allegations have been proven FALSE and DEFAMATORY. Every episode of Leah Remini’s second season proved exactly what she stated before it began—that she does not believe in vetting her sources and that A&E irresponsibly lets her get away with it. Each episode was a continuous parade of discredited individuals who have not set foot inside a Church for years, often decades. In one case, the “expertise” of Remini’s “star witness” came entirely from reading Facebook posts. Nonetheless, she was passed off as an expert because she could serve as a convenient vehicle to spread hate. In each case, their scripted tales echoed the same story line—blame Scientologist parents for one’s setbacks in life, and accept no personal responsibility for one’s actions. Countless false claims were made during the season by sources who were frequently compensated, spread by Remini and co-host Mike Rinder, a wife-beater, with the goal of inciting religious hatred and bigotry.

To date, Remini’s A&E show has generated more than 500 incidents of hate, vandalism, threats of violence and crimes directed against the Church of Scientology, its ecclesiastical leader, its clergy and parishioners who seek to practice the religion of their choice.

A&E is the same network that intended to broadcast a KKK program and tried to cover up the fact that cash payments went to members of the hate group. A&E is the same network that promoted a family with Duck Dynasty whose patriarch had a history of homophobic and racist comments. And now they have Leah Remini, who is spreading hate and inciting acts of violence against a world religion. If US Weekly is actually putting Remini on the cover, then why have you not put on the cover Phil Robertson or one of the young KKK members A&E was planning to turn into a celebrity? It is one and the same. That’s how vicious Remini is at spreading hate and bigotry.

WEBSITE

The Church put up a website on Remini only after she attempted to extort the Church first for $500,000 and then $1,000,000 and thereafter continued to spread lies about the Church and instigate hate and violence. The Church put up a website to expose the lies and provide the truth regarding Leah Remini. Remini’s own statements and statements from her family reveal how low she will stoop to harm others and to promote herself to make money. Perhaps your interview should go back and inquire into the following:

  1. Remini’s subjects are not vetted and have no credibility. Remini made that bombshell admission to The Hollywood Reporter during a roundtable: Remini was asked, “Leah, I want to turn to you. How much vetting is done of the people who are going to tell their stories on your show? Is that something…do you have people who make them prove their stories?” Remini: “What do you want me to do? ‘Prove it to me’? You know? So there is NO VETTING. I just take their word for it.” Reporter: “And Legal will let you get away with that?” Remini: “Well they have to. Because they are ‘my people.’” See the video for yourself: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/thr.
  2. Remini is spreading hate to make money. She stated that fact on ABC 20/20: “I don’t work for free.” See the video, including her other coarse statements: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/2020.
  3. Remini is in bed with homophobes, bigots and racists. Her co-producer’s hero is a blatant homophobe. Remini and Mike Rinder courted a Southern pastor and set up a “town hall meeting” to spread hate against Scientologists. The pastor has demonstrated his contempt for virtually anyone who is not a member of his faith: he is anti-Muslim, anti-Scientologist and vehemently anti-LGBTQ. He even tried to incite his parishioners against Scientologists, using a violent Biblical metaphor: “Someone has to pick up a rock and a slingshot and trust God with the results.” Yet Remini insists he should be used to advance her anti-Scientology agenda. See the video: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/antilgbt.

  4. Remini’s biological father explains on YouTube Remini’s cruelty toward her family as she sanctimoniously coaches people on screen to cry and make up stories.

    George Remini reveals Leah would not provide care for her father, her sister or other family members—including some who approached the Church because they are so upset with what Remini is saying. See the videos:

  5. Remini is paying and coaching subjects to embellish their stories. Listen to the video recording of a call from a whistleblower exposing the play-acting that runs throughout Remini’s bigoted program. Remini can try to cover up and pretend it is anything other than it is, but the bottom line is this woman called the Church to expose this reprehensible and unethical behavior: http://leahreminiaftermath.com/whistleblower.

    The recording describes Leah Remini as encouraging former members to embellish their stories and to lie to make their tales more “shocking”:

    • “She kept telling them that it needed to be more dramatic…they needed to make it sound as bad as possible.”
    • “She kept stopping and telling them to up the ante.”
    • “She was telling the husband you really need to start crying at a certain point.”
    • “I asked, at one point during a break, my friend if she was really OK with it. She said yes and that they were RECEIVING A PAYMENT FOR THE INTERVIEW.”
  6. And it is not just the Church claiming that Remini’s show is scripted and acted. Remini’s sought-after “dream team” member who was the “kingpin” of the small group of anti-Scientologists that are her subjects, Mark (Marty) Rathbun, exposes the dishonesty of the series. i) He exposes she stage-managed her “roll out” (departure from the Church) to help her career. ii) He also reveals that she offered Rathbun a producer credit and that he could “write my own ticket” and be paid for participating as a subject on her show. iii) He further reveals that Remini explained how her reality TV shows are scripted and quotes Remini’s shocking admission: “Listen, that’s how it works, honey, doll, that’s how you do it. It’s not reality. I work it out, I plan out all these episodes and we figure it out beforehand who’s going to say what…” See: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/aftermathexposed.

    You and any editors involved should watch these videos. You spent the time listening to Remini’s rants. You should spend equal time hearing and watching the videos providing firsthand information and truth.

    HATE AND VIOLENCE

    Remini’s show has triggered an explosion of hate crimes, threats and even violence directed at Scientologists. Since Remini started her hate campaign, the Church of Scientology, its ecclesiastical leader, its clergy and parishioners have been subjected to more than 500 acts of hate, vandalism, incidents of harassment and threats of violence and death. Within an hour of the debut of Leah Remini’s second season, the Church received threats like these:

    “You are dead. I’m going to murder all of you pig cult bastards and blow up all your buildings. You are f***ed.”

    “All Churches are going to be gone all every as***le Scientologist dead.”

    Another stalker is being investigated by law enforcement for threats against the religion’s leader, including, “Let’s exercise our 2nd Amendment rights, since that’s the only Amendment these Traitorous C***s care about.”

    The number of threats we have received due to Leah Remini’s four-year hate campaign is unprecedented in our history. These criminal acts include vandalism (defacing a cross in our Tampa Church) and acts of arson which occurred while parishioners were attending services in our Minneapolis/St. Paul Church. Some of the worst incidents include:

    • A woman drove a car through the front doors of the Church of Scientology of Austin, Texas, stopping just short of the nursery where children had been playing a short time earlier. The woman called Leah Remini “a true inspiration!!”
    • A man armed with an arsenal of guns and carrying a police insignia was jailed for threatening to “assassinate” our Church leader. When questioned by authorities, the man said one inspiration for his threats was “the King of Queens lady.”
    • In another case, law enforcement investigated a threat that stated, “hope you all die…if i see [the Church leader] i will kill him.” It turned out this was posted by a 13-year-old boy (no one could tell that from the posting) who had just finished binge watching Leah Remini’s program.
    • In one case, an unhinged individual threw a hammer through the plate glass windows of our U.S. Headquarters building and threatened to assassinate the Church leader. He was stirred up by Remini and her anti-Scientologist co-producer while Remini was appearing on a television program with the assailant’s mother.

    Before his arrest, the man was placed under mandatory mental health supervision, because of his irrational conduct and threats to kill the leader of the Church. The man was subsequently convicted of felony vandalism of a church and the authorities issued a Criminal Protective Order to protect the Church leader and all Scientology Church facilities in Southern California. AFTER he was convicted of a felony for these crimes incited by Remini—with Remini knowing full well the crime committed, the conviction, the man’s threats and his ability to carry them out—she brought him on her show and, rather than condemn his actions, Remini lauded him! You can read about it on the website at www.leahreminiaftermath.com/inspiredhate.

    In other words, Remini’s program even brought a convicted felon on as a guest, condoned and supported by Remini’s A&E paymasters. How can Remini (or anyone) excuse the behavior of a convicted felon? The answer is simple: generating hate so incendiary that it can lead to violence is the intent of Remini’s Aftermath.

    Our Churches are not alone in receiving threats due to Remini’s lies. In her insatiable quest for ratings, Remini disparaged the mother of a suicide victim in a recent episode. The woman had suffered enough through a family tragedy, yet Remini portrayed her as uncaring to her daughter’s distress—airing a completely false story told by someone who had had no relationship with the daughter for over a decade. As a result of Remini’s sadistic hit job, the mother received hundreds of hate messages, such as: “I hope you can live with the fact that you essentially killed your daughter, you brainwashed, cult freak!!! I hope you burn in hell!!!!” See “Using Tragedy to Profit,” with two embedded videos: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/mothers.

    RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

    Remini has the audacity to claim that the Church is attacking her? What Remini really means is that she wants to spread her propaganda and lies and the Church should not be permitted to defend itself. Most Scientologists ignore Remini, recognizing her scam, but others have had enough. Most vocal have been members of STAND (an acronym for Scientologists Taking Action Against Discrimination). Similar to the Anti-Defamation League, STAND is made up of everyday Scientologists who fight intolerance and prejudice. They work to dispel rumors and lies about our religion. Remini burned her own bridges with the friends she had.

    Her latest distortion is claiming her friends “disconnected from her” when she is clearly responsible for cutting off all communication with her Church and with her friends. Her previous friends describe her as vindictive, dark and a bully. One of her former friends, singer Stacy Francis, was subjected to abuse nonstop by Remini, who even called Stacy’s children “niglets” (Stacy is African-American). See: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/stacyfrancis.

    Remini’s whole anti-Scientology shtick was scripted and choreographed by her from the beginning, casting herself in her drama as the “victim” so she could cash in on her false narrative while savaging her friends and those who helped her most of her life.

    Remini also demonstrates that propaganda is not so much what you say as what you fail to say. Her show covers up the misdeeds of others to present an entirely false narrative and Remini and Rinder willfully leave out the truth to paint a false picture. More important, as noted above, none of the subjects are vetted to ascertain if they are telling the truth; the resulting program is a fraud.

    Remini wrecks families. She did it with her husband’s former family, she did it with her own family and she does it with the families of others. Her co-producer, Rinder, abandoned his wife and two children. When his daughter and wife came to see him to inform him his son had a life-threatening illness, he violently attacked his wife (and mother of his two children) and damaged her arm for life. He has never to this day apologized. See: www.leahreminiaftermath.com/mikerinder.

    SUMMARY

    Haters hate. Remini is a hater and profits by spreading hate and religious intolerance. Giving Remini a forum is the same as providing a forum to the KKK to spread their racial and religious hatred. Remini stirs up criminals to commit crimes aimed at the Church of Scientology religious leader, our Churches and parishioners. There is certainly no glamour or heroism in that. Remini’s actions are deplorable, as are those of the unvetted subjects of her show.

    Given you failed to make clear to me this was a cover story, and gave us inadequate time to respond, you also need to include the truth about Remini’s religious bigotry and her Joseph McCarthy-like “are you now or have you ever been” campaign to persecute individuals exercising their religious freedom by practicing the religion of their choice.

    Regards,

    Karin Pouw
    International Spokesperson