In 2013, the actor Leah Remini left the Church of Scientology after more than 30 years. Her new memoir, Troublemaker, might make her the most famous former Scientologist to publicly criticize the religion. (The Church calls the book “revisionist history.”)
The story starts when Remini was nine, growing up in Brooklyn. Her dad had just left, and her mom got a new boyfriend. He was a Scientologist. Her mom joined the church, too.
When Remini and her sister got into fights, her mother suggested they go to Scientology classes and learn how to communicate. Remini says she liked being treated like an adult at the Scientology center. “As a kid, I think, it offered structure, I think we loved that there was structure to these courses. And then the second part of that was, we were told that you’re a spiritual being, and you’re very powerful, and you’re not a child.”
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