Leah Remini continues her quest to expose the truth about her former religion, Scientology, on her new series, "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath."
With the eight-episode series, Remini set out to document the stories of alleged abuse from former Scientologists, including her own 30-year experience belonging to the organization. But the former "King of Queens" star said at the top of this week's highly rated premiere that she found out more than what she set out to find.
"When I first started filming this show, I thought I would just be documenting stories of families that were torn apart by the Church of Scientology’s policies and practices," Remini said. "But what I uncovered was much deeper and darker than I ever expected. What you’re about to see sheds light on the truth of what’s really going on with this church, a church that I promoted, defended, and believed in most of my life."
The premiere episode focused on Amy Scobee, a former high-ranking Scientology executive assigned to the religion's Celebrity Centre. After leaving the organization, she reunited with her mother, Bonny Elliott, and defied the religion's rule of disconnecting from family and friends who are labeled enemies of the church.
Scientology allegedly tried to get the show pulled from airing, which led to Remini demanding the church pay her $1.5 million in damages. The church called her request "extortion" and maintains that the stories of its alleged abuses in the series are false.
Here are the seven most shocking revelations about alleged happenings in Scientology from the show's premiere episode:
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1. Remini's eventual split from Scientology began at Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes.
In November of 2006, Remini attended the lavish wedding of Scientology "messiah"Cruise and the former "Dawson's Creek" star. While at the wedding, she realized that Shelly Miscavige, Scientology leader David Miscavige's wife, wasn't at the wedding. That made Remini curious, so she said she innocently asked about Shelly's whereabouts and got a very harsh response.
"In my mind, I’m a parishioner but I’m also just a human being asking where another human being was," she said on the show. "The response that I didn’t have f---ing rank to be asking about a human being, it spoke to the person in me that doesn’t like to be bullied. And that's what started me questioning the church more and more."
2. When parishioners are being interrogated for bad behavior, they pay for the sessions.
While Remini told of being interrogated by Scientology officials for questioning the faith, she mentioned that Scientology charges the members hundreds of dollars per hour while in interrogation sessions.
3. Recruiting celebrities to Scientology is one of the faith's highest missions.
"Scientology concentrates on collecting celebrities," Scobee said.
She said that the goal was to make celebrities "walking success stories of Scientology."
Remini added, "The Church of Scientology is a business. And like any business, they like to have a celebrity selling it."
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