According to the new book “A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology,” Tom Cruise began to distance himself from Scientology in 1997 while filming Stanley Kubrick’s harrowing “Eyes Wide Shut” with then-wife Nicole Kidman.
It was while filming in London that the actor allegedly started ignoring calls from Scientology leader David Miscavige, according to a report written by former high-ranking church officer Mike Rinder.
As a result, according to the rumor mill, Miscavige dispatched a senior church official named Marty Rathbun to the United Kingdom to conduct an audit on Cruise, during which the latter is supposedly led through a series of exercises designed to help purify his mind of any lingering negativity.
Tom Cruise “was progressively lured back into the world of Scientology,” as written by Rinder.
On the other hand, this rededication supposedly “established a barrier between Cruise and Nicole.”
Cruise had brought Kidman into the church years prior, but she “never displayed special zeal for her Scientology classes or auditing,” as Rinder puts it. Her father’s profession as a psychiatrist only made things worse.
The Church of Scientology claims that psychiatry promotes dangerous drug use and inadequate treatment. Since her family had a history in psychiatry, “she would not have been qualified to participate in OT levels at all had she not been Mrs. Tom Cruise.”
The church, reportedly worried about Kidman’s impact on their biggest star, “hired infamous PI Anthony Pellicano to spy on Nicole and tap her phone,” according to Rinder.
Pellicano served more than a decade in prison for numerous crimes, including wiretapping, racketeering, conspiracy, and illegal possession of explosives and grenades.
A representative for the Church stated on Page Six, “The Church never ordered or engaged in any illegal wiretapping.”
Mike Rinder is a chronic liar who looks to enrich himself through deceit. He gets it by filing fabricated police reports, spreading incendiary propaganda, and fabricating news stories about his old church and its leader.
The book also alleges that Rathbun indoctrinated the couple’s adoptive children, Isabella and Connor, into the Suppressive Persons’ beliefs of L. Ron Hubbard, turning them against their own mother, Nicole Kidman.
Supposedly canonical Scientology teaches that a “suppressive” individual is an enemy of the faith who must be “suppressed” or “disappeared.”
Following Tom and Nicole’s split, Miscavige “expressed relief that Nicole’s “bad influence” was no longer luring Tom away,” as reported by Rinder.
Cruise “grew increasingly passionate in his vocal public support of Scientology and Miscavige” after this point.
Leah Remini, a former member of the Church of Scientology who later defected, revealed in her 2016 book “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology” that she and the Cruise and Kidman children rode a shuttle together following Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006. According to reports, the actress asked the kids how often they’ve seen their mom since their parents’ 2001 divorce.