Leah Remini deflected from the Church of Scientology last July amidst reports she was punished for asking where was leader David Miscavige’s wife. Now, the actress reveals she really left the church for the sake of her daughter.
“In my house, it’s family first – but I was spending most of my time at the church. So, I was saying ‘family first,’ but I wasn’t showing that. I didn’t like the message that sent my daughter,” Leah told Buzzfeed. She added 9-year-old daughter Sofia was nearing the time when she would “acclimate” into the church.
Leah explained there were times in life where she resented her mother, who moved with Leah and her sister from their “middle-class lifestyle” in Brooklyn to a “roach-infested motel with six other girls off a freeway in Clearwater” for the sake of Scientology. Even after they got back on their feet, Leah was often bitter her mom was regularly away from the home.
“My mom thought she was doing something good,” Leah said. “She thought she was helping the planet. That’s what the Church tells you.”
^ Leah with daughter Sofia and husband Angelo Pagan
When the church began demanding those same things of Leah, she started talking to friends within the organization about whether they agreed with the policies.
“We had a chance to make a change from within, but they didn’t want to,” Leah said. “That showed me they didn’t actually care, which went against everything I thought we stood for. They only cared that their lives would be disrupted if they stood with me.”
One significant person who did stand with Leah was her mother.
“The fact my mother stood by me after all her years in the Church totally took away any resentment I may have been harboring,” Leah said. “When it mattered the most, my mother was there for me. It was the moment that erased all those days she wasn’t there.”
