Leah Remini-A 'Troublemaker' Leaves Her Life In Scientology

Summary: 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." Then in the early 1980s, Remini, her sister, and her mother moved to Florida, where Remini worked to join an order within Scientology known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. "We were living in a run-down motel off of a freeway in Clearwater, Fla.," Remini tells NPR's Kelly McEvers. "We lived in dorms with other children. It was roach-infested; oftentimes we didn't eat if we didn't wake up when meals were being served. But again, you're a child that all of a sudden has this independence, so in one way, it was scary ... but it was also, we felt independent, and we were in charge of ourselves. We didn't have an education other than Scientology education, so we were kids living on our own." After a conflict with her superiors in the church, Leah Remini and her family left the Sea Org and moved to Los Angeles. She wanted to be an actor. At first it was a struggle. But she eventually landed a lead role on a big sitcom, The King of Queens, which ran for nine years. As a celebrity, Remini was able to ascend to the upper levels of the church; in a 2002 interview she said it had helped with her confidence and career. She took hours of classes every day, and continued to do auditing, or counseling sessions, which both cost money. "During my thirty-plus years in Scientology," Remini writes in the book, "I spent close to $2 million for services and training, and donated roughly $3 million to church causes." But Remini started doubting whether those donations were going toward a good cause, as the Church of Scientology told her. She wanted to see what critics of the church were saying. But, she tells McEvers, she knew she could be questioned for that. http://www.npr.org/2015/11/03/454308222/a-troublemaker-leaves-her-life-in-scientology Transcript: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=454308222