Leah Remini’s new book, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology , isn’t just full of shocking stories about the secret lives of super-famous celebrity Scientologists like Tom Cruise and John Travolta — the book also contains some brutally honest passages about Leah’s family members.
Leah Remini recently appeared on The View to promote her book, and she was forced to listen to Joy Behar reading a few of the most cringe-worthy confessions about Remini’s family members. The passage Behar chose to read out loud was about Remini’s husband, Angelo Pagan, and her mother, Vicki Marshall. To soften the blows, Remini began the passage in question by insulting herself.
“I am selfish and self-centered … have physically threatened people … my husband is a serial cheater and my mother was a slut,” Joy Behar read.
According to the Daily Mail , Leah blamed her mother’s promiscuity on being young during the ’70s and doing drugs .
Very excited about this… #TroubleMaker pic.twitter.com/7WDdOT5FBm
— Leah Remini (@LeahRemini) September 24, 2015
Leah Remini told the ladies of The View that she had a very good reason for sharing these dirty little secrets about people that she cares about. According to the It’s All Relative star, the Church of Scientology punishes outspoken defectors by leaking unflattering information about the escapees and members of their families. Because Leah dared to speak out against the organization, she assumed that the confessions above would eventually be leaked. So instead of giving the Church of Scientology the satisfaction of embarrassing her, Leah Remini decided to share the confessions herself.
“Well, I know the policy of the church when someone speaks out publicly against them,” Leah said. “I know how they deal with people like me. So they would take something out of context or in my confessions and out that out on the street.”
Perez Hilton speculates that Leah Remini’s confession about Angelo Pagan being a “serial cheater” has something to do with reports that Angelo was involved with someone else when he and Leah first met. However, if Leah was actually suggesting that Angelo has cheated on her, she has a good sense of humor about his philandering. Last December, Leah and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres pranked Ellen’s audience by making them think that Leah caught Angelo with another woman. As the Inquisitr previously reported, enough fans were fooled by the stunt that Leah Remini later had to reassure everyone that Angelo Pagan wasn’t really cheating on her.
Even though Leah included that less-than-flattering comment about Angelo’s carnal cravings in Troublemaker , the actor/restaurant owner had nothing but praise for his wife after she promoted her book by appearing on a 20/20 special.
“So proud of @leahremini!” Pagan tweeted last Friday. “Brave, bold and beautiful. I got your back baby!!”
According to Pagan, what Remini has to say about him in Troublemaker isn’t all bad.
My favorite part is when Leah talks about how much she loves me! ? https://t.co/qh4pRGihOc
— angelo pagan (@apangelo) November 3, 2015
Angelo Pagan also used to be a member of the Church of Scientology , but he followed Leah’s lead and left the organization in 2013. According to People , Leah had been a member of the Church since age 8, and her mother was still a Scientologist when she made the difficult decision to walk away over three decades later. Leah feared that her choice would result in the loss of a large chunk of her family, but Leah’s mother and her husband decided that Leah was far more important to them than Scientology.
“They simply put family ahead of the Church, which is oftentimes not the case with Scientology families,” Remini said. “I am lucky and blessed.”
Leah Remini revealed that she got a little help from a gorgeous “guardian angel” while she was making the difficult transition to life outside the Church, but this angel had no idea that she was having such a huge impact on Leah’s life.
“I had one figure I kept front and center in my mind to keep from going crazy: Nicole Kidman,” Leah writes in Troublemaker , according to Us Weekly . “That’s right, Tom Cruise’s ex was my guardian angel. Although I never met her or attempted to meet her, I thought about her a lot.”
Nicole Kidman was such an inspiration to Leah because she successfully started over after leaving Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology — walking away from the Church didn’t kill her career, and now she’s happily married to Keith Urban with two beautiful daughters.
“While I stared at the dark ceiling at night, unable to sleep, I would say to myself, ‘Remember Nicole Kidman,’” Leah Remini wrote.
Now that she’s had time to readjust to life without Scientology, Leah Remini seems pretty happy with her decision to make a big life change by leaving the Church — and she’ll likely feel even better about this decision if her book is a big success.
[Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for EJAF]