Leah Remini Praises HBO Scientology Documentary, Calls ‘Going Clear’ Brave
Leah Remini has heaped praise on HBO’s documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the investigative documentary which aired on Sunday evening and examined the controversial religion.
The 44-year-old actress has been very critical of Scientology ever since she exited the religion in 2013. And after viewing HBO’s documentary, the former King Of Queens star quickly took to Twitter to thank those responsible for the film.
Thank you to the brave who did something about it. And to those who didn’t have a voice, you do now. #GoingClear
— Leah Remini (@LeahRemini) March 30, 2015
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney directed Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, and the film, which aired on HBO on March 29, has been met with widespread praise.
The documentary presented a condensed history of the church and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, while also deconstructing the religion’s claims, and explaining how celebrities have interacted with the church. The film, which was based on Lawrence Wright’s book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, also included numerous stories from ex-members of the religion.
Writer and director Paul Haggis also starred in and criticised the religion in the documentary, while it was alleged that Nicole Kidman, the ex-wife of renowned Scientologist Tom Cruise, was labelled as a potential trouble source and her phone was even tapped by members.
Remini exited the church in July, 2013, explaining that she had issues with Scientology’s management. Then, in 2014, she went into greater detail about why she left, telling BuzzFeed that she’d realised “everything the Church taught me was a lie.”
Remini then added, “They say they’re loving, caring, non-judgemental people, but secretly, they were judging the world for not believing what they believed. To me, that is not a spiritual person.”
The 44-year-old explained that she’d found herself turning into the sort of person that she didn’t want to be. “That’s a judgemental person,” she continued. “And that is the person that I was. I was a hypocrite, and the worst thing you can be in this world is a hypocrite.”
Remini also registered her worries about her 9-year-old daughter Sofia, as, at the time, she was going to have to be taken into the church in the near future. She also added that she had spent too much time with the church and not with her daughter, declaring, “I was saying ‘family first,’ but I wasn’t showing that. I didn’t like the message that sent my daughter.”
However, despite her protests, Remini also insisted that she didn’t “want to be known as this bitter ex-Scientologist,” before she added, “I’m not trying to bash anybody, and I’m not trying to be controversial. I just want people to know the truth.”
Meanwhile, the church has not only denied Remini’s comments, but they’ve also launched an attack on Going Clear too, calling it a “bigoted piece” with “at least one major error every two minutes.”
[Image via Business Insider]
