Mike Rinder joins Megynkelly to talk about his new book, A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology, and what it s like growing up as a member of the Church of Scientology.
00:00:00.560Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:11.380Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:14.420Before we begin today's show, I want to start by sending our prayers to the people of Florida.
00:00:19.180As Hurricane Ian makes landfall today, this is a bad one.
00:00:22.420Right now the storm has maximum sustained winds near 155 miles per hour.
00:00:26.340If it hits 157, that means it's a Cat 5 hurricane. Good gracious.
00:00:32.700Florida Governor Ron DeSantis telling Floridians just a short time ago to prepare for major impact.
00:00:38.140And that if you have not left the so-called red zones, it's now too late.
00:00:42.500So we are thinking of our friends in Florida, especially one of our staff members, John, who's in Florida with his wife and children.
00:00:48.500Be safe. We're going to have updates throughout the show.
00:00:50.840If major breaking news happens, everybody should say a little prayer because that's, I mean, that is just devastating.
00:00:57.140In the meantime, we have an exclusive interview for you today as we celebrate a big anniversary here at The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:01:03.760It was exactly two years ago today when we launched The Megyn Kelly Show podcast.
00:01:09.720One of our first guests was Ben Shapiro, and he will be with us tomorrow for the full show.
00:01:14.580Over the past two years, we've grown from three days a week, a three-day-a-week podcast, to a daily podcast, YouTube show, live radio program, airing on SiriusXM Triumph Channel as well.
00:01:26.580Just last week, we launched a weekly newsletter.
00:01:30.480I don't really like calling it that, I have to say, because it's just like every newsletter I get is a pain in the ass that I don't want.
00:01:37.100And this is like a fun little update on the news with links to cool segments that you may have missed that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:01:43.720Well, I have a gal who's running this.
00:01:46.040Her name is Meg Storm, which is an amazing name.
00:02:23.940It is the secretive religion of choice among several well-known celebrities, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, among others.
00:02:31.720Now, a former high-ranking member of the church is shining a light on what it's like to grow up as a Scientologist and the dangers of leaving it behind.
00:02:40.540I've interviewed quite a few former Scientologists over the years, but none of them as high-ranking as Mike Rinder, and he was one of my favorite interviews ever when I hosted the Kelly File on Fox News.
00:02:53.400For decades, Mike was a member of the church's secretive Sea Org, which is comprised of the church's most dedicated members.
00:03:01.520If there's anyone the church does not want speaking, it's Mike.
00:03:04.560In his new book out today called A Billion Years, My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology, he details it all, including incredible stories about Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, and what happened the one time he tried to lure Michael Jackson into the church.
00:03:25.540The book is already making a ton of headlines, and this is Mike's very first interview about it.
00:03:34.560Mike Rinder, thanks so much for being here today.
00:03:37.480Oh, it's lovely to be back with you, Megan. Really lovely.
00:03:40.720Oh, I can't believe we're – so we're together in the SiriusXM studios in New York, and I guess this is a good thing for you on a couple of fronts because you got out of Florida.
00:03:50.060Yeah. Unfortunately, I had to leave my family behind, so that's not such a good thing, but I'm pretty sure they'll be okay.
00:03:57.160The path of the hurricane moved south, so that was a relief to me because I'm stuck in New York, and they're left home, and I feel a little guilty about that, frankly.
00:04:08.360That's scary. When you live in Florida for a while, though, you know how to board up your home. You know how to read the signs.
00:04:13.220Like, all Floridians, they're the experts when it comes to dealing with hurricanes.
00:04:32.300So anyway, it's great to see you again, and I meant that sincerely.
00:04:35.320That time you came on Fox when Going Clear aired was one of my favorite exchanges because it was so eye-opening because unlike a lot of these people who come out and talk about organizations they've left,
00:04:46.860you really were at the top, top echelons of Scientology, and it was extraordinary.
00:04:52.000It was extraordinary to hear you talk. We only had seven minutes and seven minutes last time.
00:04:56.940Now we've got extended time, so I'm really looking forward to our talk.
00:05:07.580Okay, but we've got coffee, we've got Abby, so we should be fine.
00:05:11.120So let's start with how you first got into it because I didn't even realize you could kind of be born into it or be accepted into it when you're just in the single digits.
00:05:20.360Yeah, well, my parents originally got involved in Scientology in Australia in the late 50s.
00:05:28.560You know, Hubbard had actually been to Australia and was doing lectures there, and it turned out our next-door neighbor had gone to one of his lectures and then came home and told my parents about this wonderful new thing, and they started getting involved.
00:05:42.740And so by the age of six, I was beginning to be raised in what you would call a Scientology family, in that the system or the belief system that the family was raised in was based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard.
00:06:03.800And you, as a Scientologist, quickly learned that L. Ron Hubbard is sort of the gospel.
00:06:11.960What L. Ron Hubbard says about things is how you are supposed to deal with them or address them or – in fact, you know, one of the phrases that gets used often in Scientology is,
00:06:26.960do what Ron says, do what Ron says, and that was something I heard a lot when I was a kid, you know, what would Ron do, do what Ron says, hear it like – because Hubbard was exceedingly prolific.
00:06:40.420He wrote about and lectured about every topic that you could possibly imagine, and therefore, in the minds of Scientologists, he has the answers to everything that you could possibly imagine or any circumstance that might come up.
00:06:56.940Because the words of Hubbard are not to be questioned, they are not to be wondered about, they are just to be read, understood, and then do whatever it is that he says.
00:07:13.240And that was the life that I grew up in.
00:07:18.840It's the life of any Scientology child who is raised by Scientology parents.
00:07:26.220And it's the – it's sort of the defining – the defining element of your life is to learn and understand and apply what L. Ron Hubbard says about how you're supposed to live.
00:07:45.040Well, you can see that just even as an outsider when you see some of those leaked Scientology videos where there's the one famous one where Tom Cruise is up there on the front – on the stage, and it's to L.R.H.
00:07:55.740And it almost looks like a Hitler-esque – not to compare it to Hitler, but, you know, they sort of do the arm up – to L.R.H.
00:08:01.180My husband and I joke about this sometimes when we were at this one club where they really revere the guy who started it, and there's statues of him everywhere and there are pictures of him everywhere, and I'm like, this has got the L.R.H. Scientology feel to it.
00:08:13.720But he was like a – and remains like a godlike figure within Scientology.
00:08:18.940Although, you know, he went to great pains to say, oh, I'm just a man, and I'm not a god, and you shouldn't just accept everything that I say.
00:08:30.300But those are really the PR statements to make it sort of more palatable to the world that this isn't a guy who believes he's, you know, god.
00:08:45.000But when you are a dedicated Scientologist, you get to see the sort of innermost thoughts and writings of Hubbard where he basically says, I am the only one.
00:09:00.880I am the only one who has solved the problems of mankind.
00:09:10.260That is like him saying, I have solved the problems of mankind, and every person on this planet and every person in this universe, I have discovered, and I am the first person in all the eons of history to have discovered,
00:09:26.480the answers to how to attain spiritual enlightenment and freedom and happiness and everything that you can possibly imagine.
00:09:37.240So, while there are these sort of protestations that he's not a god, he is.
00:09:46.300Yeah, and not only that, but you have a whole family and friend and societal structure around you reinforcing that.
00:09:51.860So, of course, you grow up believing it and revering him.
00:09:54.940All right, so that happens from an early age.
00:09:57.240And the thing about Scientology, and I realize, like, your book and your experience with Scientology does not reflect well in Scientology.
00:10:05.160But the thing about Scientology that, even as a critic of it, I've always appreciated, is there's an element of it that's very self-empowering.
00:10:13.800You know, it's all about, like, you do it, you changed it, even negative things that happen to you.
00:10:33.460Megan, if everything in Scientology was bad, nobody would be a part of it.
00:10:38.840If there wasn't something that was attractive about it and elements of it that are attractive or even usable or workable, then it wouldn't exist.
00:10:52.700And just as you say, part of what is so, so enticing about Scientology is it convinces you that you can change things both for yourself and in the world and for your friends and family and other people.
00:11:13.000And, you know, I often say, look, there's some really rotten, creepy people at the top of Scientology, but the run-of-the-mill Scientologists are generally very nice, very good people who are involved in Scientology because they believe it can help them.
00:11:33.060But even probably even more motivating to many of them is they think that they can help other people with it.
00:11:40.640And that is something that is preached in Scientology, that, you know, you're able to help the world and they believe that they are.
00:11:51.960Well, the other piece of it that I like, before we get to the pieces we don't, is when somebody is a negative force in your life, they're gone.
00:12:01.620Like, it's hardcore and it's drastically hardcore, but there's something appealing about that.
00:12:07.180You know, in a day and age where we talk about toxic personalities and so on, we can be a little too forgiving and it can take some of us a little too long to say, you know what, bye.
00:12:25.860And probably the worst thing about that is, you know, that practice is called disconnection in Scientology.
00:12:34.220And when you have an individual that has a toxic personality in their life, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them distancing themselves from that toxic personality.
00:12:46.240That's a, you know, I promote this book that I read when I left by a professor at Harvard called Martha Stout called The Sociopath Next Door.
00:13:15.680It is used as a way of keeping people from influencing someone in Scientology in any way that Scientology believes is negative.
00:13:26.740So, for example, if I was – you had a Scientologist working in the office next door to you, and that Scientologist was, you know, a very, very devout Scientologist, and you went in and started saying, well, look, you should be doing that.
00:13:49.600The Scientology organization would then insist that that person cut all contact with you.
00:13:57.020They would force that disconnection to occur.
00:14:00.340They would insist that that person did and acted in a way as if you, you know, as if you were somehow damaging them strictly because you said, hey, you should probably look at this.
00:14:18.340You know, are you aware of what's really going on here?
00:14:20.900And in that way, they try to keep the bad news about Scientology away from their members.
00:14:31.080That's why you're not allowed to surf the internet about Scientology.
00:14:35.620Scientologists surfing the internet is like – people think, oh, well, how it works is that Scientologists are not allowed to watch TV or they're not allowed to look at the internet or whatever.
00:14:50.500That's true for Sea Organization members, the people in the, you know, the inner sanctum.
00:14:55.740Generally, Scientologists out in the world are able to go on the internet or watch TV or whatever.
00:15:02.020But the minute they see the word Scientology or Xenu or some term that is a Scientologically related term and they believe that what may be said may be negative, they will switch it off.
00:15:22.380I mean, John Travolta is being quoted quite often when he has been asked about, well, what do you say about the negative media?
00:15:29.480What do you – did you ever watch – why would I listen to someone who has negative things to say about something that has been positive in my life?
00:15:40.620And that is exactly what Scientologists do.
00:15:43.780If they see something that has my name on it, they know everything in it is a lie.
00:15:49.060But it's so crazy because in the John Travolta example, I get that.
00:15:53.620Like if you expand that to, let's say, a person, you know, my husband's Doug Brunt.
00:15:57.460If somebody's like, why don't you read the negative articles about Doug Brunt, which thankfully there are none, I'd say, why would I want to see that?
00:16:04.440I don't need to read what's – and I certainly don't want to read anything negative about him.
00:16:07.540But it's different when you're John Travolta and you're a part of a so-called church that's actually alleged to be hurting people, abusing people.
00:17:13.840And your parents felt the lure because I read in your book they were attracted by the promise of eradicating unwanted emotions and insecurities, having better relationships, raising successful children, and saving the world.
00:17:25.920Eradicating unwanted emotions and insecurities.
00:17:28.780I feel like this is a piece of it where you learn to control your emotions.
00:17:34.060You're not just this emotional blubbering blob.
00:18:10.060Those training routines basically drill into you that you should not react to anything and that you should not be effect of some outside influence.
00:18:29.260That you must keep your emotions and reactions in check, and it doesn't matter what anybody does or says to you.
00:19:00.120But that then is a recipe for catastrophe, ultimately.
00:19:07.360Because, you know, I write about it in my book from my perspective about what happened with deaths that happened in my family.
00:19:19.040And how I was not supposed to react and did not react.
00:19:23.980And I look back on those things and I go, how is it possible to be so indoctrinated that you have an infant child that dies and you don't have any real reaction?
00:19:41.440Or your father dies in an automobile accident where your mother was driving and it's like, oh, I got to get back to work.
00:20:08.800So you were told your baby dropped her body.
00:20:11.680And the first thing that you wanted to do or that they wanted to do for you was get you into an auditing room or with an auditor, which is, it's not a therapist.
00:21:33.340And that is one of the great tricks of Hubbard was to come up with this e-meter device that allows people to create memories and have them reinforced by someone saying,
00:21:53.860Well, that read on the e-meter, so it must be true.
00:21:58.420It's a sort of an oval-shaped thing with a dial on it and a couple, you know, a needle on a dial and a couple of little switchy things that you adjust.
00:22:09.340And you, the auditor sits on one side and looks at it, or the counselor, and you sit on the other side, unable to see what is on that meter.
00:22:20.280And you hold two tin can electrodes that are connected to the meter that pass a tiny current through your body.
00:22:28.500And that is the theory that that current and the disturbing of that current that is passing through your body is what the e-meter measures.
00:23:34.440And you are believed to have lived for many lifetimes before and will go on to many lifetimes in the future.
00:23:42.160And that, this belief of past lives, came about and concurrent with the development of the e-meter.
00:23:53.860Because there is a concept that Hubbard had in his fundamental book, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, that you have these incidents that occur that cause you to have negative emotions, reactions, pains, upsets, whatever.
00:24:10.880And that by addressing those incidents with a sort of regression theory of going back to the beginning and the earliest time that you had such a feeling or an incident, that you will be able to relieve that.
00:24:27.060I've heard you and Leah talk about this.
00:24:28.740Like, okay, I guess I may have been a man at once.
00:24:31.900I like you kind of start to fill in the blanks because they're waiting for you to say something.
00:24:35.440But, Megan, on the other side of you saying that is the auditor saying, yes, that reads.
00:25:41.900You know, at the time, I would have said yes.
00:25:44.720At the time, I would have said, isn't it miraculous that a Scientologist can overcome something like that so quickly and not be grief-stricken and incapacitated?
00:26:01.960But I'm not so sure that being grief-stricken and incapacitated isn't appropriate.
00:26:29.520And I do want to talk about, I did not know until your book about what happens when you have a baby and you're a Scientologist, what happens.
00:26:40.020And Mike lays that all bare, and that's where I'm going to pick it up after this quick, quick break.
00:26:43.880But first, we're going to bring you a memorable moment from our first two years of The Megyn Kelly Show, as we have been doing all week.
00:26:50.040For this one, we're going way back into our archives and probably, well, the first tense moment on the show.
00:26:56.620It's from episode, little bitty episode nine, just nine, back in October 2020.
00:27:02.420We had just launched from my interview with Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank co-host Mark Cuban about the NBA and China.
00:27:11.440Listen, why would the NBA take $500 million plus from a country that is engaging in ethnic cleansing?
00:27:20.320Why would, so basically you're saying that nobody should do business with China ever.
00:27:25.900Why don't you just answer my question?
00:27:27.480No, Megan, I'm just trying to get to the root of it.
00:27:30.600So you're just trying to put, you're the one, you are the one who said.
00:27:33.720Because they are a customer, they are a customer of ours.
00:27:36.480And guess what, Megan, I'm okay with doing business with China.
00:27:38.980You know, I wish I could solve all the world's problems, Megan.
00:28:07.020It has to be an escape to get out of this alleged religion, which is one of the many things that makes it different from the normal religion.
00:28:17.540Many people say it's a cult and it's not a religion.
00:28:23.300First of all, you got married to your first wife, Kathy.
00:28:26.880And what does this mean that you were told you were either going to get married or be assigned to something called the Rehabilitation Project Force?
00:28:33.840The Rehabilitation Project Force is a punishment program for C organization members.
00:28:41.220And I haven't really defined what a C organization member is.
00:28:44.840Megan and I should probably do that for those who don't know.
00:28:48.160And it is why the title of the book is A Billion Years, because a C organization member signs a contract for a billion years, committing oneself to a billion years of service to the Scientology cause and the aims of Scientology.
00:29:06.460And C organization members live communally and are like the inner circle of Scientology, 24-7, 365 days a year devoted to working for Scientology.
00:29:23.660And as a CIOG member, you are expected to not engage in any promiscuous activity before marriage.
00:31:10.380They got turned over to what was called the nursery.
00:31:13.140And the nursery was a few motel rooms in the back of an old motel in Clearwater that had been converted into a sort of a daycare center.
00:31:28.120But a daycare center for infants, not for toddlers, for infants.
00:31:33.860And there were some women who were there who were Sea Org members who had absolutely no training whatsoever, and they were expected to look after those babies from when they were dropped off by their parents at, you know, 8.30 in the morning until they got picked up at 11.30 at night.
00:31:54.380And that was, you know, just the way it was.
00:32:02.800Children were raised by the – they called them nannies – the nannies in the nursery.
00:32:09.820And then, you know, when they grew old enough, they started being indoctrinated into Scientology and went to sort of makeshift school and kindergarten where they learned Scientology.
00:32:27.280And they had very little interaction with their parents.
00:32:31.680Was that – I mean, I know in your book you write about how you were so determined.
00:32:35.440Like, when you sign up for Sea Org, it's very clear that's first.
00:32:44.000But I'm like, what kind of a mother would be okay with –
00:32:46.540Every mother in the Sea Org was okay with that.
00:32:48.880Otherwise, you were not in the Sea Org.
00:32:50.620Look, it's very difficult if you have not been involved in something like this to understand how fundamentalist you can become in the way you view the world and how your priorities are set and what is important to you.
00:33:14.060And things that you take for granted – and I take for granted today, as someone who's not in the Sea Org anymore, the moments that you spend with your children or your family or your friends, they take no part in the life of a Sea Org member.
00:33:36.320You're not going on vacation to Disney.
00:33:58.240But then again, you know, I can't make sense out of someone who straps a bomb on themselves and goes and blows up a bus in Tel Aviv or flies a plane into the World Trade Center.
00:34:10.920And I am not saying that Scientologists have that sort of level of violence, not in any way, shape, or form.
00:34:18.140That is not the Scientology view of things.
00:34:22.200But the mindset that you can convince someone that doing something that is self-destructive in many ways, believing that it is self-salvation, is pretty amazing.
00:34:42.420You can get people to do a lot of crazy stuff if you can get them to believe that the result of doing the crazy stuff is going to be something good.
00:34:53.580You came by your affinity, honestly, because your parents introduced you to it.
00:34:57.200But one thing we skipped over was you actually knew L. Ron Hubbard.
00:35:14.140So when you think about your own experience in the church, like, do you have fond memories of him?
00:35:18.800I know we talked about his writings and all that, but do you think he was a genius?
00:35:22.680Do you think he—I mean, how do you remember him?
00:35:25.340I remember him and realize, Megan, that my answer today would be different than it was five years ago, which was very different than it was 10 years ago or whatever.
00:35:38.080I remember him as being someone who was a masterful storyteller.
00:35:45.400I mean, he was an incredibly engaging personality.
00:35:49.720He was not a—he was a larger-than-life figure.
00:35:55.180He wasn't a field mouse or a quiet—like, he's not a Keith Raniere type.
00:36:15.440And, you know, I came to realize that his storytelling, which is what he did for his entire life before he started Dianetics and Scientology, was really what he used to create Dianetics and Scientology.
00:36:33.940And to popularize it and to convince people to follow him because his storytelling was really pretty cool.
00:36:45.740And, you know, I sat with him, like, as he's ready to go to bed, and he's telling stories about what, like, the most outrageous things that seem so true and so believable.
00:37:01.240You know, I was racing cars at 375 miles an hour on this planet, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:37:09.140And this is what happened, and, you know, and so I developed this from that, and, like—and at the time, I was mesmerized by those things.
00:37:21.500And if Hubbard said that that's what happened, well, that's what happened.
00:37:27.920And he would then translate those bizarre things into—so that is why when you are driving in a car, you feel—sometimes you feel nauseous because it is these earlier things that happened to you that are now being restimulated by current events,
00:37:49.500and they are causing a physical reaction for you, and you go, wow, someone is actually explaining to me why I get car sick.
00:37:58.920Well, and especially if you've been raised in the Church of Scientology, you're prone, you're primed to believe everything he says.
00:38:06.500That's why I know you begin the book with a letter to your children saying—I'll just quote from me—you say,
00:38:13.640let me start with this, I'm truly sorry for placing you in a world where your future was preordained.
00:38:18.800It's difficult and painful to contemplate that I brought you into a life where from your earliest years you were denied any meaningful free will.
00:38:26.860If I had known then what I know now, I would never have let that happen.
00:38:31.120And so you're saying everything you're going to believe and everything you're going to do from your marriage to your job to the way you think about the world is preordained by this so-called church.
00:38:43.640Absolutely, 100 percent, and particularly for children raised in Scientology, and then even more particularly for children raised in the Sea Organization.
00:38:53.800I mean, they were destined to be good Sea Organization members and good, dedicated Scientologists, and they remain that to this day.
00:39:09.260Why is the celebrity quotient so high?
00:39:11.920Like, Leah, she was raised in Scientology.
00:40:25.480But the appeal that Scientology offers to celebrities, and let me just preface this, Megan, by saying there hasn't been any new big celebrities who have joined Scientology in the last 10 years.
00:40:54.420And she is a born-and-raised Scientologist.
00:40:59.760Other than that, there hasn't been anybody.
00:41:02.500But the appeal that Scientology pushes to celebrities is we can help you communicate well to other people, and we can help you control and express your emotions.
00:41:19.660And for artists, that's what their business is.
00:41:39.360And that is why, you know, and I cover it in the book, there is a lot of time and attention and money and effort put into keeping Tom Cruise happy.
00:41:51.260And, you know, David Miscavige believes that Tom Cruise is the greatest asset that Scientology has.
00:42:25.900I don't think that he will ever be as vocally shilling for Scientology as he was, you know, some years ago.
00:42:36.440You know, he seems to have restrained, I guess, the studios probably finally convinced him that it wasn't good for his box office to be pushing Scientology.
00:42:49.020You know, I talk in the book about there was an effort to get rid of Pat Kingsley, his publicist, because back in the day when I was still around, Pat Kingsley was telling Tom,
00:43:01.040look, the studios aren't paying you to go out there and promote Scientology on your press junkets.
00:43:07.380They're paying you to go promote the book, the movie, so stop it.
00:43:12.380And that caused some friction, and David Miscavige was determined that Pat Kingsley needs to be disconnected from, because just like the example I was giving you earlier,
00:43:25.720she was a negative influence on Tom speaking out and promoting Scientology.
00:43:34.200How do you, so he just got in Tom's ear and just said, she's terrible, she's terrible, she's terrible, and before you knew it, Tom fired her?
00:43:39.800How do you, how do you, if you're David Miscavige, how do you make that happen?
00:43:43.240Probably, I, you know, I wasn't there for those conversations, Megan, but I would assume that in the mindset that Tom had at that time,
00:43:53.540that he probably came to David Miscavige and said, Pat's telling me that I can't do this, and Pat's telling me that I can't do that.
00:44:03.020Next thing you know, Tom's auditor is reading an emotion that's right below the surface that says, you hate Pat, Pat's bad, and suddenly, you know, Pat's gone, and tell us who she was replaced by.
00:44:31.780And I know you also write, Tom's sisters are way more afraid of Miscavige than they are of Tom Cruise, and they will definitely do what Miscavige tells them before they will, what Tom tells them.
00:44:43.980Well, anybody in Scientology is that way.
00:44:46.100David Miscavige has become the quasi L. Ron Hubbard and has spent a lot of time getting to that position, but these days, the words and looks and scorn and approval of David Miscavige is the most important thing to any Scientologist.
00:45:11.000And so if Miscavige clicks his, snaps his fingers and says, I want X, then the Scientologist will go, you get X.
00:45:21.360Even if you're Tom Cruise's sister, supposed to be advising him on what's best for him, that doesn't trump it, that doesn't trump your adherences to the church, your loyalty is.
00:45:33.640But Megan, you said it earlier, it's always Scientology first and everything comes second, whether that be family, whether that be your personal well-being, no matter what it is, it's always Scientology first.
00:45:50.040And, you know, there was a lot of doctrine in Scientology that, like, lays out how this logically works.
00:46:02.500And, you know, I think I explained it somewhere.
00:46:06.400There's this concept called the eight dynamics in Scientology, the urges towards survival.
00:46:13.680And those eight dynamics, you make decisions based on what is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.
00:46:23.440But one of those dynamics is Scientology.
00:46:27.680So these circumstances around these principles would actually play into Tom Cruise's divorce from Mimi Rogers, his divorce from Nicole Kidman, and his divorce from Katie Holmes, writes Mike in the book.
00:46:40.480We'll get into all that a little bit later.
00:46:41.760But up next, we're going to talk about what happened to Mike.
00:46:44.360Why did he leave the church and what was done to him once he did?
00:46:48.600This is the wackiest part of this whole story.
00:46:51.540And don't forget, folks, that Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph channel every day, weekday at noon east, channel 111.
00:46:59.860Full video show when you subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly and the audio podcast anyplace you can get your podcast for free.
00:47:07.200Scientology wrote you a little love letter, Mike.
00:47:28.580So here's what they say for the record.
00:47:31.140Mike Rinder is not just a liar, but an inveterate liar, an inveterate liar who seeks to profit from his dishonesty.
00:47:37.640He's admitted under oath to lying and wrote of how he lies about lying.
00:47:41.360His self-aggrandizing memoir, in quotes, is little more than a compendium of discredited claims, gross exaggerations and provable lies.
00:47:49.360There was no due diligence of the book and it was not fact checked by Simon & Schuster or anyone else.
00:47:53.320For 15 years, Rinder has distorted and manipulated his truth for anyone willing to pay him.
00:47:57.060His version of events has repeatedly been rejected by the courts, with one court recently finding Rinder's testimony, quote,
00:48:02.480is filled with unsupported assumptions, foundational deficiencies, irrelevant matters and proper opinions and arguments, end quote.
00:48:08.500And then finally, the book excludes Rinder's admitted gross malfeasance and dishonesty in the church that caused him to be stripped of authority and ultimately expelled.
00:48:16.840He excludes his cold, callous treatment of his family, particularly his children, including discarding them with no notice after more than 30 years.
00:48:27.320Okay, so that's what they think of you.
00:48:29.840I don't think you're getting back together.
00:48:39.040I don't think they've even read the book.
00:48:40.440I mean, when they go to pains to say his cold, callous treatment, and, you know, he ignores his cold, callous treatment of his family, that's what the book is about.
00:48:50.740Well, not only that, you would, according to your book, you would love to be in touch with your family.
00:48:57.420They disassociated from you when you left the church.
00:49:49.240But I would not in any way, shape, or form say that I was a good parent in the Sea Org.
00:49:56.660And I don't believe any Sea Org member can possibly be a good parent.
00:50:02.020And in fact, Scientology no longer allows Sea Org members to have children.
00:50:07.420Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about because this is something I hadn't heard of.
00:50:10.440That for a time there, you say they were forcing abortions on female members of Sea Org?
00:50:16.000Yes, because it was decided that children were a distraction and that they, you know, the cost-benefit analysis of children in the Sea Org was not good.
00:50:33.260Why not just send them to the so-called nursery?
00:50:36.280Well, because you have to pay for people to look after them in the nursery.
00:50:39.260I mean, it, it, and, you know, parents would get distracted because there would be a problem with their child and then it would take them off their job to go deal with their child.
00:50:49.500And that is not acceptable in the Sea Org.
00:50:53.560So, for some period of time after the law was implemented that no more children in the Sea Org were allowed to be born in the Sea Org, if a woman got pregnant, they were coerced into having an abortion, Sea Org members.
00:51:12.760And, you know, there were a very, very few that were able to withstand the peer pressure and the stress that they were put under and left the Sea Org because they had their child instead.
00:51:30.100But the vast majority of women buckled under and agreed that it was the greatest good to abort their child.
00:51:43.200And there are many, many, many personal accounts of this that, you know, some of which we had on the Aftermath show, others who have spoken out in the press in the Tampa Bay Times.
00:51:56.920They did a whole series about it with a number of women.
00:52:00.720And it was a practice that was considered to be acceptable in the Sea Org.
00:52:09.840And, you know, they even found a Hubbard explanation that justified it, where he says that the Thetan, the spirit, adopts and assumes a position in the body and, you know, takes on the body just before birth.
00:53:09.020But David Miscavige doesn't like anybody.
00:53:11.860I'm not I'm not unique in the mistreatment or abuse that he meted out to me.
00:53:21.700Where I am unique is that I had a different position than the vast majority of people who he saw as and the worst abuses to the people he thought may be the threats to his power and his position.
00:53:38.660But I because I was a spokesperson for Scientology.
00:53:43.260I had to kind of, you know, he didn't have anybody else to go to.
00:53:51.300He had done an interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline, the only interview that he ever did for TV.
00:53:57.400And he did not want to be doing media.
00:54:03.920And so when the Today Show calls up and says, we're doing a piece on new religions and, you know, you were either going to be involved or we're going to get one of these Scientology haters on.
00:54:15.760It's like, okay, get on a plane and go to New York and and be interviewed.
00:54:20.980And he didn't have anybody else to do it.
00:54:24.120So I was on this roller coaster constantly of I'm in the shits and I'm, you know, getting, you know, sleeping on the floor or in a tent somewhere and being fed pig slop and then called out and sent off to appear on national TV or go testify in a legal case or, you know.
00:54:54.000You would never it was, of course, understood.
00:54:56.760You would never while on TV be like, I've been placed in something called the hole.
00:55:09.340And all the way to the bitter end, I didn't do that, even though the bitter end was ultimately an interview or a door stopping really by John Sweeney of the BBC.
00:55:22.540In the in the Scientology organization in London.
00:55:25.780And even then, even though I was sort of on the brink of escaping, I didn't say publicly what I felt internally.
00:55:37.460And what was the final straw just because we've talked about, I mean, in the past we've talked about the hole, which is kind of like his jail, where you say that they would put you if you had, you know, some transgression.
00:55:49.700Just you could make it up against Scientology where you'd be in there with all these other people and not enough, you know, plumbing available and not not enough food, just rice and beans like this is crazy.
00:56:01.080Right. Like this is crazy talk to those of us on the outside.
00:56:10.420And, you know, I think that Lawrence Wright, when he titled his book, Going Clear Scientology in the Prison of Belief, was so prescient that the prison is a mind prison.
00:56:24.420And you don't need walls and barbed wire to keep people in a mind prison, although there was some walls and not quite barbed wire, but security guards and and and sort of defenses against the momentary whim of someone trying to jump out a window and run away.
00:56:49.560By the way, they actually like nailed the window so that they wouldn't open more than two inches.
00:56:56.240Screwed them so that they were just two inches and the doors were barred.
00:56:59.720So there was no way out of that building.
00:57:46.860And long story short, John Travolta was holding a premiere of the Wild Hogs movie in Leicester Square.
00:57:56.240And Miscavige was afraid that John Sweeney was going to go and get an interview with John Travolta unwittingly as a part of his press junket for the movie.
00:58:09.680And so I got stuck on a plane out of the hole to fly to London to go see John at the Four Seasons, the Canary Wharf Four Seasons where they were doing the press junket.
00:58:23.500And sort of walked in and interrupted and went in and I said, John, there is this guy here, blah, blah, blah.
00:58:30.420And you don't want to talk to him and make sure that you don't get to.
00:58:34.860During the course of that, I was then in the Scientology organization in London.
00:58:40.800And Sweeney showed up there and with a camera crew on the doorstep and was saying, how do you respond to the allegations that David Miscavige beats people?
00:58:52.660And I said, I deny that we deny they're denied their lies, their blah, blah, blah.
00:58:56.780Well, I have three people who said they personally witnessed you being physically assaulted by David Miscavige or whatever the words were exactly.
00:59:05.780And I said, that's an absolute lie and we will sue you.
00:59:10.520And he eventually sort of gave up and left.
00:59:15.140And the show then aired fairly soon thereafter.
00:59:19.280And I was still in London and Miscavige couldn't watch it because the BBC you can't watch in the US.
00:59:26.260You know, this was before anybody was sophisticated enough to have a VPN or whatever.
00:59:30.580So I had to watch it and then be on the phone with Miscavige saying this is what.
00:59:36.280And throughout the show, though it was a devastating expose on Scientology, he didn't mention that David Miscavige had physically assaulted anyone.
00:59:47.880And I'm thinking, wow, that's a win for you.
01:00:07.160He, like, avoided John Sweeney like the plague.
01:00:10.200But subsequently, shortly thereafter, Miscavige, and I was thinking when I'm giving this interview, quote unquote, interview to John Sweeney, what the hell am I doing?
01:00:24.520Like, I'm here now protecting this guy who's physically assaulting me.
01:00:30.140And this isn't really why I joined Scientology.
01:00:34.140So just, I mean, for the record, it was true that he had physically assaulted you.
01:01:50.780But I realized, okay, this is the end.
01:01:56.240There is nothing worse than the life I am living, and I am no longer accomplishing what I thought I was joining the sea organization for, so I got to get out of here.
01:02:07.760When I read your goodbye note, I couldn't believe the notes in it, like the tone.
01:02:17.000You were definitely beating yourself up.
01:03:46.720David Miscavige could not have stopped that piece from airing, nor could you.
01:03:51.680And so it can really F you up, taken to its extreme, that kind of belief that's drilled into you, and I can hear it.
01:04:00.240This is a different-sounding man than the one sitting across from me today.
01:04:03.600Yes, and I'm sort of glad that you read that, Megan, though I feel emotional when you read it.
01:04:11.900Like, it still has impact on me that somehow I failed.
01:04:19.700Somehow I failed to stick it out or failed to accomplish what I had set out to accomplish.
01:04:31.660And it is very, very true that one of the absolutely most corrosive concepts in Scientology is that you are responsible for your own condition.
01:04:47.840That no matter what happens to you, no matter how bad things are, that it is you that caused it to be that way.
01:04:56.900What would they say about, you know, a child who's the victim of a molester?
01:05:00.000They would say that that child had probably molested someone in a previous life.
01:05:08.240It is an unshakable, unchangeable law in Scientology that for something bad to happen to you, you must have done something similar that was bad to someone else in the past.
01:05:28.880And this is such a device, such a device to control people.
01:05:37.520If you just think about it, this works every direction except toward Scientology or David Miscavige.
01:07:08.860Yeah, that, that car was meeting up with the garbage truck.
01:07:12.000The garbage truck had picked up my garbage and driven around the corner and then stopped to make a rendezvous with Mr. Ponytail,
01:07:19.580who was a private investigator who had actually set up and worked out of an office across the street from another place where they had set up a PI watching station to watch me at the work I was doing at the time.
01:07:38.120So Mr. Ponytail paid the man, the garbage worker who's leaning on the garbage truck, a certain amount of dollars for the garbage worker to take your garbage and give it to Ponytail?
01:09:57.840Well, at both houses that we lived in, they went around to the neighbors and they said, oh, we're conducting an investigation into this guy that moved into your neighborhood and he is engaged in mortgage fraud.
01:10:28.200Did you then go around to all your neighbors and say, I just want to tell you, I left the Church of Scientology and it comes with some baggage?
01:11:01.660They rented a house that was just like three houses away that had an eye line to the front of our house.
01:11:08.180And they installed cameras under the eaves and put a woman in there who had a child that was the same age or similar age to the Christy's son at the time, Shane.
01:11:21.800Your second wife's son from another marriage.
01:11:24.420And we would go out and walk the dog and with Shane and we would walk past the house and she started sort of appearing and, oh, hi.
01:11:37.360And, you know, I've got a kid too and maybe our kids could play together.
01:11:41.800And, you know, it was sort of like not abnormal and had been very carefully set up that way.
01:11:52.660But what happened was we moved and she had given us this whole stob story about how she'd had a car accident and she, you know, her uncle was paying the rent for the house and it was a house that he owned and he lived in New York.
01:12:06.940And she was like this whole elaborate story.
01:12:10.600And then we moved right before Jack was born.
01:12:29.300So Christy sends her, being very direct, she sends her a text and says, Heather, I know what you're up to and you shouldn't be working for those people.
01:15:35.280We're going to come back with more on John Travolta and Tom Cruise in particular.
01:15:39.220But there's a bunch of celebrities that have been caught up in this I want to ask Mike about.
01:15:43.040And speaking of celebrities, as we celebrate our first two years of the show, here's Sharon Osborne from my exclusive interview with her after she was pushed out of the talk from episode 179 in October of last year.
01:17:16.620But if you're a comedian, you're a digital creator, you're a podcaster, you're an independent person, you have a voice, a perspective, you're funny.
01:17:24.260You need to just build your own fan base outside of that system because that system is collapsing.
01:25:07.640Wait, speaking of which, let's, because that clip of Tom Cruise with Matt Lauer talking about putting children on medicine like Ritalin came up in the context of them discussing Brooke Shields and her postpartum depression.
01:25:20.700And she said openly that she had resorted to using some meds that very much helped her.
01:25:24.880And he was very critical of Brooke Shields doing that and of meds in general, psychiatric medications.
01:25:34.160Here we are today where I talk out against drugs and psychiatric abuses of electric shocking people, okay, against their will, of drugging children with them not knowing the effects of these drugs.
01:27:59.020I just got to tell you something, Megan, because it's such a funny story.
01:28:02.420You know that he tried to make up after that with Brooke and did.
01:28:06.900Didn't he take – he invited her to his wedding?
01:28:08.900He brought Brooke to his wedding with her husband.
01:28:12.640And the person who was the, quote, minister was Norman Starkey, who was, you know, sort of an infamous Scientology Sea Org member who had been in the hole.
01:29:26.380Look, I was actually in the hole when this was going down.
01:29:30.480I was there for the start of the Tom Cruise interview for a girlfriend saga, which was happening – which happened in Madrid, of all places.
01:29:41.140I was in Madrid for the opening of the new church there.
01:29:44.080And this new church had been built and, you know, new Scientology building and blah, blah, blah.
01:29:48.220And it had started when Tom was going out with Penelope and, you know, and trying to get Penelope's sister involved in Scientology and her family and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:29:59.720By the time the actual Scientology building was ready to be opened and Tom Cruise flew there to speak at that, he had broken up – or Penelope had broken up with him.
01:30:48.300Very shortly thereafter, I was in the hall.
01:30:51.860And I never really saw what happened subsequently.
01:30:58.220But I do know that one of the people who was selected – and again, this comes from – Maureen Orth did an amazing story in Vanity Fair about the relationship of Tom and Katie.
01:31:17.700And talked about how Nazanin Boniade had been selected to be his girlfriend and the process that was gone through.
01:31:45.540Note to self, if asked to audition for the role of girlfriend and to sign an NDA prior to meeting the would-be bachelor, run, run in the opposite direction.
01:31:55.960Now, I want to tell the audience two things.
01:31:58.460There's more on John Travolta, which is fascinating.
01:32:00.500And there's a great story about Michael Jackson being toured through the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition with Lisa Marie.
01:32:06.760And to hear those stories, you've got to buy Mike's book.
01:32:09.280You've got to – and those are worth it alone.
01:32:12.760But in the time we have left, you've got to give us the 30,000-foot picture because these are salacious stories and they're very interesting.
01:32:19.140And, of course, I should reiterate, Scientology denies all of this.
01:32:44.560And when belief leads to action that is hurting people, then that's what I object to.
01:32:51.300And what makes Scientology different is – in some ways it's not really that different, but what makes it different is, as we talked about earlier, your tax – your tax taxes are being used to subsidize the activities of Scientology.
01:33:13.580And while you could say your tax dollars are being used to subsidize the activities of the Catholic Church or the Presbyterians or the Baptists or whoever, and everybody's got problems, nobody has institutionalized abuse and formalized the policies of the organization to attack, destroy, and abuse people like Scientology.
01:33:41.300Especially those who leave the Church.
01:33:43.500You can leave the Catholic Church or any of these other religions anytime you want.
01:33:48.400I said one time, and a lot of people have quoted me since, saying, the real way to tell the difference between a religion and a cult is what happens to you after you leave.