The Megyn Kelly Show - Escaping Scientology, Tom Cruise's Impact, and a Prison of Belief, with Mike Rinder ｜ EP. 400

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.380 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.420 Before we begin today's show, I want to start by sending our prayers to the people of Florida.

00:00:19.180 As Hurricane Ian makes landfall today, this is a bad one.

00:00:22.420 Right now the storm has maximum sustained winds near 155 miles per hour.

00:00:26.340 If it hits 157, that means it's a Cat 5 hurricane. Good gracious.

00:00:32.700 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis telling Floridians just a short time ago to prepare for major impact.

00:00:38.140 And that if you have not left the so-called red zones, it's now too late.

00:00:42.500 So we are thinking of our friends in Florida, especially one of our staff members, John, who's in Florida with his wife and children.

00:00:48.500 Be safe. We're going to have updates throughout the show.

00:00:50.840 If major breaking news happens, everybody should say a little prayer because that's, I mean, that is just devastating.

00:00:57.140 In the meantime, we have an exclusive interview for you today as we celebrate a big anniversary here at The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:03.760 It was exactly two years ago today when we launched The Megyn Kelly Show podcast.

00:01:09.720 One of our first guests was Ben Shapiro, and he will be with us tomorrow for the full show.

00:01:14.580 Over 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.

00:01:26.580 Just last week, we launched a weekly newsletter.

00:01:30.480 I 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.

00:01:37.100 And 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.

00:01:43.720 Well, I have a gal who's running this. 1.00

00:01:46.040 Her name is Meg Storm, which is an amazing name.

00:01:48.280 Meg, Meg Storm.

00:01:49.380 I wish it was my name.

00:01:50.640 Anyway, Meg tells me that it's a crazy number of, like, opens on the newsletter.

00:01:55.740 Everybody who gets it is opening it, and that's great.

00:01:57.720 That means they're enjoying it, and you can see they click around, and so I think you'll like it.

00:02:02.040 You can find it at megynkelly.com.

00:02:04.180 Okay, you go there, you sign up, and I'm going to send you an email on Fridays.

00:02:07.400 I'm much more in store for you there as we continue to expand.

00:02:10.060 All this is thanks to you, our listeners and viewers.

00:02:12.860 We cannot thank you enough.

00:02:14.520 And now we want to turn to our big interview.

00:02:16.040 I've been waiting for this, and I've been really looking forward to it so very much.

00:02:22.980 Scientology.

00:02:23.940 It is the secretive religion of choice among several well-known celebrities, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, among others.

00:02:31.720 Now, 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.

00:02:40.540 I'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.

00:02:53.400 For decades, Mike was a member of the church's secretive Sea Org, which is comprised of the church's most dedicated members.

00:03:01.520 If there's anyone the church does not want speaking, it's Mike.

00:03:04.560 In 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.

00:03:25.540 The book is already making a ton of headlines, and this is Mike's very first interview about it.

00:03:34.560 Mike Rinder, thanks so much for being here today.

00:03:37.480 Oh, it's lovely to be back with you, Megan. Really lovely.

00:03:40.720 Oh, 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.

00:03:50.060 Yeah. 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.

00:03:57.160 The 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.

00:04:08.360 That'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.

00:04:13.220 Like, all Floridians, they're the experts when it comes to dealing with hurricanes.

00:04:16.400 That's very true. That's very true.

00:04:18.540 Of course, you got a lot of transplants down there right now from New York who are not experts.

00:04:22.000 Yeah, and they're not expert drivers either.

00:04:26.400 It depends. If they're from New York City, they're fine.

00:04:29.140 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:04:30.840 That's exactly right.

00:04:32.300 So anyway, it's great to see you again, and I meant that sincerely.

00:04:35.320 That 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,

00:04:46.860 you really were at the top, top echelons of Scientology, and it was extraordinary.

00:04:52.000 It was extraordinary to hear you talk. We only had seven minutes and seven minutes last time.

00:04:56.940 Now we've got extended time, so I'm really looking forward to our talk.

00:05:01.560 Well, I hope you don't exhaust me.

00:05:05.900 The odds are high.

00:05:07.580 Okay, but we've got coffee, we've got Abby, so we should be fine.

00:05:11.120 So 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.

00:05:20.360 Yeah, well, my parents originally got involved in Scientology in Australia in the late 50s.

00:05:28.560 You 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.

00:05:42.740 And 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.

00:06:03.800 And you, as a Scientologist, quickly learned that L. Ron Hubbard is sort of the gospel.

00:06:11.960 What 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,

00:06:26.960 do 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.

00:06:40.420 He 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.

00:06:56.940 Because 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.

00:07:13.240 And that was the life that I grew up in.

00:07:18.840 It's the life of any Scientology child who is raised by Scientology parents. 0.50

00:07:26.220 And 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.

00:07:45.040 Well, 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.

00:07:55.740 And 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.

00:08:01.180 My 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.

00:08:13.720 But he was like a – and remains like a godlike figure within Scientology.

00:08:18.080 Certainly.

00:08:18.940 Although, 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.

00:08:30.300 But 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.

00:08:45.000 But 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.

00:09:00.880 I am the only one who has solved the problems of mankind.

00:09:04.500 And that's not a piece of hyperbole.

00:09:10.260 That 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,

00:09:26.480 the answers to how to attain spiritual enlightenment and freedom and happiness and everything that you can possibly imagine.

00:09:37.240 So, while there are these sort of protestations that he's not a god, he is.

00:09:46.300 Yeah, and not only that, but you have a whole family and friend and societal structure around you reinforcing that.

00:09:51.860 So, of course, you grow up believing it and revering him.

00:09:54.940 All right, so that happens from an early age.

00:09:57.240 And the thing about Scientology, and I realize, like, your book and your experience with Scientology does not reflect well in Scientology.

00:10:05.160 But 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.

00:10:13.800 You know, it's all about, like, you do it, you changed it, even negative things that happen to you.

00:10:20.340 They're basic messages.

00:10:21.920 You somehow brought it on yourself, which I know a lot of people would take issue with, but there's something empowering about that, too.

00:10:28.400 Like, I can change all negative things that happen to me if I'm in control of them.

00:10:32.620 Absolutely.

00:10:33.460 Megan, if everything in Scientology was bad, nobody would be a part of it.

00:10:38.840 If 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.

00:10:52.700 And 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.

00:11:13.000 And, 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.

00:11:33.060 But even probably even more motivating to many of them is they think that they can help other people with it.

00:11:40.640 And that is something that is preached in Scientology, that, you know, you're able to help the world and they believe that they are.

00:11:51.960 Well, 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.

00:12:01.620 Like, it's hardcore and it's drastically hardcore, but there's something appealing about that.

00:12:07.180 You 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.

00:12:16.780 You know, I'm over you.

00:12:17.820 I'm cutting this person out because this person is not a force for good in my life.

00:12:20.780 Scientologists do not suffer from that problem.

00:12:24.280 No, no.

00:12:25.860 And probably the worst thing about that is, you know, that practice is called disconnection in Scientology.

00:12:34.220 And 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.

00:12:46.240 That'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.

00:12:56.920 A wonderful book, by the way.

00:12:58.880 Sounds good.

00:12:59.020 And she says, you know, if you are interacting with a sociopath, there's really nothing that you can do other than get away from them.

00:13:08.860 The problem in Scientology is that that is used as a weapon.

00:13:13.980 It is used as a tool.

00:13:15.680 It is used as a way of keeping people from influencing someone in Scientology in any way that Scientology believes is negative.

00:13:26.740 So, 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.

00:13:46.680 And you – do you know this?

00:13:47.880 Do you know that?

00:13:49.600 The Scientology organization would then insist that that person cut all contact with you.

00:13:57.020 They would force that disconnection to occur.

00:14:00.340 They 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.

00:14:18.340 You know, are you aware of what's really going on here?

00:14:20.900 And in that way, they try to keep the bad news about Scientology away from their members.

00:14:31.080 That's why you're not allowed to surf the internet about Scientology.

00:14:33.780 Exactly.

00:14:34.700 Yeah.

00:14:35.620 Scientologists 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.

00:14:48.600 Actually, it's not quite like that.

00:14:50.500 That's true for Sea Organization members, the people in the, you know, the inner sanctum.

00:14:55.740 Generally, Scientologists out in the world are able to go on the internet or watch TV or whatever.

00:15:02.020 But 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.

00:15:19.720 Wow.

00:15:19.780 They will turn away from it.

00:15:21.220 They don't want to hear it.

00:15:22.380 I mean, John Travolta is being quoted quite often when he has been asked about, well, what do you say about the negative media?

00:15:29.480 What 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?

00:15:39.540 I tune them out.

00:15:40.540 I tune them out.

00:15:40.620 And that is exactly what Scientologists do.

00:15:43.780 If they see something that has my name on it, they know everything in it is a lie.

00:15:49.060 But it's so crazy because in the John Travolta example, I get that.

00:15:53.620 Like if you expand that to, let's say, a person, you know, my husband's Doug Brunt.

00:15:57.460 If 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?

00:16:03.360 You know, I know Doug Brunt.

00:16:04.440 I don't need to read what's – and I certainly don't want to read anything negative about him.

00:16:07.540 But 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.

00:16:17.220 It's not the same.

00:16:18.420 It's not just like, I don't take in negative, you know, press or I don't take in things that upset me.

00:16:22.380 It's like, no, no, no, no.

00:16:23.200 You're part of it.

00:16:24.160 You're one of the faces of it.

00:16:25.820 Right.

00:16:26.040 You're promoting to people to get into this and they're being abused when they get in there.

00:16:30.040 So you have a responsibility to actually know what you're talking about and what's going on.

00:16:35.700 But the reason why the excuse or that answer works is just exactly what you said because people go, yeah, well, I can sort of see that.

00:16:44.920 If someone wrote some negative article about my husband, I wouldn't read it.

00:16:49.540 Well, my church, for that matter.

00:16:50.500 It's not like I love to read negative things about, say, the Catholic Church when we went through the priest scandal and all that.

00:16:56.180 But I did because I felt an obligation to know what the Catholic Church was doing.

00:17:01.460 It's not enough to say, like, well, it's very negative.

00:17:03.340 It brought me down, so I avoided it.

00:17:04.800 Yeah, well, you'd be a very bad Scientologist, Megan. 0.51

00:17:08.260 I know this.

00:17:09.240 Although, as I say, I can promote a couple of their values.

00:17:12.520 I see the lure.

00:17:13.840 And 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.

00:17:25.920 Eradicating unwanted emotions and insecurities.

00:17:28.780 I feel like this is a piece of it where you learn to control your emotions.

00:17:34.060 You're not just this emotional blubbering blob.

00:17:36.840 You're in control of yourself.

00:17:38.920 Very much so.

00:17:40.580 Very much so.

00:17:42.260 To the point where I have come to realize, and it took me a long time to come to this conclusion, Megan.

00:17:48.740 It wasn't something that I sort of instantly went, oh, yeah.

00:17:52.080 But the training and the drilling in Scientology that occurs, and there are these things called training routines.

00:18:03.900 And, you know, Leah and I have talked about this both on the Aftermath and on our podcast.

00:18:08.560 Leah Remini.

00:18:09.220 Leah Remini, sorry.

00:18:10.060 Those training routines basically drill into you that you should not react to anything and that you should not be effect of some outside influence.

00:18:29.260 That you must keep your emotions and reactions in check, and it doesn't matter what anybody does or says to you.

00:18:40.320 They must not get a lot of Italians.

00:18:43.920 Those are my people.

00:18:45.700 I'm on my mom's side.

00:18:48.040 Well, there are plenty of Italians.

00:18:51.280 Leah, is Leah an Italian?

00:18:52.340 It just takes longer to beat it out of them.

00:18:54.320 Okay.

00:18:55.760 But she was brought into as a child.

00:18:57.620 Like, both of you were brought into as children.

00:18:58.920 Yes.

00:19:00.120 But that then is a recipe for catastrophe, ultimately.

00:19:07.360 Because, you know, I write about it in my book from my perspective about what happened with deaths that happened in my family.

00:19:19.040 And how I was not supposed to react and did not react.

00:19:23.980 And 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?

00:19:41.440 Or your father dies in an automobile accident where your mother was driving and it's like, oh, I got to get back to work.

00:19:50.300 Yeah.

00:19:50.900 Can I ask you that?

00:19:51.800 Because you mentioned the death of your baby to SIDS when she was in the nursery.

00:19:56.340 And we have to talk about what they do with the children and the babies.

00:19:59.520 But, and they don't refer to it as dead or death.

00:20:04.520 They say she left her body.

00:20:06.020 Dropped her body or left her body.

00:20:07.900 Yeah.

00:20:07.920 Okay.

00:20:08.000 She dropped her body. 0.88

00:20:08.800 So you were told your baby dropped her body.

00:20:11.680 And 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.

00:20:21.180 They hate therapy.

00:20:21.880 They hate psychiatry.

00:20:22.660 But like, it's kind of their version of this is where you're going to work it out.

00:20:26.980 Yes.

00:20:27.200 And then you'll move on.

00:20:28.460 Okay.

00:20:28.920 They, you know, if the, the sort of non nasty way of saying it would be a counselor.

00:20:34.900 How would it go, Mike?

00:20:36.300 Walk me through something.

00:20:37.040 Would they just, would it be sort of like a therapist?

00:20:38.860 Like, how do you feel?

00:20:40.220 Yes, very much so.

00:20:41.960 But with the addition of this thing in Scientology called the e-meter.

00:20:46.880 And the e-meter is this device that is sort of akin to a lie detector.

00:20:54.200 Scientology hates it when you say that.

00:20:56.180 But actually Hubbard said it a couple of times that, you know, it's more sophisticated than a lie detector.

00:21:02.180 The e-meter is supposed to measure your emotional reactions and responses to things.

00:21:07.820 And in theory measures those reactions and responses below your consciousness.

00:21:16.580 And so it is, it's sort of an article of faith in Scientology that the e-meter is infallible.

00:21:26.560 I was going to say it's very convenient that it's below your level of consciousness.

00:21:29.480 Exactly.

00:21:29.720 So I can tell you exactly what you're thinking, whether you believe it or not.

00:21:32.900 Exactly.

00:21:33.340 And 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,

00:21:53.860 Well, that read on the e-meter, so it must be true. 1.00

00:21:56.740 What does it look like?

00:21:58.420 It'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.

00:22:09.340 And 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.

00:22:20.280 And you hold two tin can electrodes that are connected to the meter that pass a tiny current through your body.

00:22:28.500 And 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.

00:22:42.800 And that is what it measures.

00:22:44.260 It measures the disturbance of that current.

00:22:46.420 The less provable part of it is that that disturbance is created by you, you the spirit.

00:23:00.100 Because in Scientology, there are three parts of man.

00:23:04.780 The spirit, which is called a thetan in Scientology, the mind, and the body.

00:23:10.200 And the spirit is seen as senior to the mind and the body and controlling the mind and the body.

00:23:18.600 And the spirit reacts and causes the body to have a physical reaction, which then the auditor reads on the e-meter.

00:23:27.720 That's why they say he dropped his body.

00:23:30.060 He is the spirit or she is the spirit, not the body. 0.99

00:23:33.360 That's exactly right.

00:23:34.440 And you are believed to have lived for many lifetimes before and will go on to many lifetimes in the future.

00:23:42.160 And that, this belief of past lives, came about and concurrent with the development of the e-meter.

00:23:53.860 Because 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.

00:24:10.880 And 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.

00:24:27.060 I've heard you and Leah talk about this.

00:24:28.740 Like, okay, I guess I may have been a man at once.

00:24:31.900 I like you kind of start to fill in the blanks because they're waiting for you to say something.

00:24:35.440 But, Megan, on the other side of you saying that is the auditor saying, yes, that reads.

00:24:41.800 Oh, boy.

00:24:42.600 So, you get this, well, I guess that must be true.

00:24:47.000 Yeah.

00:24:47.560 And that is a very, very powerful tool that is used to convince people that Scientology really works.

00:24:58.320 Could it work?

00:24:59.340 I mean, you put it to the test, losing a baby, because I was thinking maybe there's a placebo effect, you know, even if it's not real.

00:25:06.260 If you think it's real, it could be.

00:25:08.220 So, did it help at all, you know?

00:25:10.840 Did it help in that kind of case, circumstance?

00:25:13.620 Well, it helped, quote, unquote, in the fact that I was able to go back to work right away.

00:25:22.240 Wow.

00:25:22.680 I don't think that it really helped me.

00:25:27.360 I don't think that it made me a more fulfilled person in some fashion.

00:25:36.600 You don't think it was really helping you process grief?

00:25:39.560 No.

00:25:40.300 No, I don't.

00:25:41.900 You know, at the time, I would have said yes.

00:25:44.720 At 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?

00:26:01.960 But I'm not so sure that being grief-stricken and incapacitated isn't appropriate.

00:26:09.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:09.740 Totally.

00:26:10.880 So, I'm not sure that I have a really, really good answer to that.

00:26:16.160 Yeah.

00:26:16.880 You know, that's a great question.

00:26:18.780 Nobody's ever asked me that question before, and I have to sit and think about it a bit and go, hmm, was there anything good about that?

00:26:26.540 All right, you've got two minutes to do that because I'm going to squeeze in a commercial break.

00:26:29.300 Okay.

00:26:29.520 And 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.

00:26:40.020 And Mike lays that all bare, and that's where I'm going to pick it up after this quick, quick break.

00:26:43.880 But 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.

00:26:50.040 For this one, we're going way back into our archives and probably, well, the first tense moment on the show.

00:26:56.620 It's from episode, little bitty episode nine, just nine, back in October 2020.

00:27:02.420 We had just launched from my interview with Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank co-host Mark Cuban about the NBA and China.

00:27:11.440 Listen, why would the NBA take $500 million plus from a country that is engaging in ethnic cleansing? 1.00

00:27:20.320 Why would, so basically you're saying that nobody should do business with China ever.

00:27:25.900 Why don't you just answer my question?

00:27:27.480 No, Megan, I'm just trying to get to the root of it.

00:27:30.600 So you're just trying to put, you're the one, you are the one who said.

00:27:33.720 Because they are a customer, they are a customer of ours.

00:27:36.480 And guess what, Megan, I'm okay with doing business with China.

00:27:38.980 You know, I wish I could solve all the world's problems, Megan.

00:27:41.920 I'm sure you do too, but we can't.

00:27:44.740 And so we have to pick all battles.

00:27:46.560 And while you'd like to get proclamation so you can create a clip that says, look what I got Mark to say.

00:27:51.820 You don't want to deal with the actual action item.

00:27:54.380 You might think silence is violence, but action gets changed, right?

00:27:58.400 And so when I start to talk about creating...

00:28:00.300 I await your action.

00:28:01.900 Good times.

00:28:04.580 Just think about that for a second.

00:28:06.060 It was an escape.

00:28:07.020 It 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. 0.91

00:28:17.540 Many people say it's a cult and it's not a religion.

00:28:19.880 Okay, so let's talk about the babies.

00:28:22.080 So you had two babies.

00:28:23.300 First of all, you got married to your first wife, Kathy.

00:28:26.880 And 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?

00:28:33.840 The Rehabilitation Project Force is a punishment program for C organization members.

00:28:41.220 And I haven't really defined what a C organization member is.

00:28:44.840 Megan and I should probably do that for those who don't know.

00:28:48.160 And 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.

00:29:06.460 And C organization members live communally and are like the inner circle of Scientology, 24-7, 365 days a year devoted to working for Scientology.

00:29:23.660 And as a CIOG member, you are expected to not engage in any promiscuous activity before marriage.

00:29:40.780 And that basically means anything.

00:29:44.280 As a Catholic Church member, too, frankly.

00:29:45.860 Yeah.

00:29:46.560 So the punishment for violating those rules and regulations is to be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force to be rehabilitated.

00:29:58.580 And Kathy and I had engaged in sexual relations prior to marriage.

00:30:07.880 And so, therefore, we're threatened.

00:30:10.140 You have either to decide to get married or go to the RPF.

00:30:16.820 What would that be?

00:30:17.800 Like in prison for some months?

00:30:19.680 Yeah, basically.

00:30:21.500 Like the RPF is you are segregated from the rest of the people in Scientology.

00:30:28.900 And you are not allowed to talk to anybody else, only speak if addressed.

00:30:38.260 For how long?

00:30:40.660 I mean, originally, it was like about six months.

00:30:44.800 Some people have been there for 10 years.

00:30:46.860 Oh, my God.

00:30:47.840 So you better really like the woman that you fool around with. 0.98

00:30:50.940 Yeah, exactly.

00:30:52.720 So you chose to get married.

00:30:54.200 Yes.

00:30:54.540 You had two children, Taryn in 78, a daughter, and Benjamin in 83, a son.

00:31:02.400 And what did you guys – because Kathy was in Sea Org, too, your first wife?

00:31:06.100 Yes.

00:31:06.200 Yes, yes, yes.

00:31:06.640 You're both high up in Scientology.

00:31:08.140 And what did you do with the babies?

00:31:10.380 They got turned over to what was called the nursery.

00:31:13.140 And 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.

00:31:28.120 But a daycare center for infants, not for toddlers, for infants.

00:31:33.860 And 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.

00:31:53.900 Wow.

00:31:54.380 And that was, you know, just the way it was.

00:32:02.800 Children were raised by the – they called them nannies – the nannies in the nursery.

00:32:09.820 And 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.

00:32:27.280 And they had very little interaction with their parents.

00:32:31.680 Was that – I mean, I know in your book you write about how you were so determined.

00:32:35.440 Like, when you sign up for Sea Org, it's very clear that's first.

00:32:38.200 Scientology's first.

00:32:39.380 Family's a distant second.

00:32:40.820 Was that true for Kathy, too?

00:32:42.400 Maybe I'm just being a sexist pig.

00:32:44.000 But I'm like, what kind of a mother would be okay with –

00:32:46.540 Every mother in the Sea Org was okay with that. 0.93

00:32:48.880 Otherwise, you were not in the Sea Org.

00:32:50.620 Look, 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.

00:33:14.060 And 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.

00:33:36.320 You're not going on vacation to Disney.

00:33:38.120 No way.

00:33:39.020 That is a level of dedication and commitment to something that is beyond, you know, making any sense of.

00:33:56.080 You just can't make sense out of it.

00:33:58.240 But 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.

00:34:10.920 And I am not saying that Scientologists have that sort of level of violence, not in any way, shape, or form.

00:34:18.140 That is not the Scientology view of things.

00:34:22.200 But 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.

00:34:42.420 You 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.

00:34:53.580 You came by your affinity, honestly, because your parents introduced you to it.

00:34:57.200 But one thing we skipped over was you actually knew L. Ron Hubbard.

00:35:02.800 Like, you studied under him.

00:35:04.420 You joined Sea Org under him.

00:35:05.740 You signed the billionaire contract when you were 17, which, by the way, would make it unenforceable as a matter of law.

00:35:11.320 Under L. Ron Hubbard.

00:35:14.140 So when you think about your own experience in the church, like, do you have fond memories of him?

00:35:18.800 I know we talked about his writings and all that, but do you think he was a genius?

00:35:22.680 Do you think he—I mean, how do you remember him?

00:35:25.340 I 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.

00:35:38.080 I remember him as being someone who was a masterful storyteller.

00:35:45.400 I mean, he was an incredibly engaging personality.

00:35:49.720 He was not a—he was a larger-than-life figure.

00:35:55.180 He wasn't a field mouse or a quiet—like, he's not a Keith Raniere type.

00:36:04.180 He was—

00:36:05.180 Weird.

00:36:05.780 Yeah.

00:36:06.300 He was, like, big and bold and loud and had a story for everything.

00:36:14.380 I mean, literally.

00:36:15.440 And, 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.

00:36:33.940 And to popularize it and to convince people to follow him because his storytelling was really pretty cool.

00:36:44.940 Yeah, it must have been.

00:36:45.740 And, 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.

00:37:01.240 You know, I was racing cars at 375 miles an hour on this planet, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:37:09.140 And 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.

00:37:19.140 I was a total believer.

00:37:21.500 And if Hubbard said that that's what happened, well, that's what happened.

00:37:27.920 And 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,

00:37:49.500 and they are causing a physical reaction for you, and you go, wow, someone is actually explaining to me why I get car sick.

00:37:58.920 Well, and especially if you've been raised in the Church of Scientology, you're prone, you're primed to believe everything he says.

00:38:06.500 That's why I know you begin the book with a letter to your children saying—I'll just quote from me—you say,

00:38:13.640 let me start with this, I'm truly sorry for placing you in a world where your future was preordained.

00:38:18.800 It'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.

00:38:26.860 If I had known then what I know now, I would never have let that happen.

00:38:31.120 And 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.

00:38:43.640 Absolutely, 100 percent, and particularly for children raised in Scientology, and then even more particularly for children raised in the Sea Organization.

00:38:53.800 I mean, they were destined to be good Sea Organization members and good, dedicated Scientologists, and they remain that to this day.

00:39:09.260 Why is the celebrity quotient so high?

00:39:11.920 Like, Leah, she was raised in Scientology.

00:39:14.600 So was Lisa Marie Presley.

00:39:17.200 I didn't realize—I knew she was part of the church.

00:39:19.480 I didn't realize it's because Priscilla was a member of the church and raised Lisa Marie in the church.

00:39:25.660 Why—what's the thing with celebrity?

00:39:28.080 Well, the thing with celebrity is that Hubbard early on realized that celebrities have enormous influence on how society views things.

00:39:38.640 You know, celebrities go out and endorse something or say something's good, and there's a whole bunch of people that go,

00:39:45.060 oh, well, if it's good enough for Tom Cruise, it's probably something I should check out.

00:39:49.900 You know, I want to make a billion dollars, too, so let me at it.

00:39:55.800 Hubbard then took that to sort of extreme levels of creating particular Scientology organizations devoted to only servicing celebrities.

00:40:07.740 They're called the celebrity centers.

00:40:09.260 Like, you can't get in if you're not a celebrity?

00:40:14.400 Like, if you're a member of Gen Pop, but you're still a Scientologist, would they turn you away?

00:40:19.300 They would send you to another organization.

00:40:21.320 Oh, my God.

00:40:22.360 Wow.

00:40:22.680 Yeah.

00:40:23.100 Harsh.

00:40:23.760 Yeah, rough.

00:40:24.700 It's really rough.

00:40:25.480 But 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.

00:40:42.940 That's right.

00:40:43.740 Just none.

00:40:45.220 There has been one who has emerged, but she was raised a Scientologist, too.

00:40:50.740 Who?

00:40:51.680 Elizabeth Moss.

00:40:53.380 Oh, yes.

00:40:54.120 Right.

00:40:54.420 And she is a born-and-raised Scientologist.

00:40:59.760 Other than that, there hasn't been anybody.

00:41:02.500 But 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.

00:41:19.660 And for artists, that's what their business is.

00:41:25.640 That's what their livelihood is.

00:41:27.180 Well, and it's truly, I mean, they have, arguably, but not really that arguable, the biggest celebrity in the world to point to.

00:41:35.640 Yes.

00:41:36.000 You know, you can't get bigger than Tom Cruise.

00:41:38.220 No, you can't.

00:41:39.360 And 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.

00:41:51.260 And, you know, David Miscavige believes that Tom Cruise is the greatest asset that Scientology has.

00:41:58.280 He's right.

00:41:58.560 And he treats him that way.

00:41:59.680 Yes, he's totally right.

00:42:01.000 Of course he is.

00:42:01.720 How did he get lured in, Tom Cruise?

00:42:04.100 From his first wife, Mimi.

00:42:06.060 She was raised a Scientologist.

00:42:08.060 Mimi Rogers. 0.89

00:42:08.740 Mimi Rogers. 0.89

00:42:09.440 Oh, she was raised.

00:42:10.500 My God, it's so many of these people raised Scientologists.

00:42:13.200 Yep.

00:42:13.580 But he really went full, I mean, hook, line and sinker.

00:42:17.140 I don't know if there's any of a greater devotee than Tom Cruise.

00:42:20.800 No, I don't think that there ever has been.

00:42:24.020 I don't think there ever will be.

00:42:25.900 I don't think that he will ever be as vocally shilling for Scientology as he was, you know, some years ago.

00:42:36.440 You 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.

00:42:49.020 You 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,

00:43:01.040 look, the studios aren't paying you to go out there and promote Scientology on your press junkets.

00:43:07.380 They're paying you to go promote the book, the movie, so stop it.

00:43:12.380 And 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,

00:43:25.720 she was a negative influence on Tom speaking out and promoting Scientology.

00:43:31.840 So he had to disconnect from her.

00:43:34.200 How 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?

00:43:39.800 How do you, how do you, if you're David Miscavige, how do you make that happen?

00:43:43.240 Probably, 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,

00:43:53.540 that 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.

00:44:01.060 What should I do?

00:44:03.020 Next 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.

00:44:15.400 Yeah, Tom's sister, Leanne.

00:44:17.460 Who's also a devout Scientologist.

00:44:19.320 Very much, and also not, not prepared for that job.

00:44:26.660 Yeah, and that's by design too, right?

00:44:28.680 Right.

00:44:28.800 Because it's really David Miscavige then who's calling the shots.

00:44:31.260 Correct.

00:44:31.780 And 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.

00:44:43.980 Well, anybody in Scientology is that way.

00:44:46.100 David 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.

00:45:11.000 And so if Miscavige clicks his, snaps his fingers and says, I want X, then the Scientologist will go, you get X.

00:45:21.360 Even 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.

00:45:33.640 But 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.

00:45:50.040 And, you know, there was a lot of doctrine in Scientology that, like, lays out how this logically works.

00:46:02.500 And, you know, I think I explained it somewhere.

00:46:06.400 There's this concept called the eight dynamics in Scientology, the urges towards survival.

00:46:13.680 And those eight dynamics, you make decisions based on what is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.

00:46:23.440 But one of those dynamics is Scientology.

00:46:27.120 Right.

00:46:27.680 So 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.

00:46:40.480 We'll get into all that a little bit later.

00:46:41.760 But up next, we're going to talk about what happened to Mike.

00:46:44.360 Why did he leave the church and what was done to him once he did?

00:46:48.600 This is the wackiest part of this whole story.

00:46:51.540 And don't forget, folks, that Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph channel every day, weekday at noon east, channel 111.

00:46:59.860 Full 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.

00:47:07.200 Scientology wrote you a little love letter, Mike.

00:47:14.520 They wrote you a love letter.

00:47:16.200 I can't imagine what it says, Megan.

00:47:17.840 Remember when you came in the Kelly file and it was like, we had like 14 calls and different statements.

00:47:22.120 It was like, for the love of God.

00:47:23.340 And finally, I said, do you guys want to come on?

00:47:25.780 Just come on and say it.

00:47:27.200 And no, we don't want to do that.

00:47:28.540 No.

00:47:28.580 So here's what they say for the record.

00:47:31.140 Mike Rinder is not just a liar, but an inveterate liar, an inveterate liar who seeks to profit from his dishonesty.

00:47:37.640 He's admitted under oath to lying and wrote of how he lies about lying.

00:47:41.360 His self-aggrandizing memoir, in quotes, is little more than a compendium of discredited claims, gross exaggerations and provable lies.

00:47:49.360 There was no due diligence of the book and it was not fact checked by Simon & Schuster or anyone else.

00:47:53.320 For 15 years, Rinder has distorted and manipulated his truth for anyone willing to pay him.

00:47:57.060 His version of events has repeatedly been rejected by the courts, with one court recently finding Rinder's testimony, quote,

00:48:02.480 is filled with unsupported assumptions, foundational deficiencies, irrelevant matters and proper opinions and arguments, end quote.

00:48:08.500 And 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.

00:48:16.840 He excludes his cold, callous treatment of his family, particularly his children, including discarding them with no notice after more than 30 years.

00:48:27.320 Okay, so that's what they think of you.

00:48:29.840 I don't think you're getting back together.

00:48:32.380 Probably not.

00:48:33.160 No, so it's over between you and them.

00:48:35.180 Yeah, that wasn't much of a love letter.

00:48:37.400 Mm-mm.

00:48:38.380 No love laws.

00:48:39.040 I don't think they've even read the book.

00:48:40.440 I 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.

00:48:50.740 Well, not only that, you would, according to your book, you would love to be in touch with your family.

00:48:57.420 They disassociated from you when you left the church.

00:49:00.840 Right.

00:49:01.780 Yes.

00:49:02.300 Do I have it correct?

00:49:03.240 Yes, you're exactly.

00:49:04.000 Well, your ex-wife told you to fuck off.

00:49:05.640 Right.

00:49:06.180 That's exactly, in those words.

00:49:08.600 She was your wife at the time.

00:49:09.720 Right.

00:49:10.060 But I go to some lengths to describe the regret and the pain of how my children were raised and that I was not a good father.

00:49:28.420 Like, I'm not hiding that.

00:49:31.600 I'm sort of, I don't make myself look very good.

00:49:35.480 It's not, it's not like I'm trying to, to make myself out as father of the year.

00:49:42.240 I mean, I would like that for my son today to be considered father of the year.

00:49:47.160 Because you have a 10-year-old now with your new wife.

00:49:48.780 Right.

00:49:49.240 But I would not in any way, shape, or form say that I was a good parent in the Sea Org.

00:49:56.660 And I don't believe any Sea Org member can possibly be a good parent.

00:50:02.020 And in fact, Scientology no longer allows Sea Org members to have children.

00:50:07.420 Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about because this is something I hadn't heard of.

00:50:10.440 That for a time there, you say they were forcing abortions on female members of Sea Org?

00:50:16.000 Yes, 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.

00:50:33.260 Why not just send them to the so-called nursery?

00:50:36.280 Well, because you have to pay for people to look after them in the nursery. 1.00

00:50:39.260 I 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.

00:50:49.500 And that is not acceptable in the Sea Org.

00:50:53.560 So, 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. 0.98

00:51:12.760 And, 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.

00:51:30.100 But the vast majority of women buckled under and agreed that it was the greatest good to abort their child. 0.61

00:51:43.200 And 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.

00:51:56.920 They did a whole series about it with a number of women. 1.00

00:52:00.720 And it was a practice that was considered to be acceptable in the Sea Org.

00:52:09.840 And, 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.

00:52:28.420 Oh, wow.

00:52:29.320 Sounds like he was a Democrat.

00:52:32.440 Just saying.

00:52:34.280 All right.

00:52:34.740 So let's talk about what happened to you.

00:52:38.100 This is my impression.

00:52:40.040 But you tell me where I'm going wrong if I am.

00:52:42.680 It seems like David Miscavige, who took over as leader after L. Ron Hubbard died, didn't like you.

00:52:49.800 He had it in for you for some reason.

00:52:52.380 He just kept targeting you.

00:52:54.420 And like the punishments kept ratcheting up and the responsibilities placed on you were impossible to actually manage.

00:53:02.680 I don't it seemed like he set you up to fail and to go down.

00:53:06.520 Yes.

00:53:07.500 Well, that's true, Megan.

00:53:09.020 But David Miscavige doesn't like anybody.

00:53:11.860 I'm not I'm not unique in the mistreatment or abuse that he meted out to me.

00:53:21.700 Where 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.

00:53:38.220 Okay.

00:53:38.660 But I because I was a spokesperson for Scientology.

00:53:43.260 I had to kind of, you know, he didn't have anybody else to go to.

00:53:51.300 He had done an interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline, the only interview that he ever did for TV.

00:53:57.400 And he did not want to be doing media.

00:54:03.920 And 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.

00:54:15.760 It's like, okay, get on a plane and go to New York and and be interviewed.

00:54:20.980 And he didn't have anybody else to do it.

00:54:24.120 So 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.

00:54:54.000 You would never it was, of course, understood.

00:54:56.760 You would never while on TV be like, I've been placed in something called the hole.

00:55:01.080 They're not feeding me.

00:55:02.640 I'm I had there's no air conditioning.

00:55:04.060 There's 30 other guys like they of course, you're not going to sell out the organization.

00:55:08.340 Right.

00:55:09.340 And 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.

00:55:22.540 In the in the Scientology organization in London.

00:55:25.780 And even then, even though I was sort of on the brink of escaping, I didn't say publicly what I felt internally.

00:55:37.460 And 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.

00:55:49.700 Just 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.

00:56:01.080 Right. Like this is crazy talk to those of us on the outside.

00:56:03.020 It's like this is an actual prison.

00:56:04.980 You could just walk out.

00:56:06.000 You're still a private citizen.

00:56:07.080 You're still a private citizen, but you didn't.

00:56:08.280 Right.

00:56:08.760 And and you couldn't.

00:56:10.420 And, 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.

00:56:24.420 And 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.

00:56:49.560 By the way, they actually like nailed the window so that they wouldn't open more than two inches.

00:56:56.240 Screwed them so that they were just two inches and the doors were barred.

00:56:59.720 So there was no way out of that building.

00:57:02.120 We're talking about the hole now.

00:57:03.620 But the final straw was really when I I would be I'd been in the hole.

00:57:10.640 I'd been taken out of the hole and sent to London to deal with John Sweeney and his reporting for Panorama.

00:57:18.520 And what was that?

00:57:20.540 What what was that?

00:57:21.580 What was the John Sweeney thing?

00:57:22.720 Why was that important to you?

00:57:24.120 Because John Sweeney was doing a whole hour, basically an hour long show on Panorama, which is, you know, the 60 minutes of the UK.

00:57:34.000 And he had been around in the United States pursuing various parts of the story.

00:57:40.100 He'd showed up trying to get an interview with Miscavige.

00:57:42.880 He'd showed up at the Gold Base.

00:57:44.680 He'd been here, there and everywhere.

00:57:46.860 And long story short, John Travolta was holding a premiere of the Wild Hogs movie in Leicester Square.

00:57:56.240 And 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.

00:58:09.360 OK.

00:58:09.680 And 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.

00:58:23.500 And sort of walked in and interrupted and went in and I said, John, there is this guy here, blah, blah, blah.

00:58:30.420 And you don't want to talk to him and make sure that you don't get to.

00:58:33.560 OK.

00:58:34.860 During the course of that, I was then in the Scientology organization in London.

00:58:40.800 And 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?

00:58:52.660 And I said, I deny that we deny they're denied their lies, their blah, blah, blah.

00:58:56.780 Well, I have three people who said they personally witnessed you being physically assaulted by David Miscavige or whatever the words were exactly.

00:59:05.780 And I said, that's an absolute lie and we will sue you.

00:59:10.520 And he eventually sort of gave up and left.

00:59:15.140 And the show then aired fairly soon thereafter.

00:59:19.280 And I was still in London and Miscavige couldn't watch it because the BBC you can't watch in the US.

00:59:26.260 You know, this was before anybody was sophisticated enough to have a VPN or whatever.

00:59:30.580 So I had to watch it and then be on the phone with Miscavige saying this is what.

00:59:36.280 And throughout the show, though it was a devastating expose on Scientology, he didn't mention that David Miscavige had physically assaulted anyone.

00:59:47.880 And I'm thinking, wow, that's a win for you.

00:59:50.320 I pulled this off.

00:59:50.860 We get to the end of it and I say, well, sir, he didn't mention anything about that.

00:59:56.780 And the reaction was, the show should never have aired.

01:00:01.040 If I'd been there handling it, it never would have aired.

01:00:04.020 Well, of course, he could have been there handling it.

01:00:05.840 Nobody stopped him.

01:00:07.160 He, like, avoided John Sweeney like the plague.

01:00:10.200 But 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?

01:00:24.520 Like, I'm here now protecting this guy who's physically assaulting me.

01:00:30.140 And this isn't really why I joined Scientology.

01:00:34.140 So just, I mean, for the record, it was true that he had physically assaulted you.

01:00:37.760 It was absolutely true.

01:00:39.320 Many, many, many times.

01:00:41.940 And shortly thereafter, Miscavige sent a missive to one of the people in the United Kingdom and cc'd me on it.

01:00:51.360 And I actually quote it in the book.

01:00:53.780 And it says, you know, he's being sent to the furthermost reaches of Western Australia.

01:00:59.400 He's never coming back to the U.S. 0.94

01:01:01.500 I'll give him 10 quid or something, and if he can't make it, he can always sell his body on the street.

01:01:08.960 And I read that, and I went, okay, the only reason I have stayed as long as I have stayed is because of my children and wife.

01:01:22.960 Apparently, that has been taken out of my hands.

01:01:27.440 You knew leaving Scientology means leaving them.

01:01:30.680 Like, they will not have a further relationship with you.

01:01:33.700 Correct.

01:01:34.720 I hoped that once I was out, I may be able to get them to come and at least listen or hear me out.

01:01:45.560 That was sort of a very slim hope.

01:01:49.280 But I did have that hope.

01:01:50.780 But I realized, okay, this is the end.

01:01:56.240 There 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.

01:02:07.760 When I read your goodbye note, I couldn't believe the notes in it, like the tone.

01:02:17.000 You were definitely beating yourself up.

01:02:19.340 You were putting it on yourself.

01:02:20.840 You sounded sad.

01:02:22.300 You sounded hopeless.

01:02:23.400 Here's part of it.

01:02:24.060 This is June 9, 2007.

01:02:27.420 You write,

01:02:28.440 As I sat in my temporary office in the library on the ground floor of a home in St. Hill, I pulled out my laptop and typed a goodbye note.

01:02:35.280 There is no future for me at this point.

01:02:37.500 I am forever tainted by my past, and it doesn't go away.

01:02:40.660 I have thought very hard about this and have not slept for most of the night for the last two days.

01:02:44.900 It's been going on for years, and I see no end in sight.

01:02:48.340 I thought that I had come out of it by getting somewhere with the BBC handling.

01:02:51.440 And while it wasn't perfect, I did everything I knew how to, to turn around the disaster.

01:02:56.620 But then things became impossible again, and I don't know how to deal with it anymore.

01:03:00.840 I have introverted and introspected on why I am like I am, and what else I have done, and my evil purposes until I cannot take it anymore.

01:03:11.220 At this point, I do not think it is a resolvable situation.

01:03:15.460 I've been on a roller coaster since 2003 that I cannot get off of, and I cannot go on playing this game anymore.

01:03:21.440 I don't want to leave my family, but I think I'm hurting them more by being around, and it goes on from there.

01:03:28.060 It's so sad to me, Mike.

01:03:30.000 You were so low, and you had put it all on yourself, and it kind of goes full circle back to how we started.

01:03:38.840 There are downsides to the message that you control everything.

01:03:44.220 You don't control the BBC.

01:03:46.720 David Miscavige could not have stopped that piece from airing, nor could you.

01:03:51.680 And 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.

01:04:00.240 This is a different-sounding man than the one sitting across from me today.

01:04:03.600 Yes, and I'm sort of glad that you read that, Megan, though I feel emotional when you read it.

01:04:11.900 Like, it still has impact on me that somehow I failed.

01:04:19.700 Somehow I failed to stick it out or failed to accomplish what I had set out to accomplish.

01:04:31.660 And it is very, very true that one of the absolutely most corrosive concepts in Scientology is that you are responsible for your own condition.

01:04:47.840 That no matter what happens to you, no matter how bad things are, that it is you that caused it to be that way.

01:04:56.900 What would they say about, you know, a child who's the victim of a molester?

01:05:00.000 They would say that that child had probably molested someone in a previous life.

01:05:06.220 Oh, wow.

01:05:07.560 It's that extreme.

01:05:08.240 It 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.

01:05:28.880 And this is such a device, such a device to control people.

01:05:37.520 If you just think about it, this works every direction except toward Scientology or David Miscavige.

01:05:46.520 Right, good point.

01:05:47.800 Like, if they're getting bad press, they don't look and go, what did we do that caused this to happen?

01:05:54.680 They go, oh, that fucker over there is lying about us.

01:05:58.760 Right, and then Mike failed to stop it.

01:06:00.440 Right.

01:06:00.880 Yeah.

01:06:01.120 And so, but for the individual Scientologist, this is, you know, this is a motivating factor that drives everything that they do.

01:06:15.160 All right, so for you to get past it was huge.

01:06:17.940 You got out, you basically made a run for it one day, called an old friend who had also left, and got some TLC.

01:06:25.420 And before you know it, you're out.

01:06:26.660 The wife tells you to F off.

01:06:28.280 The children don't want anything to do with you.

01:06:30.820 And this is where things get crazy.

01:06:34.540 But you are not the only one.

01:06:36.120 There are many now ex-Scientologists who have very similar stories to this.

01:06:39.960 Right.

01:06:40.080 You, they, you write in the book, stalked you, basically.

01:06:45.400 They tailed you.

01:06:46.840 They had PIs on you.

01:06:48.520 We have videotape that you took of PIs that they hired stealing your garbage.

01:06:55.540 Let's see that clip.

01:06:56.420 Hold on a second.

01:06:57.340 It's, you've got, it's video.

01:07:00.480 Video three.

01:07:01.420 We'll show it here.

01:07:02.020 You guys can check it out on YouTube to the listening audience later.

01:07:04.400 But here, well, you tell us what we're seeing here, Mike.

01:07:07.940 There's a red car.

01:07:08.860 Yeah, that, that car was meeting up with the garbage truck.

01:07:12.000 The garbage truck had picked up my garbage and driven around the corner and then stopped to make a rendezvous with Mr. Ponytail,

01:07:19.580 who 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.

01:07:38.120 So 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?

01:07:47.440 Yeah, yeah.

01:07:48.840 And, and, you know, I, I say to the guy, Hey, who are you buying the garbage for?

01:07:54.180 Who's that for?

01:07:55.600 Huh?

01:07:55.960 Who are you?

01:07:56.940 I said, I watched you.

01:07:58.100 I videoed you.

01:07:58.680 And I, and unfortunately I did video the garbage truck picking it up, but I lost that video.

01:08:03.920 It like didn't record or something, you know, like one dummy thing.

01:08:07.080 I think we can safely assume, you know, that it actually happened since they're obviously doing a deal over your garbage right now.

01:08:12.320 I said to Mike, before we came out on the set, I said, um, I'm, I'm prepared to make my own garbage really disgusting.

01:08:17.300 And dirty for the next few weeks after doing this interview, I'm going to make it app.

01:08:20.440 So I'm going to use all of Strudwick's poop bags.

01:08:22.680 It'll be really, really special.

01:08:25.500 If anybody decides to dig through.

01:08:27.300 All right.

01:08:27.460 So that was one incident.

01:08:28.420 And then there was another incident.

01:08:29.520 This is a VO two where Mike discovers, Oh, the pretty little bird house right across the street is looking at him.

01:08:37.400 It's watching him inside a bird house.

01:08:39.600 That went up is a camera.

01:08:42.080 So this was your neighborhood and tell us what we're seeing here.

01:08:45.160 I see the pretty white bird house, zooming into the little pretty white bird house.

01:08:49.000 So it was just down the street and you can see it's got two holes that it looks like the birds are going to go in and out of.

01:08:54.060 And then I go up with a ladder and I open the top of the bird house and I climb up on the ladder.

01:09:02.160 This is really klutzy video, but.

01:09:06.680 The big reveal.

01:09:08.000 It's not a bird.

01:09:09.380 It's not a bird, but a camera.

01:09:11.980 There it is.

01:09:12.500 Black and white right there.

01:09:13.340 How did you know that that was not just a bird house?

01:09:16.240 Because they dropped this note in the letterbox of our next door neighbor saying, be careful who you're talking to.

01:09:26.700 And I had been outside chatting with her in the driveway the day before.

01:09:32.140 And I went, OK, somehow they're watching me.

01:09:36.300 Who sent you the note?

01:09:37.640 Like a good Samaritan?

01:09:39.120 Anonymous note that was, no, it was telling our neighbor, careful, don't talk to those people.

01:09:45.240 They're bad people.

01:09:46.340 And she brought the note to me and said, I think this is Scientology.

01:09:49.840 And I said, no, it is Scientology.

01:09:52.020 Absolutely.

01:09:52.600 It was unsigned, you know, just.

01:09:54.740 Well, disparaging you to your neighbors was part of it.

01:09:57.300 Right.

01:09:57.500 Absolutely.

01:09:57.840 Well, 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.

01:10:12.420 He's engaged in drug smuggling.

01:10:14.260 He's engaged in.

01:10:15.360 Or they don't exactly say it like that.

01:10:18.480 They do it.

01:10:19.900 Do you have any reason to believe that he might be engaged in?

01:10:24.560 It's such, it's so obvious.

01:10:27.160 So that's terrible.

01:10:28.200 Did 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?

01:10:35.960 Yeah, I did.

01:10:37.200 And in fact, it turns out that the next door neighbor in that house was someone who had escaped another cult.

01:10:45.820 Oh, great.

01:10:46.340 And they were like, oh, we totally get it.

01:10:48.300 Wait, it's even worse than this because when I read about the woman down the street with the son, that's crazy.

01:10:57.860 Tell us about her.

01:10:59.140 Okay.

01:10:59.480 That was a spy that was planted.

01:11:01.660 They rented a house that was just like three houses away that had an eye line to the front of our house.

01:11:08.180 And 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.

01:11:21.800 Your second wife's son from another marriage. 0.87

01:11:24.020 Yes.

01:11:24.420 And 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.

01:11:37.360 And, you know, I've got a kid too and maybe our kids could play together.

01:11:41.800 And, you know, it was sort of like not abnormal and had been very carefully set up that way.

01:11:52.660 But 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.

01:12:06.940 And she was like this whole elaborate story.

01:12:10.600 And then we moved right before Jack was born.

01:12:14.560 My now 10-year-old son, we moved.

01:12:17.360 And suddenly she had to move into the same neighborhood that we were in. 0.94

01:12:21.280 And Christy, my wife, says, oh, I just realized she's a plant.

01:12:28.020 She's like a spy. 0.98

01:12:29.300 So 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. 0.94

01:12:42.180 Or some, you know, words like that.

01:12:43.440 And she responds, I have no idea what you're talking about.

01:12:46.780 You believe something, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:12:49.760 Anyway, she just kept persisting and eventually she just went away.

01:12:53.980 Okay.

01:12:56.280 Megan, you're not going to believe this.

01:12:58.080 This woman was actually one of two women who were there. 1.00

01:13:02.860 The other one we actually interviewed on the Aftermath show.

01:13:06.560 The woman who had placed GPS tracking on our cars and et cetera, et cetera.

01:13:11.800 But Heather, we saw her. 0.98

01:13:15.740 Christy and I went to a Jack Johnson concert in Tampa.

01:13:19.020 And as we were walking out, she was one of the ushers.

01:13:22.640 And I said, oh, my God, that's Heather.

01:13:26.060 And Christy, oh, yeah, it is.

01:13:27.280 So we walked back in and said, hi, Heather, how are you?

01:13:32.060 And she said, I am so terribly sorry for what I did.

01:13:37.220 I had no idea.

01:13:39.760 I was convinced, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:13:42.360 It was like the guy that had recruited her was the same guy that recruited the woman who was on the Aftermath.

01:13:48.620 Then he had a relationship with her.

01:13:50.260 He went around and found these women. 1.00

01:13:53.820 He had like five women that he had children with.

01:13:58.840 Did she know she was working for Scientology?

01:14:00.900 Was the guy definitely working for Scientology?

01:14:02.940 He was definitely working for Scientology.

01:14:04.860 That guy was the guy who was arrested following Ron Miscavige, Sr., when he wrote his book.

01:14:12.840 Yes.

01:14:13.540 David Miscavige, according to David Miscavige's own dad, Ron, David has had the dad surveilled, followed.

01:14:22.220 He did not escape any of this bizarre treatment just because he was the dad of the head of the church.

01:14:29.420 Like I said, family is always second, Megan.

01:14:31.520 Family is always second.

01:14:33.540 It's so crazy.

01:14:34.800 I just want to remind the audience, this is a tax-exempt organization.

01:14:37.580 This organization is treated like a church, like a religion.

01:14:41.020 They don't pay taxes.

01:14:41.960 They've got over $3 billion, and this is how Mike alleges, and so many ex-Scientologists do as well, they use their money.

01:14:49.240 Your money.

01:14:50.060 That's your money.

01:14:50.860 Yeah.

01:14:51.260 Every American taxpayer is subsidizing Scientology to hire private investigators, buy thousands of URLs.

01:15:01.240 Who is Mike Rinder?

01:15:02.340 Who is Leah Remini?

01:15:03.420 Who is, like, every URL you can possibly buy, produce videos, smear videos, and hire lawyers to send crap letters.

01:15:12.640 This is why it's not okay for John Travolta to say, why would I read anything that isn't nice about something that makes me feel good?

01:15:20.840 Because they're hurting a lot of people.

01:15:22.640 A lot of ex-Scientologists have stories exactly like Mike's.

01:15:26.020 Even if you discount Mike, I think he lies about lying, right?

01:15:28.520 As they said, he's not alone.

01:15:31.060 So at some point, you have to take this seriously.

01:15:33.420 And do your own deep dive.

01:15:34.940 All right, listen.

01:15:35.280 We're going to come back with more on John Travolta and Tom Cruise in particular.

01:15:39.220 But there's a bunch of celebrities that have been caught up in this I want to ask Mike about.

01:15:43.040 And 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.

01:15:55.580 Listen.

01:15:57.260 You know TV.

01:15:58.840 You know how it works.

01:16:00.600 You know.

01:16:01.220 You have no friends.

01:16:04.460 These people that run these networks, especially one that was failing, they are desperate to keep their jobs.

01:16:13.020 They are desperate in these times we live in to be perceived as more than woke.

01:16:19.080 You know, they want to be seen as Mother Teresa and Jesus Christ and they and but they're all hypocrites.

01:16:27.300 They're liars and they're hypocrites and they'll do whatever they have to do to keep their job.

01:16:34.460 Well, that was another good one.

01:16:35.680 I like these highlights.

01:16:36.520 You got to be liquid.

01:16:39.800 You got to take the shape of your container.

01:16:41.560 So and that's what Hollywood is.

01:16:43.200 People don't realize that Hollywood is people for the most part that don't have strong opinions.

01:16:49.780 They are really able to count.

01:16:52.540 They're very malleable and they're able to, you know, whichever way the wind is blowing.

01:16:56.580 OK, are we unwoke this year?

01:16:58.560 Are we woke this year?

01:16:59.920 Is this year the year of elevating Asian people?

01:17:02.900 Is it the year of elevating Middle Eastern people?

01:17:05.460 Is it the gay year? 0.99

01:17:06.640 Is it the trans year? 0.99

01:17:07.600 They don't care.

01:17:08.540 Their job is to to buy a 10 million dollar house in Beverly Hills and pay the mortgage.

01:17:14.240 So whatever does that.

01:17:16.620 But 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.

01:17:24.260 You need to just build your own fan base outside of that system because that system is collapsing.

01:17:29.260 Oh, my gosh.

01:17:30.120 That was a great episode.

01:17:31.780 Number 60 with the brilliant comedian Tim Dillon.

01:17:35.660 That was last February, February of last year.

01:17:39.140 Go back and listen to the whole thing.

01:17:40.200 He will have you crying that you were laughing so hard.

01:17:42.740 He had me crying, talking about how he used to advise people on like the Iraq war.

01:17:47.340 And he's like, what am I doing?

01:17:48.560 What am I saying?

01:17:49.360 I don't know anything.

01:17:50.360 Anyway, now back to Mike Rinder, who is here.

01:17:54.020 This is our last block and there's so much to get through.

01:17:56.740 All right.

01:17:57.340 Tom Cruise, we mentioned him earlier.

01:17:59.620 What was it like for you understanding he's kind of like the BFF of David Miscavige?

01:18:04.460 He's kind of like a co-runner of Scientology, seeing his huge box office success, people

01:18:11.580 revering him with the Top Gun movie this past year.

01:18:17.260 Not pleasant.

01:18:18.200 I don't actually wish anybody, perhaps other than David Miscavige, ill will.

01:18:25.220 You know, I sort of acknowledge his success, but I wish that he would be more honest.

01:18:34.100 Do you think he knows all this stuff?

01:18:35.320 Yes, I do.

01:18:36.740 I think he knows a large part of it, way more than the other celebrities.

01:18:41.320 He is, like you said, you know, sort of BFF.

01:18:46.060 And he is in some ways the second man of Scientology after David Miscavige.

01:18:55.020 I think that he should be a little more responsible for the fact that he, probably more than any other

01:19:05.660 person in the history of Scientology, has been responsible for bringing more people into

01:19:12.860 Scientology than anybody.

01:19:14.300 And a lot of those people have had very unpleasant experiences and have been abused and have lost

01:19:24.280 their money and have gone into debt or filed bankruptcy.

01:19:28.500 And, you know, he carries on like, well, I don't have anything to care about.

01:19:35.940 You know, I just made another few hundred million dollars on this movie.

01:19:40.400 And so my life's fine.

01:19:42.660 And I don't think that that is a responsible position for anybody to take.

01:19:48.940 You mentioned that he, that Mimi Rogers, his first wife, was born into Scientology.

01:19:53.920 She got him into it.

01:19:55.000 And then he met Nicole Kidman while he was filming Dead Calm, I think it was, that movie

01:20:00.080 on the boat.

01:20:01.100 No, that was her film.

01:20:02.280 He was filming Days of Thunder with her.

01:20:04.260 Oh, when he met her.

01:20:05.100 That was her first big film, Days of Thunder.

01:20:06.960 Oh, yes, you're right.

01:20:07.280 He wasn't in Dead Calm.

01:20:08.180 She was in Dead Calm.

01:20:08.920 Right.

01:20:09.320 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:09.860 OK, so he met Nicole Kidman and fell in love with her.

01:20:13.020 Right.

01:20:13.620 And how did the church resolve that or how did they play a role?

01:20:17.020 Well, he wanted to take up with Nicole, but he was still married to Mimi.

01:20:23.260 So the divorce between Mimi and Tom was facilitated by David Miscavige and his henchman at the

01:20:33.540 time, Greg Wilhair.

01:20:34.580 And he basically, like, I wasn't there for the conversations that happened.

01:20:43.480 I just see the results.

01:20:45.540 And I am pretty sure that Mimi was convinced that bringing Tom and Nicole and being able

01:20:57.660 to bring Nicole into the Scientology fold as an up-and-coming superstar was the greatest

01:21:05.160 good and that, you know, her marriage to Tom was less important than the achievement of

01:21:15.140 the overall aims of Scientology.

01:21:16.900 That's crazy, but OK.

01:21:18.500 But what about, was Nicole Kidman actually a member of Scientology?

01:21:23.560 Well, not at the time when she got in, but she very quickly was indoctrinated into Scientology

01:21:30.400 and brought to the international headquarters in Riverside, where the hole was in California,

01:21:37.440 and quickly progressed up the steps of the Scientology bridge.

01:21:43.780 Those would be steps you'd have to pay for as a civilian, but Nicole, I'm sure, was fast-tracked.

01:21:47.920 Very fast-tracked.

01:21:49.740 And...

01:21:50.040 He would not have married her if she were not willing to become a Scientologist.

01:21:53.520 Correct.

01:21:54.100 OK.

01:21:54.460 Correct.

01:21:55.200 And, you know, no good Scientologist would marry someone who was not a Scientologist,

01:22:01.500 and that relationship would not last.

01:22:05.080 So they adopted two children, Isabella and Connor.

01:22:08.840 And I'll never forget their divorce, because just before their divorce, it was in the papers

01:22:13.960 that they had renewed their vows.

01:22:15.580 It was their 10-year wedding anniversary, and they had done a vow renewal.

01:22:19.100 And she had said something to him, you know, like, you're the most important person to me,

01:22:22.220 and he said the same to her.

01:22:23.560 And like a week later, he filed for divorce.

01:22:25.640 And there was only one statement, reportedly, where he said something like,

01:22:28.620 she knows why.

01:22:29.300 I can't remember exactly how it went down.

01:22:31.440 Yeah.

01:22:31.620 Did that have to do with Scientology?

01:22:34.980 Honestly, I don't know, Megan.

01:22:37.560 But what I do know is that there was always a fear that Nicole would be influenced by her dad.

01:22:47.960 And her dad is a psychiatrist.

01:22:50.380 And to Scientologists, psychiatry is the devil.

01:22:55.880 I mean, literally, the incarnate evil of planet Earth is psychiatry.

01:23:03.140 And had she not been Nicole Kidman, with a father who was a psychiatrist,

01:23:08.580 she would not have been allowed to be involved in Scientology.

01:23:11.840 They would have told him, you can't marry her?

01:23:13.420 Like, yes, I mean, if a regular old run-of-the-mill guy walking down the street walks into a church

01:23:25.920 of Scientology and says, oh, well, I want to, you know, I want to pay you for some auditing.

01:23:31.080 And they fill out all the forms you have to fill out of all the information about your life.

01:23:37.280 And it turns out that your father is a psychiatrist.

01:23:40.160 You will not be allowed.

01:23:42.080 Wow.

01:23:42.500 And she was.

01:23:44.860 And, you know, I write in the book that Nicole, who is very, very, you know, I can say this,

01:23:56.260 but, you know, it's sort of probably inappropriate for other people to say, she's very Australian.

01:24:03.800 What does that mean?

01:24:05.700 Australians are not particularly the over-the-top, enthusiastic kind of person. 0.95

01:24:14.220 Like, shouting from the rooftops and, you know, being in any way self-important is a very, very big no-no in Australia.

01:24:24.560 And Nicole already has a somewhat reserved demeanor.

01:24:32.160 You write in the book, you use the word cold.

01:24:35.100 Yeah.

01:24:35.760 Or some people call it a cold.

01:24:37.440 I didn't.

01:24:38.560 I got along great with her.

01:24:39.360 You're an Aussie, too.

01:24:40.420 Exactly.

01:24:41.120 You're like, she seems totally normal to me.

01:24:42.680 That's exactly right.

01:24:44.960 And she was never much of a match when it came to the Scientology stuff.

01:24:53.520 Like, Tom is jumping on Oprah's couch and yelling at Matt Lauer and going Borneo about Scientology.

01:25:01.600 And Nicole is like, hmm.

01:25:03.680 We're kind of checking a box here so I can be married to Tom Cruise.

01:25:06.820 Kind of.

01:25:07.640 Wait, 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.

01:25:20.700 And she said openly that she had resorted to using some meds that very much helped her.

01:25:24.880 And he was very critical of Brooke Shields doing that and of meds in general, psychiatric medications.

01:25:32.180 Here's the clip.

01:25:32.940 It went around the world.

01:25:34.160 Here 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.

01:25:48.860 Do you know what Adderall is?

01:25:50.360 Do you know Ritalin?

01:25:51.380 If antidepressants work for Brooke Shields, why isn't that okay?

01:25:55.240 I disagree with it.

01:25:57.420 And I think that there's a higher and better quality of life.

01:26:00.020 Do you examine the possibility that these things do work for some people?

01:26:04.700 That, yes, there are abuses.

01:26:06.360 And, yes, maybe they've gone too far in certain areas.

01:26:08.740 Maybe there are too many kids on Ritalin.

01:26:10.580 Maybe electric shock is...

01:26:11.660 Too many kids on Ritalin.

01:26:12.520 I'm just saying, but aren't there examples where it works?

01:26:16.100 Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even, you're glim.

01:26:18.540 You don't even know what Ritalin is.

01:26:20.040 You're here on the Today Show.

01:26:21.760 Right.

01:26:21.960 And to talk about it in a way of saying, well, isn't it okay in being reasonable about it when you don't know?

01:26:28.020 And I do.

01:26:28.760 I think that you should be a little bit more responsible in knowing what it is because you communicate to people.

01:26:36.140 Having read your book, that is quintessential Scientology.

01:26:39.440 Absolutely.

01:26:40.320 Right?

01:26:40.640 That little bit tells you everything you need to know about the mindset of a Scientologist.

01:26:47.780 I know better and you don't.

01:26:50.280 That's exactly right.

01:26:51.960 And it doesn't matter what evidence there is.

01:26:55.040 It doesn't matter what anybody else has to say about their experience.

01:26:59.720 Tom Cruise is saying, you know, I know.

01:27:03.980 You don't.

01:27:05.260 Brooke doesn't know that she was being helped by whatever it was that she was getting.

01:27:10.900 Right.

01:27:11.120 She doesn't know.

01:27:11.880 She doesn't know.

01:27:12.740 And, you know, that is the definition of a cult member.

01:27:18.500 Honestly, it is sort of the defining thing is they are absolutely convinced that they're right.

01:27:27.660 And that anybody that says they're not is either uninformed, ignorant, stupid, has it in for them, glib, whatever the disparaging term is.

01:27:43.500 I will say this.

01:27:44.300 His instincts about Matt Lauer were dead on.

01:27:49.860 Well, he lucked into that one.

01:27:51.580 He lucked into it.

01:27:52.820 Okay.

01:27:53.720 Now, wait a minute.

01:27:55.220 Let's talk about, quickly, Katie Holmes.

01:27:58.060 Oh, no.

01:27:59.020 I just got to tell you something, Megan, because it's such a funny story.

01:28:02.420 You know that he tried to make up after that with Brooke and did.

01:28:06.900 Didn't he take – he invited her to his wedding?

01:28:08.900 He brought Brooke to his wedding with her husband.

01:28:12.640 And 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.

01:28:24.180 He was in the hole with us.

01:28:26.160 He was taken out of the hole to fly to Italy to perform the wedding ceremony at Tom and Katie's wedding.

01:28:35.120 Got so drunk, he started hitting on Brooke Shields to the point where Brooke's husband complained to David Miscavige.

01:28:43.920 Norman Starkey was sent on a plane back to the hole.

01:28:47.320 Back to the hole, you go.

01:28:48.100 And we were blamed for his – what he did.

01:28:52.680 You should have stopped him.

01:28:53.600 You should have known from the hole.

01:28:55.460 I can see it.

01:28:56.240 I can see bad things with Brooke Shields.

01:28:58.360 It's so nuts.

01:29:00.140 All right.

01:29:00.520 So Katie Holmes, this – who could forget Tom Cruise jumping on the Oprah couch? 0.99

01:29:05.400 This is when he was not being controlled.

01:29:08.520 It stopped from expressing his joy of Scientology, et cetera.

01:29:12.800 He's jumping on the Oprah couch about Katie.

01:29:15.500 You say in the book there were auditions to become his next girlfriend.

01:29:19.820 So that means she must have auditioned.

01:29:22.880 Katie Holmes?

01:29:23.680 I assume so.

01:29:25.360 I assume so.

01:29:26.380 Look, I was actually in the hole when this was going down.

01:29:30.480 I was there for the start of the Tom Cruise interview for a girlfriend saga, which was happening – which happened in Madrid, of all places.

01:29:41.140 I was in Madrid for the opening of the new church there.

01:29:44.080 And this new church had been built and, you know, new Scientology building and blah, blah, blah.

01:29:48.220 And 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.

01:29:59.720 By 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.

01:30:11.260 Penelope Cruise was out of it.

01:30:11.680 However, so I'm standing talking to Tom and, you know, whatever entourage – and Miscavige hadn't showed up yet.

01:30:21.320 And Leanne was there and Leanne, his sister.

01:30:24.620 And he turns – he says to me, can you believe Leanne can't find me a girlfriend?

01:30:31.640 And I'm like –

01:30:32.520 No, I cannot believe that.

01:30:34.240 A, I can't believe it.

01:30:35.980 B, I can't believe you're asking me.

01:30:37.900 And C, what am I supposed to do about it?

01:30:39.840 At that point, David Miscavige walked into the room and said, oh, what are you guys talking about?

01:30:45.060 And Tom repeats the same thing to him.

01:30:47.640 Okay.

01:30:48.300 Very shortly thereafter, I was in the hall.

01:30:51.860 And I never really saw what happened subsequently.

01:30:58.220 But 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.

01:31:17.700 And talked about how Nazanin Boniade had been selected to be his girlfriend and the process that was gone through.

01:31:28.280 My goodness.

01:31:29.300 And Naz is a very good friend of mine.

01:31:32.540 And this story, she can't talk about because she is bound by an NDA that she was forced to sign before starting a relationship with him.

01:31:43.760 Oh, my God.

01:31:44.980 But –

01:31:45.540 Note 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.

01:31:55.960 Now, I want to tell the audience two things.

01:31:58.460 There's more on John Travolta, which is fascinating.

01:32:00.500 And there's a great story about Michael Jackson being toured through the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition with Lisa Marie.

01:32:06.760 And to hear those stories, you've got to buy Mike's book.

01:32:09.280 You've got to – and those are worth it alone.

01:32:12.760 But 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.

01:32:19.140 And, of course, I should reiterate, Scientology denies all of this.

01:32:21.700 I'm sure Tom Cruise does too.

01:32:24.680 Why should people be thinking – like how should they be thinking about the Church of Scientology?

01:32:29.180 You know, you hear a lot of like, well, Catholics believe in crazy things too. 0.97

01:32:32.220 So do Jews. 1.00

01:32:32.960 So do Muslims. 0.99

01:32:33.640 You know, what makes Scientology different?

01:32:37.980 Well, let me first say, Megan, you can believe anything you want.

01:32:42.340 You can't do anything that you want.

01:32:44.560 And when belief leads to action that is hurting people, then that's what I object to.

01:32:51.300 And 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.

01:33:13.580 And 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.

01:33:41.300 Especially those who leave the Church.

01:33:43.500 You can leave the Catholic Church or any of these other religions anytime you want. 0.95

01:33:48.040 Yeah.

01:33:48.400 I 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.

01:33:58.040 Yeah.

01:33:58.420 And that is a pretty good measure.

01:34:03.180 Do you think they're done surveilling you?

01:34:05.220 No.

01:34:05.980 It's been, what, 13, 15 years or so?

01:34:08.220 I don't know.

01:34:08.560 Yeah, 15 years now.

01:34:10.160 So you still feel like they might be out there, or you know they're out there?

01:34:12.940 Yeah, I think that they're probably out there.

01:34:14.740 They're probably following me around today to see what media I'm going to do so that they can send nasty legal letters. 0.98

01:34:20.200 They won't be surprised at all to find you over here again.

01:34:22.500 No, they will not, especially as you advertised it last week.

01:34:27.460 Fine.

01:34:28.040 Well, we're not afraid of Scientology.

01:34:29.480 I know you're not.

01:34:30.400 That's why I love you so much, and I enjoy being interviewed by you, because you absolutely are fearless.

01:34:36.600 And there is not enough people in the media who are fearless about the paper tiger threats that come from Scientology.

01:34:44.560 Well, thank you, but that's a compliment you deserve, not me.

01:34:47.740 Mike Rinder, you've been fearless, and I really appreciate you telling the story in the forums that you have, especially in this book.

01:34:53.460 You've got to buy it.

01:34:54.240 It's called A Billion Years, My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology.

01:34:59.760 Thank you all so much for listening, and don't forget to buy that book and to tune in to the show tomorrow as well.

01:35:05.620 Thank you.

01:35:07.180 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:35:09.280 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 28, 2022

Escaping Scientology, Tom Cruise's Impact, and a Prison of Belief, with Mike Rinder ｜ EP. 400

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