Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s01e04 Episode Script
A Leader Emerges
1 Here's what the Church says about Jeff Hawkins.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Jeff Hawkins.
Jeff Hawkins is an obsessed anti-Scientologist who was expelled from thefrom the Church more than a decade ago for unsavory personal conduct, as well as a long record of malfeasance as a staff member.
Hawkins's entire life is a lie.
He fabricated stories about having been a victim of violence as a staff member -- were debunked more than a decade ago.
[ Whoosh .]
[Ominous chord strikes.]
[Cheering.]
[ Applause .]
-I want to tell you something.
That I-I have never met a more competent, a more intelligent, a more tolerant, a more compassionate being.
And I've met the leaders of leaders.
I've met them all.
So I say to you, sir, COB, we are lucky to have you and thank you very much.
[ Cheering and applause .]
Mike: David Miscavige is the chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, or COB.
He likes to call himself the Pope of Scientology.
He is the man in charge and the one who, uh, determines what is and isn't good Scientology.
David Miscavige is running the Church with fear.
The undisputed dictator of Scientology.
[ Ominous chord strikes .]
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition, where he him-- can solve his own problems.
It offers you a sense of purpose in life.
Not only are you fixing yourself, but you're also helping mankind.
Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet.
Woman: After years of slowly questioning Scientology Man: Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology I didn't want to find out that what I had done my whole life was a lie.
[ Doorbell rings .]
[ Applause .]
[ Cheers and applause .]
Fight for your family.
Fight for your daughters, your sons.
Get them out of this thing.
You're not going to continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives.
If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it.
Captioning Provided by A+E Networks -Okay.
-Leah: Hi.
-Jeff, this is Leah.
-How are you? Great to meet you.
You too.
Thank you for coming.
Yeah, happy to do it.
Jeff Hawkins spent 30 years in the Church and, like me, he wrote a book about the abuses of the Church after he left.
And I want to hear his story myself.
Where would you like me to start? How you got into Scientology, 'cause I think it's important.
I was a hippie back in the late '60s.
And I was also searching for some kind of spiritual answer.
And I was introduced to Scientology and they said, "We're against war.
We're against violence.
" And it was scientific and spiritual -- I thought.
I had always believed in past lives, even before Scientology, -Mm-hmm.
and it meant, to me, that you could kind of transcend your body -Mm-hmm.
and that wouldn't really die -Right.
-when you died.
And I thought, "Great.
Let's give it a shot.
" Jeff was the marketing guru of Scientology for many, many, many years.
I started the whole Dianetics campaign in the 1980s with the exploding volcanoes and all that.
Oh, you did those commercials and stuff? Yeah, the TV ads.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
[ Suspenseful chord strikes .]
Announcer: "Dianetics," by L.
Ron Hubbard, a fresh look at today's problems.
Buy your copy at Waldenbooks.
Jeff: It was pretty successful at that time.
Leah: Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, everybody had seen the ads.
We were selling 10,000 to 30,000 books a week through the bookstores.
L.
Ron Hubbard said that books are what will boom Scientology.
The number of books in the hands of people is a direct reflection of how well Scientology will be doing and how quickly it will expand.
Marketing got sucked up to the international base and it was downhill from there.
My name is David Miscavige [Smattering of applause.]
and I'm very happy that you could all make it to this important briefing this evening.
Mike: David Miscavige got himself into a position where he had communication with L.
Ron Hubbard that nobody else had and it gave him enormous authority to be telling L.
Ron Hubbard that people were doing things or this was happening, and couching everything in the framework that made him look good; and, anybody who he felt was a rival, look bad.
L.
Ron Hubbard completed everything he set out do, and more.
He has now moved on to his next level of OT research.
This level is beyond anything any one of us ever imagined.
[ Laughter .]
This level is in fact done in an exterior state.
Thus, at 2000 hours Friday, the 24th of January AD 36, L.
Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in this lifetime for 74 years, 10 months, and 11 days.
Being -- -The core belief of Scientology is that you're a spiritual being.
L.
Ron Hubbard had reached, obviously, the highest level in Scientology there is to reach, promoting this idea that there's an afterlife and he found the answer to it by deciding to discard this body to go explore new OT levels.
All of this is bull[bleep.]
L.
Ron Hubbard died of a stroke.
After L.
Ron Hubbard died, Scientology changed.
Miscavige took over.
He wasmean.
He was a mean guy.
David Miscavige physically assaulted me five separate times.
Uh, the most famous one, I think -- and Mike was there.
I had written an infomercial for Dianetics.
I had sent it up to Miscavige.
I get called up to the conference room.
And there's about 30 or 40 executives sitting around the table.
He starts reading from my script and making fun of it.
-Huh.
-I said, uh, "Sir, if I can just explain," -Yeah.
-and he goes, "See? You see how he talks to me?" He said, "All I want to hear from you is your crimes.
" He said, "Why don't you tell people what your crimes are?" A crime in Scientology are things like not applying Scientology correctly, prosecuting a Scientologist, talking badly about a senior Scientologist or Sea Org member.
And so he's getting himself more and more worked up, and then finally -- -And you're not doing anything? I-I'm just standing there, right? -[Laughs.]
-He just keeps working himself into a -- into a-a-a-a tizzy, right? Th-Then, finally, he jumps up on the table, launches himself at me, knocks me back against the partition wall.
Starts hammering my face.
Knocks me down on the floor.
I was scratched up, -Yeah.
-my shirt was ripped off.
What is everybody in the room doing? Everybody's j-just sit-- -Watches silently 'cause you don't want to do anything that will attract attention to you so that you're the next one.
And then there was one time when I was in my offices and he came down, he was talking to us, and he just flattened me, knocked me on the floor.
And he said, "You know what I did that?" And I said, "No, sir.
" And he said, "To show you who's boss.
" [ Suspenseful music plays .]
Leah: Wow.
Were you told to physically hurt people or push them or punch them in the face or it j-- was just accepted if you did? There were a lot of times when Miscavige would make a statement like, "Well, everybody in here has got crimes and you people had better figure out what your crimes are.
These ones in particular, they've got big crimes and you'd better get to the bottom of it because if I come back and they haven't confessed to what their big crimes are, then there's gonna be big trouble.
And I will expect that they'll have black eyes.
" Invariably, some person would start turning on them, and oftentimes physically.
It was like "Lord of the Flies" in there.
I mean, it was insane.
It was literally, "I am gonna beat the crap out of you before I get the crap beat out of me.
" And there's none of these times that you were like, "[Bleep.]
this.
This is sick"? -No.
You know, I described my whole experience to a Navy SEAL and he said, "Oh, I would've just coldcocked that -- -Right.
-that guy.
I wouldn't have stood for that.
" -Right.
And I said, "Uh, suppose he was an admiral?" And he -- There was a long pause and then he said, "Oh, I see what you mean.
" As a Scientologist, you are trained to believe that anything that happens to you, um, bad in your life is your fault.
I want people to know, who are victims of the Church of Scientology, or any cult, that you are a victim.
Something happened to you that you didn't deserve and you don't deserve to be punished for that.
David Miscavige is the guy who dispenses Scientology to people.
And he can dispense it to you or he can withhold it.
Right, so regardless of David Miscavige being an animal, you still believed in Scientology.
-Yeah, I did.
-Yeah.
-But I always had the viewpoint of like, "Oh, that's gonna pass and the purpose will -- will -- -Remain.
-will carry on.
" -And will go forward, yeah.
Yeah.
And one of the things with David Miscavige is that I realized he was never going away and that this was the way the Church was gonna be from now on.
-Right.
And that's the point where I said, "I'm out of here.
-Right.
-This is not what I signed up for," you know? -Right.
How long do think it took you to get this out of your system? You know, i-in a sense, I don't think it ever gets entirely out of your system but I'd say it's, you know, 95% there.
-Yeah.
-I-I can go days without even thinking about Scientology now, -Right.
which is a big improvement from when I first left.
-Right.
You know, 'cause then I was obsessed with finding out what the heck went on.
-Right.
-And I did a lot of Internet searching, looking up David Miscavige.
"Who is this guy?" I had so many questions -Right.
-because you're not allowed to ask those questions in the Church.
-Right.
-I think everybody goes through that.
-Yeah.
I'm still going through that.
I am constantly on the Internet, looking at these stories, and they're getting me to a point where I think I'm already going insane.
-Jeff: Yeah.
Because I'm like, "What can we do about it?" Mike has been with me from the beginning on this show and he -- There's not a moment, car drive, lunch, breakfast, coffee, that I'm not going, "So, Mike, uh, did you go to the FBI? So, Mike, what if we get a plane? What if we drop pamphlets? What if we just get the police?" I mean, i-it's constant.
You i-- "Have you told the FBI? Why is the government not stepping in? What's happening? What -- What can we do? This is -- W-We shouldn't let this just go by," you know? In a lot of the cases that we're talking about, the statute of limitations has run out.
I keep telling you, Leah, this is what makes a difference -- exposing it.
Yeah, one civil rights march didn't bring about the Civil Rights Act.
It took 50.
-Mm-hmm.
One TV show about gay rights didn't change -- it may have moved the ball forward, but you've got to keep, keep, keep doing it.
-Right.
-And the more variety of the ways that this is presented, the more likelihood there is that someone is gonna go, "Whew! Wait a minute.
This.
is.
insane.
" Here's what the Church has to say about Tom DeVocht.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Tom DeVocht, a violent, admitted liar who left the Church in 2005, following an investigation into his extensive waste of Church funds.
After being silent for four years, he began making the outrageous claim that he had been subjected to physical abuse, even though, in reality, he abused others, including his wife.
" Here, bring him a gift.
-Yes, sir.
[ Laughs, snickers .]
Oh, look how cute.
[Door knocker bangs.]
Hel-lo! -Hey! -Oh, good morning, sweetheart.
-Oh, no, is she gonna cry? -No, she's not.
-Hello! My name is Tom DeVocht.
I was a part of the Church of Scientology for 30 years.
I worked from the bottom up.
I was working directly for David Miscavige when I left.
I got involved in Scientology in 1974.
My cousin Dicky Thompson played with The Steve Miller Band.
They had just number 1 on Casey Kasem's Top 40 for, uh, "The Joker.
" He talked about it.
He -- He made it pretty glamorous.
It was him involved.
As far as we knew, Steve Miller was in.
He talked about Travolta being a close friend and they all hang out at same place, Celebrity Centre.
So it was, uh, an exciting time and -- and, you know, I'm a kid.
I'm 10 years old.
And, uh, the celebrity draw was certainly part of it.
The coolest thing for me was my mother seemed so happy and that made me feel good about it, uh, more than anything, I think.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
[ Sinister music plays .]
I get there in October and, uh, like I don't know who David Miscavige is, really, you know what I mean? I run into him and he goes, "How you doing?" And he was really intensely interested in how I was doing and he says, "I'm keeping an eye on you" [Sinister music plays.]
and I went, "Okay.
" Mike: Tom DeVocht was definitely in Miscavige's inner circle.
He and I had very different roles.
I dealt with legal/public relations, attackers of the Church.
Tom dealt with the city of Clearwater, dealing with code enforcements, [Cheering.]
purchasing of buildings, renovating buildings, and that became a big focus of Miscavige's and Tom DeVocht became his go-to guy.
Tom has stories about David Miscavige and things that he did and the reasons that he did them that would be kind of embarrassing, like being told that he had to go arrange for a road to be closed and the sidewalk to be torn up because Miscavige was afraid that -- that protesters were gonna be there.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Lisa McPherson was a parishioner of the Church in Clearwater who had a mental breakdown, was taken out of the psychiatric ward of the Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater and brought to The Fort Harrison Hotel, where she never should've been, and was in the Church's care for a number of weeks.
She was finally taken to a hospital and she was dead on arrival.
Narrator: The Florida medical examiner conducted an autopsy.
The report stated she died from a blood clot brought on by prolonged bed confinement and severe dehydration.
[ Sinister music plays .]
[ Shouting indistinctly .]
We got all these g-guys coming to demonstrate against us and that sort of thing.
-[Shouting continues.]
And I get told by Miscavige, "I want every sidewalk around every one of our properties torn up so that they can't be on the sidewalks.
" And I'm thinking, [laughs.]
"What? How the [bleep.]
do you do that?" I go to the Florida Department of Transportation [laughing.]
and I try to get a permit to do it.
And I'm going -- You know what I mean? "They're never gonna approve this," do you know what I mean? This is my first time I got attacked by Miscavige.
I walked into that conference room.
I think you and Marty were there, to begin with.
I told Marty and Mike and I could tell they were like, "Oh, [bleep.]
" Miscavige walks in and I tell him.
He goes, "Did you get it?" I said, "No, sir.
" And before I could even think, he dove across the table, grabbed my [bleep.]
tie, and shoved it up -Leah: Mm-hmm.
and I-I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't talk.
I was like "Agh.
" And I'm thinking, "Holy [bleep.]
" you know.
Ahem! It hurt like a mother[bleep.]
and -- and, uh, I was shocked.
I'm upset about not being able to do it, but, uh, now I'm being physically abused for, you know, not being able to pull permits on an absolutely impossible deal.
Um, and he says I am basically an enemy.
-Yeah.
-That was the first time and it was -- it was an overwhelmingly [ Suspenseful music plays .]
tough, crazy, emotional thing because I believed and I was insane.
Now I look at it and go [scoff.]
, you know? But -- But inside there, you really -- i-it's devastating.
You believed that you had failed him.
You believed -- Yeah.
-Failed him, failed the Church, -Right.
-failed Hubbard, -Failed mankind.
-failedmankind.
-Yeah.
-You're -- You know, you -- -Mike: Why? -Because he was a [bleep.]
hero.
-Right.
That's how intense he is about clearing the planet.
So getting beat up by Miscavige was not a "[Bleep.]
I just got beat up Miscavige.
I'm gonna beat -Leah: Hmm.
-the [bleep.]
out of the punk.
" -Yeah.
-It was, "Man, I [bleep.]
up.
" -Yeah.
And that was the level of control and -- and -- -Right.
and -- and, uh, power that the guy had.
This [bleep.]
built, over time, this -- the mental atmosphere, the organizational pattern, everything, into "I'm the [bleep.]
guy.
" Right.
What was the thing? After how many -- -The single thing that cracked me into -- -How many years were you in the Sea Org? -28 years.
-Yeah.
So, after 28 years, what was the thing? Miscavige, Miscavige, Miscavige.
And -- And I'll tell you why.
Seeing the organization had been ripped the [bleep.]
apart and it was strictly about the -- the -- Miscavige's power, um, it crumbled.
Everything, the -- the whole picture of what I thought I was involved in -Mm-hmm.
-crumbled before me.
It was like -Right.
But more than anything, it was the realization the whole thing's a farce.
There i-- There's nothing workable about it.
-Right.
-Scientology does not work.
[Melancholy tune plays.]
If any Scientologist could hear the conversations I had with Miscavige about the upper-level OT material for OT IX -- that's the next level.
This is where you exteriorize from your body, which are very important to Scientologists.
He said, "Hey, I've got worksheets, Hubbard's worksheets.
That's all I've got to work with.
I've got to develop what OT IX is.
" It suddenly hit me -- [snaps fingers.]
and this was sitting with Miscavige every night, drinking a bottle of Scotch -- that it's a farce, that he -- you know, that Miscavige himself is now gonna finish these off.
You know, Hubbard died.
He's not some superpower being or -- You know what I mean? The body he had used to facilitate his existence in this MEST universe had ceased to be useful and, in fact, had become an impediment to the work he now must do outside of its confines.
Leah: You have parishioners believing that L.
Ron Hubbard had reached, obviously, the highest level in Scientology there is to reach, that he could actually decide to discard his body.
Because how else is he going to keep Scientology going? What if he came out and he said, "L.
Ron Hubbard has died of a stroke"? Then why are we doing all this, if we're just gonna die of a stroke? L.
Ron Hubbard was sick all the time.
All of it -- the -- the technology, the administrative part of it, the relationships, the -- everything you thought that -- that got you interested in the organization, it just hit me overwhelmingly, "This is the opposite of what I ever thought I got involved in.
" I mean the opposite.
And that's when it -- it became real to me, "I don't care if I -- I got nowhere to go, I got no education, I got nothing.
I'm leaving.
" When I left Scientology in 2005, I had no formal education, no credentials of any sort, no [bleep.]
idea of what I was gonna do.
Um but the one thing I knew is that the idea of walking away from it and -- and going to L.
A.
and sleeping on a park bench and -- and becoming a homeless bum, uh, or even dead was, uh, better, more palatable, than staying in the organization at that point.
I mean, it was that bad.
You've put everything into it and then, you know, I go through it, and in the last two, three years, I realize, "What the [bleep.]
? I have just given my life away to a cult.
" I look at that now and I go, "[Bleep.]
, man.
Had I not been involved" [ Drums chair .]
[Bleep.]
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
Like me, when Tom left the Sea Organization, every one of his family members who was still a Scientologist disconnected from him.
I lost all my friends -Leah: Mm-hmm.
that I'd known for 28 years, -Mm-hmm.
my sister, niece, nephew, my two brothers.
I'm crying, but inside of me, I'm so [bleep.]
angry that, you know, I ever contributed to it, believed it.
Um [Bleep.]
this is hard.
[crying.]
I heard the stories, you know, people being disconnected from, and I'm sure I was responsible for some of it, you know, in my "executive career.
" Um, or, minimally, I didn't do anything about it, but, uh [ Taps chair .]
[ Groan .]
If -- I guess what I'm trying to spit out here is if I did have -- you know, affect anybody's life that way or was involved in any way with, um, disconnecting anybody or -- or, uh even knowing about it and not doing anything about it, um, I want to say to them I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Can we take a break? Ahem! [Bleep.]
Stop killing yourself for something [Suspenseful music climbs.]
that's not doing the world good.
This is what the Church of Scientology has to say about Ron Miscavige.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Ron Miscavige.
" "He cavalierly admitted to Fox's Megyn Kelly that he beat his late wife once a month over 10 years, or about 120 times.
He admitted that he beat his daughter and was arrested in 1985 for attempted rape.
He has a long history of anti-Semitic and racist comments.
" Reporter: Ron Miscavige, David Miscavige's father, has left the Church and is speaking out for the first time.
Ron Miscavige is David Miscavige's father.
He was in Scientology for many, many years, got David into Scientology.
I think Ron's story shows that nobody is immune to the abusive practices of Scientology.
And we didn't inform them in any way that we were shooting with Ron Miscavige, which is very interesting to me, how they would find out.
I just think they're playing games.
I'm not looking to start a war with them.
But what I am saying is, "We're gonna tell these people's stories, and you're not gonna bully us.
" -Hey! -Mike! -Buddy.
-[Laughter.]
-Nice to see you.
-Great seeing you, too, buddy.
-Hey, Becky.
-Can I have a big hug? -How are you, handsome? -All right.
Good.
And you? -Mwah! -Good seeing you.
-Good to see you.
You too.
-Hi! -Hi, sweetheart.
You know the Church knows you're doing this interview, so -- -I'm sure they do.
I -- You know what? I could care less.
My name is Ron Miscavige.
I was a Scientologist for 42 years.
I was a member of the Sea Organization for 26.
5 years.
And my son is David Miscavige, who is the chairman of the board of the Church of Scientology.
In 1970, I got my entire family involved in Scientology courses and this was in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
And I came home from work one night and I saw David laying in bed in his room.
And I looked in, I said, "Hey, how's it going?" He said, "Aw, Dad.
" He says, "I-- I don't want to go to school anymore.
" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I just can't take it.
I'd like to go and help L.
Ron Hubbard.
" "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "I want to join the Sea Org.
" "Wow," I thought.
"You know, he's 15.
He's gonna be 16 soon.
I was 17 when I joined the Marines.
He's about my age.
I knew that I wanted to do that.
That turned out right for me, as far as helping me in my life.
" I bought him a plane ticket and, the day he was 16, he quit school.
Next day, he flew down to Clearwater and joined the Sea Org down there.
I was very proud of him.
When he joined, within about nine months, he was working with L.
Ron Hubbard out in California and L.
Ron Hubbard was shooting movies and David worked there as a cameraman, shooting these movies.
He rose up through the ranks.
He's a tough kid, and smart.
And, uh, then, once L.
Ron Hubbard died, he saw his opportunity and he moved, uh, right up and took power.
[Melancholy tune plays.]
David: Although you may feel grief, understand that he did not and does not now.
[ Applause .]
Ron: He saw the people who would stand in his way and he just removed them from power.
And I'll tell you something: he's a very charismatic guy and he can get people to follow him and this is what he did.
But he was very clever about it and he eventually ended up being the head of all of Scientology.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Leah: 'Cause you were in the Sea Org for how long? 26.
5 years.
-26.
5.
Becky: Almost 25.
-Yeah.
25 years.
You're in the private, secured base.
-Yeah.
-The Gold Base is what they call it.
It is a property that is near Hemet in California, a 500-acre property, where the senior-most members of Scientology international management live and work, where Golden Era Productions is, that produces the films and videos and audio recordings that Scientology sells and pushes out into the world.
I think people have an idea of you, because you are the head of the Church's father, that you hung out every day, you saw each other every Sunday, -[Laughs.]
you had family dinners, you know, y-- that -- that you guys were very close for -- Sometimes, he'd be gone, come back, would be on the base for a month or two -Uh-huh.
and wouldn't even call me on the phone to say, "Hey, how are you doing?" And you had no right, as a father, to go walk over to his office and go, "Hey, you little [bleep.]
.
I'm your father "I don't give a [bleep.]
who you think you are"? Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
-Why? Why not? That's the way it was.
Family, uh, connections were considered a false dynamic, uh, meaning no spiritual being is the father of another spiritual being.
On that base, he referred to me as Ron.
He never called me Dad.
-And did you call him sir? Absolutely.
I was a staff member.
And that started about maybe a month or three weeks when I first got in and I saw him walking with his entourage.
And I wanted to say hello to him.
I said, "Hey, Dave!" -Yeah.
He turned around and looked at me and he gave me a look that I knew that I did the wrong thing.
-By calling him Dave? -Yes.
And that I would be -Yeah.
-so impertinent to do that, and him being the leader of Scientology.
I was a staff member and that father-son relationship, at that moment, I know, had either gone into nothing or was starting to erode, -Right.
-right at that moment.
The mother/daughter, son/father thing is taken away.
Now Scientology is your teacher.
Scientology is your parent.
Those roles are taken away pretty early on.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Ron: We were living in a barbed-wire fence: barbed wire pointing out, barbed wire pointing in.
-Leah: Right.
-Now, you don't need barbed wire pointing in to keep people from coming to the base, okay? Leah: Right.
Yeah.
Locked gates.
Everything is regimented.
You couldn't send a letter out of there just by putting it in an envelope.
Security would read every single letter that went out.
-Right.
-If it was okay, they'd seal it and send it.
If it wasn't, it would come back to you and you had to change it.
-Leah: Right.
-Becky: Yeah.
-You could not call anybody on the phone -Yeah.
without having somebody else on the extension, listening to what you're saying.
When my brother died -Yeah.
and my nephew Gerard told me my brother Ed died, I had a person listening on the [bleep.]
phone as I heard this news.
-Becky: Right.
That life went on day after day after day after day.
Leah: Right.
-It is just a grind, a gray life that -- -So you guys never Becky: No.
-left the base? -No, you had a minder.
-Unh-unh.
You had to have somebody go with you to the doctor so you wouldn't escape.
What is a turning point for you guys, where you realize, "This is not what I signed up for.
This is not what I can continue to support"? Well, if you used the Internet on the base, it was monitored by security.
It had all kinds of filters.
You couldn't connect to sites that said anything bad about Scientology, so, you never got, really, anything.
-Right.
You used it for work; they monitored it.
You actually had the window to the outside world when David gave you that Kindle.
And at the time, we didn't know that his Kindle actually connected to the Internet.
-Ohhh.
-So I come home and he's like, "I can get on the Internet.
" His son made a big mistake by giving him a Kindle and forgetting to disconnect the Internet.
Ron: I did it by accident -- went to Google and I thought, "Wow.
" I-I may've put in "Scientology" or "L Ron Hubbard.
" -Literally, earnestly -Yeah.
I thought, "I want to see -Googled it.
what they said about LRH or something," you know? Right.
And then what -- what happened? "What the hell is this?" He innocently wanted to see what the world was saying about Scientology.
Like, he was excited.
He was like, "Oh, 'cause I know we're doing all this great stuff and I want to see like all the accolades," you know? "I want to see.
" So he just Googled Scientology and he was hard pressed to find anything good that the world was saying.
He found all the bad things.
-Becky: Yeah.
And he starts reading articles.
You'd Ron: Yeah.
-Every few days, I'd come home and he was like, "You got to see the writing on the wall.
This is going south.
" -Because that -- But it took literally one Google search for you to be deprogrammed? -Yeah.
Saw that we were living a lie.
I mean, we were -- It was done with smoke and mirrors in the Sea Org.
Right.
He finally says, "That's it.
We are leaving, Sunday, March 25th.
" We had to plan our escape for about six months.
If the word got out that we were planning on leaving, we would've been seized, my car keys would've been taken away, Becky and I would've been separated from each other, and we would've done manual labor throughout the day, and, when we weren't doing that, we would be inter-- interrogated by an auditor.
That would've been our life.
And it took us about six months to execute it and the guards were used to me doing this.
Every m-- Sunday, we would go across to the north side of the base because there was a refrigerator there and we couldn't have a refrigerator in our room.
So I'd hit the buzzer and he didn't even ask, "Where you going?" because he was used to me going across the street.
Becky: Yes.
-The gate opened.
I turned left -- pedal to the metal.
So I went into town and we were free.
[ Suspenseful chord strikes .]
It literally felt like a weight was lifted off me, -Right.
-of my entire body.
-It was an unreal freedom.
-Yeah, yeah.
-It was an unreal feeling.
-Yeah, yeah.
And I had no intention of writing a book.
-Right.
I know.
I know that.
-None, whatever.
-I told you that.
-Mike: Oh, I know that, too.
[Laughs.]
-So does Mike.
Exactly.
'Cause we all tried to talk you into it, but -- Now, once I went down in 2014 to talk to my daughters and, uh, I ended up on the porch of Denise and her husband's talking to me through the door.
He says, "Ron, Denise and I are through with you and Becky forever.
" -Mm.
That was when I had decided to write this book.
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I don't have time for revenge in my heart or, you know, like a vendetta.
What I have time for is doing anything effective -- like this, like writing the book -- anything that will bring about a change and families can be reunited.
It's just the desire -- "Hey, I'd like to see my daughters and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.
" A lot of people ultimately will tell you, "The most freedom I ever felt in Scientology was the freedom that I got when I finally went, 'I'm done' and really moved away and got --" [ Music climbs, chord strikes .]
You had cash to pay for a few meals, but you were making what a week, $25 a week? -Well, no, $50 a week.
You got $40 -- -$50 a week.
-Yeah, we got -- It got up -- Mike: When you got paid.
-When you got paid.
-Ron: When we get paid.
-And that is the deal.
When you join the Sea Org, you give up all your possessions.
You live in a dorm.
Your food is made for you.
Your clothes are given to you.
So when you leave, you leave literally with zero -- no cellphone, no money in your pocket, no pension to depend on.
So go from that point.
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I had a police officer from the W-- from the Whitewater Police come to the house I was staying at.
Goes, "Well, I'm with the Whitewater Police.
I came to inform you that you've been followed by the Church of Scientology for the last 18 months.
" "You got to be kidding me.
" -Leah: Right.
He goes, "No, I'm not kidding you.
" And they sent somebody down to check my car for a GPS.
They saw that there was one there -- you could see the scratches -- but it had been removed.
And he said, "Do you have any idea why you were being followed?" I said, "Well, I left the Church of Scientology.
I actually escaped.
And I think they might be following me 'cause maybe they're afraid I might go to the media or maybe David's concerned about my health.
-Mm.
-And he says, "Listen, man.
" He says, "I don't know how I'm gonna tell you this, but that is not true" and he -Right, he's not gonna -- Right.
-told me exactly what happened.
So, he spilled his guts and he says, "I know, at one point, it looked like the target was having --" They referred to me as "the target.
" "It looks like the target was having a heart attack.
" I had a pocket T-shirt on, my cellphone was in this pocket and I was putting groceries in the car.
So I stooped over to put the groceries in.
I thought the cellphone was gonna fall out, so I grabbed my chest.
-Mm.
They're in a blacked-out van, looking at me.
They called their contact and said, "It looks like the target's having a heart attack.
What do you want us to do?" So the guy says, "Hang on.
" A gentleman come on the phone, identified himself as David Miscavige, and said, "Listen, if it's his time to die, let him die.
Don't intervene.
Don't do anything.
" Hearing this, as a -- as a dad I was devastated.
-Devastated, right? -Devastated.
-Yeah.
So, that wasn't enough, that the guy was maybe heartbroken and gave up his whole life to something that was a lie.
His son has him followed and then he finds out that his son tells the PI that, "If my father's having a heart attack, let him die.
" Even after I found that out, I still wasn't gonna write anything or say anything about the Church.
I did call and I wanted to speak to David.
And an attorney got on the phone and said, "Lookit, David doesn't want to talk to you.
He doesn't feel he could trust you.
" He doesn't feel he can trust me.
[sniffle.]
That takes balls.
But, anyway, that's what he said.
So, now, looking back on this, [sniffle, crying.]
is it sad for you? Is it hard for you? Are you hopeful? This is maybe beyond hope, but someday David could come up to me and shake my hand or give me a hug and I'll hu-- give him a hug.
And I don't what the hell would have to happen for that, but -- [sniffle.]
So you would forgive him? Yeah, I'd -- I'd like to be back in communication with him, even after all this.
-Yeah.
Heartbreaking.
Heartbreaking, too, that Ron, um, forgives him for it and -- and -- and has hope that he could have a relationship with his son.
He certainly didn't learn that from the Church of Scientology.
Ron: Even after all this.
Because, at the end of the day, you're a father.
I'm his father.
I was there when he was born.
Yeah.
[laughs.]
Of course.
Yeah.
I know.
You know, I taught him how to play baseball, how to play football, how to swim when he was 3 years old, dive off a 3-meter board when he was 4.
Him and my other son used to help me fix the car.
I wanted them to learn skills in life.
[hoarsely.]
O-Okay.
[sniffle.]
Aw, man.
Don't.
[ Kiss .]
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I don't want people to feel powerless because something seems more powerful than you.
Yes, they have more money.
Yes, they might have people who intimidate you, but we're never gonna make any change if we're constantly being bullied.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Jeff Hawkins.
Jeff Hawkins is an obsessed anti-Scientologist who was expelled from thefrom the Church more than a decade ago for unsavory personal conduct, as well as a long record of malfeasance as a staff member.
Hawkins's entire life is a lie.
He fabricated stories about having been a victim of violence as a staff member -- were debunked more than a decade ago.
[ Whoosh .]
[Ominous chord strikes.]
[Cheering.]
[ Applause .]
-I want to tell you something.
That I-I have never met a more competent, a more intelligent, a more tolerant, a more compassionate being.
And I've met the leaders of leaders.
I've met them all.
So I say to you, sir, COB, we are lucky to have you and thank you very much.
[ Cheering and applause .]
Mike: David Miscavige is the chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, or COB.
He likes to call himself the Pope of Scientology.
He is the man in charge and the one who, uh, determines what is and isn't good Scientology.
David Miscavige is running the Church with fear.
The undisputed dictator of Scientology.
[ Ominous chord strikes .]
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition, where he him-- can solve his own problems.
It offers you a sense of purpose in life.
Not only are you fixing yourself, but you're also helping mankind.
Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet.
Woman: After years of slowly questioning Scientology Man: Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology I didn't want to find out that what I had done my whole life was a lie.
[ Doorbell rings .]
[ Applause .]
[ Cheers and applause .]
Fight for your family.
Fight for your daughters, your sons.
Get them out of this thing.
You're not going to continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives.
If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it.
Captioning Provided by A+E Networks -Okay.
-Leah: Hi.
-Jeff, this is Leah.
-How are you? Great to meet you.
You too.
Thank you for coming.
Yeah, happy to do it.
Jeff Hawkins spent 30 years in the Church and, like me, he wrote a book about the abuses of the Church after he left.
And I want to hear his story myself.
Where would you like me to start? How you got into Scientology, 'cause I think it's important.
I was a hippie back in the late '60s.
And I was also searching for some kind of spiritual answer.
And I was introduced to Scientology and they said, "We're against war.
We're against violence.
" And it was scientific and spiritual -- I thought.
I had always believed in past lives, even before Scientology, -Mm-hmm.
and it meant, to me, that you could kind of transcend your body -Mm-hmm.
and that wouldn't really die -Right.
-when you died.
And I thought, "Great.
Let's give it a shot.
" Jeff was the marketing guru of Scientology for many, many, many years.
I started the whole Dianetics campaign in the 1980s with the exploding volcanoes and all that.
Oh, you did those commercials and stuff? Yeah, the TV ads.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
[ Suspenseful chord strikes .]
Announcer: "Dianetics," by L.
Ron Hubbard, a fresh look at today's problems.
Buy your copy at Waldenbooks.
Jeff: It was pretty successful at that time.
Leah: Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, everybody had seen the ads.
We were selling 10,000 to 30,000 books a week through the bookstores.
L.
Ron Hubbard said that books are what will boom Scientology.
The number of books in the hands of people is a direct reflection of how well Scientology will be doing and how quickly it will expand.
Marketing got sucked up to the international base and it was downhill from there.
My name is David Miscavige [Smattering of applause.]
and I'm very happy that you could all make it to this important briefing this evening.
Mike: David Miscavige got himself into a position where he had communication with L.
Ron Hubbard that nobody else had and it gave him enormous authority to be telling L.
Ron Hubbard that people were doing things or this was happening, and couching everything in the framework that made him look good; and, anybody who he felt was a rival, look bad.
L.
Ron Hubbard completed everything he set out do, and more.
He has now moved on to his next level of OT research.
This level is beyond anything any one of us ever imagined.
[ Laughter .]
This level is in fact done in an exterior state.
Thus, at 2000 hours Friday, the 24th of January AD 36, L.
Ron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in this lifetime for 74 years, 10 months, and 11 days.
Being -- -The core belief of Scientology is that you're a spiritual being.
L.
Ron Hubbard had reached, obviously, the highest level in Scientology there is to reach, promoting this idea that there's an afterlife and he found the answer to it by deciding to discard this body to go explore new OT levels.
All of this is bull[bleep.]
L.
Ron Hubbard died of a stroke.
After L.
Ron Hubbard died, Scientology changed.
Miscavige took over.
He wasmean.
He was a mean guy.
David Miscavige physically assaulted me five separate times.
Uh, the most famous one, I think -- and Mike was there.
I had written an infomercial for Dianetics.
I had sent it up to Miscavige.
I get called up to the conference room.
And there's about 30 or 40 executives sitting around the table.
He starts reading from my script and making fun of it.
-Huh.
-I said, uh, "Sir, if I can just explain," -Yeah.
-and he goes, "See? You see how he talks to me?" He said, "All I want to hear from you is your crimes.
" He said, "Why don't you tell people what your crimes are?" A crime in Scientology are things like not applying Scientology correctly, prosecuting a Scientologist, talking badly about a senior Scientologist or Sea Org member.
And so he's getting himself more and more worked up, and then finally -- -And you're not doing anything? I-I'm just standing there, right? -[Laughs.]
-He just keeps working himself into a -- into a-a-a-a tizzy, right? Th-Then, finally, he jumps up on the table, launches himself at me, knocks me back against the partition wall.
Starts hammering my face.
Knocks me down on the floor.
I was scratched up, -Yeah.
-my shirt was ripped off.
What is everybody in the room doing? Everybody's j-just sit-- -Watches silently 'cause you don't want to do anything that will attract attention to you so that you're the next one.
And then there was one time when I was in my offices and he came down, he was talking to us, and he just flattened me, knocked me on the floor.
And he said, "You know what I did that?" And I said, "No, sir.
" And he said, "To show you who's boss.
" [ Suspenseful music plays .]
Leah: Wow.
Were you told to physically hurt people or push them or punch them in the face or it j-- was just accepted if you did? There were a lot of times when Miscavige would make a statement like, "Well, everybody in here has got crimes and you people had better figure out what your crimes are.
These ones in particular, they've got big crimes and you'd better get to the bottom of it because if I come back and they haven't confessed to what their big crimes are, then there's gonna be big trouble.
And I will expect that they'll have black eyes.
" Invariably, some person would start turning on them, and oftentimes physically.
It was like "Lord of the Flies" in there.
I mean, it was insane.
It was literally, "I am gonna beat the crap out of you before I get the crap beat out of me.
" And there's none of these times that you were like, "[Bleep.]
this.
This is sick"? -No.
You know, I described my whole experience to a Navy SEAL and he said, "Oh, I would've just coldcocked that -- -Right.
-that guy.
I wouldn't have stood for that.
" -Right.
And I said, "Uh, suppose he was an admiral?" And he -- There was a long pause and then he said, "Oh, I see what you mean.
" As a Scientologist, you are trained to believe that anything that happens to you, um, bad in your life is your fault.
I want people to know, who are victims of the Church of Scientology, or any cult, that you are a victim.
Something happened to you that you didn't deserve and you don't deserve to be punished for that.
David Miscavige is the guy who dispenses Scientology to people.
And he can dispense it to you or he can withhold it.
Right, so regardless of David Miscavige being an animal, you still believed in Scientology.
-Yeah, I did.
-Yeah.
-But I always had the viewpoint of like, "Oh, that's gonna pass and the purpose will -- will -- -Remain.
-will carry on.
" -And will go forward, yeah.
Yeah.
And one of the things with David Miscavige is that I realized he was never going away and that this was the way the Church was gonna be from now on.
-Right.
And that's the point where I said, "I'm out of here.
-Right.
-This is not what I signed up for," you know? -Right.
How long do think it took you to get this out of your system? You know, i-in a sense, I don't think it ever gets entirely out of your system but I'd say it's, you know, 95% there.
-Yeah.
-I-I can go days without even thinking about Scientology now, -Right.
which is a big improvement from when I first left.
-Right.
You know, 'cause then I was obsessed with finding out what the heck went on.
-Right.
-And I did a lot of Internet searching, looking up David Miscavige.
"Who is this guy?" I had so many questions -Right.
-because you're not allowed to ask those questions in the Church.
-Right.
-I think everybody goes through that.
-Yeah.
I'm still going through that.
I am constantly on the Internet, looking at these stories, and they're getting me to a point where I think I'm already going insane.
-Jeff: Yeah.
Because I'm like, "What can we do about it?" Mike has been with me from the beginning on this show and he -- There's not a moment, car drive, lunch, breakfast, coffee, that I'm not going, "So, Mike, uh, did you go to the FBI? So, Mike, what if we get a plane? What if we drop pamphlets? What if we just get the police?" I mean, i-it's constant.
You i-- "Have you told the FBI? Why is the government not stepping in? What's happening? What -- What can we do? This is -- W-We shouldn't let this just go by," you know? In a lot of the cases that we're talking about, the statute of limitations has run out.
I keep telling you, Leah, this is what makes a difference -- exposing it.
Yeah, one civil rights march didn't bring about the Civil Rights Act.
It took 50.
-Mm-hmm.
One TV show about gay rights didn't change -- it may have moved the ball forward, but you've got to keep, keep, keep doing it.
-Right.
-And the more variety of the ways that this is presented, the more likelihood there is that someone is gonna go, "Whew! Wait a minute.
This.
is.
insane.
" Here's what the Church has to say about Tom DeVocht.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Tom DeVocht, a violent, admitted liar who left the Church in 2005, following an investigation into his extensive waste of Church funds.
After being silent for four years, he began making the outrageous claim that he had been subjected to physical abuse, even though, in reality, he abused others, including his wife.
" Here, bring him a gift.
-Yes, sir.
[ Laughs, snickers .]
Oh, look how cute.
[Door knocker bangs.]
Hel-lo! -Hey! -Oh, good morning, sweetheart.
-Oh, no, is she gonna cry? -No, she's not.
-Hello! My name is Tom DeVocht.
I was a part of the Church of Scientology for 30 years.
I worked from the bottom up.
I was working directly for David Miscavige when I left.
I got involved in Scientology in 1974.
My cousin Dicky Thompson played with The Steve Miller Band.
They had just number 1 on Casey Kasem's Top 40 for, uh, "The Joker.
" He talked about it.
He -- He made it pretty glamorous.
It was him involved.
As far as we knew, Steve Miller was in.
He talked about Travolta being a close friend and they all hang out at same place, Celebrity Centre.
So it was, uh, an exciting time and -- and, you know, I'm a kid.
I'm 10 years old.
And, uh, the celebrity draw was certainly part of it.
The coolest thing for me was my mother seemed so happy and that made me feel good about it, uh, more than anything, I think.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
[ Sinister music plays .]
I get there in October and, uh, like I don't know who David Miscavige is, really, you know what I mean? I run into him and he goes, "How you doing?" And he was really intensely interested in how I was doing and he says, "I'm keeping an eye on you" [Sinister music plays.]
and I went, "Okay.
" Mike: Tom DeVocht was definitely in Miscavige's inner circle.
He and I had very different roles.
I dealt with legal/public relations, attackers of the Church.
Tom dealt with the city of Clearwater, dealing with code enforcements, [Cheering.]
purchasing of buildings, renovating buildings, and that became a big focus of Miscavige's and Tom DeVocht became his go-to guy.
Tom has stories about David Miscavige and things that he did and the reasons that he did them that would be kind of embarrassing, like being told that he had to go arrange for a road to be closed and the sidewalk to be torn up because Miscavige was afraid that -- that protesters were gonna be there.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Lisa McPherson was a parishioner of the Church in Clearwater who had a mental breakdown, was taken out of the psychiatric ward of the Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater and brought to The Fort Harrison Hotel, where she never should've been, and was in the Church's care for a number of weeks.
She was finally taken to a hospital and she was dead on arrival.
Narrator: The Florida medical examiner conducted an autopsy.
The report stated she died from a blood clot brought on by prolonged bed confinement and severe dehydration.
[ Sinister music plays .]
[ Shouting indistinctly .]
We got all these g-guys coming to demonstrate against us and that sort of thing.
-[Shouting continues.]
And I get told by Miscavige, "I want every sidewalk around every one of our properties torn up so that they can't be on the sidewalks.
" And I'm thinking, [laughs.]
"What? How the [bleep.]
do you do that?" I go to the Florida Department of Transportation [laughing.]
and I try to get a permit to do it.
And I'm going -- You know what I mean? "They're never gonna approve this," do you know what I mean? This is my first time I got attacked by Miscavige.
I walked into that conference room.
I think you and Marty were there, to begin with.
I told Marty and Mike and I could tell they were like, "Oh, [bleep.]
" Miscavige walks in and I tell him.
He goes, "Did you get it?" I said, "No, sir.
" And before I could even think, he dove across the table, grabbed my [bleep.]
tie, and shoved it up -Leah: Mm-hmm.
and I-I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't talk.
I was like "Agh.
" And I'm thinking, "Holy [bleep.]
" you know.
Ahem! It hurt like a mother[bleep.]
and -- and, uh, I was shocked.
I'm upset about not being able to do it, but, uh, now I'm being physically abused for, you know, not being able to pull permits on an absolutely impossible deal.
Um, and he says I am basically an enemy.
-Yeah.
-That was the first time and it was -- it was an overwhelmingly [ Suspenseful music plays .]
tough, crazy, emotional thing because I believed and I was insane.
Now I look at it and go [scoff.]
, you know? But -- But inside there, you really -- i-it's devastating.
You believed that you had failed him.
You believed -- Yeah.
-Failed him, failed the Church, -Right.
-failed Hubbard, -Failed mankind.
-failedmankind.
-Yeah.
-You're -- You know, you -- -Mike: Why? -Because he was a [bleep.]
hero.
-Right.
That's how intense he is about clearing the planet.
So getting beat up by Miscavige was not a "[Bleep.]
I just got beat up Miscavige.
I'm gonna beat -Leah: Hmm.
-the [bleep.]
out of the punk.
" -Yeah.
-It was, "Man, I [bleep.]
up.
" -Yeah.
And that was the level of control and -- and -- -Right.
and -- and, uh, power that the guy had.
This [bleep.]
built, over time, this -- the mental atmosphere, the organizational pattern, everything, into "I'm the [bleep.]
guy.
" Right.
What was the thing? After how many -- -The single thing that cracked me into -- -How many years were you in the Sea Org? -28 years.
-Yeah.
So, after 28 years, what was the thing? Miscavige, Miscavige, Miscavige.
And -- And I'll tell you why.
Seeing the organization had been ripped the [bleep.]
apart and it was strictly about the -- the -- Miscavige's power, um, it crumbled.
Everything, the -- the whole picture of what I thought I was involved in -Mm-hmm.
-crumbled before me.
It was like -Right.
But more than anything, it was the realization the whole thing's a farce.
There i-- There's nothing workable about it.
-Right.
-Scientology does not work.
[Melancholy tune plays.]
If any Scientologist could hear the conversations I had with Miscavige about the upper-level OT material for OT IX -- that's the next level.
This is where you exteriorize from your body, which are very important to Scientologists.
He said, "Hey, I've got worksheets, Hubbard's worksheets.
That's all I've got to work with.
I've got to develop what OT IX is.
" It suddenly hit me -- [snaps fingers.]
and this was sitting with Miscavige every night, drinking a bottle of Scotch -- that it's a farce, that he -- you know, that Miscavige himself is now gonna finish these off.
You know, Hubbard died.
He's not some superpower being or -- You know what I mean? The body he had used to facilitate his existence in this MEST universe had ceased to be useful and, in fact, had become an impediment to the work he now must do outside of its confines.
Leah: You have parishioners believing that L.
Ron Hubbard had reached, obviously, the highest level in Scientology there is to reach, that he could actually decide to discard his body.
Because how else is he going to keep Scientology going? What if he came out and he said, "L.
Ron Hubbard has died of a stroke"? Then why are we doing all this, if we're just gonna die of a stroke? L.
Ron Hubbard was sick all the time.
All of it -- the -- the technology, the administrative part of it, the relationships, the -- everything you thought that -- that got you interested in the organization, it just hit me overwhelmingly, "This is the opposite of what I ever thought I got involved in.
" I mean the opposite.
And that's when it -- it became real to me, "I don't care if I -- I got nowhere to go, I got no education, I got nothing.
I'm leaving.
" When I left Scientology in 2005, I had no formal education, no credentials of any sort, no [bleep.]
idea of what I was gonna do.
Um but the one thing I knew is that the idea of walking away from it and -- and going to L.
A.
and sleeping on a park bench and -- and becoming a homeless bum, uh, or even dead was, uh, better, more palatable, than staying in the organization at that point.
I mean, it was that bad.
You've put everything into it and then, you know, I go through it, and in the last two, three years, I realize, "What the [bleep.]
? I have just given my life away to a cult.
" I look at that now and I go, "[Bleep.]
, man.
Had I not been involved" [ Drums chair .]
[Bleep.]
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
Like me, when Tom left the Sea Organization, every one of his family members who was still a Scientologist disconnected from him.
I lost all my friends -Leah: Mm-hmm.
that I'd known for 28 years, -Mm-hmm.
my sister, niece, nephew, my two brothers.
I'm crying, but inside of me, I'm so [bleep.]
angry that, you know, I ever contributed to it, believed it.
Um [Bleep.]
this is hard.
[crying.]
I heard the stories, you know, people being disconnected from, and I'm sure I was responsible for some of it, you know, in my "executive career.
" Um, or, minimally, I didn't do anything about it, but, uh [ Taps chair .]
[ Groan .]
If -- I guess what I'm trying to spit out here is if I did have -- you know, affect anybody's life that way or was involved in any way with, um, disconnecting anybody or -- or, uh even knowing about it and not doing anything about it, um, I want to say to them I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Can we take a break? Ahem! [Bleep.]
Stop killing yourself for something [Suspenseful music climbs.]
that's not doing the world good.
This is what the Church of Scientology has to say about Ron Miscavige.
"The Church disputes many of the statements made by Ron Miscavige.
" "He cavalierly admitted to Fox's Megyn Kelly that he beat his late wife once a month over 10 years, or about 120 times.
He admitted that he beat his daughter and was arrested in 1985 for attempted rape.
He has a long history of anti-Semitic and racist comments.
" Reporter: Ron Miscavige, David Miscavige's father, has left the Church and is speaking out for the first time.
Ron Miscavige is David Miscavige's father.
He was in Scientology for many, many years, got David into Scientology.
I think Ron's story shows that nobody is immune to the abusive practices of Scientology.
And we didn't inform them in any way that we were shooting with Ron Miscavige, which is very interesting to me, how they would find out.
I just think they're playing games.
I'm not looking to start a war with them.
But what I am saying is, "We're gonna tell these people's stories, and you're not gonna bully us.
" -Hey! -Mike! -Buddy.
-[Laughter.]
-Nice to see you.
-Great seeing you, too, buddy.
-Hey, Becky.
-Can I have a big hug? -How are you, handsome? -All right.
Good.
And you? -Mwah! -Good seeing you.
-Good to see you.
You too.
-Hi! -Hi, sweetheart.
You know the Church knows you're doing this interview, so -- -I'm sure they do.
I -- You know what? I could care less.
My name is Ron Miscavige.
I was a Scientologist for 42 years.
I was a member of the Sea Organization for 26.
5 years.
And my son is David Miscavige, who is the chairman of the board of the Church of Scientology.
In 1970, I got my entire family involved in Scientology courses and this was in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
And I came home from work one night and I saw David laying in bed in his room.
And I looked in, I said, "Hey, how's it going?" He said, "Aw, Dad.
" He says, "I-- I don't want to go to school anymore.
" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I just can't take it.
I'd like to go and help L.
Ron Hubbard.
" "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "I want to join the Sea Org.
" "Wow," I thought.
"You know, he's 15.
He's gonna be 16 soon.
I was 17 when I joined the Marines.
He's about my age.
I knew that I wanted to do that.
That turned out right for me, as far as helping me in my life.
" I bought him a plane ticket and, the day he was 16, he quit school.
Next day, he flew down to Clearwater and joined the Sea Org down there.
I was very proud of him.
When he joined, within about nine months, he was working with L.
Ron Hubbard out in California and L.
Ron Hubbard was shooting movies and David worked there as a cameraman, shooting these movies.
He rose up through the ranks.
He's a tough kid, and smart.
And, uh, then, once L.
Ron Hubbard died, he saw his opportunity and he moved, uh, right up and took power.
[Melancholy tune plays.]
David: Although you may feel grief, understand that he did not and does not now.
[ Applause .]
Ron: He saw the people who would stand in his way and he just removed them from power.
And I'll tell you something: he's a very charismatic guy and he can get people to follow him and this is what he did.
But he was very clever about it and he eventually ended up being the head of all of Scientology.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Leah: 'Cause you were in the Sea Org for how long? 26.
5 years.
-26.
5.
Becky: Almost 25.
-Yeah.
25 years.
You're in the private, secured base.
-Yeah.
-The Gold Base is what they call it.
It is a property that is near Hemet in California, a 500-acre property, where the senior-most members of Scientology international management live and work, where Golden Era Productions is, that produces the films and videos and audio recordings that Scientology sells and pushes out into the world.
I think people have an idea of you, because you are the head of the Church's father, that you hung out every day, you saw each other every Sunday, -[Laughs.]
you had family dinners, you know, y-- that -- that you guys were very close for -- Sometimes, he'd be gone, come back, would be on the base for a month or two -Uh-huh.
and wouldn't even call me on the phone to say, "Hey, how are you doing?" And you had no right, as a father, to go walk over to his office and go, "Hey, you little [bleep.]
.
I'm your father "I don't give a [bleep.]
who you think you are"? Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
-Why? Why not? That's the way it was.
Family, uh, connections were considered a false dynamic, uh, meaning no spiritual being is the father of another spiritual being.
On that base, he referred to me as Ron.
He never called me Dad.
-And did you call him sir? Absolutely.
I was a staff member.
And that started about maybe a month or three weeks when I first got in and I saw him walking with his entourage.
And I wanted to say hello to him.
I said, "Hey, Dave!" -Yeah.
He turned around and looked at me and he gave me a look that I knew that I did the wrong thing.
-By calling him Dave? -Yes.
And that I would be -Yeah.
-so impertinent to do that, and him being the leader of Scientology.
I was a staff member and that father-son relationship, at that moment, I know, had either gone into nothing or was starting to erode, -Right.
-right at that moment.
The mother/daughter, son/father thing is taken away.
Now Scientology is your teacher.
Scientology is your parent.
Those roles are taken away pretty early on.
[ Suspenseful music plays .]
Ron: We were living in a barbed-wire fence: barbed wire pointing out, barbed wire pointing in.
-Leah: Right.
-Now, you don't need barbed wire pointing in to keep people from coming to the base, okay? Leah: Right.
Yeah.
Locked gates.
Everything is regimented.
You couldn't send a letter out of there just by putting it in an envelope.
Security would read every single letter that went out.
-Right.
-If it was okay, they'd seal it and send it.
If it wasn't, it would come back to you and you had to change it.
-Leah: Right.
-Becky: Yeah.
-You could not call anybody on the phone -Yeah.
without having somebody else on the extension, listening to what you're saying.
When my brother died -Yeah.
and my nephew Gerard told me my brother Ed died, I had a person listening on the [bleep.]
phone as I heard this news.
-Becky: Right.
That life went on day after day after day after day.
Leah: Right.
-It is just a grind, a gray life that -- -So you guys never Becky: No.
-left the base? -No, you had a minder.
-Unh-unh.
You had to have somebody go with you to the doctor so you wouldn't escape.
What is a turning point for you guys, where you realize, "This is not what I signed up for.
This is not what I can continue to support"? Well, if you used the Internet on the base, it was monitored by security.
It had all kinds of filters.
You couldn't connect to sites that said anything bad about Scientology, so, you never got, really, anything.
-Right.
You used it for work; they monitored it.
You actually had the window to the outside world when David gave you that Kindle.
And at the time, we didn't know that his Kindle actually connected to the Internet.
-Ohhh.
-So I come home and he's like, "I can get on the Internet.
" His son made a big mistake by giving him a Kindle and forgetting to disconnect the Internet.
Ron: I did it by accident -- went to Google and I thought, "Wow.
" I-I may've put in "Scientology" or "L Ron Hubbard.
" -Literally, earnestly -Yeah.
I thought, "I want to see -Googled it.
what they said about LRH or something," you know? Right.
And then what -- what happened? "What the hell is this?" He innocently wanted to see what the world was saying about Scientology.
Like, he was excited.
He was like, "Oh, 'cause I know we're doing all this great stuff and I want to see like all the accolades," you know? "I want to see.
" So he just Googled Scientology and he was hard pressed to find anything good that the world was saying.
He found all the bad things.
-Becky: Yeah.
And he starts reading articles.
You'd Ron: Yeah.
-Every few days, I'd come home and he was like, "You got to see the writing on the wall.
This is going south.
" -Because that -- But it took literally one Google search for you to be deprogrammed? -Yeah.
Saw that we were living a lie.
I mean, we were -- It was done with smoke and mirrors in the Sea Org.
Right.
He finally says, "That's it.
We are leaving, Sunday, March 25th.
" We had to plan our escape for about six months.
If the word got out that we were planning on leaving, we would've been seized, my car keys would've been taken away, Becky and I would've been separated from each other, and we would've done manual labor throughout the day, and, when we weren't doing that, we would be inter-- interrogated by an auditor.
That would've been our life.
And it took us about six months to execute it and the guards were used to me doing this.
Every m-- Sunday, we would go across to the north side of the base because there was a refrigerator there and we couldn't have a refrigerator in our room.
So I'd hit the buzzer and he didn't even ask, "Where you going?" because he was used to me going across the street.
Becky: Yes.
-The gate opened.
I turned left -- pedal to the metal.
So I went into town and we were free.
[ Suspenseful chord strikes .]
It literally felt like a weight was lifted off me, -Right.
-of my entire body.
-It was an unreal freedom.
-Yeah, yeah.
-It was an unreal feeling.
-Yeah, yeah.
And I had no intention of writing a book.
-Right.
I know.
I know that.
-None, whatever.
-I told you that.
-Mike: Oh, I know that, too.
[Laughs.]
-So does Mike.
Exactly.
'Cause we all tried to talk you into it, but -- Now, once I went down in 2014 to talk to my daughters and, uh, I ended up on the porch of Denise and her husband's talking to me through the door.
He says, "Ron, Denise and I are through with you and Becky forever.
" -Mm.
That was when I had decided to write this book.
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I don't have time for revenge in my heart or, you know, like a vendetta.
What I have time for is doing anything effective -- like this, like writing the book -- anything that will bring about a change and families can be reunited.
It's just the desire -- "Hey, I'd like to see my daughters and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.
" A lot of people ultimately will tell you, "The most freedom I ever felt in Scientology was the freedom that I got when I finally went, 'I'm done' and really moved away and got --" [ Music climbs, chord strikes .]
You had cash to pay for a few meals, but you were making what a week, $25 a week? -Well, no, $50 a week.
You got $40 -- -$50 a week.
-Yeah, we got -- It got up -- Mike: When you got paid.
-When you got paid.
-Ron: When we get paid.
-And that is the deal.
When you join the Sea Org, you give up all your possessions.
You live in a dorm.
Your food is made for you.
Your clothes are given to you.
So when you leave, you leave literally with zero -- no cellphone, no money in your pocket, no pension to depend on.
So go from that point.
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I had a police officer from the W-- from the Whitewater Police come to the house I was staying at.
Goes, "Well, I'm with the Whitewater Police.
I came to inform you that you've been followed by the Church of Scientology for the last 18 months.
" "You got to be kidding me.
" -Leah: Right.
He goes, "No, I'm not kidding you.
" And they sent somebody down to check my car for a GPS.
They saw that there was one there -- you could see the scratches -- but it had been removed.
And he said, "Do you have any idea why you were being followed?" I said, "Well, I left the Church of Scientology.
I actually escaped.
And I think they might be following me 'cause maybe they're afraid I might go to the media or maybe David's concerned about my health.
-Mm.
-And he says, "Listen, man.
" He says, "I don't know how I'm gonna tell you this, but that is not true" and he -Right, he's not gonna -- Right.
-told me exactly what happened.
So, he spilled his guts and he says, "I know, at one point, it looked like the target was having --" They referred to me as "the target.
" "It looks like the target was having a heart attack.
" I had a pocket T-shirt on, my cellphone was in this pocket and I was putting groceries in the car.
So I stooped over to put the groceries in.
I thought the cellphone was gonna fall out, so I grabbed my chest.
-Mm.
They're in a blacked-out van, looking at me.
They called their contact and said, "It looks like the target's having a heart attack.
What do you want us to do?" So the guy says, "Hang on.
" A gentleman come on the phone, identified himself as David Miscavige, and said, "Listen, if it's his time to die, let him die.
Don't intervene.
Don't do anything.
" Hearing this, as a -- as a dad I was devastated.
-Devastated, right? -Devastated.
-Yeah.
So, that wasn't enough, that the guy was maybe heartbroken and gave up his whole life to something that was a lie.
His son has him followed and then he finds out that his son tells the PI that, "If my father's having a heart attack, let him die.
" Even after I found that out, I still wasn't gonna write anything or say anything about the Church.
I did call and I wanted to speak to David.
And an attorney got on the phone and said, "Lookit, David doesn't want to talk to you.
He doesn't feel he could trust you.
" He doesn't feel he can trust me.
[sniffle.]
That takes balls.
But, anyway, that's what he said.
So, now, looking back on this, [sniffle, crying.]
is it sad for you? Is it hard for you? Are you hopeful? This is maybe beyond hope, but someday David could come up to me and shake my hand or give me a hug and I'll hu-- give him a hug.
And I don't what the hell would have to happen for that, but -- [sniffle.]
So you would forgive him? Yeah, I'd -- I'd like to be back in communication with him, even after all this.
-Yeah.
Heartbreaking.
Heartbreaking, too, that Ron, um, forgives him for it and -- and -- and has hope that he could have a relationship with his son.
He certainly didn't learn that from the Church of Scientology.
Ron: Even after all this.
Because, at the end of the day, you're a father.
I'm his father.
I was there when he was born.
Yeah.
[laughs.]
Of course.
Yeah.
I know.
You know, I taught him how to play baseball, how to play football, how to swim when he was 3 years old, dive off a 3-meter board when he was 4.
Him and my other son used to help me fix the car.
I wanted them to learn skills in life.
[hoarsely.]
O-Okay.
[sniffle.]
Aw, man.
Don't.
[ Kiss .]
[ Melancholy tune plays .]
I don't want people to feel powerless because something seems more powerful than you.
Yes, they have more money.
Yes, they might have people who intimidate you, but we're never gonna make any change if we're constantly being bullied.