Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016) s03e02 Episode Script

All right.
Hey guys.
My name is Valerie Haney and I was in the Sea Org for 22 years and three of those years, I worked for David and Shelly Miscavige.
Like if I didn't do and say exactly what X wanted me to do and say in that interview, then I was better off dead because I would have probably killed myself if they didn't let me leave at that moment.
It was always monitored.
It was always controlled so there was never a point where there wasn't another Scientologist watching me or another security guard on the entrance way to where I was staying.
Because I was scared.
I was scared on if I was to just leave right there, would I have a family? Would they turn my family against me? What are my options? I felt that if I didn't give them exactly what they wanted, then they wouldn't let me leave.
And that was my only opportunity of leaving because I did everything else that they told me to do and it was excruciating but I kept a good face on and that was the last test in order for me to go see my family and be a normal person.
Well, because I'm not gaining anything from this.
I can I am a free person already.
I am just trying to explain to people and let others know what's happening with this organization and hopefully help other people with it.
I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.
The aim and goal is to put man in a mental condition where he can control his own problems.
Without any Scientology organization, things are not going to change on this planet.
After years of slowly questioning Scientology Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology.
Scientology.
What they do.
Trying to destroy people.
Trying to destroy their families when they leave.
They create a lot of people who are willing to fight against them.
Scientology takes tax free dollars and ruins people's lives.
This is not the life that I want to live.
I wanted to end my life.
Some people it takes a year.
Some people it takes 10 years of just peeling that onion of how you were manipulated and made to think.
This season, we really needed to focus on the reason why Scientology is able to do the things that they do.
It is because they have tax exempt status.
People who have bravely come on and told their stories have not told those stories in vain.
They are having an impact.
We're presenting our case to the world, to the FBI, to the IRS.
The most important thing that has to be done is the persistent telling of the truth and that's what you're doing.
You have to continue to fight.
You have to continue to fight for what's right.
What Scientology has gotten away with all these years is when you left, and Marty Rathbun left, and Mark and Claire Headly, Amy Scobey, Debbie Cook, when everybody left and was going to the press saying the abuse has been going on and continues to go on.
David Miscavige would punch, slap open handed, grab by the next, throw to the floor.
I myself was punched several times by David Miscavige.
Scientology responded with that's a lie.
Then they said, well, it did happen but now the people that were doing are gone.
Yeah.
They assert emphatically David Miscavige never abused anyone.
They say that Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun did.
And it led to his ultimate complete removal from any position whatsoever in the church.
So we've been hoping that a person would have left the Gold Base and say the abuse is still happening.
Yes.
And that person is a person named Valerie.
Who managed to pull off one of the great escapes from the Gold Base.
My name is Valerie Haney and I was in the Sea Organization for 22 years.
I knew Valerie when she worked for the leader's wife, Shelly Miscavige.
When I heard that she was out and I heard that she was already going to the authorities, I had like crazy mad respect for her.
So I got a hold of her and I offered her a job because I wanted to help her.
And I wanted them to know, you're just not going to fuck with her.
Sorry.
I was born into Scientology.
My parents both worked for the church, for the Sea Organization.
And when I was born, there was a rule that was out where you couldn't have kids in the Sea Organization.
So they had to leave temporarily to have me and then when the child gets to be six years old, then you can come back.
What was life like growing up in the Sea Organization? Well I didn't have actual parents because their schedule was 7 o'clock in the morning to midnight so I would never see them during the day and they worked seven days a week so it was very I didn't really have parents.
If you tell your parents, and I was actually told this by a nanny that was there, if you tell your parents that you miss them, you're pulling them off of their job.
And if they worry about you, then you're a problem so you better not say that to your parents.
That's literally what I was told when I was 6 years old, wanting to see my mom.
So members are not children.
That's right.
Like it's beyond even the Scientology.
You're an old being in a young body.
No, you're a Sea Org member Exactly.
in a young body.
A Sea Org member is expected to not complain, to comply, to do whatever their senior orders them to do.
I mean there are so many rules and regulations for a Sea Org member.
- It's crazy.
- Yeah.
And they get applied to children.
And the actual scriptures for the Sea Organization, there's an exact line that I had to remember and remember and remember, verbatim.
And it was, if you feel like taking it out on someone, do so by all means.
That was L.
Ron Hubbard.
- He said that.
- Right.
There is another reference that I have that says, you know, if someone is doing something that you're not liking and it's kind of a distraction for you, then if you want to give them a black eye, go for it.
The way you're treated, and you often lose all of your compassion, your empathy.
So they become immune to being yelled at and ridiculed and shamed.
You're creating people who are kind of immune to abuse, to receiving it but also giving it.
You just learn that if you say to anyone that you're hurt or that you feel sad or that you feel any emotion, that is a bad thing and you will get reprimanded and interrogated and you will be attacked.
You know, knock it off.
And what are you doing? And get with it.
And I was like, um, OK.
At six years old.
So I got pretty hard pretty fast.
When you're a Scientologist, the idea of schooling was not important.
I you know, don't even have a GED.
Right.
One of my first jobs was I was a waitress.
And I was a waitress for the top executives at the Clearwater flag land base.
Dave and Shelly came to the opening and I was there and I served them.
And Shelley was like, oh my gosh.
I love this girl and I want her to work for me.
You know, they were the Royalty of Scientology so I was honored.
And I was like, oh my gosh, really? And Shelley was lovely.
And it was just beautiful.
And Dave was the most important person in Scientology so the fact that they wanted me, little 15-year-old me, to work for them was like wow! And then Shelly wanted to take me to Gold.
It's in California and it's got all of the major top Scientology executives there so for me to go from Flag to the base is like, oh my gosh! But my immediate impression when I first got to Gold was that everyone that works there was not happy and that they were frightened.
When I was touring the facilities, I was saying hi to everyone and they were looking at me like, who is this person? Why are you so happy? And I'm thinking, what is going on here? It was about a month after I first got to Gold.
Dave told me that the work that I had at Flag was still at times compared to Gold.
And that I was living like a fairyland at Flag and I'm going to learn how the real work is done at Gold and how really rough Gold is and how you need to toughen up.
The environment at the international headquarters is unlike any other environment in Scientology.
L.
Ron Hubbard created this idea that the toughest, the most dedicated, the people that are going to get the job done are the people that have risen to the top of Scientology.
And those people, in those positions, are the ones who can and will endure the most hardship, the most inhumane treatment and mete out the most hardship and the most inhumane treatment as a measure of their dedication to achieving the aims of Scientology.
That's why you get Tommy Davis saying what he says.
While I was working for David Miscavige, there was a day where he called at one of his assistants to make name tags.
The name tag for Mike was Shit Eater.
There were several tags like this and then he would give it to his staff and make them walk around with hundreds of people seeing them, junior to them, people that respected them, seeing them with Shit Eater.
Yeah, he made a puppet of me and a puppet of Heber Jentzvh like talking ventriloquist puppets.
He would pretend to have a conversation with Heber or with me and then have the puppet answer the question.
Anything that can be done that will make them feel Debased debased, inferior, lesser.
If it was making you sit at a meeting with a paper plate with eyes cut in it and a line that was the pie face, that would be what would be done.
And this is the sort of thing that went on every day.
That was life.
Dave would have meetings with executives and go, OK.
Good.
So what are you what are you doing for Scientology? Oh, you're not doing anything? Oh, I'm doing all the work? OK.
You're going into the hole.
The hole, according to testimony, It was located here in a pair of double wide trailers on the international base.
You did absolutely nothing all day except confess to imagined supposed crimes.
It was a truthfully, a thought reform program that was put into place and used as a threat for other people that were outside of it.
That, watch out or otherwise you're going to be put in the hole too.
And when you're in that sort of insane Lord of the Flies setting, what happens is there will be a strong personality and that person will appear to be the one who's figured out how they're going to get out.
Those strong personalities are the ones that tend to abuse other people as a way of proving their strength.
They are seen as the example of who do we fault? So then, pretty soon you have everybody doing the same thing.
This was part of the culture to attempt to beat confessions out of other people, to be able to say to David Miscavige, I got this guy finally to admit to all the horrible things that he has done.
What do you say to Scientology, who is saying now that there was no beatings.
There was no hole.
OK, there were some beatings.
And then to you know, well the bad people are gone now.
So that's no longer going on.
I say that that's an absolute lie.
I left in November 2016 and there was still a hole.
There were still people being collected up.
What is the hole now? Well, the hole basically is about 30 people that were the top executives of Scientology.
Like who? Mark Yager, Mark Ingber Ray Mithoff.
Ray Mithoff, Heber Jentzvh.
What are these people doing that they continue to be punished? They haven't done anything.
They all witnessed David Miscavige beating people up and that is why they are still there.
And that is why they're still controlled.
Heber Jentzvh was made to do a video.
He got a script.
And he was told that he had to say all of these good things that Dave has done and that Dave is.
Now Heber is like 70 years old.
He's 80 right now? Yeah, anyways when I first saw him in 2016 to do this video, he was walking crooked.
And then Dave watched it, made him redo the video because he was crooked.
So Dave made the crew build him a platform so they could literally turn the chair this way so per camera he was straight.
And then they built a wooden brace for his back so he could sit straight but in reality he was like this it was And this was to do a damn video to make to say what a great guy David Miscavige was? Yeah.
I saw David Miscavige punch Mike Rinder.
And I remember one time Dave ordered someone to get smashed into the wall and then water poured on their head.
If there was one thing that defines David Miscavige to me and the way that he treats people, it's cruelty.
If that was a punch in the face one day, it was a punch in the face.
If it was a stupid name tag and this became the routine at the international headquarters of Scientology.
It was just a constant thing and it didn't stop.
And that's when Shelley and I were basically like, what's going on here? Like what are we really doing? About the third year I was working for Dave and Shelly, Shelly then was also just getting more and more in disagreement with how Dave was running the organization, how Dave was treating his staff.
And at night, when everyone would go to bed and when everyone was not working anymore, she would come and talk to me.
Shelly could actually trust me enough to know that if she said something discoloring or negative about Dave that I wouldn't say anything to anybody.
Like one time, Dave had all the top executives have a meeting and then he started screaming at them and throwing water bottles and pushing them.
And then I saw Shelly and I went to her room and I was like, honey, like, what the fuck man? What is going on? She would tell me, you know, what do you think about this? And how do you feel about this? And how do you feel about Dave treating others? And I was like, well, I I don't know.
It's it's a bit much.
And she was like, yeah.
So then she then tried to do a whole organizational change to try to handle, like people having to report to him.
So maybe if people didn't have to report to him, then he wouldn't then be able to be able to abuse them.
So then she tried to to work out, try to work around how to curtail his rage.
I feel that Dave has to do anything and everything in his control to remain in power with Scientology.
And when Shelley was in disagreement with how Dave was running things, she was segregated from everyone else.
Often times, when executives in Scientology have fallen into disfavor or disgrace, not only is the executive taken out but the people that work directly for them, who were supporting them are also taken out, and usually split up so that there is no way for them to communicate with one another so they can't foment dissent.
When I got removed from Shelley's circle, I got put on deck work is what it's called.
And what it was is heavy physical labor where I would be digging ditches, literally digging ditches with the shovel.
And it was a very rough type of work.
And I was And I felt like I was in prison there, like I could not leave the property.
The last time I saw Shelly, she was walking to her car.
With a driver? With a driver.
She was walking to the passenger side of the car and I looked up at her and she was crying and she looked at me and it was like she almost wasn't allowed to have me see her cry.
And she wiped the tears.
And then she got in the car and left.
And that was the last time I ever saw her.
And that was 2006.
And this was a girl that I was with every single day.
And I was her friend and we would talk and I told her about my whole life and my dreams and we would talk about everything.
And that was the last time I saw her.
And I never, never knew where she went.
I don't know where she is.
There's no talk amongst each other about, hey, have you seen Shelly? You're not allowed to.
You're not allowed to even inquire about where Shelly is.
Or what happened because it's connected to Dave.
But if you question it or ask why, then you are investigated.
And that's why you don't ever ask.
What he is doing with his wife, hiding her and not having her anywhere around? I don't get it.
Like that is heartless to me as a husband, as a man, as a leader of a religion.
That's how he's acting with his own wife and still wearing the wedding ring? That is absolutely repulsive to me.
Shelly Miscavige going missing and nobody knowing where she was would be like the wife of the president disappearing.
And when she simply vanished, without a word, without any explanation, without any understanding on behalf of the people who knew her, that created a mystery that continues to this day.
Explain what happens if you walk up to those gates and tell security, open the gate.
I want to leave.
Oh, they will physically restrain you.
They will physically grab your body and take you away from the gates and walk you to the officials to then get you interrogated and get you handled so you will not want to leave.
The captain of the entire base.
He tried to leave.
He took a car and he took his wife and at 3:00 in the morning, he tried to drive out the gates.
And the guards stopped him.
And they didn't let him out.
We were told that if you do leave, you will have nothing.
Any friends, family that I would ever have outside of Scientology or inside of Scientology, you can no longer talk to them.
You will basically be committing the biggest sin that you could possibly commit and you'll probably die of cancer.
And that actually was said to me.
That you would die of cancer? That I would die of cancer.
You escape in whatever way that you can and you stand alone in the world.
Yeah.
with nothing.
Like the world outside is painted as a horrific place where ex-Sea Org members go to be tortured and die.
And that is the mentality that is actively fostered and promoted.
I don't know how many times I've heard Dave Miscavige say to an assembled group of Sea Org members, yeah, yeah that asshole.
He's flipping burgers at McDonald's and that one died of cancer.
That was my mindset.
That's why I stayed for so long.
You would rather die because then you're dying in the Sea Org.
This is the mental prison.
The the prison of belief that exists.
There is the physical, the gates, and the barbed wire, and this and that, which has the effect of stopping you enough that they can grab you.
Yeah.
But the real control is mental.
There is really no nowhere that I could turn.
I felt so degraded as a person.
I was out digging ditches and I thought that this is not the life that I want to live and I wanted to end my life.
This is part of the Church of Scientology international.
We produce all the audio visual used throughout the church.
Films, documentaries, public service announcements.
I was a casting director and that's when I started to see the actors come in.
And these were non Scientology actors? These were non Scientology actors.
And when we would have a shoot day it was like my happiest day because people would come in and they would be normal and real and talk about normal things.
And it was the first time that I was able to experience that.
So when is it that you decided it was enough for you to leave? What actually happened is we were shooting a film that was about the Korean War and about brainwashing, what brainwashing is, and how it is done.
And I then went, oh my gosh, that's what Scientology is.
Wow.
A little education, right? - Because - Goes a long way.
Yeah.
I was like, oh my gosh.
That's what's happening.
That's what the hole was.
That's what's happening.
And I was like, I have to go.
So then I asked him to leave.
And they were like, oh no.
You can't leave.
You worked with David Miscavige, you can't leave.
I was told that we may stop shooting because of the new facility that was opened in Hollywood.
Then I found out that it was the last day of shooting and that was the last shoot.
And it was 7 o'clock and I was like this is it.
This is my last moment that I can leave.
The actors may not come back.
So I ran to my room, grabbed my purse, grabbed my jewelry, put it my purse, ran back to the castle, which is where we were shooting.
And there was there was five cars in the parking lot.
I know that where the cars were parked was a blind spot for the security cameras.
So I'm checking the car doors and I don't know whose cars these are and I'm just checking whichever door is open and there was one door that was open.
OK good.
I pop the trunk and then I just squeeze in and then I close the trunk.
And then I hear my my boss come out.
Valerie? Valerie? I thought Valerie was out here.
Huh.
She was just out here.
And then I hear the actors come out and one car starts, and then another car starts.
And then the car that I'm in, the actor gets into the driver's seat, and then he drives, drives.
OK, now he's driving.
He's taking the path of where the actors need to go to get off the property.
And then he stops at the booth.
A security guard comes out of the booth and then they start talking.
And then he's like OK, great, thanks! Bye.
He doesn't stop the car.
So then the car goes out of the booth and onto the road and then turns and then we're going and I've made it.
Then he stops again.
There's another guard at the end of the street.
The guard walks over to the car, talks to him.
I'm hearing all of this.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm not far enough away.
The security can already be searching for me.
He does not pop the trunk.
And then the guard's like oh no, you're OK.
He drives away.
I was probably in the trunk for about two hours.
Val, what were you thinking all this time? I was thinking, OK.
I can breathe.
OK, I'm alive.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did this.
I don't know where he's going.
I don't know where he's taking me.
I'm just I'm gone and I'm glad I'm gone.
And then he basically pulled up to his girlfriend's house and he pops the trunk.
And I get out I'm like hi, yeah, sorry! And he's just like white.
And, oh my god, you were in my trunk this whole time? Are you OK? He's like, you need a ride anywhere? I'm like, I don't know.
I is there an airport, I guess? Yeah? Burbank airport? OK.
Awesome.
And then I called my sister and I called my dad and I said that I just left and I need to go somewhere and They ended up getting you on a plane to Portland.
Yeah.
Getting out of the trunk was a birth, a rebirth so to say that I got and it's kind of my second chance to live the life I want to live.
Because your dad's a Scientologist, your dad eventually made you go back and to leave correctly.
That's right.
There's two ways of leaving the Sea Organization.
One is what's called a blow, an unauthorized departure.
The other way is to route out and that is a term used to describe the steps that one must take to leave the Sea Organization and remain not an enemy of Scientology.
They have these lawyers, these Scientology lawyers.
Hey, you've got to sign these papers.
Everybody's been good to you, right? You haven't witnessed anything? What about the boss, David Miscavige? He's been good to you? He's a good guy? The person's like yes, yes, yes.
And then they video the whole thing.
Anybody will say anything just to leave.
That should tell you something.
They're willing to say anything just to get out.
When someone blows and they get persuaded to come back to route out, many people who come back end up spending weeks and months trying to complete the routing out process.
And often times, they're not even in the frame of mind that it's going to matter because they have no intent of ever talking about Scientology again.
You did do what they wanted you to do, which was they wanted you to sign papers that said you're not upset.
They treated you great.
They made they did this on video.
And And that I would never speak out against Scientology and that I would never say anything bad about David Miscavige and that I would never talk to anyone that was speaking out truth about Scientology and that anyone that would ever go against Scientology, that in the future I would never speak to them or befriend them or even say hi to them.
And I was happy to do that.
Now we know what's going to come out when Val appears on TV.
Her affidavit, signed, saying, I never there was no such thing as a hole.
I never saw this.
I never saw that.
- Yeah.
They're going to say it.
never happened and that is going to be trotted out now as proof that she's just a liar.
So why are you speaking out? Because I feel that people need to know the truth and I cannot keep living a life where I'm scared at every second on, well, if I say this will something happened to me? Right.
Will they be knocking on my door? And that's another thing that will probably happen is Scientology executives and security will probably find out where I am and try to park outside.
I could be followed.
Sure.
For months and months.
All of those things might happen.
OK.
That was totally weird.
I just got handed this envelope from a guy that said his name was Michael, that said you've been served.
I just got out of my car there.
Everything is locked.
You have to have a key to get into any of this area and he just threw this envelope at me.
This big guy served me a document that told me to cease any form of communication that would be against Scientology.
It was scary.
He didn't ask me who I was.
He didn't ask me what my name was.
He didn't say, are you Valerie Haney? He just said, you've been served.
And threw this at my body.
And I was like, who are you? And he said his name is Michael and he's been waiting here all day.
They also started waiting right outside my apartment complex.
And right when I pulled out, they started following me.
Oh my god.
I've just been being followed.
They were outside my apartment this morning waiting for me to to leave.
I've just spent the last half an hour trying to lose him.
They're doing everything they can to try to shut me up because they know what I know is what abuses have happened in Scientology and they're trying every way possible to have that secret stay secret.
So what happened? Babe, this is so fucking sick.
You just let me know, Val, like what you need.
Do you need a hotel? Like what like to feel safe.
Like I don't want you to feel unsafe.
OK.
So they know you know how they troll our Instagram.
So they saw Valerie at Disneyland, right, with my daughter and so they've been calling Valerie's brother.
They've been calling him every day.
They want to get him on a plane to LA to talk to Valerie now.
I love you, honey.
Hang in there.
Hang in there.
Call me and Mike any time.
Mike, this is so fucked up.
One thing for sure, Scientology never never manages to disappoint when it comes to will they do stupid stuff to prove everything that has been shown on every show that we have done so far? Absolutely.
Here they go again.
Right.
Now this is the stuff we don't usually show.
You know what I mean.
Like things are always ongoing here.
I mean, it's like, we're on our way to meet people for this particular episode in Clearwater and yet, you know, Valerie is being followed now.
Right, And in this current in this moment in time, her episode hasn't even aired yet.
Yeah.
But I think that their hope is she would go, oh, I'm not going to do this anymore.
I'm not going to do the show.
That's what they're trying to accomplish.
They're trying to accomplish getting her to back out.
Once again, Scientology.
You got the wrong girl.
When you are speaking out against the abuses or the policies of Scientology, you are labeled an enemy and then you are then attacked.
So the letters begin.
The letter this is what happens.
This is a letter from Valerie's brother, Jeffrey Haney.
And he's saying that Valerie doing this show and speaking out is destroying his family.
Scientology basically took my brother, who is still a Scientologist, and manipulated him and fueled him with all of the bad things that I'm doing, which is telling the truth, to then go against me and to call me names and say that I'm doing the work of the devil.
And that he basically is no longer connected with me.
He had to disconnect from me.
So because of Scientology, I don't have a brother anymore.
Then we have another Scientology lawyer.
We have personally reviewed the video of Miss Haney's exit interview.
We are certain you and a jury would agree that her claim of coercion is absurd, especially in light of the payments Miss Haney is receiving from Miss Remini.
According to Miss Haney's family, she is now being paid at least $1,000 per week by Miss Remini.
That is a lie.
She gets a lot more than that.
Moreover, the notion that miss Haney is an escapee from the Gold Base is false, absurd and belied by well-documented events.
My thing is that like, it's so crazy to me that lawyers that lawyers, family members would go this far this far to silence people.
This is what Scientologists stand for.
I mean what the fuck is this? It's interesting that the more harassment that they do now actually empowers me to do more and to speak out more and to document what they are doing and let other people know that this is not right.
This is not OK.
But now I love being normal and trying to do normal things.
So for those people who want out of Scientology but that are afraid to speak out and afraid to tell the truth and to tell their story.
I need to tell you that it's OK.
Leaving Scientology, and the Sea Org specifically, I was scared but it's it's worth it.