Last week, we learned that Tom Cruise is playing hardball in his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Bauer Media, publishers of In Touch and Life & Style. Cruise sued after the magazines said he’d “abandoned” his daughter Suri following his split with Katie Holmes last summer. Cruise has indicated that he’ll use depositions and document discovery to portray Bauer as a publisher of porn and magazines that appeal to neo-Nazis.
But if Cruise goes forward, he’ll be subject to his own deposition by Bauer, and that gave us an idea. What sort of questions might the actor be asked, and how might he answer — if he were being completely truthful, that is? An actual deposition could take months to happen, but we’ve asked some people who know a lot about his involvement in Scientology to help us come up with this simulated interrogation. We only hope the real thing turns out to be half as fun!
State your name, please.
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, your honor.
I’m just an attorney, Mr. Cruise. You don’t have to call me ‘your honor.’
Whew. OK. For a minute there I thought I was in real trouble.
Just try to relax. Can you tell me, how old is your daughter Suri?
In wog years?
I’m sorry, what?
Well, she was “born” to that SP in 2006, but her whole track, you know, that’s like, LRH said it was quadrillions…
Quadrillions?
Seriously, she’s ancient. She might be my “daughter” on this cycle, but she might have been your mother a couple of cycles back, who knows.
You’re referring to Scientology’s belief that we are reincarnated, and our soul, our thetan lives countless times, inhabiting different corporeal bodies in an endless series of cycles.
Oh, so you’ve read the book. Have you done the sauna?
Mr. Cruise, we want to make sure we understand this concept. You’re saying that Suri Cruise is your daughter, but you think of her as an ancient, shape-shifting spirit that’s older than the known galaxies even though she appears to be a six-year-old child?
She’ll be seven in April. But I thought her thetan could use a Ducati 1098 R as a birthday present. As long as she lets her old man borrow it, am I right? [Maniacal laughter.]
Are you aware, Mr. Cruise, that Scientologists are often accused of being indifferent parents, allowing their youngsters to be recruited into the church’s hardcore ‘Sea Org’ as young as 6 or 7 years old, for example, and that one explanation for this may be the church’s belief that small children aren’t children at all, but ancient souls in small packages?
Look, there’s no way Suri was going into the Sea Org. Dave said she was way more useful on the cover of magazines.
By Dave, I take it you’re referring to Mr. David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology?
You can say that again. Chairman of the Board. Big Being. Dave’s the man.
When did you first meet Mr. Miscavige?
The very first time? Whoa. Let me think about that. I think we figured it was 37 trillion years ago on a prison planet just outside the Orion Nebula. He saved my life. Or I saved his. I can’t really remember. But the e-meter confirmed that we were best friends then, too. But like nearly seven-footers. We were kicking evil psych butt then, too.
You’re talking about past-life memories that Scientologists recover while holding the sensors of an e-meter, which measures skin galvanism, is that correct?
Skin galvanism? Shit, that thing reads your thoughts, bro. You can’t hide anything from that baby.
Let’s get back to the present time. When, in this cycle, did you meet Mr. Miscavige?
After Mimi got me in. Like 1988. Not long before I met Nic.
So, you met Mr. Miscavige before you ended your first marriage, to Mimi Rogers, who got you into Scientology, and before you met Nicole Kidman. Can you tell us why you didn’t have children of your own with your first two wives?
I’ll take the fifth on that. A fifth of Scotch! Am I right? [Maniacal laughter]
You did adopt two children with Ms. Kidman. They’re Scientologists, aren’t they?
Straight up and vertical. I mean, they haven’t goofed the floof. Not yet, anyway.
That’s a yes, if we understand correctly. You’re using archaic military slang that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard introduced into the church. Can you tell us what Mr. Hubbard means to you and how your regard for him affects your relationship with your children?
Oh, is that like a trick question? What LRH means to me? I mean, did you see that medal I got? It was the size of a dinner plate. Dave gave me that because I was like LRH’s best bud on the whole planet. Do you know what a humanitarian LRH was? What a total genius? Like the greatest genius who ever lived? Did you know that he invented nuclear physics and won World War II and is right now wiping out the evil psychs on Target Two?
Are you saying that L. Ron Hubbard did not, in fact, die on January 24, 1986 after living a very interesting but otherwise very human life?
You’ve been reading the entheta websites. It’s a scientific fact that LRH voluntarily left his body to pursue research that we can only dream about, and that can only be done in an exterior state. It was Dave who told everyone that at the Palladium in 1986. I only wish I’d been there.
When Mr. Miscavige made that announcement, he was wearing a naval uniform. Can you tell us what you think about Scientology’s quasi-military structure and obsession with discipline and interrogation?
That’s the Sea Org. The rest of us don’t get to wear uniforms. I wanted to join the Sea Org myself, but my attorney, Bert Fields, he really freaked out when he read the Sea Org contract and figured out the billion years comes with no residuals or product placement. I guess he’s right, but man, Dave’s uniforms are really crisp.
Are you aware, however, that Sea Org members not only pledge to serve Scientology for a billion years, but also that they work incredible hours for almost no pay — often 100-hour weeks at about 40 cents an hour?
I’ve been out to the base near Hemet plenty of times. And it was Sea Org members who customized my vehicles and painted my airplane hangar. And remodeled my home. And cooked my Christmas dinners. They’re a dedicated bunch.
Doesn’t it bother you, though, that these people are worked to the point of exhaustion with almost no time off and often no contact with their family members, sometimes for years at a stretch?
Man, you are so stuck in PT. You need to get a whole track view of things. That Sea Org worker cleaning a toilet with a toothbrush 14 hours a day? He ran a pleasure planet infested with sex slaves 40 or 50 thousand lifetimes ago. We’re all making up for what we’ve done in the past. We have to atone. I mean, just think of the centuries of penance I’m going to have to perform for the shit I got away with this cycle!
Is that also how you justify Scientology’s policy of “disconnection,” which separates families when a church member decides to leave and is declared a “suppressive person” or SP, and his parents or brothers and sisters who are still Scientologists have to cut the SP completely out of their lives?
The SP pulled it in. All they have to do is their A to E.
If we understand church jargon correctly, what you’re saying is that a person who is excommunicated or declared an SP is entirely at fault, and has “pulled in” their own predicament? And that they can get back in the good graces of the church if they perform certain amends which are known as their A to E steps?
See, it’s easy to understand. And we don’t have time to shed tears over SPs. We have a whole planet to clear, and that means getting the word out by buying books to put in every library on earth and paying for expensive television commercials during the Super Bowl and the Grammys and Glee. That shit is working. Have you seen how many churches Dave has opened in the last couple of years? Scientology has expanded more in the last five years than in the last fifty. That’s a scientific fact.
Yes, we know that Scientology claims more than 10 million active members around the world. But why, if that’s the case, can it never put more than a couple of thousand people together at one of its big annual events, never get more than a few thousand followers on its various Facebook or Twitter accounts, and can never get more than about 25,000 people to identify themselves as church members in American polls, and far less than that in official tallies in Australia and the UK?
The Super Bowl. We had an ad during the everloving Super Bowl. You didn’t see the Mormons pull that off.
Let’s change the subject. We wanted to ask you about Nazanin Boniadi.
Never heard of her.
Didn’t the church audition her in 2004 for a part in one of your movies, but it actually turned out to be an audition to be your girlfriend after Penelope Cruz?
Do I look like the kind of guy who needs to have his church audition girlfriends for him?
Half a dozen former church members say they either witnessed the auditions or were told by Boniadi that she lived with you for three months before you dumped her through then-spokesman Tommy Davis.
Doesn’t ring a bell.
And that you were unhappy with her because you wanted her incisor teeth filed down.
That rings a bell. Was this chick Middle Eastern?
Not only did the church audition girlfriends for you, former top Scientology officials also say that Dave, your best friend, played back secretly-made videotapes of your church confessionals during which you discussed intimate details of your sex life, and he did so for the entertainment of others. Were you aware of this seeming betrayal by Mr. Miscavige?
If I were to believe those kinds of rumors then I might have to admit that I’d dedicated the last 25 years of my life to a big fat lie. Besides, Dave lets me wear LRH’s commodore hat whenever I want to.
Does that mean that you haven’t paid attention to growing evidence that your church is, in fact, in the grips of several different crises, from the mass exodus of longtime members to the potential collapse of its drug rehab network to PR disasters over several recent books and your own divorce? You aren’t aware that your church is one big car wreck?
Car wreck? Hey, I know what to do at a car wreck. In fact, Scientologists are the only ones that can really do something at the scene of an accident, did you know that? And pretty soon, that ancient daughter of mine is going to learn exactly what I mean. I just gotta get her to Disney World or Lego Land and away from her SP mother. Are we done here? Dave and the PIs have a bunch of new information on that for me.
I guess we’ve heard enough. At least for this lifetime.
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LINKS OF NOTE
The Underground Bunker gets a shout-out in a fine piece by Jeanine Poggi in Ad Age about Scientology’s recent big network ad buys. She very smartly puts the church’s advertising binge in its proper context. And Jeff Hawkins nails it: these ads are more about holding on to the big donors than bringing in new members.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 18, 2013 at 07:00
