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Has Leah Remini Left the Church of Scientology?

Leah_ReminiRecently, we got a tip from one of our better sources that Leah Remini had left Scientology in an angry fit.

We didn’t have any more details, but we knew that the King of Queens actress was in a family of Scientologists, including her husband Angelo Pagán, who is a Los Angeles restaurateur.

We put in a call to Pagán, and he was kind enough to call us back. No, he told us, what we’d heard was incorrect. Neither he or his wife were angry with the church, and even if they were, he said, that would be something they would work out with the church itself.

We appreciated his candor, and wished him well. But since that call several weeks ago, we’ve seen more and more circumstantial evidence that tells us Remini has washed her hands of the church.

Take a spin around Remini’s own website, for example, and you’ll look in vain for a reference to Scientology.

Even in her list of charities — usually a dead giveaway of Scientology-related front groups — Remini’s list is Scientology-free:

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One of Leah’s greatest joys in life is the philanthropic work she does with diverse charities, from the Children’s Hospital and the Zoo in her home city of Los Angeles, not to mention several after-school programs, just to name a few. Leah continues to support those charities that are getting real help to those that need it.

We also noticed that her Wikipedia page, which used to reference her involvement in Scientology, now has no mention of it, and she’s identified as a Catholic.

(One of our sources tells us that Remini herself asked for Wikipedia to make that change. We haven’t confirmed that, however.)

Then, last week, one of our readers alerted us to an interesting exchange on Twitter following the tragic death of James Gandolfini…

LeahTweets

 
Remini, 43, is originally from Brooklyn and lives in Los Angeles. King of Queens ran from 1998 to 2007.

Scientology’s own publications show that Remini has achieved Operating Thetan Level Five — three levels short of the church’s highest level of spiritual advancement. Pagán also is a longtime Scientologist.

Remini dated Pagán for six years before they were married on July 19, 2003 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. Pagán had three sons from a previous marriage, and he and Remini had a daughter, Sofia, in 2004.

Leah_Remini_Angelo_Pagan

Leah’s mother, Vicki Marshall, is an Operating Thetan Level Eight and a Class VI auditor — — we’re told that she brought up Leah in the church from a very early age.

Remini gained a reputation for speaking out on behalf of Scientology. In 2006, she became a sort of unofficial spokeswoman for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes when she reported that she’d seen their daughter, Suri, and said that the baby was fine (rumors had started swirling after her parents had kept Suri out of the public eye for months after her birth). Later that year, when Cruise and Holmes were married at a castle outside Rome, People magazine relied on Remini for some of the details of the affair. In 2007, People asked Remini if she was trying to convert Jennifer Lopez. Remini denied it. In 2008, Gawker had fun with a crazy-sounding recruitment e-mail that Remini allegedly sent out to encourage her fellow Scientologists to hurry up their spiritual advancement. In 2009, fans of Janeane Garofalo’s Air America show, “Majority Report,” complained when she had Remini on the show for what turned into an infomercial about a Scientology-based detoxification program for New York firefighters.

But Remini seems to have been very quiet about Scientology in more recent times. We’d like to know more — has she had a falling out with leader David Miscavige and his focus on extreme fundraising? Tipsters, let us know.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 5, 2013 at 07:00

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