On the eve of ‘Going Clear’, Leah Remini says she’s grateful to the people behind it

 
Yesterday we saw Leah Remini’s tweet which contained a Martin Luther King Jr quote and the date that Alex Gibney’s documentary about Scientology, Going Clear, is airing on HBO tomorrow night…

So we reached out to Leah to ask how she’s feeling about the documentary playing for the masses on Sunday. She said she hasn’t seen the movie yet and will watch it Sunday night, but her friends who have seen the film were deeply affected by it.

“I wanted to thank the people who are in it and have worked so hard. You, Mike Rinder, Marty Rathbun, Marc Headley, Tom DeVocht, Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney, and HBO. And Paul Haggis in particular for what he wrote on your website the other day. What Paul wrote is so exactly right,” Leah told us.

Paul’s statement really was special and we’re surprised more press outlets didn’t pick up on it.

And forgive us if we can’t help reviewing our history reporting on Leah Remini. The Underground Bunker broke the news that Leah had left Scientology with our piece in July 2013. We then broke the news that she’d reported Scientology leader David Miscavige’s wife Shelly missing to the Los Angeles Police Department. And we’ve kept you up on other developments as Leah engaged in epic dances and otherwise thumbed her nose at David Miscavige.

It’s been quite a week here in the Underground Bunker counting down for the airing of Gibney’s film. We looked at each of the eight principal figures in the movie…

— We explained why actor Jason Beghe should get more credit for the way Scientology’s former executives changed the narrative of David Miscavige’s public perception.

— Former Sea Org official Tom DeVocht gave us new insights on the odd triangle of David Miscavige, Tom Cruise, and Penelope Cruz back in 2001.

— Hana Eltringham Whitfield let us break the news that she’s shopping a book proposal not only about her time in the Sea Org, but also her years as an interventionist after she’d left Scientology.

— We obtained a stunning document — a memo written by David Miscavige — and had it authenticated as a letter meant to intimidate Mike Rinder. With Mike’s help we decoded this rare look into the mind of Miscavige.

— We asked Paul Haggis if he wanted to take part in our countdown. He stunned us by sending us a little masterpiece, his description of the Scientology experience.

— Some reviewers of the movie seemed confused about Marty Rathbun‘s current thinking on Scientology. We got him to talk about how far he’s come on the subject since he started blogging in 2009.

— We dug into some details in the emotional Sara Goldberg story, and published some documents that hadn’t been made public before.

— Spanky Taylor gave us new details about her life, including the stunning moment when she learned her own intervention out of Scientology would be delivered by Hana Whitfield.

And now here we are, just a day before we do some righteous live-blogging as HBO shows a movie we expect to have a huge effect on the world of Scientology watching. We hope you join us.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 28, 2015 at 07:00

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