Tommy Davis’s Hollywood experiment is apparently over as he moves to Splitsville

We heard from a tipster several months ago that things were changing in a big way for former Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis, but we had a hard time confirming it. At one point we even put out a public request for help, but to no avail. Now, however, it turns out that our anonymous helper was correct, and we can comment on a couple of changes in Tommy’s life.

But first of all, why do we care what Tommy’s up to? Well, more than a decade after Davis emerged as Scientology’s very visible international spokesman, people still seem to have a huge fascination for the guy. The son of actress Anne Archer, Tommy was brought up in Scientology and was something of a go-fer and handler for actor Tom Cruise as he rose through the ranks. By the mid-2000s, Davis was the public face of Scientology and was tasked with tangling with the press, sparring with the likes of ABC’s Martin Bashir and the BBC’s John Sweeney as Scientology leader David Miscavige pursued a more aggressive approach to the media.

Today, the church itself has no one to put in front of cameras, and it asks attorneys to make statements and appear on television programs. So maybe it’s no wonder that many members of the public miss Tommy and his antics. By 2011, however, we noticed that he’d seemed to have disappeared. He turned up in Austin, where his wife Jessica Feshbach’s family had some property, and in 2013 Davis testified in a deposition that he was “on leave” from his job in the Sea Organization but was still a member of the Church of Scientology.

The next year, in 2014, the Davises moved to Los Angeles, as Tommy found work at billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital. (Tommy’s father, William Davis, a wealthy real estate investor who died in 2015, was a close friend to Barrack). Davis was eventually doing for Barrack something like the job he was doing for Miscavige, helping to schedule the real estate CEO’s public appearances and such.

But then in February last year, Tommy made an interesting switch. He left his job working for Barrack and became “general manager North America” for Australian billionaire James Packer, helping to run Packer’s Hollywood studio, RatPac Entertainment.

Davis and Packer knew each other from Scientology. Packer had been brought into the church around the year 2001 by his friend Tom Cruise, and according to Steve Cannane’s excellent book on Australian Scientology, Fair Game, Packer left the church around the year 2006.

Some photos turned up last year showing Tommy and Jessica enjoying their new life in Hollywood as Tommy repped his Australian billionaire buddy. But Tommy’s timing might not have been great — Packer’s 2016 turned into a personal and professional nightmare.

The Aussie gambling mogul suffered major setbacks, which we summarized in February:

Packer had big plans for expanding his casino empire in Macau and Las Vegas, and his film company, RatPac Entertainment, a partnership with Brett Ratner and Steve Mnuchin, had been cranking out hits. As we reported last year, Packer had hired his old pal, former Scientology mouthpiece Tommy Davis, to help him with RatPac and other North American investments.

But then things really took a dark turn for Packer. His engagement with singer Mariah Carey fell apart, 18 of his employees were arrested in China for trying to lure high-rollers to his Australian casinos, and RatPac had some bad luck, including taking a bath on Ben Affleck’s flop, Live By Night.

As a result, Packer has pulled back on his casino expansion plans, retreating to his existing casinos in Australia, and there are rumors that he may be pulling out of RatPac. (Mnuchin has announced that he’ll be divesting from the company if he is appointed Treasury Secretary.)

Packer did indeed bail from RatPac, and we were told that in that chaos, Tommy left his job working for Packer. And now, it’s been reported at Bloomberg that Tommy is back working for Barrack, this time as an independent contractor.

But that’s not the only change in Tommy’s life.

In May, he filed for divorce from his wife Jessica.

Jessica Feshbach has her own long history in Scientology. Her father, Joe, and his two brothers, Matt and Kurt, became notorious in the early 1990s as predatory “short-sellers” who made a fortune on anticipating the failure of corporations, and also as millionaires who were happily funneling money to the Church of Scientology. For a $1 million donation, Matt Feshbach became the first Scientologist to experience “Super Power” — two decades before the Super Power Building itself was opened to the public. The fortunes of the Feshbach brothers took a downturn later, and Joe died of a heart attack in 2011.

Jessica first came to the public’s attention as Jessica Rodriguez (married to this guy), when she was the Scientology handler for Katie Holmes. She was known for being very aggressive with reporters and for even answering interview questions on Katie’s behalf. She married Davis when the two were both handling media for the church.

They have two young daughters, and the court docket we looked at says nothing about custody. We hope that Tommy and Jessica are able to work out a peaceful separation. And it sure would be nice if one of them were to give us an interview. When we first heard about their split late last year, we sent Tommy an email, but he didn’t respond.

 
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Chris Shelton interviews Kay Rowe

Says Chris: “Here’s my interview with Kay Rowe from a couple of days ago when she was here in Denver. We go over the IAS and what it’s like to be a fundraiser there, as well as the pretty horrific story of what happened to her medically that caused her to finally get out of the Sea Org. We’ve not heard much from past IAS staff about what it’s like to be in that particular part of the church.”

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 20, 2017 at 07:00

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