Scientology slut-shames Mimi Faust after destroying her family because … it’s a church!

 
Continuing its unbroken record for doing exactly the wrong thing every time its reputation is in question, Scientology responded to this week’s Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath in characteristic fashion with an overheated slut-shaming of reality TV star Mimi Faust, and by calling Christi Gordon “disturbed.”

Faust was a small businesswoman who starred on VH1’s Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta, and then capitalized on her notoriety from the show to trade on her celebrity. In 2014, a sex tape of her with a co-star from her show, Nikko London, was leaked, and later Faust admitted to leaking it herself.

All day yesterday, as we waited for Scientology’s attack of Leah Remini’s weekly guests to show up — it usually appears about an hour before the episode airs — we were mentally taking bets on whether Scientology could resist attacking a prominent African-American television celebrity and businesswoman by slut-shaming her over her sex tape.

Well, the temptation was just too great, apparently, and Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs got its rocks off with a still from the video, part of its attack on Faust at its “Leah Remini — Aftermath: After Money” smear site.

And what does Mimi Faust’s sex life have to do with what she talked about last night on Leah Remini’s show?

Well, nothing, of course. Mimi talked about how her mother, Olaiya Odufunke, had joined the Sea Organization, and then had abandoned Mimi at the age of 13 when Mimi refused to join the Sea Org herself.

Despite leaving Mimi to her own devices at such a young age, Mimi repeatedly reconnected with her mother over the years, and also spent time with her when Olaiya was dying of pancreatic cancer in 2003. Sadly, Mimi was unable to spend time alone with her mother in the hospital, because a Scientology handler was with Olaiya at all times.

Scientology doesn’t really deny any of these allegations at its smear site, except to challenge the idea that Mimi was homeless in 1982 at only 13. Mimi had told us in 2012, as well as to Leah last night, that she spent several years couch-surfing in order to hide that she didn’t have a mother to go home to. Scientology now claims that there was a family that was willing to take her in — but that doesn’t really contradict what Mimi was saying.

Meanwhile, Scientology also blames your proprietor for somehow turning Mimi against the church when we first interviewed her in 2012. If we did, that was a pretty neat trick, because we didn’t actually interview Mimi Faust until after she had revealed on her VH1 show that she’d been abandoned by her Scientologist mother at 13.

And then, Scientology does something we’ve never seen before — it then smears someone using our reporting as evidence.

We had written a story about Olaiya Odufunke’s career in the church with the help of one of her coworkers, Kirsi Ojamo, who told us that there were times when Olaiya spoke approvingly of her children. Aha! Scientology said, this was proof that Mimi Faust had to be lying about having a mother who didn’t care about her.

Well, if you were paying attention last night, you learned that Mimi herself had repeatedly brought her mother back into her life, even after she had been turned away at 13.

Yes, the moral of the story that Mimi Faust told was that she and her mother did have love for each other, except that Scientology came between them and poisoned whatever chance they had at having a normal relationship.

Somehow, Scientology turns that into an agenda of “hate the parents” on the part of Faust, Remini, and A&E.

It attempts to do the same to Christi Gordon, saying that she was a thief who was counting on the series to be a “pot of gold” for her, and that her experience in Scientology was too many years ago to matter.

But once again, if you paid attention to what was actually presented in the show, Christi Gordon talked about being abandoned by a mother she loved, and that she helped her mom Judith later to get out of Scientology. And far from over, Christi’s story included the heartbreaking coda that her mother is now suffering from a break from “reality” as a mental patient.

Scientology isn’t blamed for her mother’s condition, but the show does make the case that Scientology bears a heavy burden for what it put these women through as children in the church.

These two women didn’t hate their mothers, as Scientology says on its smear website. They hated what Scientology turned their mothers into. And the 2.8 million people who tuned in last night or will stream the show over the next week will surely take that away and not Scientology’s weak jabs.

 
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Scientology still shrinking rapidly in Australia

The new census reports are out in Australia, and Scientology has another great showing. In 2011, the last time numbers were gathered, 2,160 Australians identified themselves as Scientologists. The totals for the 2016 census were just released, and this time 1,685 Australians in a country of just over 24 million said they were Scientologists — a 21-percent drop.

That’s right in line with the numbers we’ve been telling you about for years here at the Underground Bunker. A new defector, Peter Nyiri, who had access to enrollment documents at the Flag Land Base, said he agreed with Paul Burkhart, a 2013 defector who worked at the Hollywood Guaranty Building, a nerve center of Scientology’s upper echelons, who estimated that worldwide active membership is now down to “less than 20,000” around the world.

“Expansion” indeed. Thanks for that new data, friends Down Under!

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Ah, the fulfilling life inside Scientology…

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 18, 2017 at 07:00

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Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
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