Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One hasn’t done quite the business that its creators were hoping, but still, with $91 million in domestic sales and $168 million overseas for a total of $259 million as of yesterday, it was well along to making up for its whopping $290 cost.
Its star Tom Cruise hit the red carpet in various staggered openings in places like Rome and Sydney before showing up in theaters in Atlanta and Washington DC.
Australian singer Kate Ceberano attended the Sydney premiere and then posted a photo of herself arm in arm with Cruise on her Instagram account. Media outlets pounced on it because besides being a fellow entertainer, Ceberano is also an OT 8 Scientologist: She’s spent decades in the Church of Scientology so she could reach the highest level of its “Bridge to Total Freedom,” its incrementally-more-expensive regimen of cosmic, past-life therapy that can take many years to complete.
It’s the latest evidence that Cruise remains dedicated to Scientology, and it’s once again been noted in various press treatments of him, just like last year with the release of Top Gun: Maverick.
But this year, Cruise’s critics have been thinking about a different kind of impossible mission: locating Shelly Miscavige, the wife of Cruise’s best friend, Scientology leader David Miscavige.
Former Scientologist Leah Remini has been raising new questions about Shelly after a recent report by journalist Yashar Ali that called into question how the LAPD handled a 2013 missing person report Remini had filed about Shelly.
And now Valerie Haney, who worked in the private quarters of Dave and Shelly before her own harrowing escape from the organization, has some new details about the private lives of Scientology’s ruling couple that demonstrate Cruise’s direct connection to Shelly’s story. (Both Cruise and the Church of Scientology did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)
As Cruise enjoys another round of press, we wonder if anyone will have a chance to ask him, “Where’s Shelly?”
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Leah Remini first noticed that Shelly Miscavige seemed to be missing when she didn’t show up with her husband David Miscavige at the wedding of the new century: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ November 2006 nuptials in an Italian castle.
For the second time, Dave was acting as Cruise’s best man (he had also fulfilled that role at Cruise’s 1990 wedding to Nicole Kidman), but this time Dave was conspicuously without his wife.
For years, David and Shelly Miscavige had been Scientology’s ultimate power couple. They had both been raised as children in the organization, were married in 1980 (Dave was 20, Shelly 18), and, when founder L. Ron Hubbard died on January 24, 1986, Dave had already begun muscling other pretenders to the throne out of the way.
David Miscavige soon became Scientology’s ruthless leader, and adopted the moniker “C.O.B.” for “chairman of the board.” Shelly, as a sort of lesser co-ruler, was given the title “C.O.B. Assistant,” and former members of the “Sea Org” — Scientology’s hardcore wing who’ve signed billion-year contracts — who worked close to the Miscaviges say they always used these titles around them and would never dare to say their actual names.
C.O.B. and C.O.B. Assistant ran Scientology as a dictatorship for the next 19 years and spent most of their time at the church’s secretive international management base, a sprawling 500-acre compound near Hemet, California, about 90 miles east of Los Angeles.
Surviving the death of a founder can be tricky for any insular organization, but that same year, 1986, when Miscavige was consolidating control, Scientology had an amazing stroke of good luck.
Several months after Hubbard’s death, Mimi Rogers, an actress who had grown up in Scientology, began dating Tom Cruise and started bringing him around to a North Hollywood facility to get some experience in Dianetics and Scientology.
Cruise was only 24, but he was already a star, with Risky Business and All the Right Moves under his belt and Top Gun coming out that summer. Rogers told family members that she hoped Scientology would help cure Cruise’s notorious skirt-chasing.
They were married on May 9, 1987, one of the holiest dates on the Scientology calendar: Hubbard’s book that started the movement, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was released on May 9, 1950, and getting married on that date (during Scientology’s “AD 36,” for “After Dianetics”) suggests that Cruise was already pretty well-indoctrinated by that point.
But former Scientology executives told me that David Miscavige had an issue with Rogers’ father, a “squirrel” ( a Scientology slur for someone who had left the official church but still practiced Hubbard’s ideas).
In 1990, Miscavige had Cruise’s auditor encourage him to split with Rogers in favor of Nicole Kidman, his young Days of Thunder co-star. And initially, Kidman became an enthusiastic Scientologist, achieving the rather advanced level of OT 2 in only a few years, her former auditor told me.
But then, around 1992, Kidman soured on Scientology and pulled Cruise away from it with her, which included several years filming Eyes Wide Shut in the U.K. with Stanley Kubrick. By the time they broke up in 2000, Miscavige had become determined to pull Cruise back into the fold and make him more dedicated to Scientology than ever.
By 2004, Cruise was so committed, he showed up at a grand opening of a new “Ideal” church in Madrid, Spain (the only Ideal Org grand opening he’s ever attended) and even gave a speech to the crowd in Spanish. And it was at that event that Cruise told Miscavige that he was having some difficulty finding a new girlfriend after recently splitting up with his Vanilla Sky co-star, Penelope Cruz.
Miscavige became determined to help his friend, dreamed up an elaborate mission to find Cruise a suitable partner, and put in charge of the operation his most trusted aide:
His wife, Shelly.
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By then it was 2004, and Valerie Haney had been working in the intimate personal quarters of David and Shelly Miscavige for two years. She served them their meals, changed their sheets, traveled with them on Cruise’s private jet, and went with them on vacations with Cruise to places like the Caribbean.
That summer, for Cruise’s 42nd birthday, Dave threw a lavish party for the actor on the Freewinds, Scientology’s cruise ship. Video eventually emerged of Cruise being feted on the ship by the Scientology band playing hit songs from his movies, and included Cruise doing his best Bob Seger impression for a rendition of the Risky Business hit “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
But as Miscavige was throwing the lavish party for Cruise — flying in chefs from Nobu for a sushi night, and chefs from Paris for another night — Shelly was becoming more and more conflicted about her husband’s bromance.
“That was on the Freewinds, in 2004. Shelly would be crying in her cabin, hiding her tears from Dave, of course,” Haney says. She stresses that as Shelly’s personal steward she had very close contact with her in those years, and the two would share private details of their marriages with each other.
“She was crying from how much disrespect Dave had for her, and how much Dave would absolutely do anything for Tom. And he told Tom that,” Haney says.
“Shelly asked me at one point, what do you think about Dave doing all this for Tom? I told her, ‘It’s like Dave’s married to him.’ And she agreed.”
Haney adds that Shelly had gotten along with Cruise and didn’t have a problem with his increased Scientology involvement.
“They did get along. Shelly didn’t hate Tom. She just hated the way Dave acted around Tom,” Haney claims.
She watched as Dave lavished luxuries on Cruise, which often included work performed by Sea Org members.
“Tom was used to getting perks, like having his car and his house remodeled by Sea Org workers. We even decked out his whole hangar,” she says, referring to the Burbank home of Cruise’s airplanes. “It would have cost over a million dollars if he’d outsourced it, and we did it all in-house. It took us two months to do it. If he’d used outside workers, it would have taken a year.”
But as a dedicated Scientologist, Cruise knew he couldn’t be “out-exchange” (giving less than one’s received) by accepting so many benefits without offering something in return, she points out.
“He gives Dave the use of his plane. He donates millions so he’s not out-exchange for the perks he gets,” she says.
“Dave would only fly private — on Tom’s plane. And while using parishioner money. It was Tom’s pilot and flight attendant. But I was told we were paying for the gas,” she remembers.
Then, in 2004, Dave dreamed up the idea of auditioning actresses without telling them that they were really trying out to be Cruise’s next love interest, as chronicled in a 2012 Vanity Fair exposé.
He put Shelly in charge of it.
Haney says she was aghast at the prospect.
“Shelly said, ‘This is fucking ridiculous. I can’t believe I have to do this. Do we really have to babysit Tom to get him a wife?’ That’s when she started to go negative on Dave,” Haney remembers.
The Madrid event happened in September 2004. By that November, the auditions organized by Shelly had produced a candidate: a young Scientologist actress named Nazanin Boniadi who dated Cruise for about three months, till January 2005.
According to Alex Gibney’s 2015 HBO documentary Going Clear, one of the reasons that Boniadi frustrated Cruise was that she had a hard time understanding Miscavige’s thick New Jersey accent (Boniadi is British and was born in Tehran). She was told her relationship with Cruise was over by his Scientology aide, Tommy Davis.
Cruise, meanwhile, was reaching new heights as Scientology’s poster boy. In October 2004, Miscavige had rewarded him for his new all-in attitude by giving him a special “Freedom Medal of Valor” and then sending Cruise out to be the church’s ambassador. The actor even convinced director Steven Spielberg to let him set up information tents about Scientology as they were filming War of the Worlds, and then in June, Cruise had his infamous TODAY interview with Matt Lauer, spewing Scientology views about psychiatry and appearing unhinged.
By April 2005, Cruise had made public that he was now dating Katie Holmes. But the auditioning program had, as Haney indicates, done real damage to the relationship between Shelly and Dave.
Later that year, around early September 2005, several former Sea Org workers who were at the base near Hemet at the time say that Shelly angered Dave when she showed some initiative while he was in Los Angeles. With Dave away, she was able to fill some job positions that had remained open because of his indecision, and she had some of their belongings crated up so a renovation could take place. When Miscavige returned and saw what she had done, he blew his stack, several people who were there told me.
A week later, Shelly vanished.
Cruise and Holmes had Suri the following spring, in April 2006, and their wedding at the castle in Italy took place in November.
That’s when Remini noticed that Shelly wasn’t there, and, as she describes in her bestselling memoir, Troublemaker, Remini noticed David Miscavige getting handsy with his “personal communicator,” a woman named Laurisse Stuckenbrock.
When Remini asked about it, she was told by Tommy Davis that she didn’t have “the fucking rank” to even ask the question.
Remini went back to her hotel room that night, called a close friend in Los Angeles, and then wrote up a report about what she’d seen. Scientologists are encouraged to turn in fellow church members for breaking the rules, but in this case Remini dared to turn in the leader of the church itself, David Miscavige.
In Troublemaker, she describes the alleged price she paid: Months of bizarre mental conditioning that she was made to pay $300,000 for, conditioning that convinced her that she hadn’t seen what she did at the wedding.
Shelly, meanwhile, was seen again a year later, in the summer of 2007, onboard a ship in San Pedro harbor for the funeral of her father, Maurice “Barney” Barnett.
I began writing about Shelly’s disappearance in 2012 at the Village Voice as evidence began to mount that she had been moved to a small Scientology compound in the San Bernardino Mountains near Lake Arrowhead, California.
In July 2013, Remini went public that she had defected from Scientology, and a month later she filed a missing person report about Shelly Miscavige with the LAPD, who almost immediately told the media that Remini’s report of Shelly missing was “unfounded.”
At that point I talked to Lt. Andre Dawson of the LAPD, who told me that two of his detectives had met with Shelly, that she was fine, and that she had chosen not to make a public statement.
He wouldn’t tell me where the meeting took place, and when I asked him if the meeting had taken place in the presence of other Scientology officials, he said “that’s classified.”
Three years later, in 2016, Remini had an attorney send official requests to the LAPD for more information about what they had done in response to her missing person report. (They had never responded to her at all about it after she initially filed it.) After several weeks, she was told the LAPD had no intention of giving her any more information.
Then, last month, Yashar Ali released his new bombshell report. He learned not only where the 2013 meeting with LAPD detectives had taken place — a coffee shop in West Covina, California — but that Shelly had been accompanied by Jeffrey Riffer, an attorney who has made appearances in court as David Miscavige’s personal lawyer. (Riffer did not respond to a request for comment.)
Yashar had also found that in 2010, five years after her disappearance, Shelly had renewed her driver’s license, also in West Covina, and he obtained the photo that was taken for it. It’s the first photo of Shelly since 2004, when she was at the Madrid Ideal Org opening where Tom Cruise delivered an impassioned speech in Spanish.
“She looks like a beaten-down puppy dog, like she was going to cry,” Haney says after looking at the 2010 driver’s license photo.
Haney spent a total of 22 years in the Sea Org. She had been born to Scientologist parents in 1979, and was raised in the “Cadet Org” as young as 6 years old, signing the Sea Org’s billion-year contract at 15. She then caught the eye of Shelly Miscavige, who had her moved to the secretive Gold Base near Hemet to work in Shelly and Dave’s private quarters.
In 2005, when Shelly’s relationship with Dave deteriorated, Haney was “busted” down to more menial work, as Shelly vanished from the base.
Eventually, Haney found work in the casting department at the base, and had access to non-Scientologist actors who came to the base for shoots. One day, in 2016, she knew that her job was about to change again and she would have her last chance to be around outsiders. She climbed into the trunk of one of the actors’ cars, who then unwittingly drove her to Los Angeles.
It was a daring escape story that Remini featured in 2018 as the premiere episode of the third and final season of her A&E series Scientology and the Aftermath, revealing that after Haney’s escape she had gone to work as Remini’s assistant. (Valerie works for another producer today.)
Then, in 2019, Haney filed suit against Scientology and David Miscavige, alleging that she had been held against her will while she was a Sea Org worker, and that she had become the focus of an intense Scientology harassment campaign because she dared to speak out.
The lawsuit, however, was forced into Scientology’s brand of internal “religious arbitration” when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that contracts Haney signed with Scientology obligated her not to sue but to take her dispute to the church and a panel of arbitrators who must be Scientologists in good standing.
Remini, meanwhile, has been continually reminding her large online audience about Shelly Miscavige.
“I will never stop fighting for Shelly,” she tweeted late last month.
When Scientology does respond to questions about Shelly Miscavige (which is rare), it puts out statements that Shelly is on a special work assignment. In 2018, attorney Jeffrey Riffer (yes, the same one who reportedly accompanied Shelly to the LAPD meeting in 2013) wrote to Jezebel to complain about a story it ran about Shelly “missing.” That was untrue, Riffer said, adding that “Mrs. Miscavige has no interest in appearing in public merely because Remini… wants to use that as some cheap publicity stunt to get ratings.”
And Shelly may be resigned to her fate, working and living at the small compound in the mountains above San Bernardino.
But we wonder what Cruise has been told about a woman he was once close to, and who had run the auditions to find him a suitable mate in 2004.
“Dave has told Tom that Shelly is out-ethics and has turned suppressive,” Valerie Haney says, referring to Scientology concepts about wayward church members who are expelled and designated enemies of the church (“suppressive”).
“That’s the only way that Tom would be OK with it. Because Tom loved Shelly. So Dave told him some lie of some sort, because Dave and Tom have this bromance,” Haney says.
“He would have told Tom that Shelly had committed suppressive acts and ‘needs to be off my lines.’ And Tom would have said, ‘Oh, that sucks, but I trust you.’ That’s my assumption.”
In 2012, I interviewed John Brousseau, a former Scientology Sea Org official who had been David Miscavige’s brother-in-law for 16 years, and who had also worked very closely with Cruise.
Like Haney, Brousseau was one of a small handful of people who had any chance of understanding what the relationship between Cruise and Miscavige was really about.
Here’s what he told me: “Tom Cruise worships David Miscavige like a god.”
Cruise is a true believer, not a reluctant follower. He actually believes that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was the greatest human being who ever lived, and that David Miscavige is the most important person living today, these former Sea Org members tell me.
And Haney says it’s important to keep that in mind when you’re trying to figure out why Cruise does what he does.
For example, from 1986 to 2012, Cruise had been in a series of monogamous relationships and by all accounts was extremely involved in the lives of his partners.
Why, I asked Haney, has he gone so long without another serious committed relationship?
Haney floored me with her answer. She thinks Cruise may be under orders by Miscavige not to get involved with someone while Miscavige is distracted and stuck in litigation.
“Tom’s following orders,” she says.
Technology Cocktail
“Base your line of talk to strangers on the premise that the 19th Century brutalities and foolishness of psychology, psycho-analysis and psychiatry have made your listener doubtful of mental healing. Agree they are right about this. Enlarge on the faults of old 19th Century practices. Then say they are not all bad since they gave us a basis on which to start Scientology. Then show how Scientology learned that men weren’t animals, learned that shock and surgery on the brain was harmful, learned that sex was only a minor basis for neurosis and insanity. All this without saying what Scientology is or describing it. Then, without really ever explaining what Scientology is, say it has hope for man in a kinder, better world and that we must outgrow our fear of mental healing and look ahead, not backward.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1959
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON
We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?
[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH
— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see
[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf
— The first Danny Masterson trial and beyond
[18] Trial special with Chris Shelton [19] Trial week one [20] Marc Headley on the spy in the hallway [21] Trial week two [22] Trial week three [23] Trial week four [24] Leah Remini on LAPD Corruption [25] Mike Rinder 2022 Thanksgiving Special [26] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part One [27] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part Two [28] Claire Headley on the trial [29] Tory Christman [30] Bruce Hines on spying [31] Karen de la Carriere [32] Ron Miscavige on Shelly Miscavige [33] Karen de la Carriere on the L’s [34] Mark Bunker on Miscavige hiding [35] Mark Plummer [36] Mark Ebner [37] Karen Pressley [38] Steve Cannane [39] Fredrick Brennan [40] Clarissa Adams [41] Louise Shekter [42] John Sweeney [43] Tory Christman [44] Kate Bornstein [45] Christian Stolte [46] Mark Bunker [47] Jon Atack [48] Luke Y. Thompson [49] Mark Ebner
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“All sorts of disastrous things will occur If you become an expert Dianetic auditor. Then we’re all in trouble because we will start curing everything, you know, and knocking out psychosis and neurosis and doing all those poor doctors out of their jobs. And you don’t want to do any doctors out of their jobs. But I say this in all sincerity, this leads you in to the fact that you can heal, and that is not your profession. You’re trying to clear people, and these processes will heal people, even badly run. They’ll cure migraine headaches and arthritis and lumbosis and medicosis and all kinds of wild illnesses. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s uniform. In other words, you don’t get one for one for one, you see, for the excellent reason that the whole reactive mind is the reason for very severe illnesses. It’s the whole mind. And you can key out parts of it and make somebody quite well, you see. You can key out some very specific illness like that and have it go away but don’t be too surprised if it comes back. So therefore, ‘cure’ is not well used. It’s ill-advised as a word.” — L. Ron Hubbard, July 21, 1966
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“WWIII: The 18 July statement of Russia that it would back Arabs against Israel after an apparent squeeze play on Nasser is the first whiff of World War III. Yesterday’s news items of Soviet Rocket tests north of Hawaii is a confirming item. The Soviet has the US will to fight very knocked out internally in the US and is now following up to pressure the Middle East and the Pacific as a strategic action. They have of course misgauged the US reaction and a belligerent response wrongly done can tip over the cold war into a hot one. This is mentioned because it becomes a factor in our operations to be alert, preserve reserves, and beef up UK and EU.” — The Commodore, July 21, 1970
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“You’re just investigating the havingness, getting viewpoints all over, just looking at it. You can see all time that has taken place since the beginning to now in even in the future, if you are OT enough, and even see what’s going to happen in the future. I once did this when I went way back to when I was a huge disembodied OT toward the beginning of my track. It’s like a bunch of particles all moving, co-acting and coming together in different positions to create whatever realities that happened or will happen. We can change the future, no doubt, and I have changed the weather without a doubt and still do when I feel the desire. Time doesn’t really exist, it’s simultaneous, i.e., the present is all that’s really real, but we have stretched it out and created motion in order to have action; i.e., having particles move in space is what having is, which is what time is, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. I just urge you to study all the ACCs from the PDC on up to the eighth American, if you have any doubt.”
1999: Sales of the book conceived by L. Ron Hubbard, A Very Strange Trip, have been boosted by bulk orders. The book has reached No. 11 on the New York Times Bestseller List. From Deana Holmes: “For the second year in a row, Bridge Publications, the publishing house of the Church of Scientology, has bulk-purchased its way onto the New York Times Bestseller List. This year, the book is A Very Strange Trip, concept by L. Ron Hubbard, book by Dave Wolverton. ’11. A VERY STRANGE TRIP, by L. Ron Hubbard and Dave Wolverton. (Bridge, $25.) An Army truck driver transports a contraband Russian time machine and developmental weaponry from Trenton to Denver. (+)’ A dagger (+) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.”
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“He’s found the right balance between non-sequitur sesquipedalian punster and heartfelt commenting.”
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker
Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Found guilty on two counts on May 31, remanded to custody. Sentencing on Sep 7.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Grand jury indictments include charges from an assault while in custody. Trial scheduled for August 15.
— David Gentile, GPB Capital, fraud.
Civil litigation:
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Forced to arbitration. Plaintiffs allowed interlocutory appeal to Eleventh Circuit.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Stay in place at least through sentencing of Masterson on Sep 7.
— Jane Doe 1 v. Scientology, David Miscavige, and Gavin Potter: Case unsealed and second amended complaint filed. Next hearing August 1.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Ordered to mediation.
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After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.
LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH
An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.
SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z
Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society. Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in a weekly series. How many have you read?
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THE WHOLE TRACK
[ONE year ago] While the planet melts: What Scientology predicted about climate change
[TWO years ago] US Supreme Court: Valerie Haney fires back at Scientology about its ‘religious ritual’
[THREE years ago] ‘We’ve talked to the FBI’ Leah Remini says in first podcast, calling for Scientology raid
[FOUR years ago] Evidence that Scientology is adopting an anti-vaxx strategy, and with political aspirations
[FIVE years ago] From Sands Hall’s excellent ‘Flunk. Start.’ — the paradox of ‘Keeping Scientology Working’
[SIX years ago] As Leah Remini’s second season approaches, more Scientology survivors are opening up
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology goes shopping for a new top cop in L.A., and a new video from Chris Shelton!
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology’s speechwriter, the word of God, and a Hubbard bio that will never see the light of day
[NINE years ago] Surviving Scientology podcast: Former treasury employee Mat Pesch spills the beans
[TEN years ago] Neil Gaiman’s Nephew Fights for Scientology Marriage Rights in the UK
[ELEVEN years ago] Why Do Scientologists Accept the Xenu Story?
[TWELVE years ago] Scientology’s Top Former Spokesman Talks Spying; The Church’s Hollywood Properties Probed
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Bernie Headley (1952-2019) did not see his daughter Stephanie in his final 5,667 days.
Valerie Haney has not seen her mother Lynne in 3,097 days.
Katrina Reyes has not seen her mother Yelena in 3,612 days
Sylvia Wagner DeWall has not seen her brother Randy in 3,162 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 2,152 days.
Geoff Levin has not seen his son Collin and daughter Savannah in 2,033 days.
Christie Collbran has not seen her mother Liz King in 5,337 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 3,208 days.
Doug Kramer has not seen his parents Linda and Norm in 2,313 days.
Jamie Sorrentini Lugli has not seen her father Irving in 4,760 days.
Quailynn McDaniel has not seen her brother Sean in 4,102 days.
Dylan Gill has not seen his father Russell in 12,668 days.
Melissa Paris has not seen her father Jean-Francois in 8,587 days.
Valeska Paris has not seen her brother Raphael in 4,754 days.
Mirriam Francis has not seen her brother Ben in 4,336 days.
Claudio and Renata Lugli have not seen their son Flavio in 4,597 days.
Sara Goldberg has not seen her daughter Ashley in 3,633 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 3,349 days.
Marie Bilheimer has not seen her mother June in 2,913 days.
Julian Wain has not seen his brother Joseph or mother Susan in 1,228 days.
Charley Updegrove has not seen his son Toby in 2,403 days.
Joe Reaiche has not seen his daughter Alanna Masterson in 6,954 days
Derek Bloch has not seen his father Darren in 4,085 days.
Cindy Plahuta has not seen her daughter Kara in 4,423 days.
Roger Weller has not seen his daughter Alyssa in 9,278 days.
Claire Headley has not seen her mother Gen in 4,397 days.
Ramana Dienes-Browning has not seen her mother Jancis in 2,753 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 7,056 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 3,162 days.
Skip Young has not seen his daughters Megan and Alexis in 3,560 days.
Mary Kahn has not seen her son Sammy in 3,436 days.
Lois Reisdorf has not seen her son Craig in 3,019 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 3,514 days.
Mary Jane Barry has not seen her daughter Samantha in 3,768 days.
Kate Bornstein has not seen her daughter Jessica in 14,877 days.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on July 21, 2023 at 07:00
E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.
The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2022 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2022), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)
Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | 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 | Shelly Miscavige, 15 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 | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…
Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.
Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele
Tony Ortega at The Daily Beast
