Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]
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Archival gems: When Scientology was on the hot seat in swinging London

We’ve mentioned that one of our readers specializes in tracking down obscure press clippings for us, and over the years he’s really done a good job of []

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PODCAST: ‘Oppenheimer’ and Scientology, with physicist Bruce Hines

The highly anticipated new film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, hit theaters yesterday, and we had a crazy idea: Watch the film on opening day here in New York while former Scientology auditor Bruce Hines caught it in Denver, and then talk about []

Valerie Haney: Here’s why the press should be asking Tom Cruise about Shelly Miscavige

[Valerie Haney and Tom Cruise]

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 []

Wait, Scientology has Mary-Ellen of ‘The Waltons’ on the hook for how much now?

[And does John-Boy know?]

Recently, we’ve been learning how much Scientology’s wealthy donors have been forking out as church leader David Miscavige makes a big fundraising push for his remaining “Ideal Org” projects in the []

PODCAST: ‘Chicago Fire’ star Christian Stolte on his Scientology experience

 We had heard from some of you about our video interviews not going out on the usual podcast feed, so we think we have figured it out this []

Scientology success stories are the bomb: But which continent is most on fire right now?

 TODAY AT SUBSTACK: If you’ve signed up for free emails at Substack, you will receive today’s feature story at your inbox: It turns out that Scientology is serving up different ‘success stories’ on its digital magazines depending on what part of the world you’re logging in from. We’d love to get your thoughts about which []

PODCAST: Tory Christman on visiting the Danny Masterson retrial

 We first wrote about Tory Christman in 2001, and 22 years later it’s still one of our favorite stories of all time — about a woman who went from one of Scientology’s most reliable foot soldiers to one of its most resilient []

Q patriots figure it’s a clone out there golfing as Trump, or something

 Some links to Q-related items today

The golfer is a []

What it was like to be an operative in Scientology’s massive spy apparatus

 After reading about the death of Scientology’s legendary spymaster Jane Kember here at the Underground Bunker, former standout Scientology auditor Bruce Hines was motivated to write about what it was like to be an operative in the outfit Kember ran, the Guardian’s Office. Once again, Bruce has outdone []

Chris Owen and Jon Atack remember Jane Kember, Scientology’s ultimate spymaster

 On Friday, we reported on the death of Scientology’s former “Guardian,” Jane Kember, at 85. We had learned about her passing the day before, and scrambled to put together a basic outline of what an important figure she is in Scientology. Since then, we’ve heard from two of the very best researchers and historians of []