Leah Remini on Scientology: I was a fraud

Larry King: Did you see people get better?

Leah Remini: Good question. I saw people get better in ways that I can’t say they couldn’t have received that same help by talking to a bona fide therapist, or talking to a good friend.

Larry King: But they got help?

Leah Remini: Yes and no, because Scientology as a whole, I think… It’s my opinion that it’s fraudulent because everything in Scientology is a promise of when you get to these upper levels, when you get to these upper levels you will handle this in yourself, you will handle that in yourself. Those upper levels are confidential, and they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it’s a pay-as-you-go religion. You can’t just show up to a church and get free services. Of course they offer free services in the beginning, but then as you actually progress…

Larry King: So you can’t be poor and be a scientologist?

Leah Remini: No. Not at all. And I’ve seen people cash in their 401Ks, I see them living in a way that is sacrificing their lives, their children…

Larry King: Do they have services?

Leah Remini: They don’t. They appear to be doing that. They put up a front that they believe in God or that it’s secular or that you can believe in anything, which is -

Larry King: But that’s a front?

Leah Remini: That’s a front and that’s a lie.

Larry King: When you were doing it all those years, did you say ‘I’m part of a front’?

Leah Remini: No. I, like most scientologists, believed that what I was doing was good.

Larry King: So people there now, doing what you were doing, believe what they’re doing?

Leah Remini: No, Larry I was a liar. I knew that I was lying, that’s what I am admitting to you.

Larry King: So you were a fraud?

Leah Remini: Correct.

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