italianguy626

She did sign a contract, but washed out of the Sea Org early on, IIRC from her biography.

Here is the gist of why the raid occurred: "Police said the search by members of the National Investigation Bureau was related to an investigation into the suspected misuse of personal information and other crimes." Other crimes not specified. Because it is an active investigation, the police won't say anything further. The article quotes a Scamatology spokeshead that spouts the usual drivel about how this is a violation of the human rights of all Scientologists in the country, blah, blah, blah.

This was state-of-the-art in cellphones in 1989, the year Mimi turned 13 (she was born in 1976). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC Hella expensive, IIRC, for the phone and for the cell service. I also agree that at 13 she probably wouldn't have contact info for her siblings, especially if they were both out of the house when she got moved to California. She didn't say it, but maybe mom disconnected from her siblings and didn't have current contact info, or wouldn't share it, herself. I could believe that she was getting by couch surfing. All it would take was a quick explanation to an understanding friend's parent(s) that she got put on the street by her mother. I grew up with kids that slept at each other's homes all the time, even during the school year (my own parents only allowed me to sleep over places or have a friend sleep over every now and then, and never during the school year). I also read somewhere that she connected with her birth father when she was 16, so maybe she got some support in her later teen years from him?

I caught that too. It was Flavor Aid at Jonestown, and even though I know this, I even say "Drink the Kool Aid..."

From August of this year: Scientology Anti-Drug Program: Fabricated Court Orders Suggest Attempt to Silence Critics

Watching the auditions reminds me of something that I think needs to be addressed with the coaches. When no one turns around, don't blow smoke up the keister of the person auditioning. So often I hear the coaches say things like "oh, you were so good!" or "you have an awesome voice!". Meanwhile, the evil little voice in my head is saying "So why didn't you turn around!?" A little more constructive criticism would be helpful. Also, I seem to be noticing the coaches looking at each other more this season before turning around. You can almost see them thinking "are you going to turn around? Because if you turn around I'm turning around." Too often I'm watching the coaches and as soon as one presses the button, another presses. They need blinders put on them or they need to be in pods where they can't look at or communicate with each other.

Just found this Gawker article (written in 2015) from actress Carmen Llywelyn about her time in the church and what happened when she left.

She talks about this in her biography. She was having an affair with him, Angelo, and got him to take a class. She then confessed about her affair to an auditor, and the auditor had her break off the affair and told Angelo to attend marriage counseling with his wife through the church. Sometime later, he and his wife divorced and he reconnected with Leah. He wasn't as deep into it as she was, so when she left he did too.

I'm listening to Troublemaker right now, and Leah mentions Jada quite a few times in the book, so Leah has been outing her for some time.

Thanks all for the suggestion to listen to Leah's book. I just checked out and downloaded it from my library.

Have you been watching the same show we all have? The lengths this cult will go to smash SPs is legendary. Hell, they broke into IRS offices to try to gather dirt on the agency. I don't blame Katie one bit for keeping a low profile. I have a kid and if there was a possibility that an organization was going to go after my kid, I'm going to be damn sure to do whatever it takes to protect the kid. I don't get the level of vitriol that is being expressed for Nicole and Katie.

Here are a couple of Vanity Fair articles about the process of selecting Nazanin Boniadi for Cruise before he met Katie Holmes: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/09/tom-cruise-scientology-marriage-katie-holmes More in-depth: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/10/katie-holmes-divorce-scientology Here's a New York Post story detailing the process: http://nypost.com/2012/07/01/how-katie-was-cast-to-play-tom-cruises-wife/ The article says Katie had a crush on Tom since she was young, so hooking her wasn't difficult.

There was a clip of her in the montage of Scientology celebs on last night's show.

Re: the MLK comment - I'm surprised I didn't wake my wife up in the next room with my shout of "WHAT!?" Been following this cuckoo cult since the alt.scientology usenet group and frequently read the Operation Clambake website - which doesn't seem to be updated anymore and the forums get light traffic - and that comment by far is the nuttiest thing I've heard. Wouldn't be surprised if Miss Cabbage actually thinks he is the savior, what with Scientology supposedly the salvation of all human kind.