Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

Here is what the Church has to say about Aaron Smith-Levin.

"The Church disputes many

of the statements made by Aaron Smith-Levin.

Membership was terminated

after a series of physically abusive

and violent attacks on fellow staff members.

He poisoned his mother and father and lost relationship

with their daughter Heather and their grandchildren

through his hate campaign.

He is lying about his family and former Church

to cover up his own history

of erratic and violent behavior."

Man: Have you ever been in the ocean in Clearwater?

You know like going on vacations

or taking the time to enjoy this life

is not, you know, not the goal.

The goal is you do the work now

so that there is a life for your children.

- Right. - You know?

While I was working on "The King of Queens,"

you know, I would come here to Florida

to do work from 9:00 in the morning till 10:00 at night

while my co-stars were going to the Bahamas,

they were going to Hawaii with their family, you know?

For most of my life in Scientology,

I was just doing the work every day,

all day,

365 days a year.

Are you okay? What?

Whatever you all have on that pizza smells good.

- Gotcha. - It smells good.

Be careful, yeah?

Here's what's so funny.

I wanna save her, you know what I mean?

Like I wanna do something about it.

Like I wanna go tell her, she needs to go home.

Me as a scientologist walking away from her

right now like I'm feeling emotions of guilt

for not doing anything about it.

It's like that girl coming up to me

and asking me if I had drugs would only reiterate to me

as a scientologist,

I better get back, the world needs me,

look how up it is, you know?

Our work is so important. That's the mind-set.

I am the writer of the textbooks of Scientology.

The aim and goal is to put man in a-a mental condition,

where he him... can solve his own problems.

It offers you a sense of purpose in life.

Not only are you fixing yourself,

but you're also helping mankind.

Without any Scientology organization,

things are not going to change on this planet.

Woman: After years of slowly questioning Scientology...

Man: Leah Remini in her very public break with Scientology...

I didn't want to find out

that what I had done my whole life was a lie.

Fight for your family.

Fight for your daughters, your sons.

Get them out of this thing.

You're not going to continue to lie to people

and abuse people

and take their money and their lives.

If I can stop one, then I'm going to do it.

Captioning Provided by A+E Networks

Leah: I think it's so crazy how many of you

live in the same neighborhood as the Church.

Mike:

Like you know, in California

I don't even want to drive on the freeway

near Celebrity Centre.

I feel like they are watching me.

Mike: Flag today is what's called the Flag Service Organization.

It is the spiritual headquarters of Scientology.

The Flag Service Organization,

the Flag of States Organization,

the Religious Technology Center,

the Commodore's Messenger Org and a few others.

All of those things form

what's called the Flag Land Base.

So we are gonna be talking to Aaron,

and now his wife doesn't want to speak on camera?

Right.

The reason why scientologists don't speak out is

because they usually have family members in the Church

and that is a moral sin

to speak out against Scientology.

You can leave quietly, don't put any pressure

on any family members not to do Scientology,

but if you speak out against it,

pressure will be put on the remaining

family members in Scientology

to disconnect from that family member.

This house here on the left, Leah,

Heather's mother and father owned that house and rent it out

and they come here often.

And that's Aaron's house right across the street,

and they do not talk.

They see Aaron and Heather outside, they go inside.

And they have kids, they have grandkids.

And they have three beautiful daughters

who are sitting over here.

So the kids will be out here

and their grandparents ignore them?

- Correct. - That's so disgusting.

It is. It's really gross.

Aaron: My name is Aaron Smith-Levin

and I was a scientologist for about 29 years

and I was in Scientology until two years ago,

2014 when I was 33.

- How are you? Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

He just told me that you send your babies over there

and their grandparents just ignored them?

My mother-in-law, she is the one

who is much more nervous about it

and would go inside and then the kids would go in the house

to find her and she, they can't find her.

She hides.

- She would hide. - Yeah.

She would hide from her grandbabies?

And not because she didn't wanna see them.

Because she didn't wanna get in trouble.

- Right. - Because the Church said

it is not okay for you to see your grandchildren

and for you to be over there

and for you to be seeing your grandchildren.

Everything you are doing right now, you are doing it

'cause you think you are somehow

trying to hold the family together

or what's left of the family,

but you are this second generation

or the third generation.

All they know of Scientology is its the reason

they don't have a family.

- It's crazy, it's crazy. - I know.

My mom was raising me and my twin brother Collin

as a single mother.

My parents were never married.

We're living on the East Coast,

so we were in like South Jersey, Philadelphia.

Her whole life she always had the feeling

that there has to be something more,

something greater to life

than you know what we see and what we spend our, you know,

day being concerned about just you know, day to day life.

There has to be something more,

something greater that gives a greater meaning.

Price of that freedom we almost paid

From now on

She felt like she had found something in Scientology

that gave her the answers in a way

that made sense to her

and she jumped in pretty... pretty heavy.

She joined staff, she decided to work

for the Church of Scientology pretty much right off the bat,

like within the first few weeks.

I would say the first moment

when Scientology started to be something

that I personally was paying attention to,

right, as opposed to just being something that my mom was doing,

That first moment was in the 1993 IAS event.

So the IAS is the International Association of Scientologists.

That event was particularly

to announce the IRS Tax Exemption.

On October 1st,

the IRS issues letters recognizing Scientology

and every one of its organizations

as fully tax exempt.

I think that if the exemption had not happened,

that Scientology would still be around in some form,

but it would be far less powerful

and have far less money than it does now.

Aaron: I was led to believe

the IRS had been persecuting Scientology forever

and David Miscavige was now the first one

to ever make the IRS recognize Scientology

as being fully tax exempt.

Scientology did have tax exemption before

and it took away because it found out L. Ron Hubbard

was using the money for his own personal gain.

I never knew that.

So, I'm watching this event,

and it culminates with the announcement

that the war is over.

Everyone goes crazy.

You know, it's like a 10 minute standing ovation

or something like that.

And I just remember the feeling of elation

that I personally felt as a 12-year-old

and, you know,

not even sure I considered myself

a scientologist really at that point.

I'm not even trying to give it much thought.

But at the event is when I was like,

"Okay, this is something."

That was a big thing. "We won the war," you know?

The IRS had finally acknowledged we are a real religion,

we are a real church, you will stop attacking us.

You understood that, wow, the government...

- Yes. - ...is saying what I'm doing