Transcript: Leah Remini on Scientology events (Season 1 Episode 05) (2016)

Leah Remini (LR): Five times a year, you are required to be at a Scientology event.

It’s mandatory that you’re there. You’re dressed up. And they start out this movie.

The horses, galloping. Look at this sh-. “Like, we’re doing some sh- here man. We’re slaying the dragons. Look at us.”

And then these graphics come up, and “we’ve saved that country,” and “we took this drug company down,” and “we won this”, and “we save thousands of lives here” and “hundreds of thousands here.” And things like “MILLIONS.”

So if you have any doubts, which I did, when you hear some of these statistics, you’re like “Oh, my God. We are changing the world. So, all of our sacrifices, the money, the time, the missed vacations. It’s all worth it, because look, overall, look at what we’re doing!”

Mike Rinder (MR) (in studio, smiling): I don’t think that Leah realizes the level of deception that is involved in those events. She doesn’t know what went on behind the scenes. She doesn’t know how those events got put together, and how those things are staged!

MR (in car with LR): This morning we’re going to meet Marc Headley.

MR (in studio): Marc was integral to the production of all of the events that were put on. He produced a lot of those events. He was intimately involved and oversaw all aspects of Scientology’s propaganda machine.

[Scene: Marc Headley opens vehicle door for LR, who exits the vehicle.]

LR: Hi, Honey.

MH: Hello, Good mor-. Good to see you.

LR: You too.

MH: My name is Marc Headley. And I was a Scientologist for 25 years. And I was in Golden Era Productions, or “Gold.” And I left in 2005.

[…]

LR (with MH and MR in a garage workshop): Now, you, were what? What was your job in the Sea Org?

MH: For a good majority of the time, I was the, either the pre-production director, which we did all of the research and assembly, costumes, makeup, ah, sets and props, all the preparatory actions for the events. And then for a good amount of time, I was either the assistant producer or the producer.

LR: So you did these events. You, you produced these events.

MH: Full time. It was my job to produce these events, to make it look like Scientology was expanding. There’s a Golden Era Productions casting office in Celebrity Centre, for the specific function of having auditions to get people to appear in Scientology promotional films or videos.

LR (with MH and MR): There were times when I doubted the Church and then I’d go to an event and I’d see these statistics. And I remember thinking, “Like, Wow, Leah, you’re an ass-. Look at the amazing things that the Church is doing.”

MH (in household setting): I mean I can tell you from being involved in the production of events and promotional videos for Scientology over a fifteen year period. It’s most likely bullsh–.

LR: Because of these statistics, I was like kind of brought back in. It makes me believe.

MH: Yeah.

LR: And it makes me give up my money. And it makes me give up my time. And I recently just found out that these statistics are not true.

MH (smiling): Yeah. A lot of times, the way it would happen is we would put together stories. Possible stories to be used for an event.

LR: Uh-hm.

MH: And then the script writers would then take those um stories and then they would try to flesh them out into something that can be talked about at the event.

LR: Like, give me an example.

MH: Let’s say there’s twenty-five people that are participating in Scientology activities in a certain town. Then that would go to the script writers and that would turn into dozens. Cuz “dozens” sounds more than twenty-five. But dozens is technically correct.

LR: Okay.

MH: It’s two dozen. That’s dozens.

LR: Okay.

MH: That might go to David Miscavige, who approved every single speech, every single video script. He would get the script and then maybe he would say, “Dozens. That’s nothing. We’re talking, we need to have the big picture. What’s a going, where Scientology’s going global. We can’t talk about dozens. So maybe it turns into “scores” or “teams” or even “hundreds.”

LR: Even though it’s an outright lie?

MH: It morphs into something bigger than it is.

MR: Why would our Church lie to us?

MH: (nods, turns to LR)

LR: Correct!

MR: They, they sit there and go, “well obviously this true. David Miscavige isn’t going to stand up there and lie to us.

MH: The best way I can represent it is, the events are not a documentary. They are a commercial.

LR (in studio): You know, you do think you’re watching a documentary. You don’t think you’re watching fiction. You don’t think you’re watching a movie, made up.

You know you think you’re being told the truth! And any one of those people will tell you they believe it. We all believed it. So, it’s hard to hear!¹

Notes