The Church of Scientology is responding to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by former member and Emmy-award winning producer, Leah Remini, 53, who is suing the institution and its leader, David Miscavige, for alleged stalking and harassment.
In a statement released by the Church of Scientology on Thursday, the organization called the suit “ludicrous” and claimed that the allegations were “pure lunacy.”
“This lawsuit is ludicrous and the allegations pure lunacy,” the statement read. “Remini spreads hate and falsehoods for a decade and is now offended when people exercise their right to free speech, exposing her for what she is—an anti-free speech bigot.”
The message continued: “Remini’s complaints are like an anti-Semite complaining about the Jewish Anti-Defamation League for exposing the anti-Semite’s bigotry and propaganda.”
“Remini’s obsession with attacking her former religion, by spreading falsehoods and hate speech, has generated threats of and actual violence against the Church and its members as evidenced by multiple criminal convictions of individuals poisoned by Remini’s propaganda.”
In the statement, the Church also claimed that Remini had “antisocial traits” and called her a “horrible person,” adding that the star had “profited handsomely from her fabrications.”
“If Remini can no longer get a job, she has nobody to blame but herself,” they wrote.
The Post reached out to representatives for Remini for comment.
In court documents obtained by The Post on Wednesday, Remini’s lawsuit claimed intimidation, harassment, emotional distress and defamation from The Church that had been going on since the 2006 wedding of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, who is a longtime scientologist.
Remini first joined the religion when she was a child in 1979, per The Guardian, but left in 2013.
She has been outspoken about her experience, writing a memoir about it in 2016 and a documentary titled “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” that same year.
The suit alleged that the “Saved by The Bell” star has been “stalked, surveilled, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and, moreover, has been the victim of intentional malicious and fraudulent rumors via hundreds of Scientology-controlled and -coordinated social media accounts that exist solely to intimidate and spread misinformation” for the last decade.
Remini also claimed that The Church of Scientology had “harassed, threatened, intimidated, and embarrassed” her family and friends, which had resulted in a loss of jobs and opportunities.
In the documents, she alleged that they had even labeled her as a “Suppressive Person,” someone who had performed “serious offenses” against the faith.
She is looking to “recover compensatory and punitive damages for the enormous economic and psychological harm” that she has suffered because of the Church.
On Wednesday, the day that she had filed, the star took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to issue a further statement about the suit.
“While this lawsuit is about what Scientology has done to me, I am one of thousands of targets of Scientology over the past seven decades,” she wrote, in part.
“With this lawsuit, I hope to protect the rights afforded to them and me by the Constitution of the United States to speak the truth and report the facts about Scientology without fear of vicious and vindictive retribution, of which most have no way to fight back.”
Source link
