Scientology smackdown: Inside the crazy feud between Tom Cruise and John Travolta
The people who follow Scientology seem to be living on a different plain of existence than the rest of us. From blatant brainwashing to demanding that followers aspire to reach the top of The Bridge (OTP 8), which is mostly achieved by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, there is lot that the outside world can see is bizarre about this new-age religion.
However, if you are in it, you are brainwashed into thinking everything happening around you is very normal. How else are you going to believe their craziest theories? When I say crazy, I mean CRAZY.
Here are a couple: Human beings evolved from clams, critics or enemies of the religion may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist and the icing on the cake being that evil alien ruler Xenu killed millions of aliens (Thetans) from around the universe by kidnapping them, bringing them to earth in golden DC-8 “space-planes” and blowing them up inside volcanoes with hydrogen bombs.
It is actually quite difficult to even take the human beings – sorry, Thetans – who consider these to be the gospels seriously, even when they are the dreamy Tom Cruise or the talented John Travolta.
These two Hollywood stalwarts, as we know, are two of the biggest names in the church of Scientology and the drama between them, as we understand it now, is no less entertaining than a creepy TV drama. In fact, with all the horrible truths about Scientology that the likes of Leah Remini are trying to expose, their beef could very well be an episode out of 'American Horror Story: Cult.'
It is a classic "Who does daddy love better?" beef, where the 'Grease' star is refusing to accept the fact that Tom is seen as the "messiah" of the group.
As Leah, who escaped the religious group and is relentlessly trying to expose and bring it down, keeps repeating, “Parishioners believe that he is single-handedly (sic) changing the planet because that is what the ‘Church’ is telling them.”
The Hollywood star is obviously an incredible representative for the church. He is well-spoken, charming, one of the most bankable heroes of our time and is great to look at. He also has never called Idina Menzel – one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood - "Adele Dazeem" during an Oscar ceremony.
John may be loved and cherished as an actor, but he has morphed into the creepy uncle of showbiz right in front of our eyes. Just his apology to Idina at the 2015 Academy awards is proof that something went wrong somewhere with him. He praised her to no end, gazed at her a little too long, held her in a lingering hug and repeatedly touched her face, the memory of which still gives me the creeps.
And, this cuckoo case isn't the best face for a religion that is being criticized for being a crazy cult.
But John is not one to bow down to a better looking, fitter Hollywood type. John, who once used to be the “favorite son” of Church leader David Miscavige is not taking it lightly that Tom now outranks him in the Scientology church.
Ever since Tom joined Scientology, he has been climbing up the ladder at a fast pace, having even won the Freedom Medal of Valor — given to Scientology’s most dedicated member — at a special gala in the UK in 2008. He even has a close friendship with David, that has caught the envy of John.
“It’s no secret that Cruise and Travolta despised each other,” Brendan Tighe, a former Scientologist who claims to have served as part of Tom’s security detail when he was still with the Church told Daily Mail recently, adding “Travolta wasn’t invited to Cruise’s wedding with Katie Holmes, [which] told me everything."
On the other hand, David served as the best man at the ill-fated 2006 wedding. In fact, Tom and David are so close, the former is only celebrity in the church to get a direct line with the leader.
Brendan assured that John refuses to consider Tom as superior to him in any way.
"When Cruise got that medal, Travolta was so pi**ed off," he said. The medal, in reality seems to have made Tom quite a bit of enemies within the high-ranking staff members of the religion, most of whom resented him for it and did not think he deserved it.
The former Scientology member also revealed that the rumors about the church vetting Tom's girlfriends is true. They allegedly consider many aspects of the potential partner, including "Who didn’t have a porn past? Who hadn’t done nude scenes in movies? Who hadn’t a major drug history?" and so on.
The church of Scientology, which always makes it a point to respond to its critics, meanwhile, has claimed that Brenden, who is “an apostate who has a personal axe to grind," is spewing out unsubstantiated lies. The whistle-blower was born into the church and was a member of it for 30 years, and his mother continues to be a high-ranking member.
Whether Brenden's juicy revelations are true or not, it is quite evident that Tom is more or less the face of Scientology at the moment, and come to think of it, the two famous Scientology men have never been spotted together.
However, it begs the question whether ranking high in a religion that believes souls of aliens aka Body Thetans attached themselves to our ancestors and passed them all the way down to us and cause many of our mental and physical illness to this day, is worth everything he has had to give up.
This statement that Amy Scoobee, a former member, made during a Wiki News interview sums up Tom's Scientology career: "I saw how Tom Cruise (supposedly the BEST Scientology disseminator in the world) was losing it on Oprah Winfrey's couch and with Matt Lauer. He was actually a laughing stock in the "real world". But to Scientology, per David Miscavige, Tom Cruise is the most dedicated Scientologist he knows and was responsible for booming Scientology around the world. Well, the statistics I saw while in management for two decades didn't have a Tom Cruise "boom" of expansion."
Even Leah has been vocal about how within the church the "parishioners believe that [Cruise] is single-handedly changing the planet because that is what the 'Church' is telling them." On the one hand Tom reached great heights in a really cult-y religious group.
On the other hand, his marriage allegedly fell apart because of his loyalty to Scientology and he has no contact with his 12-year-old daughter Suri, reportedly because of the same reason. It’s been six years since he and Katie separated, and he still has to resort to maintaining a low-key relationship with his daughter.
Suri, who recently turned 12, apparently got a "secret gift" from her father. A source close to Katie revealed, “Suri gets a gift from Tom on her birthday every year and this year was no exception. It’s not something Katie talks about though, beyond saying that Tom does always come through with gifts for things like birthdays and Christmas. She’s very tight-lipped.”
Meanwhile, the children he shares with his other ex-wife Nicole Kidman, are practicing Scientologists themselves and, following their parents' split, they were forced to cut Nicole out of their lives, as was evidenced in her 2017 Emmys speech.
“I have two little girls, Sunday and Faith, and my darling Keith, who I ask to help me pursue this artistic path, and they have to sacrifice so much for it,” she had said, finishing big with, "So this is yours. I want my little girls to have this on their shelf and to look at it and go, ‘Every time my mama didn’t put me to bed, it is because of this. I got something."
The two children who were noticeable absent from the speech are Isabella, 24, and Connor, 22, which led many to speculate that she probably has no connection with them anymore. At the time, New York Magazine writer Yashar Ali had tweeted:
Even Leah recollects an interaction she had with Isabella and Connor when she met them at the wedding of Tom and Katie.
She had reportedly asked them, "How's your mom? Do you see her a lot?", to which the older sister shot back, "Not if I have a choice. Our mom is a f*****g SP." SP of course, is a the abbreviation for Suppressive Person, which is a term former sci-fi writer who founded Scientology in the early 1950s, L. Ron Hubbard, used to describe "antisocial personalities."
Aside: The fact that he was a sci-fi writer should tell us loads about the religion itself.
Tom and Nicole's marriage was torn apart by his association with the religion. In fact, all three of his marriages are reported to have fallen apart because of David's interference. Marty Rathbun, a former senior church executive who left Scientology in 2004, told Tony Ortega, who maintains the blog The Underground Bunker, “I participated in the Mimi [Rogers] divorce and in the Nic[ole] divorce. Both women got cold on Miscavige. He was integral to the breakup of the marriages."
The story goes, the Scientology leader had a problem with the kind of Scientology Mimi Rogers – Tom's first wife – preached, even though she was the one who brought Tom to the fold. So, when Tom, who was enamored with Nicole, worked with her on 'Days of Thunder,' David encouraged him to cheat on his wife with the young actress.
"Why would Scientology want to promote Tom's promiscuity? Because Mimi was connected to her father, Phil Spickler, and Miscavige wanted to own Tom outright," speculated Tony.
A series of failed brainwashing sessions, wiretapping of phones and blindsiding press releases later, Nicole too parted ways from Tom. Based on a lot of record, she was the one who came the closest to herding Tom away from the church of Scientology. Katie, who accepted Scientology because of her love for Tom, decided to split after she realized how crazy it was.
At this point, I am willing to believe that Tom is just going along with it because he may be being blackmailed by you-know-who.
So, While Tom may be the closest Scientologist to David and he may be a higher ranking member of the church, but at least John has been in seemingly long and healthy marriage unmarred by a controlling, obsessive "Thetan" who decides who he spends his life with.