As Leah Remini’s acting career markedly faltered, she continuously sought to profit from harassing the ecclesiastical leader of Scientology and his wife. The fact Remini’s actions generated death threats, vandalism and other real or threatened hate crimes has not deterred her from shamelessly and fraudulently exploiting her former religion and her former friends for money.
The fact Remini’s actions generated death threats, vandalism and other real or threatened hate crimes has not deterred her from shamelessly and fraudulently exploiting her former religion and her former friends for money.
Remini’s harassment knows no bounds; she has obsessively stalked the leader of the religion and his wife for years. In 2013, Mrs. Shelly Miscavige and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) were victims of a publicity stunt designed to harass Mrs. Miscavige and her husband, using the LAPD as a pawn in Remini’s publicity campaign. The LAPD was used as a chip in Remini’s publicity stunt as it is required to investigate a missing person report, no matter how frivolous it may appear on its face, particularly when the subject is the wife of a prominent, high-profile individual such as the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion. Within hours of the filing of the report, the LAPD resolved that Mrs. Miscavige was not missing, was not being held against her will and was not in harm’s way, completely discrediting Remini. Indeed, the LAPD concluded within minutes of completing its investigation that Remini’s report was “unfounded”: “The investigation has been closed and we consider the report to be unfounded.”
It has now been confirmed that Leah Remini conspired with her co-producer and inveterate liar Mike Rinder, and failed journalist (and Backpage.com human trafficking apologist) Tony Ortega, to file the false missing person report about Mrs. Miscavige. The fact the LAPD declared the report “unfounded” was not good enough for Remini, however. She falsely claimed the LAPD had failed to properly investigate the matter and brazenly implied the detectives were corrupt!
Remini’s contemptible motives were patently obvious: She filed the fraudulent missing person report within one month of her faux public departure from the Church—one of a series of steps she choreographed with Ortega and Rinder to drum up publicity at a time her acting career was in a downward spiral and she was apparently broke. She also purposely chose a time when it was well known the religion’s leader was thousands of miles away, presiding over a religious training convocation at the Church’s spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. Remini had her story placed in The Hollywood Reporter and in Vanity Fair, hiding behind others who did her bidding. She spread her “false black PR campaign” solely to garner attention and so that the Church’s leader would find himself in what she and Rinder maliciously termed the “untenable position” of having to defend against a made-up claim about his wife—the wife he fiercely protects from the very type of harassment engaged in by Remini. Remini’s actions have proven what the Church has said all along: Remini was not and is not a friend of Mrs. Miscavige.
Remini’s contemptible motives were patently obvious: She filed the fraudulent missing person report within one month of her faux public departure from the Church—one of a series of steps she choreographed with Ortega and Rinder to drum up publicity at a time her acting career was in a downward spiral and she was apparently broke.
Remini used Mrs. Miscavige’s name for profit in a stunt that was nothing short of unabashed harassment. Now Remini’s former “guru” confirms that Leah Remini knew exactly what she was doing at the time, knew it was a scam, and went forward with the provocation despite knowing it was false. As anyone who knows Mrs. Miscavige would know, she has dedicated her life to her religion and she would never want to hear from a Leah Remini! Shelly Miscavige is not and never was missing; she simply wants nothing to do with Leah Remini or anyone else who would attack her religion and her husband.
Remini next published a book, in which she admits that in an effort to bypass LAPD protocols, she had used a LAPD detective who had provided personal security for her in the past. She had appallingly requested this detective to attempt the delivery of a message from Remini to Mrs. Miscavige directing her to leave her husband and her religion and come live with Remini.
Prior to the airing of Remini’s fraudulent “reality” series attacking the Church of Scientology on A&E, the Church warned the network that Leah Remini and her subjects were not credible and that Remini’s intentions were based in malice toward her former religion and its leader. Regarding the missing person report, the Church informed A&E:
“In her orchestrated campaign to vex, harass and annoy the Church and resurrect her flagging acting career, Remini made a missing person report to the police which she knew to be false. She leaked the story to the media. Remini spewed forth other venom from sources who lack any semblance of credibility.”
“In her orchestrated campaign to vex, harass and annoy the Church and resurrect her flagging acting career, Remini made a missing person report to the police which she knew to be false. She leaked the story to the media. Remini spewed forth other venom from sources who lack any semblance of credibility.”
Leah Remini astoundingly responded by publicly demanding a retraction and compensation from the Church, first in the amount of $500,000 and then in the amount of $1 million! This for accurately having advised A&E and having made a public statement to ABC that Remini’s missing person report on Mrs. Miscavige was a fraud. Remini’s reaction would have been ludicrous had it not been part of her scheme to promote her show, full of falsehoods, dropped time and sensationalism, that fostered bigotry and potential hate crimes. Remini’s demands were, of course, soundly rejected by the Church, and once she garnered the publicity she was seeking at that moment—the advertising for her new anti-Scientology show—her claims were not further pursued.
Remini did not give up on her false publicity scam, however. Coincident with the airing of her A&E series, in December of 2016 Remini had her attorney file a records request with the LAPD to stir up the tabloids and try to rekindle news on her fake missing person report. The LAPD turned down Leah Remini in her attempt to once again make them pawns in her false publicity campaign. To this day, Remini continues to push the false missing person narrative about Mrs. Miscavige in order to garner publicity for her reality show on A&E.
In a season one episode that A&E has since discontinued airing, Remini sits with Rinder, pretending concern for Mrs. Miscavige, and all the while profiting from the lie she and Rinder have now been circulating for years. She repeats the fraudulent statements contained in her false police report and deceitfully “wonders” about the life of the leader’s wife—even though years before Remini had told her guru she knew the story was manufactured: “Oh, yeah, I already knew that. I was running a false black PR campaign the entire time.” Once her series ran out, Remini took to rambling on about her false missing person report on national talk shows. She did not pause for a second to discontinue the abuse and harassment of a woman she claimed was her “friend,” the wife of a religious leader—all for the purpose of making money and garnering publicity.
Remini did not pause for a second to discontinue the abuse and harassment of a woman she claimed was her “friend,” the wife of a religious leader—all for the purpose of making money and garnering publicity.
Now Remini is fully exposed—exposed by one of the very individuals Leah Remini sought to recruit for her production’s “dream team”—a cadre of anti-Scientologists who have made a career out of attacking the Church. This sought-after “dream team” member, the “kingpin” of the group, Mark (Marty) Rathbun, has now publicly revealed how the entire missing person incident was a scam and Remini knew it from the outset:
Here is the transcript: One of the critical parts of the Rinder, Ortega, Remini roll-out of Remini was the “missing” Shelly Miscavige, the wife of David Miscavige. And you know, at the time, in 2013, I think it was, Rinder told me about that, that she was going to do a whole thing about “where’s Shelly” and put the Church in just an unbelievable terrible position because, you know, he figured it all out because he’d been in public relations his entire life. And he figured it all out there was going to be this untenable position where nobody could respond to it because it is so personal and it’s so—the accusation is so, one of those things—like a “do you [still] beat your wife” conundrum, right? The way they’re framing the accusation that they could just go to town and make it into a series—a serial—that just keeps playing out. Right?
And I said, “Mike, why would Leah do something like this, you know, if she has any concern about her own credibility and integrity? You know she’s not missing. You know that Leah Remini truly doesn’t have the rank to ask to know exactly where she is, when, and how she does her business. That just as much as she feels like, you know, that she needs the ability to be wherever she wants and associate with whomever she wants, Shelly has the exact same right. And you know that the last person in the world she’d want to see is Leah Remini or Mike Rinder.”
Mike goes, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know all that but it’s like this perfect thing because it puts them in a position where this is the wife of the head of Scientology. It puts them in this untenable position.”
He knew. He knew it was a scam from the beginning. He knew it was a cheap shot from the beginning.
I was certain that Rinder conned her on the Shelly story being a story of manufacture and then when I called her out on it she said, “Oh yeah, I already knew that. I was running a false black PR campaign the entire time.”
I said, “You know, Mike Rinder knows this is a scam and a sham. And if you had asked me about it and asked my opinion you wouldn’t have gotten into this in the first place.”
She goes, “I know that, I knew she wasn’t missing.” In other words, she told me she is in complete and utter league and agreement with Mike Rinder.
At that time I was just giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was just being taken advantage of because Mike—you know, that’s what he is famous for—he’s the most agreeable guy on the planet and people find that reassuring to have him around them, so he is making good, regular bucks by playing that role for her. But no, she knew that. That was cool with her. In other words, she knew it was a scam from the beginning.
The amazing thing is—that was 2014, ’15, ’16—we’re three years later and they’re still running it. Every several months or so they roll the thing out again, they come out with an event—a PR event. She’ll file an FOI request with the police. And Ortega will run this big thing and try to get it out to the tabloids. She’s complaining because the police aren’t investigating the Shelly thing, right. They get their documents, their responses, no further story, right? Because there’s nothing there. But they don’t inform the troll farm—all these people living in this alternate reality—that they believe this world view that they are being fed by Remini, Rinder and Ortega who are laughing all the way to the bank.
