One of Leah Remini’s first managers recalls how the actress demanded “star treatment” while treating everyone else “with such disdain” that Kathy eventually quit.
I first met Leah when I was managing other actors in the entertainment industry. She was just starting out in the business and she needed some help and so I was willing to help her. And I started managing her and started working with her in that way.
One of the things that I noticed about Leah was that she always wanted to be treated very specially, like she was a big star, and this was when she was first starting out. And everybody’s got to pay their dues. You start out, nobody really knows you.
But I would meet with her at the Church sometimes, with our meetings, and she told me one day that she felt like she wasn’t being treated like a star. And could I intervene with people at the Church so they would treat her better. And I’m going, not quite sure what she meant by that, because you are not a star yet. Of course, I didn’t say that. But she felt that she wasn’t being treated well enough.
And the interesting thing is she was treating other people so horribly, but she wanted to be treated like a star when she wasn’t.
It takes a lot to get a brand-new actor working and recognized and visible in the industry. And there was—I believe it was a writer’s strike that was going on at the time and so very few people in town were working. And I got her to—I got her cast in a show that was on the air, a series. And she worked for about three or four weeks on that show, all during the time that everybody else was on strike and hardly any other people were working. And after it was all done, she said something to me like, “What am I paying you for?”
And that’s when I first felt there was something really wrong because she wasn’t really looking at how much work I was putting into it and what it takes to get somebody started in the industry. So, that’s how I first got to know her and that’s when I first thought there was something wrong.
I was working very hard for her and trying to get her ahead in the business and get her paying jobs. So, she would always treat me with such disdain. We were on the phone and she’d go, “Well, what have you been doing for me lately?” and comments like that, that were pretty belittling.
She even said something to me like, “What are you doing that my mother can’t do for me?” And I’m going, “Does your mother have any experience?”
And I saw that it wasn’t only me that she was treating that way as well. And so the times that I spent with Leah, a lot of times I’d go to the set with her, a lot of times I would run lines with Leah to help her before she would do her auditions. And then I would see her with other people, and it was the same way. Always putting people down, always condescending, always treating them as if they weren’t good enough for her.
And I went, “I’m not going to work with somebody like that.” I couldn’t work with somebody like that who didn’t appreciate others. I thought it was just me that she didn’t appreciate. But then when I saw her with others it was true evil the way she was treating other people.
