Leah Remini on Growing Up in Scientology (from Joe Rogan Experience #908)

Hello freak bitches. First of all, it's good to see you. You too. I haven't seen you in a long time. You look great. You do too. Thank you. I haven't seen you since King of Queens. It's been a long time. That's crazy. And I found out about the whole Scientology thing. I knew you were into it back then, but it was one of those things where I'd heard about it. Yeah. And then I met you and I'm like, oh, she's pretty fucking normal for a now. A slantologist, right. Well, I met John Chavalta once too and I said the same thing, like pretty normal. Nice guy. Kelly Preston is pretty normal. She's normal. Yes. You know, it's, I guess you get deeper, get to know them really well and it might get a little weird. Yes. Yeah. Because the thing is, Scientologists are good people. They really are. It's they, they really, as I did believed that we were doing amazing things for the world. So they go into it thinking I'm helping myself and I'm helping others. Right. But then as you, like you said, as you get more and more, and by the way, you don't really get close to Scientologists when you're a Scientologist. Like when you're a non-scientologist. Correct. Correct. Like everything that I did and they do is for the purpose of setting a good example, being a good person, being a good friend. So to get you in. To indoctrinate people. There's a purpose in that. I would never tell when I was in a non-scientologist my real problems. It would be kind of bad for the church to ever appear human. Whoa. To a non-scientologist. It would be setting a bad example. Like it would actually be considered like a transgression. If I told you, Joe, you know, oh yeah, I'm fighting with my mother. I'm fighting with my husband. Or I would never tell you those types of things because it would be bad PR for the church. Wow. That's something that you're taught. Correct. Now you kind of grew up in it. Yes. How old were you when you? Nine I think. When my mother married. So you don't even remember pre-scientology. A little bit. And you know what I remember pre-scientology was, you know, I had a very Catholic Sicilian father who, you know, believed in punishment, believed in not talk. Like, did I talk to you? I don't know why you're talking to me. Like that kind of guy. Right. My dad says at the head of the table and then we don't talk back at all. Or, you know, so that is kind of what I knew. And then we were baptized as Catholics because my mother wasn't really religious. My mother's Jewish. She's, you know, so she but she didn't have any kind of religion growing up. My father, of course, was Catholic. So we got baptized as Catholics. And the only time we really went to church was with our grandma. We went to visit her in, you know, in the city and my dad on holidays. So that's really kind of all I remember pre-scientology. And my mother meeting my stepdad, he was in Scientology and he got her in as well as us. Like right away. Right away. Yes. So that was like part of the deal. Correct. Wow. And by the way, Joe, like we went from like, don't talk until you're spoken to, to, hey, we see you as spiritual beings. We want you to talk to us. We want you to communicate. Like you're just, you're not, you're not children. You're spirits in a little body. And so immediately that kind of indoctrination begins that you're not a child. And so, you know, as children, you have kids, you know, they always want to be grown up. So that, that really starts to work this kind of idea that you're an elitist, that your ego becomes kind of stroked as a kid. Like you're very powerful and you returned and you came back and you found yourself back. You picked your mother because you knew she would get into Scientology and you're very strongly and you're very strong to call to my sister. You picked your mother. You picked your mother for this reason to find your way back to Scientology. Now as a child, remember you, you want to be more important than you are. Kids are always trying to exercise their power, you know, so that speaks to something inside of you that like, Oh, I'm bigger than a kid. I'm more than a kid. I'm a spiritual being in a little body. And so it sets up that kind of indoctrination very early on. Did you like it because it made you, when you were young, it made you feel like, okay, now I can express myself better. I don't feel suppressed. Yes, exactly. Because, you know, again, I'm going from a dad who tells me to, you know, shut the F up and talk when I talk to you and you sit in that chair and you don't have any thoughts worth listening to, to you're very much an important being. You're a big being. That's a word that's used a lot. Those words, big beings, you're a big being. And so, yes, you start to feel very important. You start to feel that you're powerful. These are not bad things to make kids feel, but this is the way cults work. And you don't realize that, Joe, until you're out. You don't realize any of this was really going on because I've heard people call it a cult throughout my 30 plus years. And I was offended by it. I was deeply offended by it. And I couldn't even allow myself to believe that I was in a cult. And so all these epiphanies are only happening, you know, after the fact. Well, I was watching a scholarly documentary once on Christianity and they were referring to it as the cult of Christianity. And that word is the correct word if you want to just look at it in terms of the actual literal definition of it. But when any, it's automatically got this negative connotation. You say the word cult and people think you're brainwashed, you're lost. But there's a natural inclination that people have to be tribal. There's a natural inclination people have to be on a team and we like it when we're all together. Yes. You know, I know you're a Scientologist. I'm a Scientologist. We're together in this thing. Everybody else doesn't get it. Right. And that's a good feeling, right? Yeah. And you're taught that. It's not even just that you think it, Joe. You are taught that. You are the elite of the world.