Actress Leah Remini has been hitting headlines all week for her revelations about the religion she once devoutly followed.
And her recollections of spending time with Tom Cruise’s children that make for fascinating – and terrifying – reading.
In her new book Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, the actress recalls a dinner in the lead-up to Tom’s wedding to actress Katie Holmes, when their daughter Suri was just seven months old.
The New York Daily News obtained an extract from her book, in which she describes hearing a wailing of then infant Suri echoing across the star-studded event, but no one, not even her parents, batted an eyelid.
After five minutes of listening to the little girl cry, Leah followed the noise to a bathroom – and what she claims she found is nothing short of spine-tingling.
She says three women, including Tom’s sister and assistant, were standing around crying Suri, who is now nine, staring at her, enraptured as if she were the late church founder L. Ron Hubbard “incarnate”.
Kings and Queens star Leah, who was once one of the most prominent members of the controversial religion, says she was finally able to convince the women to give Suri some warm milk.
The events surrounding Tom and Katie’s wedding was the beginning of the end for Leah’s time in the church. In the book, she also recalls sharing a ride from their 2006 Italian wedding with Tom’s eldest daughter Bella, whom he adopted with ex-wife Nicole Kidman.
Leah writes that she asked Bella if she ever speaks to her mum.
“Not if I have a choice,” Bella allegedly snapped in response. “Our mum is a f*cking SP.”
In Scientology, SP is short for a “Suppressive Person” – ie, an enemy of the church.
Nicole herself confirms that Bella and her other child she adopted with Tom, son Connor, don’t even call her Mum any more.
“They call me Nicole, which I hate,” she once rued.
While Bella – who recently married in a secret ceremony that Tom and Nicole did not attend – and Connor are still believed to be Scientologists, Suri escaped the same future after her mum Katie orchestrated a dramatic divorce in 2012.
Tom himself admits that Katie left him, taking their daughter with her, because she didn’t want her daughter to be a Scientologist.
“That was one of her assertions, yes,” Tom conceded during a court deposition. “There are many other aspects to the divorce.”
The Church of Scientology denies the claims in Leah’s book and subsequent interviews.
Leah is doing a press tour to promote her tell-all, including an explosive interview with American 20/20.
Watch it in the video player below.