HOLLYWEIRD, CA, THE LAND OF NUTS AND FRUITS --- Wannabe actress Leah Remini refuses to go quietly back into the woodwork after severing ties with the merry band of L. Ron Hubbard's followers, who believe that earth is under the control of extraterrestrial masters, or some such nonsense.
"I won't shut up," Remini says, "and they can't make me!"
She and her agent believe that her expose of her former faith is good publicity that might help to launch the Hollyweird career she hopes to enjoy someday.
Chiefs vow to silence her. "We have ways of dealing with rebellious members," a high priest declares. "Just ask Lisa McPherson--oh, that's right! You can't ask Lisa: she's dead."
Some believe that the church killed McPherson, but officials say that McPherson "died of her own accord. It was her time, and she just went--whoosh!"
Remini says her mind was controlled during "interrogations" and may have included a thought-control microchip in her last breast implants. "Ladies, think twice about getting breast implants," she told her female fans, "especially if you are an L Ron supporter."
Cruise says that Remini is "paranoid and delusional," and his fellow actor John Travolta assures the public, "I had breast implants, and they didn't include a surveillance microchip or thought-control device."
Remini may be crazier than a loon, or not, but she is in good company when it comes to others who have abandoned the church. Other well-known ex-members include Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes, Nazanin Boniadi, Jerry Seinfeld, and Lisa Marie Presley.
Neither Kidman nor Holmes will discuss why they left the cult, but Boniadi said she didn't like having to scrub toilets with a toothbrush and dig ditches in the middle of the night. "I couldn't see what spiritual insights could be gleaned from inside a toilet bowl or the bottom of ditch," she quipped.
Seinfeld said the experience was "a religion about nothing."
Presley said her late father, Elvis the Pelvis (or maybe it was the ghost of John Lennon; she's not certain), told her "They're only in it for the money."
Some have remained loyal to the faith, however. Travolta says, "Everything I am or ever will be, I owe to Ron's little green men."
Kirstie Alley says the cult is great at helping her to lose weight. "I burn a lot of calories trying to 'clear' my bowels." Reportedly, her dieting technique includes the receipt, several times a day, of enemas.
Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, says she finds it "exciting," often experiencing multiple orgasms at the mere sound of L. Ron's name.
Linda Blair says it is "better than being possessed by Satan," although she does miss the projectile vomiting and the dirty talk that accompanied her enslavement to the devil.
Bijou Phillips says she belongs because "I'm no pansy" and they "detest homosexuals." That's how, she says, she knows the often-repeated rumors about Cruise and Travolta are not true.
