On Tuesday night, King of Queens star Leah Remini will launch the latest volley in her crusade against the Church of Scientology, from which she publicly split in 2013 after spending 35 years as a devoted member. And this time, Scientology’s most high-profile celebrity defector brought the battle to her home turf—television—with reinforcements. 
 
 Joined onscreen by former Scientology exec Mike Rinder and more high-profile ex-Scientologists, the actress premieres the first of her eight-part A&E limited docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath amid attempts by lawyers for the church to discredit its allegations. Included in the hourlong program are snippets of letters from the church dated as recently as September and November featuring some variation of the same legalese denials: “The church disputes many of the statements made by those appearing in this program.” 
 
 Remini’s objective, she explains in the first episode, is to show the outside world all the damage that Scientology has wrought upon the lives of its members in order to stop the organization from abusing others. 
 
 “Somebody needs to do something about this cult,” Remini declares. 
 
 Once upon a time, Remini was one of Scientology’s most loyal young Hollywood devotees. She recalls how she drank the Kool-Aid for nearly four decades, crediting Scientology’s self-help programs for her career and blaming herself, as the church taught her to, for not being devoted enough when she failed. Flashing back to a red-carpet interview she gave long ago, we see a young Remini eagerly proselytizing to the masses: “We are the most ethical group you’re ever going to find.” 
 
 A year ago, the actress, host, author, and comedian told all in her bestselling memoir Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, which detailed how being invited to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’s dream wedding in Italy—a Scientology production—was the beginning of the end for Remini. She shared more shocking secrets from her time in the church, as well as the troubling events leading up to her defection, in a widely viewed 20/20 interview last October. 
 
 But in Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, the outspoken Remini recounts her own past with the church while visiting with other ex-Scientologists to hear their heartbreaking stories of alleged physical and emotional abuse and exploitation at the hands of the very organization they dedicated their lives to. 
 
 There’s Rinder, a Scientologist for 46 years who once served as the organization’s international spokesperson-slash-fixer and explains that his job was to discredit anyone who dared to speak out against the church. Future episodes will feature familiar anti-Scientology figures previously seen in Alex Gibney’s Going Clear or Louis Theroux’s upcoming 2017 documentary My Scientology Movie, like Tom DeVocht and Marc Headley, who’ve both claimed that they were physically abused by Scientology head David Miscavige. 
 
 Remini, whose mother also appears in the series, explains more about that Cruise-Holmes wedding day that landed her in hot water with the church. Her growing TV sitcom cachet earned her an invitation to the big day. But after bringing J. Lo to Italy at the church’s behest (“I can only assume because they wanted to make Jennifer a Scientologist,” Remini told People magazine), the trouble began when Remini couldn’t find Shelly Miscavige, the wife of David Miscavige who hasn’t been seen publicly since 2007, and started asking questions. 
 
 “Their reaction was, ‘You really shouldn’t be asking about that,’” says Remini, who, years later, would file a missing-persons report on Shelly Miscavige with the LAPD. After the Cruise wedding, Remini criticized Cruise and Miscavige in a “knowledge report” she has said sparked an internal investigation into her and her family. Her own personal war against Scientology led to Remini quitting the church in 2013. 
 
 The majority of Remini’s accusations are still jarring but nothing new. The stronger focus of the first episode is on the different kind of violence that Remini & Co. argue their church committed against its own: destroying families in order to protect Scientology. 
 
 Amy Scobee, like Remini, was a teenage convert who joined the Church of Scientology in the 1970s when her mother brought her in. Like Remini, she quickly rose in the ranks. She trusted so much in the church and was so thoroughly conditioned to distrust the outside world that she says she stayed even after a 35-year-old fellow Scientologist raped her at 14. She claims the church kept it secret from the police and her parents “because it would be bad PR for Scientology.” Two years later, she became a member of the church’s elite Sea Org unit, signing a contract for one billion years. 
 
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 Like Rinder, Scobee was a high-ranking Scientologist who worked closely with Miscavige for years, and a well-known face in Scientology-watching circles. She ran the church’s valuable Celebrity Centre in Hollywood, tasked with recruiting famous and influential celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, who is seen in archival footage waxing ecstatic about the church at a 2003 Scientology gala. And she only left the church after being sent to the prison-like RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force), departing in 2005 with her husband. 
 
 She recalls working under Shelly Miscavige with a cadre of Sea Org members to make sure every need of their star parishioner, Tom Cruise, was taken care of—often, she claims, tantamount to slave labor. “They wanted him to be in Scientology 100 percent,” says Scobee. She describes witnessing David Miscavige, the church’s notoriously elusive and reportedly volatile leader, punching or choking other male subordinates “on at least a dozen occasions.” 
 
 “He’s a very angry man,” says Scobee. “I saw abuse and punchings and wrestling around and I would internalize it all.” 
 
 Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath is more like Scientology 101 for Beginners, here to explain terms like “disconnecting,” in which all ties to a former member deemed hostile to the church are forcibly severed, and “suppressive person,” the name Scientologists give to said enemies of the organization. But the story of how Scobee left the church—and lost her relationship with her mother, Bonny Elliott, who chose to remain with her husband—underscores the emotional cost to anyone who dared to question, or leave, Scientology. 
 
 Eventually Scobee reunited with her mother, who passed away after sitting for an interview with Remini. But almost every high-profile Scientology defector reports similar retribution—that their own families were used against them and in some cases like Remini’s, she says, punished in order to punish them. 
 
 Disconnection, Scobee remarks, “is the church’s biggest weapon.” 
 
 Money and public exposure might be Remini’s: In response to several letters issued from the Church of Scientology to A&E discrediting Remini, Rinder, and Scobee, and published online by journalist Tony Ortega, Remini’s own attorney hit back demanding the Church pay her $500,000 for defaming her to the network “as at least partial compensation for the past, present and ongoing reputational, emotional and economic injuries and damages she has suffered, and continues to suffer, as a result of this malicious conduct.” When the Church responded by calling Remini “a failed ‘celebrity’ seeking to make a buck off of her former religion,” she upped her demand to $1.5 million. ||||| As the first episode of her "ballsy" A&E; series premieres, the actress/author-turned-investigative reporter reveals what everyone from pal Jennifer Lopez to co-star Kevin James felt about her former religion — and shares the memory of an awkward phone conversation she once had with the CBS chief at the 'Mission: Impossible' star's behest. 
 
 A&E's legal department is no doubt burning the midnight oil to usher its latest series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, on-air. The network has already received multiple threatening letters from the Church of Scientology, in which the show's host, Leah Remini, is described as a "has-been actress" and "spoiled, entitled diva." A defiant Remini, meanwhile, responded by having her attorney send a letter to the church demanding it retract the letters and pay her $1.5 million in compensation. 
 
 That the church objects to the eight-part series is hardly a surprise. It sees the 46-year-old King of Queens star — who documented her flight from the church in the 2015 best-seller Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology — turn investigative journalist as she documents "shocking stories of abuse, heartbreak and harassment" alleged by former church members. 
 
 The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Remini ahead of the show's premiere Tuesday, addressing everything from church accusations that she is only "in it for the money" ("Are they going to give me back my $3 million?") to an extremely awkward phone conversation she once had with CBS chief Leslie Moonves at Tom Cruise's behest. 
 
 A&E received a lot of aggressive pushback from the Church of Scientology regarding Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. How close did the network come to pulling it? 
 
 I don't know how close they came to pulling the show. They certainly weren't letting on to me that they were thinking about that. But I'm sure that this is the first network that's ever done a series on the subject, and I think that's pretty ballsy of them. They were really dedicated to the process once they saw the footage and once they saw the stories. 
 
 This show feels unprecedented. 
 
 I agree, it is. They're great partners, and the executive who's in charge of my show [Devon Hammonds, vp nonfiction programming] has gotten on a plane twice for me just to come out and make sure it was OK with me and we were telling the right stories. They're very invested in it emotionally. 
 
 How do you counter accusations from Scientology that you are only in this for the money? 
 
 First of all, [my demand of $1.5 million from the church] was a response to the horrific and libelous letters that they sent [about] me. They were trying to stop this show from happening. They were trying to disparage my name and my reputation with 20/20 and ABC and the public at large. So that was my response to what they were doing. I actually haven't sued them, so I'm not going to see one red cent. 
 
 And profits from the show itself or the book? 
 
 Would I donate the money from the show? Is the church donating money to any charity or giving back the money they coerced out of people under false pretenses? Are they going to give me back my $3 million? 
 
 And that's how much you've given them over the years? 
 
 If not more. 
 
 Is Scientology a cult? Did the church brainwash you? 
 
 Yes. Scientology is a brainwashing proposition from the very first book that you read in [church doctrine], Dianetics, where L. Ron Hubbard positions himself as a college-educated person, which he wasn't; a nuclear physicist, which he wasn't; and a decorated military man, which he wasn't. Also important is that he claims that Scientology and Dianetics is a proven science. So when you're indoctrinated when you're very young, as I was, and all the information that you receive is from Scientology, and you're not allowed to look at other things because you're penalized for doing that, yes, that is the way cults work. They cut you off from information from the outside world and they start to sequester you by saying everybody else is your enemy. That is another way that cults work. It satisfies all the checkmarks for what a cult is and what brainwashing is. 
 
 How did you break the spell? What was your process to getting out? 
 
 My process was to start asking questions to what I was seeing on the internet. I disagreed with my church that I couldn't be talking to the people that they deemed to be enemies. So I started talking to these people who were making claims of physical abuse. I started looking on the internet. And story after story were stories of abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, fraud. I just couldn't accept that they were liars, which was what my church was telling me. And so it was a series of things. It wasn't just one thing. It took me six years to get out, and I wanted to make sure that my family was coming with me. 
 
 I once read a story that Jennifer Lopez, a close friend of yours, helped and encouraged you to get out. Is that true? 
 
 No. She was just supportive of my decision. 
 
 What about other celebrities who are still in the church? Have they reached out to you? Criticized you? 
 
 Why would they reach out to me? They aren't allowed to talk to me. That's the policy of the church. I know Kirstie Alley made a comment about me and I'm sure others will. [In 2013, Alley called Remini a "bigot" on The Howard Stern Show.] But that's the policy of the church. I understand what their frame of mind is, and it's to oppose anyone who speaks out against the church. 
 
 Does it hurt when you hear those words? 
 
 I'm hurt for them, because I was one of them and I know how angry they really are despite thinking they are part of the enlightened elite of the world. I know how truly not open they are and how being taken they are. I have sympathy for them. 
 
 You made a reference on Ellen to "couch jumping" — in other words, Tom Cruise. How much do you think he contributed to normalizing Scientology doctrine to those still in it? 
 
 I don't think he normalized it at all. I think it's just the opposite. I think there was a time where maybe Scientology was more accepted, and I didn't particularly find him to be a great example of Scientology — I made that very known to my church. But Tom is very protected in the church, and the church will go to any means to ensure that he stays in. 
 
 So you think it's the opposite — that he contributed to an exodus from the church. 
 
 Yes. Absolutely. Especially when [church leader] David Miscavige stood up in front of a Scientology event and said that Tom was "the best example of a Scientologist." And I know the heartbreak of the average person who works day and night to pay a quarter of a million dollars for their "religious freedom" in Scientology. Those people were the example — not somebody who makes $10 to $20 million a picture. 
 
 There have been rumors of him leaving or cooling on the church. Do you think that's true? 
 
 No, absolutely not. I highly doubt it. Highly. 
 
 Did the church involve itself in your career dealings when you starred on The King of Queens? 
 
 You have to go in [to the church] every single day, so yes. It's always, "Why are you not getting Kevin James in? You're not setting a good example. You're not getting the director in." There was always pressure to make a Scientologist out of the people you were working with. 
 
 Did you ever broach the subject with Kevin James at all? 
 
 Never. 
 
 Did he ever suggest to you that you might be better off without Scientology? 
 
 No. Kevin was always very respectful of my beliefs, and he said just the opposite. People would ask him, "Oh my God, is she trying to get you into that crazy cult?" And he'd say, "No. She's not like the rest of them." 
 
 Did they ever object to the content of the show? 
 
 Yes. They wanted us to take out a reference to Katie Holmes. 
 
 Was it a joke about Scientology? Or just a reference to her? 
 
 It was just a reference to her name, but this was when she was in good graces with the church. Of course they'd have no problem with that once you leave — they'll try to destroy you and your family. Another time, I got pressure to call Les Moonves at CBS to try and get a 60 Minutes report squashed. I got a call from the church and Tom to call Les Moonves and use my influence to squash the story. 
 
 Tom Cruise was on that call? 
 
 Yep. So I called Les Moonves, even though I was really uncomfortable with it. And he said, "Listen — you're not the only one who has called me about this, and I have no right to interject my opinion of what I like or don't like with the news organization of CBS and I will absolutely not engage this conversation. I'll tell you or anyone else who calls me." He said, "I don't give a shit if it's you, if it's Tom Cruise, if it's Jenna Elfman, you're all going to get the same story from me." And I said, "OK." And then I called them back and said, "Hey, I tried." 
 
 What did they say? 
 
 They just weren't happy that I couldn't squash the story. I said, "I'm just a f—ing actress on television, and I can't demand that my boss take a f—ing report off the air." 
 
 How do you think your experience leaving the church has impacted your career? 
 
 I don't know and I don't really care, to be honest with you. I've got to do what's right, and this is what's right for me right now, is to help these people who are bravely telling their stories of abuse and fraud. And the church is responding with, "They're lying." You have fancy lawyers like Monique Yingling, who makes millions and millions of dollars from the Church of Scientology. She's not even a Scientologist and she's going out there trying to discredit people she knows nothing about. I can't just sit by and watch that happen. I've seen it. I've witnessed a lot of what they're saying. I'm going to stand up with them. And if it's the church or another bully, and I'm passionate about it, I'm going to do something about it if I can. I'm blessed to have a voice and I'm going to use it. 
 
 A Scientology representative responds: 
 
 "Leah Remini is in it for the money and now tries to pretend otherwise. Her claim on Today that, 'I'm not going to get a dime,' as executive producer of her new reality TV show is disingenuous. Ms. Remini obviously is being compensated for this show, just as she profited from her book. In addition, she recently attempted to extort the Church by first demanding $500,000, followed by an additional $1 million, because the Church invoked its First Amendment right to respond to her false claims with the truth. This shows the extent Leah Remini is willing to go to in order to distort the truth about Scientology. 
 
 "Further, her claim that she doesn't like 'bullies' is hypocritical because she has aligned herself with a handful of self-admitted violent bullies still bitter after having been expelled from the Church years ago. Like Ms. Remini, these individuals also seek to exploit their former religion to make a buck. For the truth, go to scientologynews.org/leah-remini-show." ||||| CLOSE A&E has a new docuseries about the controversial religion, Scientology. ‘Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath' premieres Nov. 29th. USA TODAY 
 
 Tom Cruise discusses Scientology with Matt Lauer during TODAY on June 24, 2005. (Photo: Virginia Sherwood, NBC via AP) 
 
 Corrections & clarifications: The headline for this story was updated to make clear the subject of the accusation. 
 
 Though she's known for bringing laughs with comedic performances in The King of Queens and Old School, Leah Remini's latest project deals with very serious subject matter. 
 
 In a new A&E docu-series which she executive produced, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, Remini interviews former members of the Church of Scientology about their experiences as followers and their lives after leaving the religion. 
 
 Remini faced a backlash since publicly parting ways with the organization in 2013, and she hopes to send a message to the church with her series. "You’re not gonna continue to lie to people and abuse people and take their money and their lives," she says in the show. "If I can stop one, then I’m gonna do it.” 
 
 Here are seven major allegations from Tuesday's premiere episode. 
 
 1. Statutory rape went unreported to the police 
 
 Amy Scobee, who said she was in charge of Celebrity Centres, didn’t go to high school and became a member at 14. She alleged that she was taken advantage of by her boss, who was 35 at the time. 
 
 “He was married,” she said, “and he had me stay back when everybody else left, and basically we had sex. This was statutory rape, and I was too afraid to tell anyone about it.” 
 
 Scobee said her boss told his wife about the incident and the couple told the Church, but the Church did not inform Scobee's parents or police. Scobee also said that, because of the practices of the religion, she absorbed the blame. 
 
 “And they indoctrinated in me that if anything serious goes on, it’s handled internally,” she shared. “It happened to me, so therefore I must’ve done something that caused it.” 
 
 In a statement to USA TODAY, the Church says it informed A&E prior to broadcast that the claim is false. 
 
 2. Scientologists take judicial matters into their own hands 
 
 In response to Scobee’s confession, Mike Rinder, who says he was the international spokesman for Scientology for 20 years, alleged that the church breeds distrust of the judicial system. 
 
 “You’re also indoctrinated in Scientology to believe that the justice system is corrupt,” he said, “that it doesn’t do anything to ever resolve the problem. That Scientology is where the answers lie, to even a child molester.” 
 
 3. Leader David Miscavige is physically abusive 
 
 Scobee described the Church's leader as “a very angry man." She said, "If you said something that didn’t please him he would go off on you. If you were a man he would likely hit you, punch you, knock you down, choke you.” 
 
 4. Letters are written to families so members won’t be reported missing 
 
 Scobee said Scientologists are taught that “the church is first, and family is a distraction.” She said congregants write to family members so they won't be reported as missing. 
 
 “They're called ‘good roads fair weather’ letters,” she said, “so that they don’t file missing persons reports on you or go to the media because they haven’t heard from their children, or something like that.” 
 
 5. Scobee was ordered to swarm Tom Cruise with Scientologists 
 
 “We went to extremes to make celebrities happy,” Scobee said, “and it was mainly Tom Cruise.” She said it was her job “to surround Tom Cruise with Scientologists on staff.” 
 
 “I had to hire an executive housekeeper, a maid, a cook,” she said. “They wanted him to only be in Scientology 100%.” Scobee said she witnessed members of The Sea Organization, described on the religion's website as "composed of the singularly most dedicated Scientologists — individuals who have committed their lives to the volunteer service of their religion" cleaning his house and folding his laundry. . 
 
 6. Security guards keep members from fleeing 
 
 After growing defiant, Scobee was sent to Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) in 2003, which she described as a place “for Sea Org members who get in big trouble.” 
 
 “You run everywhere you go,” she said. “You do hard manual labor. You call everybody 'sir.' You have no communication in and no communication out within that group.” 
 
 Scobee escaped RPF with her husband, Mat, after he stood up to a security guard. “I said, ‘Unless you want to shoot me in the (expletive) head, we’re out of here.’” 
 
 7. Members are relentless when encouraging disconnection 
 
 Remini called disconnection the Church’s “biggest weapon.” The process, defined in the series as cutting off “all contact with someone critical of the Church of Scientology,” can keep families apart. Once Scobee was free, she aimed to connect with her mom, Bonny Elliott, who was still an active Scientologist, before other members would encourage disconnection. 
 
 While she was visiting her mom, Scobee said an ethics officer paid Elliott a visit, so Scobee hid in another room. 
 
 “What he was telling me,” Elliott said, “was that my daughter was evil and everything she touched was poison, and that she’d done so much damage to the church and that I should have nothing to do with her.” Though Elliott initially chose the Church, she and her daughter were able to make up before she died. 
 
 Excerpts of letters from the Church were shared throughout the episode, refuting the claims made by Scobee and Rinder. The church called Scobee “a pathological liar.” Of Rinder it said, "The real story is that evidence has never been produced because it doesn’t exist. What does exist are the sworn statements of people with first-hand knowledge of the alleged encounters, all of whom unambiguously refute the manufactured tales of Mike Rinder.” 
 
 The Church further refuted the claims in a statement provided to USA TODAY. 
 
 "Leah Remini is doing this show for the money, just as she profited from her book. In addition, she attempted to extort the Church by first demanding $500,000, followed by an additional $1 million, because the Church invoked its First Amendment right to respond to her false claims with the truth. This shows the extent Leah Remini is willing to go to in order to distort the truth about Scientology." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2ghZ35N ||||| By the time Leah Remini decided to leave the Church of Scientology in 2013 at the age of 43, she knew it better than most. 
 
 Raised a Scientologist by her mother from the age of 9, Remini spent more than three decades in the church. Along the way, she became a rich and famous actress, too, co-starring on the CBS sitcom “The King of Queens.” 
 
 I know the heartbreak of the average person who works day and night to pay a quarter-of-a-million dollars for their "religious freedom" in Scientology. Leah Remini 
 
 But now that she is separated from the church, Remini is coming clean about Scientology’s inner-workings in her new A&E series, “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” which premieres Tuesday. And in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote the series, Remini made clear just how much money people are handing over to the church. 
 
 Bravo via Getty Images Remini said she personally gave $3 million to the church, “if not more." 
 
 Remini said she personally gave $3 million to the church, “if not more,” but believes the real pain is experienced by people much less wealthy than her. 
 
 “I know the heartbreak of the average person who works day and night to pay a quarter-of-a-million dollars for their ‘religious freedom’ in Scientology,” Remini said. 
 
 The “heartbreak” Remini refers to comes in the context of comments made by David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology, who called Tom Cruise “the best example of a Scientologist.” But Remini said “those people” ― the non-famous individuals who must hand over their hard-earned money to the church ― “were the example [of the best Scientologists] — not somebody who makes $10 to $20 million a picture.” 
 
 In a comment provided to The Hollywood Reporter, the Church of Scientology said Remini was trying to “distort the truth about Scientology” and “exploit [her] former religion to make a buck.” 
 
 “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” premieres Tuesday on A&E at 10 p.m. ET.
– Leah Remini's eight-part A&E docu-series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, premiered Tuesday, and brought with it the expected accusations of statutory rape and physical abuse against the church, USA Today reports. Tidbits from the premiere episode, which featured Remini interviewing ex-Scientologists, as well as new interviews Remini has done to promote the premiere: Ex-member Amy Scobee says her married 35-year-old boss at the church's Celebrity Centre took advantage of her. "He had me stay back when everybody else left, and basically we had sex. This was statutory rape, and I was too afraid to tell anyone about it." The incident was never reported to police. Scobee also alleged Scientology leader David Miscavige is abusive: "If you said something that didn’t please him ... if you were a man he would likely hit you, punch you, knock you down, choke you." Scobee says members who misbehave are sent to something called Rehabilitation Project Force, and she herself was sent there before ultimately leaving the church. "You run everywhere you go. You do hard manual labor. You call everybody 'sir.' You have no communication in and no communication out within that group." Security guards keep members from fleeing. Remini tells the Hollywood Reporter that when she was still in the church, and appearing on King of Queens, church officials pressured her on various things. "It’s always, 'Why are you not getting Kevin James in? You’re not setting a good example.' ... There was always pressure to make a Scientologist out of the people you were working with." She also says Tom Cruise pressured her to call Les Moonves and attempt to get a 60 Minutes report on Scientology canceled. The Daily Beast notes, "The majority of Remini’s accusations are still jarring but nothing new. The stronger focus of the first episode is on the different kind of violence that Remini & Co. argue their church committed against its own: destroying families in order to protect Scientology." Remini delves into the process of "disconnection," in which the church forbids members from having relationships with ex-members, even their own children, in the show. According to the Huffington Post, Remini says she herself paid $3 million "if not more" to the church over the years, but that even an "average person" is expected to pay at least $250,000 for their "religious freedom."