Why HBO documentary 'Going Clear' suggests Tom Cruise and John Travolta should leave Scientology
A year after the church was founded, it created a long list of celebrities to recruit, according to Lawrence Wright's best-selling book, "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief. The list reportedly included Hollywood royalty like Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Jackie Gleason, John Ford, Bob Hope, and Howard Hughes. It's hard to find evidence of these legends ever entertaining the idea of joining the church, but it appears that Hubbard saw movie stars as a way of legitimizing Scientology.
Six decades later, Hubbard's premonition proved to be correct. With only around 50,000 members currently, Scientology is worth over $1.2 billion and much of its financial success is in part thanks to famous people fundraising, recruiting, and giving the church access to the upper echelon of society.
For years, two of the church's most prized endorsers have been John Travolta and Tom Cruise.
But as director Alex Gibney states in his latest documentary for HBO, an adaptation of Wright's book called "Going Clear," it's time for Travolta and Cruise to reassess their involvement with the church, in part due to the abuse their fellow members have allegedly endured.
The film highlights numerous instances in which church members have allegedly been abused. Members have allegedly been segregated from their families and the rest of the church to do physical labor like cleaning toilets with only a toothbrush.
In the documentary, Gibney speaks with one of Travolta's closest confidants at the church, Spanky Taylor, who says she was part of a group being punished by the church.
Taylor says she was forced to work 30-hour days with little food and slept on the roof of the church's L.A. building. She says she was pregnant at the time and away from her infant daughter, who was placed in the church's nursery in a urine-soaked crib surrounded by fruit flies. In the movie, Taylor says she reached out to Travolta for help but never heard from him.
According to the film, Cruise has also turned a blind eye to the harassment suffered by Sea Organization members, the clergy of Scientology who reportedly show their loyalty by signing billion-year contracts but only get paid around 40-cents an hour for their services. The film alleges that the presents Cruise receives on behalf of the church - like a beautiful airplane hangar or luxury limousine - are delivered on the sweat of Sea Org members.
So why are Cruise and Travolta still in Scientology?
That's because the pair have reportedly spent hours and hours of their lives submitting to Scientology audits, the church's form of spiritual counseling.
When Business Insider talked to Gibney last week at HBO's New York offices, the director said he felt it's Cruise and Travolta's duty to speak out and hopes the attention of "Going Clear" will make it easier for them to do so.
"I think one of the reasons we're trying to turn the spotlight on them is not to victimize them but to say you really have a responsibility," Gibney told us. "You're given an enormous amount of wealth as a movie star and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility, particularly when people are joining an organization because of you. If the popular opinion begins to swing that way I think you can see a sea change with them."
For Cruise it may be harder to get out. The film reveals just how important he is to the church, suggesting Scientology went as far as breaking up Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage to bring him closer to the church after he began distancing himself around the time he and Kidman filmed Stanley Kubrick's final film "Eye's Wide Shut" in 1998.
The church allegedly told the children that Kidman was a "Suppressive Person," Scientology talk for someone who's not a believer of the church, and convinced them to completely disconnect themselves from her.
The church also allegedly tapped Kidman's phones in efforts to convince Cruise that he needed to end the relationship.
Gibney and Wright, along with former Scientology members Mike Rinder and Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, talked more about these issues in the film recently at a New York Times "Times Talk."
"Going Clear" opens theatrically in limited release March 13 and on HBO March 29.