Lawrence Wright, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, is the author of a new book on Scientology called Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (thank you for using the Oxford comma in the title). The Hollywood Reporter has an online excerpt. Before you click though, make sure you have the time. You won’t be able to stop reading and you’ll want to read it twice, even though THR’s headline is slightly misleading. There’s not actually that much detailed information on how exactly the Church came between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman...but there is a LOT of amazingly gossipy detailed information about Tom Cruise, which, I mean, this is enough, isn’t it?
Like, did you know he used to sit in a car outside Home Depot watching people coming in and out as part of a Xenu exercise to, erm, read their emotional state?
And that he lobbied Tony Blair on behalf of the Church to relax tax laws on Scientology in England? That he tried to get Scientology educational models included in Bush’s No Child Left Behind programme? That he based his character in A Few Good Men on DAVID MISCAVIGE....?
This is the best part of it all: the Cruise-Miscavige subtext (to me at least). Miscavige behaved like a man with a mega crush. Wright doesn’t come out and say it straight up but, ahem, the way he describes it, Tom and David act like life partners, apparently believing that they are the only two deserving of each other. Here’s an example...
When Tom and Nicole were together, Miscavige went out of his way to try and redesign the Scientology Gold Base and turn it into a romantic utopia so that Tom could run through a tall grass meadow holding Nicole’s hand...
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For some reason, those plans fell through. And eventually Miscavige believed that Nicole was unworthy of Tom’s love. He stepped in and drove them apart.
Dude, if that’s not Single White Female...
He was Tom’s cheerleader when Top Gun declared that he could totally be president one day. For serious.
Also Miscavige sounds more spoiled and indulged than maybe even the Blue Ivy Carter. Go read the section about how much he spends on food and how he has his light bulbs dusted every month. It’s what the Vanity Fair article should have been -- smutty and hilarious and, sh-t, Tom Cruise will never speak to them again. Click here.
Attached -- Tom being celebrated in Japan today promoting Jack Reacher.
