BROKEN BONDS Star EIC Bonnie Fuller, LaClaire (Photos: Getty Images)
Remember the good old days when Star was cool with Scientology? A bigwig in L. Ron's clique does, and he wonders what the hell has happened.

Radar opened a can of worms when trying to confirm the rumor that Tom Cruise is building a $10 million bunker in Telluride, CO, as protection from Galactic Confederacy dictator Xenu. Vice president of L.A.'s Celebrity Scientology Center Greg LaClaire said, "I don't speak for our parishioners, but it's a complete fabrication. Bunkers aren't even remotely a principle in Scientology."

Soon LaClaire's incredulousness turned to sadness—inflicted by the cruel and unrelenting hands of Star magazine, which broke the bunker story. LaClaire said, "They're having a lot of fun running beliefs that we supposedly have. I told them, 'You'd better call me [before running such items]. You can't just trump up beliefs about a religion.'" (Apparently he's never seen the magic they've worked with Jennifer Aniston!)

After politely excusing himself for venting, LaClaire confided that he has a good relationship with most of the celebrity weeklies, but lately things between he and Star have been strained since a few of his favorite staffers left. He wants to reconcile and even extended an invitation to editors to come and take a tour of the Celebrity Center any time they want, free of charge. LaClaire just wants things to go back to the way they were, because, "You're going to be covering Scientology for the next 2,000 years."

LaClaire said he planned to call Star right after speaking to Radar to give them the business, but not before giving us a taste of what's to come for the tabloid: "Radar," he said, "has been unfair to Scientology over the last 8 to 10 years."

To be fair, we've changed a lot since the late '90s. And we're in print now, not just a bulletin board on Prodigy.