Leah Remini Slams Scientology in Plea for Injunction, Claims Church Has Made It 'Impossible’ to Live a Life Free of Harassment
Jan. 15 2024, Published 1:00 p.m. ET
Leah Remini asked a court to grant her request for a temporary injunction against Scientology and its agents despite the church’s opposition.
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, the actress and her legal team pleaded with a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to grant her request.
Remini was a member of Scientology from 1979 to 2013.
After leaving, Remini explained her decision, "I believe that people should be able to question things. I believe that people should value family, and value friendships, and hold those things sacrosanct. That for me, that's what I'm about.”
She continued, "It wouldn't matter what it was, simply because no one is going to tell me how I need to think, no one is going to tell me who I can, and cannot, talk to."
Remini launched a television show and podcast that featured ex-members of the church who claimed their lives had been harmed by the church’s alleged harmful practices.
Scientology denied all of Remini’s accusations. The church has publicly criticized Remini over the years and accused her of being desperate for attention.
In 2023, Remini sued Scientology and its leader David Miscavige. She accused the church and its agents of a years-long harassment campaign.
Remini claimed the church had launched various websites and social media accounts that attacked her. In addition, she said they have created campaigns to call any advertisers and demand they stop placing ads on television shows she has appeared in.
“For the past ten years, Ms. Remini has been stalked, surveilled, harassed, threatened, intimidated, and, moreover, has been the victim of intentional malicious and fraudulent rumors via hundreds of Scientology-controlled and -coordinated social media accounts that exist solely to intimidate and spread misinformation,” the suit read.
A couple of weeks later, the actress asked the court to grant her a temporary injunction against Scientology.
She claimed church agents had harassed her and her family AFTER she filed her bombshell lawsuit. Remini said she wanted the court to issue a temporary injunction that would prohibit Scientology and its agents from continuing to harass her as the lawsuit progresses in court.
In her motion, Remini detailed how someone attempted to unlawfully enter her gated community. In addition, she said 3 alleged Scientology agents showed her to her mom’s home.
She said, “My mother lives on a steep hill on a dead-end street, and the drivers of the car, two white men dressed in black, were captured on her home’s surveillance camera surveilling the home while talking on a mobile phone. After knocking on the door, the two men, who parked on the side of the street down the hill, departed the area.”
In addition, Remini said her credit cards were hacked, her mom’s business was vandalized, and her sister received weird text messages.
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Scientology demanded Remini not be granted the injunction. The church argued the actress failed to present evidence of a credible threat of violence against her.
In addition, they claimed she failed to show Scientology played any part in the alleged actions described.
“The Court should not let itself be used by Plaintiff as a megaphone in her latest public relations stunt,” a lawyer for Scientology wrote.
Now, in her newly filed motion, Remini’s lawyer said, “The reality here is that Defendants have made it utterly impossible for [Remini] to live a life free of constant harassment by a religious organization to which she no longer belongs. In opposition to this request to ensure that [Remini] is afforded basic human rights, Defendants’ arguments overlook the well- pled allegations in the Complaint clearly favoring [Remini’s] request for a Preliminary Injunction so that she can be free to live a life where the Defendants are not continuously engaged in patterns of behavior designed to “utterly ruin” her.”
Further, he argued, “The egregious notion that the Defendants’ defamatory comments constituting harassment, hate speech, and smear campaigns are somehow protected by the First Amendment’s Free Speech provision is contrary to law.”
Remini asked that the court grant her motion and issue an order prohibiting Scientology from posting messages that defame her, witnesses in the case or other associated with her.
Further, she asked that the order prohibit the church from engaging in or directing surveillance, harassment or other efforts to intimidate her.
A judge has yet to rule.
The Church of Scientology previously stated about Remini’s lawsuit, “If Remini can no longer get a job, she has nobody to blame but herself. Obviously, everybody in Hollywood now knows what we already knew: That Remini is a horrible person and toxic to so many who have the misfortune to come in contact with her.”