The Daily Beast negotiated an exclusive first look to excerpt a short section from the book.
What they chose is not what I would have selected to represent the contents of A Billion Years, but they are convinced this is what will interest their readers. I almost omitted reference to celebrities altogether for fear of it becoming a distraction from the more important things I had to say, but ultimately chose to include some of the interactions because to have left them out entirely would have not been authentic. These things did happen and in some ways impacted my thinking and decisions.
The excerpt begins with this introduction:
Mike Rinder served as a senior executive within the Church of Scientology from 1982-2007, both on the board of directors and as head of their Office of Special Affairs, lording over the cult-like religion’s public image. He often acted as the public face of Scientology, speaking to the media and putting out PR fires.
Since leaving Scientology in 2007, he’s become one of the world’s premier Scientology whistleblowers, appearing in the HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, co-hosting the Emmy-winning A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, and currently co-hosting the Scientology podcast Fair Game (also with Remini). His new memoir, A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology, out Sept. 27 from Simon & Schuster, chronicles his time within the shadowy organization, the alleged abuses he witnessed, and his dealings with its leader David Miscavige.
You can preorder the book and audiobook here.
Can someone tell me which chapter of A Billion Years mentions Michael Jackson? I have the audiobook. I must have missed that part. Sometimes I fall asleep while listening. Oops. Thanks!
There’s something kind of ironic and unfair about calling Michael Jackson odd when he NEVER joined Scientology and wasn’t interested in it. One would think that makes him less odd than the people who joined it. But I guess any opportunity to jump on the ‘Michael Jackson was so weird’ bandwagon. He wasn’t weird. He had an incredibly public life and endured fame most of us can never imagine. The tabloids were obsessed with him. Sigh.
I pre ordered the audiobook version, can’t wait to hear it in Mike’s voice. Thank you Mike Rinder!
Re: “Yes, a church lawyer and the head of the Office of Special Affairs were acting on behalf of Tom Cruise, paid for by the Church of Scientology.”
Thank you for telling the world, Mike.
I will be ordering! I have read every Scientology book by ever ex-member. I have to say when you were on Panorama with John Sweeney, I hated you, You were so dead-eyed and you could just see the hatred in your whole body, but then you did say you had just gotten out of the hole. I love listening and watching anything you guys do on Scientology and will definitely add your tome to my collection!
My days were endless, crammed with keeping track of Scientology’s enemies, conducting programs to neutralize them,..
It’s more or less known that the Church of Scientology has a lot of files on their parishioners in various sections (Technical-, Personnel-, Ethics- Divisions).
Also OSA has its separate files. It would be interesting to get some info on how the info collection, keeping of records and files are conducted. Not only those of the ‘SPs’, but also how the records of other people (e.g. city officials and politicians ) are filed and how they are categorized and used to deal with them. E.g., I can imagine that there’s a file on Jennings with info about his likes and weaknesses and his buttons and how to interact with him.
I can’t pretend I’m not on the edge of my seat eagerly awaiting both A Billion Years to land on my doorstep, AND to see whether Marty is wearing the brown jacket, the grey jacket or perhaps he’ll just throw caution to the wind and wear his Sea Org dress uniform. As yet not a peep which is rather disappointing, for me anyway, in the grey jacket he had those lovely red glasses on much loved my elderly ladies, but still seemingly the worlds driest mouth which caused all that noisy mastication and lip licking. Hopefully this time they’ll give him a teleprompter so he doesn’t have to repeat the script one very short line at a time with massive pauses between and can actually speak like a human being in whole paragraphs. Presumably Sump and Golden Era now have so few people they’re having trouble getting the new videos edited in time for the book launch, I can’t believe they wouldn’t take the opportunity to get him on camera, surely he’s all they have, that and Cathy’s no doubt still bloody arm wound. Perhaps the wound can start to speak and tell viewers how it knows every inch of Mike’s body.
Love your snark!
With an American I’d have thought twice, but I knew an Aussie would be on board with a good dose of snark, it’s in the DNA! 😂
Hahhhh. Love this !!