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Mike Rinder's Blog

Something Can Be Done About It

#WheresShelly

By 46 Comments

Jerrod Carmichael’s stunning bit at the Golden Globes last night set social media on fire. And subsequently is all over the media, bringing global attention to this issue.

As readers of this blog know, Leah Remini famously filed a missing persons report concerning Shelly in 2013, detailed in her wonderful book Troublemaker. It had been Shelly’s absence from Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes and Leah’s inquiries about her that landed her in hot water with David Miscavige and ultimately resulted in her exiting scientology. But the missing person report put a big target on Leah’s back for the scientology Fair Game machine, who instantly labeled her a “hater” and a “bigot.” Unsurprisingly, the scientology bots began yelling the same things about Jerrod Carmichael on Twitter last night…

I too wrote about Shelly in my recent book A Billion Years, I have known her since 1973 when she was a child. This passage is about the last time I saw her in 2005.

 

Leah and I spoke about Shelly in The Aftermath show, and I even went to the CST headquarters with a film crew. In fact, we have never stopped beating the drum about Shelly’s disappearance.

In November, Leah did an extensive Twitter post to update the world about Shelly.

 

It is time for scientology to provide incontrovertible proof that Shelly Miscavige is alive, well and is able to exercise her own free will. Not merely a statement from a lawyer claiming to represent her or a North Korean POW style video statement. She needs to be alone, able to speak for herself without fear of consequences.

Maybe it’s time for some more banners flying over scientology headquarters like we did for the annual IAS Event celebration in Clearwater in 2013…

Comments

  2. Too bad the cult can’t steal all the critical books from the libraries anymore.
    Actually they probably still do that, but it doesn’t help now.
    Miscavige wishes the US internet would become like the Chinese internet, with OSA hired to do the censorship control.

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  3. The current CofS as we know it is doomed. It will take years for it to end, but nothing Dave can do will stop its demise. NOTHING. Except, perhaps, resign and allow some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to take over and bring about reforms. Even that probably wouldn’t work since airing out the FULL truth about Scientology, including about its founder, would be intensely destructive to the group and to the subject. And of course Dave will never willingly resign.

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  4. Hell yeah! This is great lulz for those of us watching the disintegration of what is left of Scientology. True they (well Mickiewicz) has the money and properties to sit on for quite a long time and pretend that all is well. He even has a small cadre of ‘bitter enders’ who keep him in good supply of second and third gen Sea Org indentured servants. There is also the odd rise of Scientology in some other countries that is feeding the coffers for now. But I feel like many of those people will eventually wake up when they realize that they are being systematically drained of every cent they have. How many times does one need to retake the student hat and purif? How many meaningless ‘status’ trophies does one need before they realize they represent absolutely nothing.

    Now back to Shelley. She needs to be taken somewhere ALONE with no ‘minder’. She needs to be told that she is safe and free. She can go back to wherever she has come from or she can go to one of the many people out there who would love to help her. She has family I believe that has tried to find out about her. Plus I am sure Leah would do anything for her. She needs to know she is not a prisoner. She owes DM nothing. She needs to know that his own father escaped and spoke out against him. She needs help. I just hope she will take it.

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  5. The “Elvis” movie was nominated for multiple awards, and Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley were both in the audience. Would love to get their take seeing the “Where’s Shelley” joke play out live amongst their colleagues.

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  6. AND YET, 99% OF THE PEOPLE IN THAT ROOM WILL/WOULD STILL WORK WITH CRUISE AND STILL PRAISE HIM! ANGELA BASSETT FOR EXAMPLE! SHAME ON THEM FOR HAVING NO SHAME, INTEGRITY, DECENCY, CHARACTER! HYPOCRITES ALL OF THEM! THE PRESLEY WOMEN (LISA MARIE AND PRISCILLA) WERE IN THAT ROOM! WILL THEY AND HAVE THEY HAVE SPOKEN OUT AGAINST THIS ABUSIVE EVIL ORGANIZATION? NO!

    “WELL, THAT’S HIS PERSONAL LIFE, IT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS!’ AND “HE DOESN’T BRING IT UP WHILE ON SET” AND “BUT HE’S SO NICE AND GOOD TO WORK WITH WITH LITTLE OLE ME!” AND OTHER SICKENING DEFLECTION EXCUSES AND COMING FROM SUCCESSFUL ACTORS WHO DO NOT NEED THE MONEY THAT BAD, CAN WORK ON OTHER PROJECTS, AND THIS LIST INCLUDES ANGELA BASSETT, EMILY BLUNT, HENRY CAVILL, SIMON PEGG AND HIS ENABLER DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER MCQUARRIE!….

    IF CRUISE WAS THE PUBLIC FACE OF THE KKK OR WHITE SUPREMACY WOULD THEY, MEANING HOLLYWOOD STILL NOT SHUN HIM?

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    • Breathe, Tracy. They’re not evil; just ignorant. Of course, they’ll work with Tom Cruise. He’s a provider of work in their field. Most of them don’t know or understand the ramifications of Shelly Miscavige’s disappearance. Most of them don’t even know who Shelly Miscavige is. Ignorant, misinformed, mostly. Not evil. And as we all know by now, Lisa Marie Presley has just died at the age of 54, may she rest in peace.

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    • Yes, please take a deep breath and calm down. Lisa Marie has stood up against the cult and spoken out, and used her media friends to start fires about the cult. Go back to 2016… she totally helped Ron with his book, the media frenzy surrounding the PIs and telling her own story to Tony Ortega. She was a friend. And right now, May she Rest In Peace with her Dad and Son.

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  7. Wow.

    I think that the time is right to go on the offensive against Scientology as an organization.

    I believe that if someone were to make a series of videos or a television series or something streaming that has a portrayal of the actual events that define Scientology it would go viral and a relentless call to yank the US tax exemption would grow.

    Imagine a portrayal of the hole and pie faces incident, Debbie Cook in a garbage can called a lesbo, the physical violence in the hole, the origins of the running program, the hundreds of documented incidents of physical abuse in the Sea Org and RPF.

    A portrayal of the Truth Rundown and explanation of the origin and intent it has to be overt brainwashing.

    Overboarding, the chain locker, the chain locker for kids, the treatment of children in the Sea Org and often tragic results for children and teens raised in Scientology and the Sea Org.

    We could have a person portray David Miscavige and reenact his hundreds of crimes and abuses.

    We could have the same for Ronald Hubbard and have him read his affirmations and use taped excerpts of his own words.

    It would be priceless.

    The thing is the Shelly Miscavige joke wouldn’t have worked if everyone didn’t know what was being said.

    It reminds me how women used to say “now, I won’t have to lie under Harvey Weinstein to get roles!” When they win an Oscar.

    The audience groaned because they KNEW the stories of serial rapist Harvey Weinstein.

    NOW everyone knows the stories of the weird cult, Scientology.

    I want them to know about the true history of Scientology including the many crimes and abuses of David Miscavige and Ronald Hubbard, because that is essential to building pressure to yank the tax exemption and ultimately have criminal prosecution regarding Scientology.

    Reply

    • About 10 years ago, I participated in a conversation on the Ex-Scientologist message board, where we had the idea of who would be the actors in a movie about the history of Scientology (which your idea matches up with). I came up with most of the actors who would play the characters who would be portrayed in the movie (both pro-Scientology and anti-Scientology characters), and some other people came up with some of the other ideas.

      Here is the list:

      Philip Seymour Hoffman: as L Ron Hubbard

      James Woods: as David Miscavige

      Russell Crowe: as Mike Rinder

      Nick Nolte: as Marty Rathbun

      Sharon Stone: as Debbie Cook

      Kurt Russell: as Robert Vaughn Young

      The guy who did that video with the comedic imitation of Tom Cruise talking on that event video where Cruise won that IAS medal of valor: as Tom Cruise

      Samuel L Jackson: as Jesse Prince

      Jason Beghe: as Jason Beghe

      Leah Remini: as Leah Remini

      Any other ideas? (Mabye someone who knew Shelly Miscavige can come up with an actress to play her.)

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        • I’m glad you like the selection of Russell Crowe playing you, Mike. I can see some resemblance between Mary-Kate Olsen and Shelly Miscavige, but I had to look up a recent picture of her because I had only known of her as a young child. What do you think of Nick Nolte as Marty Rathbun?

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          • Yeah, that one was pretty good too. Though I may have opted for Jack Nicholson, especially as Marty loves The Shining and we went to visit the hotel in Estes Park Colorado where King wrote the book though it was shot elsewhere). They have a bar in the Stanley Hotel there that looks like the bar in The Shining movie and Marty sat in that bar and did a perfect imitation of Nicholson speaking to the bartender “Words of wisdom Lloyd, words of wisdom.”

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            • I guess it depends on which one of those two actors would be willing to sign the contract to do the film. And if anyone ever does a movie about Jack Nicholson, maybe Marty can play him.

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      • I am looking for a lower budget project that would have dozens of videos with incidents like the forced abortions in the Sea Org, ecclesiastical beatings David Miscavige carried out, the “if he dies he dies” incident with David Miscavige calling for the death of his own father, you know, regular Scientology.

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      • Fantastic list except I’ve always thought Al Pacino would have made an amazing David Miscavige. But he’s too old now.

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          • I know! Perfect, right? Oh, what a job he could have done with this role. I get goosebumps just imagining it. But far too old now. Its a shame. Playing Miscavige is going to be a great role for some actor, some day. I hope I live to see the film that’s coming some day.

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          • I know should be but I’m not familiar with Gary Oldman. Personally I think that to play Miscavige an actor would have to be quite physically short, smooth faced for his age because he’ll have to play himself much younger and last but not least with a deep voice capable of emoting sudden, unexpected, volcanic rages that are borderline psychopathic. That kind of intensity. Now I never experienced Tiny Fists personally, I never met him so others here who have might well disagree with these amateur casting director opinions of mine.

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    • I nominate Tommy Wiseau who is arguably the world’s actor (I use that word very very loosely) to play the Mighty Miniscule Missedthecarriage.

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  9. I just listened to yours, Leah’s, and Marc Hedley’s books this past week so this is fresh on my mind. With that reaction from the crowd, it sounded like some people knew about Shelly, but most did not. Hopefully they and the people watching we’ll also Google the reference and start asking questions. Maybe if enough people see how the LAPD missing persons department treated Leah’s complaint something more can be done.

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  10. The PR of Scientology is in a free fall and it can’t be slowed. Scientology itself has been quickly shrinking for 3 decades. It keeps getting harder and harder for them to find areas they haven’t screwed over in order to get recruits. Pretty soon they will have to search out undiscovered tribes in the Amazon. They keep transferring around what staff remain to temporarily cover holes for PR reasons. Undermanned = overworked = loss of staff = undermanned = overworked = lots of empty buildings = goodbye to yet another blood/money sucking cult. Tick, tock…..

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  11. I’m glad to hear this is getting so much attention now. She deserves to be alone safe to speak out. She should be seen. It’s her civil right. Keep up the good work Mike along with Tony Ortega and Leah Remini. Your courage is admirable.

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    • Its fantastic because asking WHERE she is is opening the door for America to ask WHO she is, which in turn get MORE questions about Scientology asked with answers searched for, and so on and so on, etc.

      Let the thread pulling begin! Looking forward to the Sherman Tank coming into view.

      Ho ho ho, Miscavige, this is not going to be your year, little one.

      This is fabulous – just fabulous!

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  13. Mike, you and Leah and Aaron and Tony and a few others are making inroads. I think you are correct also in a recent statement you made that OSA (or maybe you said The Church of Scientology) is in disarray. We are watching its finale. I do still wonder when the dam will officially break.

    Thanks for all you do to bring it about.

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    • Hi Mary, For years I have wondered “when the damn will break,” and here is my conclusion:

      1) They have tons of money so can sit on it for a long, long time. But even with that in mind they really do not have any horsepower anymore. One can take comfort in that.

      2) An attorney once told me that the Department of Justice will probably go after them one day, using the RICO act to take down DM. The problem is that they will only act when they have time on their hands, which is clearly not available now. the prosecution of the Trump insurrection clearly takes up a ton of resources and time, and rightly so. This attorney also said that it will also take someone influential (like in Congress) having a bad experience with SCN, perhaps with a family member, who then demands action of the DoJ.

      Anyway, just throwing out my two cents.

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      • I once wrote on my blog (I won’t link to the post as that would push Objectivism.): “Although Scientology is a vexatious litigant and won many civil suits. Scientology will eventually lose in the court of public opinion.”

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    • I thought last night’s Golden Globes will get more needed attention and hopefully set off a fire storm until we finally get the answer #WHERE IS SHELLY!

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      • Its fantastic because scores of millions of Americans don’t even know who Shelly is.

        WHERE is she? A very important question that those of us who know want to know.

        But what of the clueless majority?

        For them, who know little about Scientology except that its Tom Cruise’s religion, more important than Where Is Shelly , is WHO is Shelly.

        The can of worms has been opened, I’d say.

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  14. If we look at thr history of Cult industry we may find disappearances of spouse and comrades a common phenomenon.

    The Cult leaders needs total control over the mind and body of followers. And justification of their oppression from followers as either they ( followers) deserved that or its for the sake of their betterment : Stockholm syndrome.

    Cult industry is suffering lack of followers after the advent of smart phone which give Wogs unprecedented access to Google search, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, twitter and WordPress.
    Once thriving Cult of greed now getting wiped out from the history , 2025 : Age of Extinction.

    History ( not History Channel) told us Cult industry has product cycle life of 50 years after that they have to either innovate or isolate. Farming (including poultry and dairy ) provides both the features at one place.

    Reply

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