Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

by Leah Remini

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An eye-opening, no-holds-barred memoir about life in the Church of Scientology by the outspoken actress and star of the A&E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath
 
Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.
 
That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices.
 
Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as Tom Cruise, Scientology’s most high-profile adherent. Remini spent time directly with Cruise and was included among the guests at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.
 
But when she began to raise questions about some of the church’s actions, she found herself a target. In the end, she was declared by the church to be a threat to their organization and therefore a “Suppressive Person,” and as a result, all of her fellow parishioners—including members of her own family—were told to disconnect from her. Forever.
 
Bold, brash, and bravely confessional, Troublemaker chronicles Leah Remini’s remarkable journey toward emotional and spiritual freedom, both for herself and for her family. This is a memoir designed to reveal the hard-won truths of a life lived honestly—from an author unafraid of the consequences.

Praise for Troublemaker
 
“An aggressively honest memoir . . . Troublemaker is the most raw and revealing Scientology memoir to date.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Leah’s story is a juicy, inside-Hollywood read, but it’s more than that. It’s a moving story about the value of questioning authority and how one woman survived a profound crisis of faith.”—People
 
“Remini [offers] up some juicy tidbits from her decades in the church.”—Newsweek

• ISBN10: 110188696X
• ISBN13: 9781101886960
• Publish Date: 3 November 2015
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 17 August 2020
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Ballantine Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[ibeforem]

As someone with more than a passing interest in topics like true crime and cults, I’ve long found everything surrounding Scientology to be interesting. Leah Remini is not the first person to escape Scientology, nor even the first celebrity, but it’s possible that she’s been the loudest.

Before I started the book, I though that Remini had been born into Scientology, so I was surprised to find out that her mother joined when Leah was 9, and she was then along for the ride. Remini wasn’t a casual practitioner. She was a Sea Org member as a teen, and fully admits that she bought into the “religion”, one hundred percent. She was a true believer, and thought that everything she did was to make the world “clear”. She was luckier than a lot of children in Scientology — she got to spend her childhood with her mother, rather than be separated very early like most children. And she was then encouraged to pursue her acting career, because celebrities are extremely valuable, because of both their reach and their money.

The heart of the book is Remini’s journey through her late teens until the time she decided to leave the religion, when she was 43. If you are familiar with her and how she speaks, the book is written completely in her voice. You can hear her saying everything. It was interesting to see how her view of Scientology changed over time, and how she began to see the holes in the logic, even as she was cooperating with them. She participated in hours upon hours of auditing, and wrote many a giant check so they would overlook her missteps. Everything comes to a head around the time of Tom Cruise’s wedding, and soon it’s plain to her that she can’t be a part of what’s happening any longer. Nor can she be silent about it.

I thought this was a solid memoir. Remini doesn’t paint herself as a savior, or a perfect person. She’s very up front with all of her indiscretions, because she knew that the first thing Scientology would do is try to smear her name. The book does get a bit repetitive in places; it probably could have used some tighter editing. But her story and the inside look at Scientology is quite interesting.

I’ve also been watching her series on A&E, where she speaks with former Scientologists. It is fascinating. I admire what she and the show’s other participants are doing, and I think there are people who are going to have much better lives because of it.

Also, if you are interested in what it’s like for a lay person to join Scientology, there’s a great podcast called Oh No Ross & Carrie that has a multi-part series.

[Kim Deister]

Troublemaker I started watching Leah Remini’s documentary on A&E about Scientology and have been fascinated with it. I have a self-admitted fascination with how different faiths work, especially those of a more controversial nature. It was what led me to the library to find this book. And I haven’t been able to put it down since.
 
One of the things I most appreciate about this book is that Remini doesn’t try to portray herself as anyone other than who she is. She doesn’t clean it up for a book. She presents her story as if she were telling it to you over a cup of coffee, f-bombs and all. And she presents it with truth and honesty, not only describing her issues with the church, but putting her faults and those of her loved ones with equal measure. There are no holds barred and that really gave legitimacy to what she had to say.
 
The book is about her experience with Scientology and that with Hollywood. For her, the two experiences have been largely entwined. There really was no line separating Scientology from any other part of her life. Her career, her family, her friends, even her marriage… all highly dictated and controlled by her church. It is an eye-opening read.
 
Overall:  No matter what your personal thoughts or beliefs, this is a fascinating read. It is honest, deep, and sometimes very dark. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for an intense personal story.

[Heather]

"Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.
That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices."



Leah Remini is the perfect person to write this tell all book about the inner workings of The Church of Scientology.  She was brought into the religion as a child when her mother joined.  She was taken out of school and moved to Florida in order to work at retreat center for Scientologists.  She progressed through the religion as she started her acting career.  As she became more famous, she was given more and more opportunities to promote her faith.

She knew that she was working to clear the planet.  She was part of saving the world.  If that meant that she needed to go to the center and do her courses for hours a day, she did it.  If it meant giving millions of dollars for church activities, she went along.  She faced interrogations based on reports that people wrote about her.  She was even thrown off a boat once.  It didn't faze her.

Through it all she remained a true believer

Then she was invited to be part of the elite group of Scientologists who grouped around Tom Cruise.  That was when she started to see hypocrisy.  She saw people how weren't behaving like the church demanded and nothing was being done about it.  She noticed that people were disappearing and no one would talk about it.  She decided that she needed to speak up to save her church -- and they silenced her.  Eventually she was declared to be a Suppressive Person who no Scientologist is allowed to associate with.  This is a horrific punishment for a person whose entire life revolved around the church for thirty years and whose entire family are members.

That's when she decided to speak out publicly.

I listened to the audio version of this book and I think that was a good choice.  She reads her own story and you can hear the emotions brought up.  There is sadness for her lost life and anger at the people who deceived her.  There is love for her family who decided to stand by her.

My only issue with the audio is that got slow in the middle.  She spends a lot of time detailing growing up in Scientology.  It was necessary information to have to understand what happened later but it didn't keep my interest.  I actually put this audio down for several months and didn't intend to go back to it.  I only listened again because I finished another book and didn't have anything else with me while in the car.  I'm glad I picked it back up.  The last third of the book was very compelling.

I'd recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about Scientology or anyone who is in the mood for a different look at a celebrity memoir.

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[MurderByDeath]

I gave this a 1/2 star bump in recognition of the sheer courage it takes to openly own, in print, to the kind of shortcomings Remini owns up to.

As a general rule, I'm not interested in celebrity memoirs; when I think about being rich, I think about how many books I could own, so I fall far short of the glitz and glamour loving target audience.  But I have always had an idle curiosity about what would posses someone to get involved with scientology and I've read nothing but good things about this book, so I grabbed it at the library.

This is an eminently readable memoir, not just because of the insider's perspective on Scientology, but because Remini is brutally honest about herself and her choices.  I imagine most celebrities (anyone, really) would try to creatively edit out those things that make them look less sympathetic, or at least rationalise their behaviour or skew the details in their favour.  There's a little bit of that in Troublemaker but no more than would be expected from any person baring themselves so thoroughly.  She's funny, too: I laughed even when I was cringing at the thought of what it would be like to be on the receiving end of some of her more scathing retorts.

As for the scientology, well, that's just as batsh*t crazy as I've always thought, as is Cruise.  I really want to know what happened to Miscavige's wife (I'll be googling when I finish this) and I hope that man and the rest of the organisation all get what's coming to them.  Remini succeeds brilliantly at showing the reader just how easy it is for honest people with the sincere wish to better themselves and the world to get sucked into this vortex of insanity.

But where she really gets my respect and admiration is for having the incredible courage to admit that, as insane and horrific and destructive as scientology is, there were aspects she was able to pull out and point to and say this was good; I benefited from this.  As she was describing her early experiences in the "church" and describing those courses where she was taught to communicate clearly and take responsibility for her actions, I was nodding and thinking "yep, all good" - which scared me, because the rest of it sounded like a lunatic asylum.

By the end of the book I admired her tremendously for having the courage to write about herself (and I admire her mother and husband for allowing her to write about them - holy toledo!) and to be able to say this was my life so far and these parts sucked, but these parts made me better.

I like her, but man, I think you'd need the hide of a rhino just to survive having coffee with her, although the laughs might make it worth it.