Jennifer Lopez has a long history of Scientology connections, the least of which happens to be Leah Remini. In fact, she had a front-row seat to the church’s operations as her father allegedly holds a high rank in the organization.
However, Lopez herself never wanted anything to do with the unconventional religion for a lot of reasons. And those reasons only proved to be right when she attended the wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes at her friend Leah Remini’s insistence.
Jennifer Lopez ran for her life from Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding
The Church of Scientology is notorious for recruiting high-profile celebrities into the religion. And although there seem to be a lot of factors behind that, including the artists’ own intrigue about the religion, the main reason seems to be nothing but business. Like every product on the face of the Earth, they need big names to sell it.
As a result, with Jennifer Lopez‘s numerous ties to the religion, they wanted her to become a member as well. The most troubling factor was their trying to use their mutual connections, i.e., her father, and best friend Remini to help them recruit her.
Now, Lopez has always been known for holding true to her own beliefs and being extremely family oriented. And a direct tie to Scientology would have hampered both tremendously. One of the reasons is their insistence on severing ties with anyone not associated with the religion, no matter how close they are.
Another reason being there have been numerous counts of people being punished for stating their opinions that are in direct contradiction with the church. For someone as fiercely loyal and independent as JLo, that was a deal breaker.
Undeterred, they then asked Remini to invite Lopez with her to Tom Cruise, who is a very devout member of the church, and Katie Holmes’ wedding. Thankfully, though, as Remini Claimed when she left the church altogether in an interview,
“She saw right through their tactics. I didn’t save her, or anything.”
In fact, it was Lopez’s bold dismissal that eventually got through to Leah Remini, and she only realized the cult-like nature of the Church after leaving it fully.
Leah Remini almost got separated from her daughter
As mentioned, the church of Scientology is notorious for separating the practicing members from anyone not directly affiliated with the religion. The main reason behind this is they seem to think of ex-communicators and non-members alike as enemies.
This happened in the case of Remini as well as she claimed that she started investing all her time into the church, even to the point of being neglectful of her daughter.
She tried to raise this concern to the church but was promptly ignored as according to their beliefs her connection to her daughter is only for this life and she needs to focus on the bigger picture.
That is oneness with everything by trying to reach a higher position in the church. This obviously rubbed her the wrong way but when she asked for help from her fellow members they refused to help out of fear of punishment.
This seems to be a true basis of the Scientology religion as even in Tom Cruise’s case he remains estranged from his daughter Suri Cruise after almost a decade after his divorce from Katie Holmes because of the actress’ aversion to the religion and refusal to raise her daughter in their following.
Tom Cruise’s children with Nicole Kidman, too, remain estranged from their mother after he got custody of the children following their divorce.
Thankfully for Leah Remini, Jennifer Lopez helped her through those difficult times and made her realize the sacrifices she would need to make in her personal life, if she continued down this path. According, to Remini, although there were parts of the religion she really liked, it simply was not for her.
Source: Daily Beast
