Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology (12 page)

There was one hurdle
King of Queens
couldn’t seem to clear—and that was winning an award. Any kind of award. Emmy had no love for us. No one, not even the sound-mixing guys, got so much as a nomination for our show. We had a hit show, but it was a blue-collar show. But I thought we could at least get nominated for a People’s Choice, whose ceremony aired on our own network. Can’t you even buy these things? Was it really people voting? I mean, shows like
Bette,
which didn’t even make it through a full season, won one. I’m a big fan of Bette Midler, but come on. I knew we were the people’s choice, because I had people coming up to me every day, saying we were their choice!

Kevin told me not to worry about it. “If you ever feel bad about yourself, Leah, I need you to go to Germany,” he said. “Swear to God. We’re like the Beatles over there.”

As we went into our sixth season it was announced that we were moving to Wednesday at nine o’clock. In what
EW
called “sitcom suicide,” we were going up against
The West Wing, The Bachelor,
and
The O.C.
But the best of all was our lead-in—
60 Minutes
! What
genius came up with that scheduling? When Kevin was asked about his reaction when he heard the news from Les Moonves, he said, “I threw up and wet myself immediately.” He turned it into a joke, but as we faced our sixth season with such a dismal time slot, no one was laughing. The nagging voice in my head that predicted bad things so many times, the one I worked hard to quell for hours each and every day at the church either on course or in session, seemed to get only louder.

I
NSIDE THE
S
CIENTOLOG
Y
E
THICS OFFICE
at the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles, the MAA looked through all my folders, which held every Knowledge Report written about me since day one of my life as a Scientologist.

The system of Knowledge Reports is one of the major ways the church gathers intelligence on members. It is policy that you have to report on anything that is considered unbecoming to a Scientologist; otherwise you are considered complicit. As LRH described it, “Anyone who knew of a loafing or destructive or off-policy or out-ethics action and WHO DID NOT FILE A KNOWLEDGE REPORT becomes an ACCESSORY in any justice action taken thereafter.”

The Ethics review of all my folders was part of the standard pre-check to be invited to do OT I, the first of Scientology’s eight Operating Thetan upper levels. But before you can start in on this long and costly process, you have to undergo extreme scrutiny when an Ethics Officer reviews all your church files that hold every one of your transgressions.

My Ethics Officer, Julian Swartz, didn’t seem like the type to overlook anything. I sat on the other side of his desk while he thumbed through my files in silence. Most of the reports in my
folder were of a similar nature: “Leah threatened to have my legs broken,” “Leah told a student to ‘go fuck yourself’ when that student complained about her wearing perfume” (off-limits with the church as scent can provide distraction to other people in the room who are studying).

Finally he asked, “So why aren’t you married?”

It was 2002, and Angelo and I had been together for six years, during which we supported each other in everything we did—including Scientology. Not only was he on course, but he also understood when I went to the church straight after work and was there until nine or ten o’clock most nights.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “It’s not important.”

“You don’t think it’s important to set a good example to the public? Does Angelo not want to marry you?”

“Of course he would marry me if I wanted.”

“Then get married,” he said.

I didn’t know if I wanted to get married, but I was like
Eh, if it’s awful, there’s always divorce.
Scientology doesn’t exactly put a premium on the sanctity of marriage. Or on relationships between parents and children, for that matter. The church demands that rather than placing value in your own future or your future as a married couple, or a family, you place value and focus only back to Scientology. Divorce is rampant among church and Sea Org members, as is the dissolution of families.

That night at home, I told Angelo what had happened during my pre-check and how it was suggested that we weren’t married because he didn’t want to marry me.

After all the complications that attended the start of our relationship, sealing the deal was as simple as saying, “Make it happen, man.”

On Christmas Eve of 2002, Angelo and I went to dinner at a restaurant down the street from our house, and after we were seated at a booth, he announced, “Baby, get anything you want on the menu.”

“Oh, okay, Angelo. Thanks.”

When the waiter came, I ordered the calamari as an appetizer and the steak. Angelo went into his pants and took out a wad of money.

“Let me just check,” he said, peeling the bills off, “because the steak is pretty expensive.”

“Let’s stop with the attempted comedy bit. Put your money away; you look crazy. You’re the looks of the operation, OK? And I’m the funny. Let’s know our lanes. Because when you step into mine, things go awry.”

“All right. I’m going to the bathroom,” he responded, but when he came back he said, “You’re right about staying in my lane, because I think I lost a hundred dollars doing my little bit.”

“Oh, Angelo.”

He knelt down on the floor and stuck his head underneath the table where I was sitting to look for the money.

“Anglo, get up. You look like you’re going down on me. We’ll get it later.”

“No, no, no, no, no.”

“We’ll just get it later. Stop.”

“Oh, here it is.”

“Grab it, babe. God.”

When Angelo came back up from under the table he wasn’t holding a hundred-dollar bill. He was holding a small black velvet box.

“Will you mar—”

“Who ordered the calamari?” the waiter interrupted.

“Bro, bro. Do me a favor? Can you give us a second?”

“Sir, are you okay?”

“Yes. Man, I’m good. I’m good,” he said in Spanish. Some “Mano, Mano” shit and “por favor.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I was crying, while the waiter tried to step over Angelo’s feet to get to the table with the calamari. I took the ring box.

“I didn’t ask you yet,” Angelo said.

“I know.”

“What’s your answer?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever asked me that.”

“Nobody ever asked you that! What?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying! What? You asking me to marry you?”

“Yes, baby!”

“Oh, my God.”

“Did you order the calamari?” the waiter asked.

“Yes, we ordered it,” Angelo said. “Just put it down.”

On the night of July 19, 2003, we got married outside at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. It was, I kid you not, 110 degrees easy.

VH-1 was shooting our wedding for a special, so when they asked us to come up with a location for the event I thought Vegas would be convenient for a lot of the guests coming from L.A. as well as make for a fun weekend. I pictured all my guests, tan and relaxed from a day around the pool, looking and feeling sexy and elegant.

What I did
not
picture was everyone—including me—melting under the brutal rays of a desert summer sun. I mean, had somebody told me, “Hey, dumb-ass, you know Vegas is boiling hot in July,” I wouldn’t have planned a poolside ceremony and reception. Instead I put 125 guests through sheer misery. As Kevin told
People,
“The best part was toweling off.”

Right before I walked down the aisle, I surveyed the landscape and the different buildings, and saw what I thought to be a paparazzo on the roof of the building. Still looking to be accepted by the Hollywood “in-crowd,” I was both delighted and disgusted. Paparazzi were a true sign of making it in this business, but what kind of fucking pig crashes a wedding? To get a picture? On my wedding day? Man,
Star
magazine must really want to get this exclusive. Emmy, here we come, People’s Choice…I can feel it in my hands! Kevin and I had arrived. Even so, this was not the place and time, really!

I called my security guy over and said, “There is a paparazzi piece of shit on the roof trying to grab a picture of me and I want him removed.”

“Where?” he said.

“Really? You have to get a better eye for these things.
Right there!
”

“That guy?” he said as he pointed directly at the stalker pig.

“Yes,” I said. “Obviously. “

“That’s your wedding photographer,” he flatly replied.

“Oh. Motherfuck…”

D
URING THE CEREMON
Y, WHICH
I pared down to the most nondenominational seven minutes of the Scientology wedding vows and which was officiated by Susan Watson, the former president of the Celebrity Centre, I looked over at Kevin, who gave me the wrap-it-up sign, which almost made me pee in my white lace G-string.

Even though it was so hot that later I’d have to soak my feet in the pool, I was so happy to be marrying Angelo and to have all these people I loved around me to witness it. Most especially, my mom, my sisters, and my friends, including Sherry, who had left the church when she was twenty-one.

Just like with my sister Nicole, Sherry’s departure was a slow one. When she moved to L.A., all of her friends were Scientologists and she worked at Scientology companies just like I did. But the big difference was that she wasn’t active in taking courses or getting auditing, while I was.

Even after she left the church, she remained friendly with our Scientologist community and was still invited to get-togethers. You are allowed to be friends with non- or ex-Scientologists, as long as they aren’t antagonistic toward Scientology. If they are, you are expected to disconnect or break off all ties with that member, who is considered a Suppressive Person. A person is declared by the church to be an SP for a variety of reasons, which may include going to the authorities about the church or making any kind of negative
comment about it publicly or in the press. Both are considered suppressive acts that can have devastating consequences for relationships. And furthermore, if the church were to find out that you remained in contact with an SP, you would then be declared an SP as well.

Before Angelo and I were married, his ex-wife sold a story to
Star
magazine about her version of everything that had happened—including their Scientology marriage counseling. When the magazine hit the stands, I was called into the Ethics office at Flag, where I was doing auditing. Some random Scientologist had written a Knowledge Report on me after seeing the article.

“Leah, either you disconnect from Angelo or he disconnects from his ex.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re telling me Angelo can’t see the mother of his son? How is he going to see his six-year-old boy?”

The Ethics Officer shrugged and said, “I am not telling you that. What does LRH say? The policy says what it says. Read it out loud. You can make your own decisions.”

I loved Angelo’s three sons: his oldest two boys who lived with their mom in San Jose, and his youngest, in L.A., whom we had every weekend and certain days each week. Sometimes I got to pick him up from school when his mom was busy, and he was always a real source of joy in my life and had given me a wonderful taste of motherhood.

Whenever the question of Sherry came up in one of my checks, however, I would always say that Sherry wasn’t anti-Scientology, even though she was. Unlike many Scientologists, I didn’t feel I had to give up every piece of information in my head to the church. I rationalized it to myself by saying that Sherry wasn’t pulling me out of Scientology, which is the important thing.

Since Sherry left the church, her life hadn’t become a disaster, as we are made to believe by the church. Far from it. She put herself through night school, earning a hard-won degree from UCLA at the age of thirty, then started her own tech business. She also married a nice, successful guy and had two sons.

I never dwelled too long on that contradiction. The church’s response to my question “Well, how come that one left the church and they seem to be doing okay?” was always the same:

“But are they happy, Leah, truly? What about their eternity, Leah?”

Yeah, I thought, her eternity might get fucked up, but they seemed happy and much less fucked-up than me.

Instead I chose to focus on my own happiness. No sooner were Angelo and I married than I was telling him I wanted a baby. But sex was not exactly fun for Angelo during this period. A typical “lovemaking” session between us went like this:

“Babe, it’s on,” I said.

“I’m in the middle of
SportsCenter,
” Angelo yelled from the other room.

“No. It’s got to happen now.”

In that moment, I predicted he had given me a girl. Angelo, who already had three boys, didn’t believe it. But I was adamant. “You’ve been so horrible to women your whole life that God is going to give you one girl that you can’t mess with, who’s going to wrap you around her finger,” I said. “I’m telling you, you’re having a girl.”

After I got pregnant, I couldn’t wait to find out that I was right about my prediction. During an early ultrasound, I pestered the doctor, who said he couldn’t really “tell if it was a girl.”

Oh, my God. Either he has the smallest penis ever or she has the biggest vagina. Either way, this is not good. If my kid has a little dick, I’ve got to tell him how to use it. And if it’s a girl with a very big vagina, we’ve got to talk about that too. I want to be prepared.

“We need to know, Doc. We need to know.”

He ordered an amnio (which was encouraged as I was close to thirty-five), which confirmed it: We were having a girl! Angelo was in trouble.