Is Tom Cruise the Most Powerful Man in Scientology?

No. The Church of Scientology is led by David Miscavige, chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center. Tom Cruise, a Scientologist since 1986, is its best-known member and a close friend of Miscavige. A 2008 biography claimed Cruise had become second in command; the church called that claim “ludicrous.”

Who leads the Church of Scientology?

Miscavige has led the church since its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, died in 1986. The church calls him “the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion” and says that from his position as chairman of the Religious Technology Center he “bears the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the standard and pure application of L. Ron Hubbard’s Technologies of Dianetics and Scientology.”

A former member has described that authority as close control. Mitch Brisker, a former senior director at the church’s Golden Era Studios who left in 2022, said in a 2023 interview with the Daily Mail, as reported by Newsweek: “Everything that happens in Scientology, right down to the soap they’re going to use on their luxury cruise liner is submitted to him for approval.” Newsweek said it had asked the church and Cruise’s representatives for comment.

Was Tom Cruise second in command of Scientology?

The claim comes from Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography by Andrew Morton, published in the United States in January 2008. As The Independent reported on January 7, 2008, Morton wrote that Cruise had been promoted to second in command and that Miscavige consulted him on “every aspect of planning and policy.”

Both Cruise’s lawyer and the church denied it. The lawyer, Bert Fields, told The Mail on Sunday: “It’s a pack of lies. The book suggests Scientology somehow runs his career. I’ve represented him for over 20 years and I’ve never discussed his business with David Miscavige.” The church called the book “a bigoted, defamatory assault replete with lies” and said: “Insinuations that Mr Cruise is second-in-command of the church are not only false, they are ludicrous.”

Brisker, in the same interview, saw Cruise’s place differently from Morton. “Tom Cruise is Scientology’s number one victim,” he said.

The actress Leah Remini, who left the church in 2013, has described the privileges its celebrities receive. In a 2017 podcast interview with Joe Rogan, recirculated in 2023, she said: “The amount of power they receive from this church is like nothing in Hollywood. There is no reason for them to leave this environment.” The church has said that critics such as Remini have a “documented record of malicious lies.”

How close is Tom Cruise to David Miscavige?

When Cruise married the actress Katie Holmes on November 18, 2006, at Odescalchi Castle above Lake Bracciano near Rome, a Scientology minister performed the ceremony. The couple’s publicists said the best man was “Cruise’s best friend, David Miscavige.”

Brisker described the two men as “like separated at birth” and said: “I think for Tom that’s a genuine friendship and almost worship.”

What has Tom Cruise said about Scientology?

In January 2008 a video of Cruise speaking about Scientology surfaced online. The church said it showed his acceptance speech after he received the religion’s Freedom Medal at a 2004 meeting of the International Association of Scientologists, and that the online copy was “a pirated and edited version of a three-hour event.” In it Cruise says: “It’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist and it’s something that you have to earn,” and: “Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident it’s not like anyone else. As you drive past you know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one who can help.”

In June 2005 he criticized the actress Brooke Shields for taking medication for postpartum depression, in line with Scientology’s rejection of psychiatry. On NBC’s Today show he called psychiatry a “pseudo science” and told the interviewer Matt Lauer: “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.”

How did Tom Cruise become a Scientologist?

His involvement began in 1986, when the actress Mimi Rogers, a Scientologist who became his first wife, gave him literature about it. He has credited Hubbard’s “Study Technology” with helping him overcome dyslexia. “Many people had tried to teach me, but no one had taught me how to learn or how to study,” he told People magazine in 2003. “I had been told I had all the symptoms of dyslexia, but no one had given me a solution. I realized I could absolutely learn anything that I wanted to learn.”

Is Tom Cruise a Christian?

He was raised Catholic and has been a Scientologist since 1986. Newsweek reported in 2012 that Cruise, born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, had been a devout Catholic before he became a Scientologist. In the fall of 1976, at 14, he entered St. Francis Seminary, a Franciscan school outside Cincinnati, and left after one year. The priest who recruited him told Newsweek in 2012: “I think he went there to get an education. I didn’t get a sense he was serious about the priesthood or the religious life.” According to Newsweek, the only reason Cruise has given for leaving is: “I started to realize I love women too much to give all that up.”

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