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Clamming Up
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Clamming Up
different strokes for different folks
Scientology a Prime Suspect in Gossip Columnist's Isaac Hayes Postmortem
After getting through a remarkably quiet week without a single controversy or racketeering lawsuit, the Church of Scientology was dealt another bruising body blow with Isaac Hayes's death over the weekend. As much as the Church is expected to miss the singer/songwriter's hot buttered soul and totemic cultural presence, Hayes's "friend" and generally unreliable Fox source Roger Friedman notes in today's touching eulogy how the Church wrung every last cent from subpar live performances after his 2006 stroke. More »
la cruisa nostra
Don Tom Cruise Named as Godfather in Landmark Racketeering Case Against Scientology
A new kind of crisis recently befell the Church of Scientology, accusations serious enough to reduce those Suri-sippy-cup and Will Smith Brainwash Academy rumors to mere enturbulatory afterthoughts: An ex-member has filed a $250 million suit against the Church in Florida, invoking federal racketeering statutes generally reserved for the Mafia and other crime syndicates. Even more ambitiously, the suit reportedly names Tom Cruise as a primary conspirator in Scientology's global scheme, which plaintiff Peter Letterese claims to have encompassed threats and harassment of himself and his attorney.
It's a devastating charge that stands to upend celebrity religion as we know it — more details and a brief analysis by the Defamer Legal Team follow after the jump.
More »
Hard Festival
Help Keep Danny Masterson, The Pride of The Celebrity Scientologist DJ Circuit, Off The Unemployment Line
"Prepare to be destroyed this summer," promises the website for the Hard Fest, which isn't exactly a heartwarming PLUR-like welcome. This promise (or is it a threat?) becomes even more baffling when you consider that DJ MomJeans, aka celebrity scientologist cum DJ Danny Masterson, is one of the people who makes up this bill. Currently placing somewhere outside of the Top Ten celebrity DJs — the Ronson siblings seem to have the lockdown on the top two spots — Masterson's acting career has been somewhat frigid since That '70s Show went off the air. We remember seeing Masterson in an extended cameo in the Anna Faris stoner comedy Smiley Face, and his IMDB profile shows that he's got a few projects in the pipeline, but we're glad to hear that the DJ circuit is lucrative enough for him to continue filling the coffers at the Celebrity Centre. (Those OT-VII ratings don't buy themselves, you know). Still, if you're on the hunt for a rave disguised as a sausage fest with 17 year-olds, the HARD Festival just might be the place for you this weekend. The rest of the line-up is run down after the jump. More »
Defamer Photo Essay
Tom Cruise's Comeback Film: A Village People Biopic, Starring Tom Cruise In Every Role
As Tom Cruise loves to remind us on his website, he's been prancing around Hollywood for 25 years, playing all kinds of roles we vaguely remember. But who knew all that hard work had been mere preparation for his landmark role in a one-man Village People biopic? In an apparent nod to American history, the patriotic Cruise temporarily abandoned hope for a truce between his army of Xenuphobes and Germany, choosing to split the difference and celebrate this wonderful country L. Ron Hubbard called home. In between the COS founder’s time traveling vacations to ancient Rome and DeLorean rides to the future, that is. And now that Cruise has donned a cowboy hat, tight jeans, and a fitted tee, he’s officially paid homage to each bandmate from that gayer-than-gay feel-good group of song-and-dance men who would surely welcome Cruise into a singalong of “It’s Raining Men.” So among Tom’s many characterizations of the Navy Boy, Earnest Construction Worker, Bad Boy Officer and, of course, Leatherman, which Village Person’s
Self Sabotage
Why Tom Cruise Is To Blame For Katie Holmes' Box Office Failure On Broadway
It didn’t take long for Katie Holmes to prove she cannot compare to Nicole Kidman when it comes to Broadway appeal. Months before she even sets foot on stage, Tom Cruise’s replacement wife is striking out at the box office, managing to sell only $1 million worth of advance tickets to her September theatrical effort in All My Sons. That may sound like a decent take in the world of steadily declining Broadway sales, but it doesn’t even come close to Kidman’s number, which was $4 million. So why the distant gap in interest between seeing Holmes hack through Arthur Miller and Kidman feign sex live? It’s not just a matter of full-frontal cartwheels... More »
higher education
Is Will Smith Training Your Kids To Build An Army Of Evil Robots?
You know that school Will Smith opened up in Calabasas? The one people are saying is a big front to indoctrinate children into the ways of Scientology? Well, we here at Defamer hate to pass judgment without at least a tiny bit of research. That's why I spent a few minutes skimming the New Village Academy's website. Surprisingly, there were no classes called "Worshiping Overlord Xenu" or "Releasing Your Inner Engram." But they do really stress building robots. In fact, the Educational Philosophy section of the site mentions robots no less than 4 times! More »
hives
L. Ron Hubbard Middle School Not An Indoctrination Center, Says Scientologist Founder Will Smith
As we noted last month, the New Village Academy is a private school in Calabasas set to open its doors Sept. 3, founded by Will Smith and wife/appearances-upholder Jada Pinkett Smith. It has become a source of much controversy for having several Scientologists on its staff, who espouse a number of L. Ron Hubbard-advanced learning concepts in the curriculum: among them, the meaninglessly designated "study technology" programme for effective and complete child mind-absorption. The Smiths—still not public with their Scientology affiliations—claim to only be committed to creating "an ideal educational environment." But Carnegie Mellon University professor David S. Touretzky, who has dissected study technology like a rusty E-meter and found it to be about as useful, warns parents away from this particular learning institution, lest they want to find themselves helping with homework essays entitled, "What I Did on My Billion-Years of Servitude Vacation." From the LAT:
Touretzky said many phrases and concepts on the school's website are specific to Scientology. For example, the school lists a "Director of Qualifications" and another teacher who is an assistant in the "Qual" department. The "Qual," said Touretzky, is where people who have completed a Scientology counseling, or "auditing," session or a course in the Church of Scientology are tested by a qualifications teacher.More »
In Session
Exclusive: Dr. Drew Gives Defamer The Lowdown On The Tom Cruise/Joseph Goebbels Controversy
If you happened to miss the two dozen or so reminders that your humble, athletically-ungifted Defamer editor would be a featured guest on Dr. Drew Pinsky's radio show this past Friday, we've collected some of the highlights for your listening pleasure. (Before you judge our performance too harshly, you must consider for a moment how nervous we were to be in the presence of the man who taught us everything we know about the relative riskiness of the fringe sexual practices that defined much of our experimental late-20s.) Drew surprised us right off the bat by opening up the floor to our own questions. We took the bait and started grilling him about his recent feud with Tom Cruise and the first word from the set of Celebrity Rehab 2. More »
Annals of Mental Health
Tom Cruise's Lawyer Suggests Dr. Drew Better Suited To Host History Channel's 'Nazi Rehab'
While they may seem to occupy far flung quadrants of the celebrity spectrum, Tom Cruise and Dr. Drew Pinsky share more than one might initially surmise. Both are charming and boyishly handsome men in their mid-to-late 40s, and both have devoted a good part of their lives to helping celebrities and non-celebrities alike overcome the various chemical dependencies preventing them from achieving their full potential as human beings. It's in the approach where they diverge, for while Pinsky employs a more traditional treatment of group therapy and close medical monitoring, Cruise instead adheres to the lesser-proven Scientological methodology of prescribed vitamins, rigorous shvitzing, and however many hundreds of auditing hours might be required to fully rid oneself of one's recreational-drug-loving thetans.
Which would all be well and good—there's more than one way to skin a once-famous cat who's lost everything to an expensive coke habit, after all—except that Pinsky has now publicly come out against Cruise. Not just his qualifications as a dependency counselor who has personally—personally!—helped hundreds of people get off drugs, but the man himself, throwing the megastar's very sanity into question in an upcoming Playboy interview. From Page Six:
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misadventures in blogging
Entire Internet Calls Bullshit as Peter Bart Goes to War For 'Valkyrie'
An insomniac browse last night at PeterBart.com revealed that the Variety editor's spirited studio defenses have made a remarkably speedy, seamless transition to the blogosphere. Readers seem to be enjoying it as well, alleging stolen stories about DreamWorks on one hand and launching a fascist-tastic comment cascade following Bart's breaking! News! about production resuming on Valkyrie:
Although the film has yet to be completed, several people I trust have seen Valkyrie and testify that it's a superb thriller. "Bryan Singer is back in form," says one source, referring to the Valkyrie director whose last film was Superman Returns.More »
knights of hubbard
Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes Throw Bash For Everyone In Hollywood Who Secretly Hates Them, Including Suri
When the Count and Countess of Scientology throw a party, they do not set out plastic lawn chairs and serve crustless honey-drenched finger sandwiches. No, when TomKat decide to invite all of their friends and frenemies (and even some enemies!) over for a daytime soirée, the Knights of Hubbard throw the kind of party that puts everyone from the Royal Family to Donatella Versace to shame. On Saturday afternoon, TomKat decided to congratulate themselves on purchasing yet another of their many
Despite his best attempts, Tom Cruise has officially failed his mission of keeping wife Katie Holmes off Broadway and out of New York. As we learned earlier this year, the escape-hungry Holmes was offered a role in this fall’s Arthur Miller play All My Sons, giving her a chance to remind the industry she was once an actress. But Cruise was rumored to have squashed the idea, punishing his true love by sending her off to Scientology boot camp. But Us is confirming that Holmes has signed on anyway, meaning the tight Cruise clan will be spending autumn in New York. We can only hope NBC successfully woos Jerry Seinfeld into a deal by then, lest TomKat’s previous recruitment plans for the comedian remain a high priority. [Us]
scientology
At Will Smith Learning Academy, Nothing Can Hold Your Child Back Except Their Stupidity-Thetans
What would a week at Defamer HQ be without a Scientology scandal? To wit: What do you get when you cross closet case Will Smith and an old high school in Calabasas? Try the New Village Academy, which the star reportedly underwrote this week with an $890,000, three-year lease of the former Indian Hills High School and a curriculum comprising a little bit of everything — Montessori here, constructivism there, and a liberal dollop of something called "study technology" developed by none other than education pioneer "L.R. Hubbard."
We don't know what the hell it is, either, but we'll all learn together after the jump.
More »
defamer photo essay
Katie Holmes' Attempt To Flee The Scientology Kingdom: A Tragedy In Three Parts
Looks like it’s time to reopen the case of Suri Cruise and the Toxic Scientology Bottles. After seeing this photo of Katie Holmes and her tiny dancer, we couldn’t help but notice the presence of an actual sippy cup. Why is this news so glorious? You see, most babies tend to go from nipple to bottle to sippy cup to the wine glass you’re currently holding. But Hubbard's Parenting Book tells Scientology moms like Holmes to rot their kids' teeth with honey instead, a method Holmes had been following obediently. But before we could celebrate Suri's freedom and Katie's long-awaited rebellion against Overlord Tom and his disco-dancing minions, Cruise suddenly descended on their escape attempt clutching an asbestos-stuffed rabbit that made Suri cry. The dramatic series of events, in pictures, after the jump. More »
knights of hubbard
Tom Cruise Gifts Beckhams With One-Way Ticket To Hubbard's House Of Horrors
Hello Magazine is reporting that Tom Cruise was plum out of ideas for what to get recently drifting BFF David Beckham for his birthday. So instead of a fruit basket or a lifetime supply of Tom Cruise Purple, the Hubbard-loving Clear decided to treat both Posh and Becks to a private weekend getaway at one of Cruise’s favorite romantic spots in Napa Valley: his very own home!
”They wanted [Posh] and David to make use of their property [and] insisted that it should be just the two of them and that they should thoroughly spoil themselves.”
But after hearing more details on just how Tom planned this so-called “private” getaway, we’re worried the Beckhams are about to be abducted by a Xenuphobic SWAT team...
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Baby's First Crush
Suri Cruise's Favorite Things: Toxic Bottles, Boys Named Brooklyn And High-Kicking Has-Beens
We hate to rain on Tom Cruise’s purity parade, but it seems his bundle of Hubbard Formula-chugging joy, Suri Cruise, has gone seriously gaga for two older men. And she’s got the giggles to show it. While babysitting for all three Beckham boys as David bent it like...well, lost to the visiting team, Tom and Katie brought finger-nibbling Suri along to watch. But the blanketed Cruiselette only had eyes for one guy: and he goes by Brooklyn Beckham. Tom did seem more interested in setting up Suri with the littlest Beckham (Cruz Beckham! Just picturing future Scientology couple Suri Cruise and Cruz Beckham likely made Tom's removable head spin with possibilities), Suri couldn’t keep her eyes off 9-year old Brooklyn. But earlier last week while still in NY, TomKat attended Suri’s favorite musical, and we have a feeling fellow Scientologist John Travolta’s role in the movie version had nothing to do with her ear-to-ear grin while leaving: a certain song-and-dancing Efronabbe got her all shook up... More »
scientology
cult religion who used "Hubbard's baby formula," only to wind up with "thin and colicky" toddlers that had their "baby teeth destroyed" and "screamed themselves to death." But as the defiant Remini says in this clip, "I could see her drinkig a bottle 'til she's 16." More details on Hubbard's toxic formula that was developed using methods from Ancient Rome (!!!) after the jump.
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