Leah Remini Says She Left Scientology For Her Daughter
Dear Lifetime: Drop whatever project you’re currently working on (unless it’s a biopic of Rojo Caliente, it’s not important) and start writing Not Without My Daughter 2: Escape From Scientology. I mean, you’ll get sued into the ground if you use the word Scientology, so you’ll have to change it to something like cheesy and obvious, like Celebuscience or Scienceformity, but that’s not important. What’s important is that the story of Leah Remini’s Sophie’s Choice between her cult and her daughter comes to the small screen in a two-hour ratings-grabbing melodrama extravaganza!
Leah Remini must either have the most powerful DILLIGAF attitude in the world, or she’s become a pro at sleeping with one eye open, because she’s brave enough to keep talking more shit about The Big S (“Oooo, sign me up for one of those!” – John Travolta). In an interview with BuzzFeed (via People) Leah says she realized it was time to leave Scientology when she was repeatedly ditching her kid to hang out at Xenu’s Clubhouse:
“In my house, it’s family first – but I was spending most of my time at the church,” she says. “So, I was saying ‘family first,’ but I wasn’t showing that. I didn’t like the message that sent my daughter.”
The actress admits she grew up “resenting” her own mother for spending so much time at the church instead of at home. “We went from a middle-class lifestyle [in Brooklyn] to living in a roach-infested motel with six other girls off a freeway in Clearwater,” Remini recalls of her family’s transition to the church’s Florida compound during her childhood. However, Remini insists she and her mom are now closer than ever.
I know I was joking before, but this is seriously my kind of Lifetime movie. Imagine the hair and makeup of late-1970s Brooklyn? That roach-infested Florida motel in Florida? A scene with a soccer coach offering to drive Leah Remini’s defeated-looking daughter home after practice because her mom forgot to pick her up? Bobby Moynihan as Kirstie Alley? For the love of Xenu, Lifetime NEEDS to make Not Without My Daughter 2. And they should start by casting a certain Lifetime veteran named Lindsay Lohan as…Florida Motel Roach (it’s the role she was born to play).