Elisabeth Moss, Leah Remini Shutterstock (2)
No drama intended. Elisabeth Moss explained the real reason she wasn’t present when Leah Remini won a Television Critics Association award for her anti-Scientology series — and it wasn’t an intentional snub.
“I went to the bathroom. I wish it was more exciting than that,” the Handmaid’s Talestar, 39, told The New Yorkeras part of a profile that appeared on Friday, April 29, 2017. Both actresses were recognized at the awards ceremony in 2017. Moss reportedly “walked out”Remini, 51, was awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming Award for her documentary series. Leah Remini: Scientology aftermath.
The drama continues, and the King of Queens alum claimed that the church had forbidden Moss from speaking with anyone labeled an “antisocial personality,” like Remini. The Mad Men alum denied her allegations to the outlet: “I have never been approached by her. I have never been approached by her. So there hasn’t been an opportunity for her to say that. I don’t know her that well, so it’s not like we were friends.”
Moss was a member of the controversial church as a teenager but only rarely speaks out about Scientology in interviews. “I don’t want to come off as being cagey,” she told the New Yorker. “If you and I met, just hanging out as friends, I’m, like, an open book about it. [But] I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me. I want them to be seeing the character.”
She continued: “People can obviously hold in their mind whatever they want to, and I can’t control that. If it’s not that, it’s going to be something else. [Scientology is]It is not a closed religion. It’s a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in somebody who wants to learn more about it.”
Remini, who joined Scientology at the age of nine with her family, has publicly left the Church of Scientology in 2013 and launched a campaign against their alleged wrongdoings. In 2015, the Kevin Can WaitA memoir was published by actress Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood, Scientology, in which she was highly critical of the church’s practices and went on to expose more about their alleged controversies in her A&E series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
The Church of Scientology has always denied any allegations of wrongdoing. In June 2019, an anonymous woman filed a lawsuit against the Church accusing it of kidnapping and stalking, human trafficking.
In response to the lawsuit’s claim that Scientology is “nothing more than a cult built on mind control,” the church’s lawyers told Us Weekly at the time, “The church will vigorously defend itself against these unfounded allegations.”
Moss also addressed reported abuses of wrongdoings during his interview with The New Yorker. “I would just encourage people to find out for themselves. I’ve certainly been guilty of reading an article or watching something and taking that as gospel,” she said. “And obviously something like religious freedom and resistance against a theocracy is very important to me.”
