Tom Cruise Dumped from Hollywood by Vanity Fair
Well, it’s quite fascinating: Graydon Carter, never afraid of a bold move, has dumped Tom Cruise from the Hollywood elite. In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Carter has published a cover story by Maureen Orth exposing Tom Cruise’s entire background in Scientology. The magazine has used a pick-up picture — very very rare for them– of Katie Holmes on the cover to sell issues, just like People or Us Weekly. The party, my friends, is over.
By doing this, Carter slams right into friends at CAA, the agency that represents Tom. He also essentially ends any relationship with Cruise. Since I’m not able yet to read the entire story–and won’t be until tonight–I am only going by the teaser on the Vanity Fair home page and by comments made on the blog belonging to former Scientologist and very active outside revealer Marty Rathbun. It doesn’t look good, that’s for sure.
Here’s a link to one of my original stories from FoxNews.com, 2005. I notice Fox has erased my byline. Ah well. Anyway:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160192,00.html
VF and Orth, probably through Rathbun, have played a devasating card in the Cruise-Scientology story. They’ve gotten a 33 year old actress named Nazanin Boniadi, a real beauty with a lilting English accent, to tell how she was auditioned as a possible wife for Cruise in 2004. Boniadi, who later got a lot of TV work, was an ambitious Scientology student from 2000 to 2003. She worked her way up to “OT5″–Operating Thetan, level 5– in short order. She was being fast tracked to be a big celebrity Scientologist.
It may be that Boniadi has left Scientology now as she is very friendly with another escapee, director Paul Haggis, as well. But her story from 2004 tracks with stories I wrote the following year about women being auditioned to be Mrs. Cruise. Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johnansson, and Kate Bosworth were on that list.
Katie Holmes, the youngest and most vulnerable, wound up the “winner.” I reported then exclusively that she left New York for a meeting with Cruise on “Mission Impossible 3″ around April 12, 2005 and was not seen or heard from again for 16 days until she turned up in Rome as the love of Tom Cruise’s life. The situation progressed quickly from there. Katie cut off all her ties to friends and business associates. She became pregnant with Suri and married Cruise. And then it all fell apart quickly this past spring, seven years later.
On Sunday evening, once I’ve read Orth’s piece, I’ll address other issues. But for now, just the notion that Vanity Fair–once very friendly to Cruise–has pulled the trigger is fascinating and brave of Carter. He senses that Cruise is “done” in Hollywood anyway. His power has been sapped by Holmes’s sneak attack this summer–a divorce in 11 days–unheard of.
And it’s not just CAA that Carter is toying with. It’s also Cruise’s legendary pit bull attorney Bert Fields. Because for Vanity Fair to take this on brings the discussion to a higher level than when it’s been in a tabloid. It’s also going to make it nearly a mission impossible for Cruise to publicity for his next film at Christmas without all of this being a major issue. Cruise may now have a seat next to Mel Gibson in Hollywood’s permanant penalty box.
Meanwhile, Boniadi remains fascinating, too. The Iranian born actress makes no mention of her deep (former?) association with Scientology on her website. It’s all about her work with Amnesty International now. Raw ambition in Hollywood–it’s the stuff of Jackie Collins novels. In fact, if I were my pal Jackie, I’d be typing right now as fast as I could. The rise of Naz Boniadi is a classic.
More tonight…
Tom Cruise’s Scientology Marriages: The Secret Wife-Auditioning Process Before Katie Holmes, Revealed
In the October issue, Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth
reports that in 2004 Scientology embarked on a top-secret project
headed by Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology chief David Miscavige,
which involved finding a girlfriend for Tom Cruise. According to several
sources, the organization devised an elaborate auditioning process in
which actresses who were already Scientology members were called in,
told they were auditioning for a new training film, and then asked a
series of curious questions including: “What do you think of Tom
Cruise?” Marc Headley, a Scientologist from age seven, who says he
watched a number of the audition videotapes when he was head of
Scientology’s in-house studio, tells Orth, “It’s not like you only have
to please your husband—you have to toe the line for Scientology.” Both
Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz ran afoul of Scientology and David
Miscavige, according to another former Scientologist. “You can’t do
anything to displease Scientology, because Tom Cruise will freak out,”
Headley says. (Scientology representatives deny that any such
search took place and have dismissed several of the story’s sources as
disgruntled apostates. David Miscavige and Tom Cruise declined to be
interviewed.)
According to Orth, Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born, London-raised actress and Scientologist,
was selected and dated Cruise from November 2004 until January 2005.
Initially she was told only that she had been selected for a very
important mission. In a month-long preparation in October 2004, she was
audited every day, a process in which she told a high-ranking
Scientology official her innermost secrets and every detail of her sex
life. Boniadi allegedly was told to lose her braces, her red highlights,
and her boyfriend. According to a knowledgeable source, she was shown
confidential auditing files of her boyfriend to expedite a breakup.
(Scientology denies any misuse of confidential material.) The source
says Boniadi signed a confidentiality agreement and was told that if she
“messed up” in any way she would be declared a Suppressive Person (a
pariah and enemy of Scientology).
Orth reports that in November 2004 Boniadi
was flown to New York, where she met Cruise. That’s when she first
sensed that this was possibly going to be an arranged marriage. For
their first date Cruise and Boniadi went to dinner at Nobu with an
entourage of Scientology aides, then to the skating rink at Rockefeller
Center, which was closed to the public especially for them. The two
spent that first night together but, according to several sources, they
did not have sex. At the Trump Tower, where Cruise and the entourage had
rented an entire floor, Cruise purportedly told Boniadi, “I’ve never
felt this way before.” She was given a second confidentiality agreement
specifically about Cruise to sign. Boniadi could tell her worried
parents (her mother was also a Scientologist) only that she was in New
York on a special Scientology project.
Though the first month of the relationship
was bliss, by the second month Boniadi was more and more often found
wanting, Orth reports. According to the knowledgeable source, anything
she said or did that Cruise found fault with he immediately reported to a
member of the Scientology staff, and she would be audited for it. This
began with her very first words to him, “Very well done,” regarding his
receiving Scientology’s Freedom Medal of Valor. The phrase implied that
Cruise was her junior. According to the knowledgeable source, Boniadi
also offended Scientology chief David Miscavige, who speaks rapidly,
because she kept saying, “Excuse me?” when she was entertaining him and
his wife during a visit to Telluride. In Scientology, the ability to
have your communication “land” is crucial. Boniadi was excoriated by
Cruise for disrespecting Miscavige. (A representative for Miscavige told
Vanity Fair, “Mr. Miscavige doesn’t remember any girlfriend of anyone, in his entire life, insulting him.”)
According to Orth, Boniadi was in love with
Cruise, but the intensity of his affection, especially his predilection
for public displays, overwhelmed her. “I get more love from an extra
than I get from you,” the actor reportedly complained. Every day Boniadi
spent two to three hours purging herself of “negative thoughts about
Tom.” She felt completely shut off; her only source of money was a
credit card issued in the name of Cruise’s production company.
Following the alleged episode with Miscavige,
Cruise barely acknowledged Boniadi, though she had moved into his house
and they shared a bedroom. By the third week in January, she was asked
to move into Scientology’s Celebrity Centre. Boniadi was told that
Cruise “wants someone with her own power—like Nicole.” When she asked
why Cruise would not break up with her himself, she was told he was not
to be disturbed. A Scientology official allegedly told her, by way of
explanation, “Naz, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him
drink.”
When a friend at a Scientology center in
Florida, where Boniadi was subsequently sent, asked why she was crying
all the time, Boniadi broke down and told her about her relationship
with Cruise, which she had been forbidden to do. According to the
knowledgeable source, the friend reported her. Boniadi’s punishment was
to scrub toilets with a toothbrush, clean bathroom tiles with acid, and
dig ditches in the middle of the night. After that she was sent out to
sell Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics on street corners. (A Scientology spokesperson responds: “The Church does not punish people, especially in [that] manner.”)
Orth also reveals:- According to several sources, Scientology made secret videotapes of Tom Cruise’s audits. (Scientology denies that Cruise’s audits were ever taped.)
- David Miscavige’s alleged indiscretions with audit reports of high-profile Scientologists. (Scientology representatives insist that Miscavige has always “rigorously upheld the sanctity and confidentiality of ministerial communications.”)
- Katie Holmes’s pre-nuptial agreement with Cruise, negotiated by her father, Martin, a divorce lawyer, reportedly filled five Bankers Boxes.
- Martin Holmes’s concerns about keeping his daughter from Scientology’s clutches before Suri was born.
- Why Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s children, Bella and Connor, were estranged from their mother.
Exclusive: Oscar Winner Paul Haggis on Tom Cruise Scientology Girlfriend: “I’m appalled that any church would treat its parishioners this way”
EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winning “Crash” writer-director Paul Haggis has confirmed for me the story of Naz Boniadi, the beautiful Iranian born actress whom Scientology tried to groom as Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in 2004-2005. Vanity Fair has just released a teaser of their extraordinary story (kudos to Graydon Carter) about Cruise’s auditioning of women to be his wife in the months leading up to his choosing of Katie Holmes in April 2005. Haggis left Scientology two years ago, which I wrote about extensively. His exit was then chronicled in the New Yorker. Haggis confirms Boniadi’s saga, and tells me that she, too, has left the cult. Here’s his email to me from Rome, where he ‘s prepping a film. Haggis says he will have no other comment on this situation beyond this:
“I’ve known Nazanin for about three years. I met her through a mutual friend when I was doing my own personal research into the allegations against Scientology, before I wrote my letter of resignation. Naz was embarrassed by her unwitting involvement in this incident and never wanted it to come out, so I kept silent. However I was deeply disturbed by how the highest ranking members of a church could so easily justify using one of their members; how they so callously punished her and then so effectively silenced her when it was done. It wasn’t just the threats; they actually made her feel ashamed, when all she had been was human and trusting.
After I wrote my resignation letter, a dozen or more “friends” and officials of the church repeatedly descended on me to demand that I destroy the letter and resign quietly. I told them that wasn’t an option for me. I also told them that I had more sources of information about the troubling nature of the organization then I was at liberty to divulge. This was one.
I’ve met quite a number of people who have been treated shamefully but are afraid to speak out. This story will draw attention because of our fascination with celebrity. Most of the others are just ordinary people whose stories, if told, would not appear in a magazine. They live in fear of retribution, legal, financial or personal, even some famous ones. They fear an incredibly wealthy organization that boasts that it seeks truth, empowers people, brings families together, encourages independent thought and free speech, and champions human rights. I would like to say that i don’t know how its members, many of them good and intelligent people, can remain so purposely blind when they are faced with evidence like this every day, but then I am no one to talk. I was happily blind for many years, so I know the shame that Naz feels.
In Naz’s case, she has no right to feel ashamed. She is not only a terrific actress at the beginning of a very promising career, she is a dedicated human rights activist and a truly lovely and caring person. The last thing she wanted or needed is this kind of publicity, but here it is, and I am sure she will deal with it with the same grace and dignity she exudes in her daily life. I’m appalled that any church would treat its parishioners this way, but Naz has never cast herself as a victim. She is strong and resilient and I am very proud to call her a friend.”
He adds in a second email:
“And FYI, in case this wasn’t clear, Naz quietly and privately resigned from the church a couple of years ago after several years of trying to handle this injustice internally, to no avail.”
