Hollywood's Love-Hate Relationship With Scientology

The Church of Scientology has spent decades courting Hollywood’s biggest names—so aggressively, in fact, that founder L. Ron Hubbard literally created a written recruitment program for it back in the 1950s. But here’s the thing about building a celebrity machine: eventually, some of the machine’s most famous parts start breaking down and going public about the damage.

Tom Cruise remains Scientology’s A-list poster child. The Top Gun star got pulled into the orbit through his first wife, Mimi Rogers, back in 1990, and his commitment has reportedly cost him dearly—both his marriages to Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes ended in 2001 and 2012 respectively, with the church cited as a major factor in both splits. He’s the kind of true believer the organization wants: visible, successful, and unwavering.

But the narrative gets messier when you look at who’s walked away. Leah Remini joined as a child at age 9 and spent decades inside before leaving in 2013. What followed wasn’t quiet retirement from public life—she launched a full-scale campaign to expose what she calls the church’s wrongdoings, publishing her memoir Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology and hosting the Emmy-winning A&E series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Laura Prepon, who spent years as a devoted member, quietly stepped back after realizing in 2021 that she hadn’t practiced in close to five years. Jason Beghe left in 2008 and didn’t mince words, calling the church“very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional health and evolution.”

The 2023 departure of Bijou Phillips adds another layer. She quietly left Scientology in January 2024, just months after her husband, fellow Scientologist Danny Masterson, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on two counts of forcible rape. These aren’t random exits—they’re people reassessing their entire belief system in real time, often publicly.

Meanwhile, new members keep joining. In July 2026, Teen Wolf alum Dylan Sprayberry went on Instagram to announce his three-year journey as a Scientologist, crediting the church’s purification rundown program with helping him get clean from drugs. His testimonial echoes what longtime members have been saying for decades: Scientology works.

What’s clear is that Scientology operates in two Hollywood modes simultaneously. There’s the recruitment machine humming along, offering spiritual solutions to addictions, depression, and existential dread. And then there’s the exit pipeline—people who eventually come to see the organization very differently, and who aren’t shy about saying so.