As the niece of Scientology’s leader (David “Tiny Tyrant” Miscavige), Jenna Miscavige was born into the cult and raised as one of the Sea Org members who sign a billion-year contract as early as age 7. Growing up, she spent very little time with her parents and endured 14+ hour workdays, 7 days per week with only a few days off per year. After her escape as a young adult, Jenna founded the ExScientologykids.com website with a couple of other ex-members, and now she lives a relatively normal life in San Diego with her husband (Dallas Hill, also a former Scientologist) and their two children.

Just this week, Jenna has released a book Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape that details her harrowing, brutal experiences within Scientology’s ranks as well as her eventual escape. Here’s a clip from Jenna’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s CNN show where she talks about barely ever seeing her parents and being brainwashed by the CO$ to the point where she disconnected from them when they left the Sea Org:

Notice that Jenna mentions the blatant irony of the Scientology Super Bowl ad. That’s exactly how desperate this cult is getting — they’ve been forced to purchase some of the most expensive advertising real estate in history. It’s really only a matter of time before this organization crumbles. In the meantime, Jenna has been doing her part to bring the CO$ down, and during the Piers Morgan interview, she discusses how celebrities are treated incredibly differently than the rest of the members. Primarily, she discusses whether or not Tom Cruise is aware of this discrepancy:

On the heels of a divisive Scientology ad that aired during the Super Bowl, on Tuesday evening “Piers Morgan Tonight” invited Jenna Miscavige Hill to share her unique perspective on the controversial religious organization.

The niece of current leader David Miscavige, the guest left the church nearly a decade ago and has since become an outspoken critic of the organization and its teachings.

Well-known for its connection to some of Hollywood’s biggest names — including Tom Cruise and John Travolta — Scientology has been accused of being a cult that brainwashes its members, and forces children into long hours of unlawful labor.

According to Hill, Cruise and others are either turning a blind eye, or simply perpetuating the problem:

“I think that either he does know what’s going on and he’s not talking about it, or he is willfully ignorant about it,” she says of the star of the “Mission: Impossible” franchises. “People who endorse an organization like this, I feel like they have a responsibility to know everything about it and know what they’re endorsing.”

Having grown up in the church, including staying with the organization for five years after her parents left, Hill told Piers Morgan that conditions and facilities designed for the general population are far different than those reserved for the group’s celebrity members:

“Obviously, the church itself is much nicer,” she revealed to the “Piers Morgan Tonight” host. “Celebrities have their own private entrances. There’s beautiful restaurants there. They have their own classrooms.”

[From CNN]

You know what? I’ve been going back and forth on this Tom Cruise issue for years now, and I’ve concluded that there is no way that he doesn’t realize how he’s treated like a god in this cult, and he just doesn’t see a problem with that. Tom is truly in love with his slave labor. As such, Tom is completely aware that he’s receiving loads of freebies in terms of construction labor and gifts, but he thinks he deserves it because he’s such a “big being“. He has absolutely no problem with his labor being of the unpaid variety because these poor thetans can reap the rewards of basking in the glow of Tom’s happiness. In short (ha!), Tom Cruise is a reprehensible human being.

Tony Ortega has also published a review of Jenna’s upcoming book, and his piece is quite lengthy. I started to excerpt the text, and I just couldn’t do it justice. In short, Jenna became disillusioned with the fabled OTIII level of L. Ron Hubbard’s scripture (the infamous Xenu/volcanoes tale) but decided to overlook that discrepancy because the CO$ was the only life that she knew. Once she got older, Jenna met Dallas Hill, and they fell in love. Unfortunately, the CO$ wouldn’t let them marry, so they engaged in premarital sex and were threatened with separation and never seeing each other again. That’s when they started to plot their escape and met several obstacles not limited to but including the permanent severance of communication from Dallas’ family. It’s a very riveting story, and here’s the link to Ortega’s excerpts if you want to learn more. In the meantime, here’s what Jenna had to say about her childhood:

“To me, the Church is a dangerous organization whose beliefs allow it to commit crimes against humanity and violate basic human rights. It remains a mystery to me how, in our current society, this can go on unchecked. It is particularly insidious because of its celebrity advocates and affiliated groups, such as Narconon, Applied Scholastics, and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. The list of duties and procedures went on endlessly, and the result of all this process, paperwork, and regulation was that there were no children at the Ranch — only little adults. At special events, we were dressed up in cute outfits and paraded in front of our parents and Int crew to make it seem as though Scientology was creating a normal and joyful childhood, when in fact we were all being robbed of it.”

[Tony Ortega’s The Underground Bunker]

“Little adults.” This term reminds me a lot of what we saw Suri Cruise experiencing before Katie Holmes had the foresight to file for divorce from Tom Cruise. If we get lucky, Jenna’s story will reach many ears who will find the courage to leave the CO$. In the internet (and Wikileaks) culture, we probably won’t see many people gullible enough to sign up with this cult. The primary interest, therefore, is helping people who are already “in” get “out” of this troublesome and unlawful organization.

Screencap courtesy of YouTube, photos courtesy of Freedom Magazine, Fame/Flynet, and Amazon