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scientology
Why The Church Of Scientology Won't Let Me Show You Their Propaganda Videos
Why did the Church of Scientology buy a channel on YouTube? Well, remember how a video of Tom Cruise babbling about Scientology cropped up on YouTube? And how the Church got the video taken down so we put it on Gawker and then another copy stayed on YouTube? Well the Church tried to fight its critics with a regular user account, but that didn't work; the organization had no more visible cred than the anonymous people accusing it of suppressing free speech. So now the Church bought themselves this fancy channel stocked with 82 videos about their religion. Most are just bland, and some are delightfully creepy, even if they lack the star power of Tom Cruise. But I'm not allowed to show them here. More »
tom cruise
Tom Cruise's Fling With Cher Ends Gay Talk
Oh, look, Tom Cruise did a very straight, manly thing back in his formative days that will finally make everyone stop looking for signs the Hollywood star is a homosexual: He boned Cher! Cruise had a fling with the noted heterosexual icon and pop diva in the mid-1980s after running into her at a White House fundraising event, which apparently had to do with raising money for people with learning disabilities. Cruise was 23 and Cher 39. Cruise's breakthrough hit Risky Business had just come out. Cher told Oprah all about the affair recently at a show taping in Las Vegas. Oddly, things were a little awkward, according to a summary of Cher's comments in the Daily Mail: More »
the fake gays
When Craigy Met Xenu
Because it's a lovely spring Friday (with birds and sun and loud, thumping reggaeton) and because I'm on a never-ending quest to ruin this website, I thought I'd post another video blargh by everyone's favorite Broadway nut, Craig Stevens. Yeah, yeah. I know. He's a made-up character named after a voice teacher at NYU, but whatever. The videos are funny and depressing. In this installment the lil' diva recounts adventures at Spamalot, worries about work, gushes about some warbly Wicked actress, and reveals that (unbeknownst to him) he was hoodwinked by rascally Scientologists. Enjoy it after the jump. Or go outside. More »
scientology
Jason Beghe's Anti-Scientology Video Cancelled In YouTube's Area
The Church of Scientology scored another victory on Google's YouTube, where administrators suspended the account of the church critic who recently posted a video interview with actor and former Scientologist Jason Beghe. The effect of the suspension is to break embedded copies of the video on sites like Gawker and to help muffle Beghe's criticism of the cult as financially and emotionally exploitive. At the moment, one other copy of the interview exists on YouTube, uploaded yesterday, but it's unclear how long that copy will live. After the jump, Gawker's own copy of the Beghe video, a video posted to YouTube about the account suspension, and comments from a tipster who thinks the suspension will be as temporary as YouTube's January yanking of Tom Cruise's Scientology indoctrination video. More »
jason beghe
Celebrity Ex-Scientologist: "Let Will Smith Know That His Shit Was Fucking Recorded"
Jason Beghe, the television and film actor starring in a blunt video about his Scientology days, has begun a media campaign to spread what he knows about the cult, and his latest salvo is a Village Voice interview in which he calls the Church of Scientology a "gossip factory" and says that it tapes all of its auditing sessions using secret cameras. "He's been cheating on his wife," he was told of one actor he wanted to cast in a recruiting video. He also has some dirt on Tom Cruise: More »
scientology
Daughter Of Norwegian Parliament Offs Herself After Bad Scientology Test, Says Tabloid
You've seen the stress tests on the street; the Church of Scientology gives people "e-meter" tests to show that their personalities are broken and can only be fixed by the Church. But a 20-year-old daughter of a Norwegian Parliament member killed herself after getting a bad score on the Church's personality test, says tabloid Verdens Gang (English translation here). The story's iffy — the main evidence seems to be a copy of the test results, which Kaja Bordevich Ballo's family found in her apartment. The results are dated hours before she died; the Church "has rooms just a few meters from the place where Kaja lived." But it was enough for Norway's leading paper to run on the front page, now that Tom Cruise has made Scientology news so popular. More »
jason beghe
Actor OT V: "If Scientology Is Real, Something Is Fucked Up"
I'm not particularly familiar with the television and movie work of actor Jason Beghe, but I was still riveted by his comments in this YouTube video about Scientology. It's not surprising to hear the cult described as exploitive and ineffective, even traumatic. But it is rare to hear anyone with a significant showbiz profile give voice to these complaints. In fact, the YouTube caption claims Beghe is the "first celebrity Scientologist to sit down and publicly talk about his experiences after leaving the group." Also, about 2:30 in, Beghe affects a creepy laugh that sounds a lot like Tom Cruise. [YouTube]
feuds
Hollywood Insiders Laugh With Tom Cruise, Not At Him
A studio lot full of Hollywood "agents, managers, publicists and reporters" found Scientology messiah Tom Cruise hilarious Tuesday night, the Times reported, not because the actor is certifiably insane but because he did a mean impression of Sumner Redstone, the Viacom and Paramount boss who cut ties with Cruise two years ago. The crowd was watching a screening of Paramount comedy Tropic Thunder, which includes a performance by Cruise as a redheaded, pudgy studio executive with lots of chest hair and a penchant for cussing and dirty dancing — a ringer for Redstone. Cruise's performance killed among insiders primed for Hollywood in-jokes and long accustomed to Cruise's unbalanced personality, but it's unlikely the rest of the moviegoing public will be as tickled, and weird that the chummy screening got any notice at all in the Times, even if the paper was trying to make up for missing the story of Cruise's make-up lunch with Redstone last week. After the jump, a side-by-side comparison of Cruise, made up for his character, and Redstone. More »
henchmen
Scientology's Hilarious Goons
Recent Scientology protests have brought us all joy and laughter, but it wasn't until today that we saw a photo of the church's security goons guarding the New York headquarters. They look, as an ANONYMOUS tipster pointed out, "like they are playing arms dealers in a shoestring-budget 1990s USA Network spy thriller." You'll be sorry when Dolph Lundgren shows up, Scientology! [Security guards by Vidiot]
scientology
Tom Cruise Parodies Continue, Get More Polished
Two months after Tom Cruise's insane Scientology video surfaced, people continue to lampoon the leaked footage, often with weak results. But now the meme has leapt into mainstream cinema. The following clip comes from Dimension Films' forthcoming Superhero Movie and is, as you might expect, the slickest crazy-Cruise imitation yet, as well as one of the funniest. Actor Miles Fisher's Scientology spoofing is after the jump. More »
We love LA, cops.
[youtube.com]
The guy you see being taken across the street with the green face paint has, and this is CONFIRMED, been Released. (a few hours ago actually.) Friends of his bailed him out. Bail was set at $763.00. He has two charges against him, but it's expected that they'll be dropped the second he enters the courtroom. Dekalb police step up the repressive factor — Suddenly! Arrests out of the blue. They were arrested for:
1)Protesting without a permit. Which we were told repeatedly by them before the event that we did NOT need a permit.
2)Causing offensive or hazardous conditions. Will upload what the police said to us MUCH later in the protest. Update:
Contrast this to how LA Police treated Anonymous: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k9yIBOnbJjY[www.youtube.com]
tom cruise
Secret Video: The Scientologists Celebrate The Birthday Of The Prophet, Tom Cruise
Andrew Morton wrote in his best-selling biography of Tom Cruise that the Hollywood star was prominent in the hierarchy of the Church of Scientology. Of all of the author's claims, it was the one that most enraged the sect: "Insinuations that Mr. Cruise is second-in-command of the Church are not only false, they are ludicrous," the Scientologists maintained. "He is neither 2nd or 100th. Mr. Cruise is a Scientology parishioner and holds no official or unofficial position in the Church hierarchy. Claims to the contrary are offensive to both Mr. Cruise and the Church." But if Cruise was merely a humble parishioner, why in Xenu's name did the sect spend six figures to celebrate his birthday in 2004? In a video obtained by Gawker, watch Scientology chief David Miscavige lead the sect's most famous follower into an extravagant celebration of the Hollywood star on Scientology cruise ship, Freewinds. Cruise's entrance is, of course, to the theme music from Top Gun, one of the movies for which the actor is best known, or was, until he took up his new role as evangelist for the bizarre Church. After the movie clips are played, and the bands perform, Cruise exclaims: "This is incredible... It's the best birthday ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, and I mean ever!" We agree! The best moment: watch Cruise in a duet of Old Time Rock and Roll, demonstrating the dance moves we first saw in Risky Business, the picture that made his name. He was so young then; and we, thankfully, knew so much less about him. VIDEO» More »
scientology
The Scientology Counterattack Against Anonymous Is Underway
The Church of Scientology strikes back! Online. Having grown tired of being hounded on the internet by the anonymous cyber-protest group "Anonymous," Scientology not only filed an injunction in court (which failed), but also posted its own counterattack videos to YouTube. Under the account name "AnonymousFacts," the main video charges the group with "hate crimes" against Scientology—characterizing the group as terrorists. Scientology also made separate videos "exposing" several individual members of Anonymous. And someone submitted those videos to Digg, and even started Wikipedia entries attacking the Anonymous members. It's a significantly different—and more sophisticated—strategy for Scientology, which usually relies on secrecy, intimidation, and litigation to get its way, rather than trawling for internet influence. The four full videos are below: First is the main one, "Anonymous- Hate Crimes & Terrorism Directed At Scientology," followed by three separate videos aimed at exposing specific Anonymous members. More »
jerry o'connell
Bonnie Prince Charlie Reincarnated As B-Level Actor
If someone says to you, "Quick, name a modern-day equivalent of the exiled Jacobite Scottish noble Bonnie Prince Charlie," nobody would blame you for blurting out, "Jerry O'Connell, the B-actor who got his start in the 1986 coming-of-age tale Stand By Me." That's exactly what the people at Drambuie liqueur thought, too. So they signed up O'Connell, one of the five most famous actors to appear in Jerry Maguire, to add a little star power to the 2008 "Drambuie Pursuit Competition," which will have him racing across 100 miles of harsh terrain in the Scottish highlands, retracing the ancient steps of a fleeing Bonnie Prince Charlie—who legendarily held the secret Drambuie recipe, dummy! Hard to parse the intricate branding strategies in all this, but we think the message is: Jerry O'Connell is a drunk. Below, the choicest fabricated quotes from the press release, and a bonus clip of O'Connell's impression of Tom Cruise's Scientology video—one of his career highlights. More »
campaigns
