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Arts & Entertainment

Report: Scientology Leader Watched Tom Cruise's Secretly-Taped Confessions For Fun

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The leader of Scientology enjoys taping the private "auditing" sessions of its celebrity members including Tom Cruise and watching them just for fun, according to a new report in Vanity Fair.

Former Scientologists who worked closely with David Miscavige tell the magazine that the leader of Scientology and a close personal friend of Tom Cruise used to watch Cruise's private auditing sessions—which are sort of like Scientology's version of confessions—just for their own personal entertainment.

Tom De Vocht, a former aide of Miscavige who used to run the Scientology center in Clearwater, told Vanity Fair about the fun the leader used to have watching Cruise's confessions:

According to De Vocht, Miscavige—often joined by his wife, Shelly—would whip out a bottle of Macallan scotch at two, three in the morning in the Officers Lounge, play backgammon, and read the Cruise reports with a running commentary. “He’s probably got a lot of embarrassing material,” De Vocht says, adding that Miscavige’s comments were usually about Cruise’s sex life. “He would roll his eyes and say, ‘Jeez, can you believe it?’” All the while, Miscavige claimed to be Cruise’s best friend.

Cruise isn't the only one whose videos were used as entertainment, according to another close aide of Miscavige. The aide Claire Headley says Miscavige used to watch the videos of Kirstie Alley and Lisa Marie Presley while she was married to Michael Jackson.This isn't the first time we've heard rumors that Cruise's audits were taped. Marty Rathbun, a former Scientologist and outspoken critic, told Radar a few years ago that Cruise's audits were taped by a hidden camera and microphone.

Representatives from Scientology denied that Cruise's audits were taped, but the magazine says the organization has admitted to taping audits in the past.

This Vanity Fair piece is the same one that profiled Nazanin Boniadi, the woman who failed her audition to be Cruise's wife. Scientology reps and Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields denied the story.

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