10 Jaw-Dropping Revelations From Leah Remini’s Scientology Tell-All, Troublemaker

And the truth bombs continue: Leah Remini, who spent more than 30 years as a Scientologist, is now blowing the lid on her former religion and its crazy practices and policies. First came a revealing 20/20 interview that delved into Remini’s personal experiences with the religion; then, a follow-up with Good Morning America shed light on why Katie Holmes also left Scientology. But now comes the mother of Remini’s revelations: Her tell-all memoir, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, is out today—and in it, Remini touches on everything from the religion’s cultlike methods to Tom Cruise’s bizarre behavior to his famous ex-wives, Katie Holmes and Nicole Kidman. We’ve handpicked 10 of the most shocking passages from the book; read on for the crazy details below:

She was physically abused as a teenager in the Sea Org. “He [Sea Org leader Mike Curley] cut the engine and started screaming at me. ‘Never do you sit in a public place. You are Sea Org members. Don’t you know that the pool at that hotel is for paying guests only, not for you to be enjoying? Do you understand me?’ he yelled. ‘Mm-hmm,’ I said. ‘It’s ‘yes sir!”… Mike kept trying to get me to say ‘yes sir.’ But I couldn’t do it. Then he picked me up and before I even realized what was happening, he threw me overboard. The shock of the moment and the freezing water took my breath away, and for an instant I thought I was going to drown.”

Leah’s infant sister, Shannon, was kept in horrifying conditions at the Sea Org. “‘Nursery’ was a charitable term for the motel room in the Quality Inn filled with cribs of crying, neglected babies, flies, and the smell of dirty diapers. The only ventilation came from a huge fan by the window…. The person in charge was a kid like me, just some random teenage Sea Org member on post, who was hardly qualified to be taking care of children. Shannon was crying and soaked with urine in her crib…. The neglect was overwhelming.”

Children are largely left on their own in Scientology. “In Scientology, minors are considered spiritual beings and not children in need of protection and guidance. You are the only one responsible for the condition of your life, regardless of your age. The Sea Org members believed that their kids could make up their own minds. As a result, these kids could no longer live with their parents…. Even if that meant they ended up practically squatting, or sleeping in a stranger’s apartment, their parents felt that it was the child’s decision to make.”

Childbirth is expected to be a near silent experience in Scientology. “Scientologists espouse the concept of ‘silent birth,’ which LRH described in Dianetics as providing an environment where no one—not even the doctors or nurses in the room—talks during the delivery. It’s because in times of pain, loss, or unconsciousness, ‘words, in particular, spoken during these moments, can have an adverse effect on one later in life.’ Women can make sounds during birth; they just aren’t supposed to say any words.”

Remini was forced to steal food as a teenage Sea Org member because she was hungry—and Scientology made her pay for it years later. “I gave this up as a transgression and my auditor asked how much I thought I owed to make up the damage for the food I stole 20 years earlier. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How much was custard and hamburgers for three months in the ’80s?’ ‘Well, let’s just round it up to $40,000. Okay?’… I was dumbfounded, but I was also trying to get onto my OT levels, so I paid the church $40,000 for this transgression.”

Moving up in Scientology requires hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Having grown up a Scientologist, I knew firsthand the financial sacrifice that the church demands of its ordinary practitioners…On a more personal level, I had watched my whole family struggle to move up the Bridge. They were $250,000 in debt at this point. The fact that people making average salaries of $50,000 a year somehow find a way to pay the $500,000 necessary to get on their OT levels—frankly, it’s a superhuman task. The level of dedication is astonishing and admirable, but over the long term it means financial destruction for a lot of people and families.”

Tom Cruise doesn’t like premade cookie dough or chipped coffee mugs. “People were terrified of offending Tom, and not without reason. Once when Angelo and I were over, Tom decided he wanted to make cookies. He walked into the kitchen, where a batch of prepackaged cookie dough had been prepared and was sitting on the counter, a perfect loaf ready for cutting and baking. Tom was looking for flour and other ingredients and must not have seen the cookie dough, and he instantly got angry…. ‘Goddamn it!’… I thought about the time a friend had mentioned to me that she witnessed him taking his assistant to task for giving him a chipped coffee mug. ‘You served me tea in a chipped mug? Do you know who gets served with a mug that’s chipped? F—king DBS,’ he said, using the initials for ‘Degraded Being,’ a term in Scientology that means degraded spiritual being.

Suri Cruise was left crying on the bathroom floor at Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding. “Suri was also there that night. I heard a baby crying from the direction of the bathroom. She was a seven-month-old up late in a loud, crowded, dark restaurant, so what else was she going to do? The crying kept up, and Katie didn’t seem to notice…Is anyone going to do anything? I thought. After about five minutes I headed to the bathroom to offer some help. When I opened the door, I found three women, including Tom’s sister and his assistant, standing over the baby, who was lying on the tile floor…. Rather than talking to her in a soothing voice, they kept saying, ‘Suri! Suri!’ in a tone that sounded like they were telling an adult to get her shit together.”

Nicole Kidman is allegedly labeled by Scientology as an SP, or Suppressive Person. “On the way to the airport from the wedding, Angelo and I found ourselves in the same van as Bella and Connor Cruise…. I had always wondered why they didn’t have a relationship with their mom [Nicole Kidman], but I could never ask them, because there was always someone else around. Driving to the airport alone with them, I had my chance. ‘Hey guys. How’s your mom? Do you see her a lot?’ I asked. ‘Not if I have a choice,’ Bella said. ‘Our mom is a f—king SP.'”

As is Katie Holmes. “The divorce was settled in less than two weeks and Katie ended up with primary custody. Tom seemed to acknowledge that Katie left because she wanted to protect Suri from Scientology. It made me wonder whether protecting his church was more important to him than his own daughter. Katie’s action, of filing for divorce in such a public way (it had quickly been picked up by the media), would definitely get her declared a Suppressive Person by the church.”