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CinemaBlend.com an Apologist for Leah Remini’s Instigated Threats and Violence

Remini’s hate campaign, misrepresented as a “public service” in your puff piece, has caused actual harm to individuals and families, as demonstrated in these specific instances I know of personally.

17 July 2017

CinemaBlend.com
St. Louis, MO 63105

Mr. Venable:

I read your piece on Leah Remini’s Emmy nomination and recognized the necessity to give you a more truthful view than your published narrow and one-sided version.

Remini and her 8-part A&E series that you fawn over have spawned some 500 death threats, bomb threats, acts of violence, and destruction of property. Schoolchildren have been bullied and families tormented and fractured. Many of these crimes have been investigated by police and some of the perpetrators have gone to prison. That is Leah Remini’s gift. And you laud this nomination?

A&E saw fit to blanket the homes surrounding a Scientologist and her daughter with letters attacking her as a Scientologist and taunting: ”If you get a chance watch Leah Remini’s show on A&E Scientology and the Aftermath.”
A Scientologist in her early 20s said: “I have been a Scientologist for nine years and have never been bullied so heavily as I have been since this show has aired.” The show broke up her family—she cannot now speak with her two siblings—her father forbids it.
Since Remini’s show, the daughter of a Scientologist has been subjected to insults and attacks against Scientology at school.
Several Scientologists have told me they have been harassed at work about their religion, and one of them has now left that job.
After a five-year relationship in which her Scientology religion had never been an issue, a woman’s boyfriend broke up with her as a direct result of watching Remini’s show.
In a family, Scientologist parents were progressing well in reestablishing a relationship with their estranged son, only to suffer a heartbreaking setback because he watched Remini’s hate series.

There are many, many more documented stories like this, with the lives of good people disrupted. So when you say “Leah Remini humbly deflected the initial attention,” it is sickening.

Please take a step back from what you wrote and what Remini says and does. It’s simple: She launched a hate campaign against her former Church and its members, some of whom were her friends. There is no altruism in her actions. It’s all about money and keeping her face and name in public. In return, we have done nothing other than reveal the consequences of her actions and the harm she causes the lives of real people.

Electing yourself an apologist for Leah Remini places you squarely in the position of publicly supporting the threats and violence to innocent people that her program has incited. I strongly urge you to reconsider your position.

Sincerely,
Alicia Selverson
New York, NY