going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

situation: “You don’t get it. It goes like this.” He raised his hand over his head. “First,
there’s LRH.” He moved his hand down a few inches. “Then, there is COB.” Bringing his
hand down to his own eye level, he said, “Then there’s me.”
Two weeks later, Jessica Feshbach told Naz to pack her things. Cruise was too busy to
say good-bye. Naz’s last glimpse was of him working out in his home gym.
Davis later explained to her that Cruise had simply changed his mind about the
relationship, deciding that he needed someone with more power. But the star was
willing to make amends by paying for a package that would allow her to attain OT VII.
Continuing up the Bridge would help her deal with her grief and loss, Davis assured her.
In February 2005, Naz went to Clearwater to take the courses. At first, she was treated
like a VIP, but soon one of her friends noticed dramatic changes in her—she was
weeping all the time. Naz conded that she had just gone through a wrenching breakup
with Tom Cruise. The shocked friend immediately reported her to Ethics. Naz was
assigned a condition of Treason and ordered to do reparations for the damages she had
done to the group by revealing her relationship with Cruise. She was made to dig ditches
and scrub public toilets with a toothbrush. Finally, in June, she worked her way back
into good standing with the church, but she was ordered to stay away from the Celebrity
Centre. Davis advised her to go live in some far corner of the world and never utter
another word about Tom Cruise. 9
The search for a new mate for the star now went beyond Scientologists. Cruise briey
courted the Colombian actress Sofía Vergara, whom he met at a pre-Oscar party hosted
by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, but that relationship dissolved when Vergara refused to
become a Scientologist. The religion was a crucial factor, both for Cruise and for the
church. Cruise was particularly interested in Jennifer Garner. Other actresses were
invited to the Celebrity Centre to audition for what they believed was a role in the
Mission: Impossible series. The names included Kate Bosworth, Jessica Alba, Lindsay
Lohan, Scarlett Johansson—and Katie Holmes.
Holmes was an ingenue with almond-shaped brown eyes, who described herself as a
twenty-six-year-old virgin. She had been a top student at an all-girls Catholic high school
in Toledo, Ohio, but like Tommy Davis, she had dropped out of Columbia University
after a single semester. Soon she was starring on the teenage soap opera Dawson’s Creek
and had a modest lm career in coquettish roles. Church researchers discovered an
interview she had given to Seventeen in October 2004. “I think every young girl dreams
about [her wedding],” Holmes told the magazine. “I used to think I was going to marry
Tom Cruise.” She had developed a crush on the actor when he appeared in Risky
Business. At the time, she was four years old.
Katie and Tom met in April 2005. “I was in love from the moment that I shook his
hand for the rst time,” she later told talk-show host Jay Leno. Cruise is famous for his
ardent courtship—owers, jewelry, and imaginative dates. He took Katie on a nighttime
helicopter ride over Los Angeles, with take-out sushi. Within a little more than two
weeks, she had moved into Cruise’s Beverly Hills mansion, red her manager and agent
and replaced them with his representatives, and had begun to be accompanied by
Jessica Feshbach, who was explained in press interviews as being her “best friend.”