Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 1: to today's show. Um, we haven't talked in a long time.
Speaker 1: She reached out to me, which was really huge of
Speaker 1: her because I really don't I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: that big. Sometimes when wounds are still fresh, Um, it can.
Speaker 1: It definitely can create tension. I'm really gonna have to
Speaker 1: have my listening ears on and really just listen and
Speaker 1: really understand her side versus being defensive. For years, it's
Speaker 1: been rumored that I was a scientology is because I
Speaker 1: took some courses at the church and was interested in
Speaker 1: study Tech, one of the organization's teaching methods. I also
Speaker 1: opened a school that used the study Tech, which added
Speaker 1: to the speculation. Leah Remedy was a scientologist her whole life.
Speaker 1: Our problem started when she included a story about a
Speaker 1: party we both attended in her memoir. Her experience that
Speaker 1: night was different than mine, and when asked about it
Speaker 1: on Andy Cohen's Bravo show. I explained what I remembered
Speaker 1: from that evening. I know she kind of made it
Speaker 1: seem kind of weird, but it really wasn't. Leah had
Speaker 1: issues with my response, and from there our private disagreement
Speaker 1: became a public battle. We haven't talked in years, but
Speaker 1: she's coming to the Red table so we can finally
Speaker 1: hear each other out. Oh yeah, yellow and red, yellow
Speaker 1: and boy, pretty think about the Lemony show today. We
Speaker 1: got a minute, so we might as well talk. Here's
Speaker 1: my position. People are suffering bad, you know. And when
Speaker 1: I look at Leah, like whatever she experienced with the
Speaker 1: Church of Scientology hurt her bad and hurt people, hurt people.
Speaker 1: And she took a shot at us out of pain.
Speaker 1: She was hurt and she started taking shots at us.
Speaker 1: And I commend you, babe, for taking on these these
Speaker 1: kinds of topics. But you know, I gotta give lea
Speaker 1: promps because she opened the door. Yeah, you know, she
Speaker 1: made the first move towards a reconciliation. So it's Leah here. Okay,
Speaker 1: what sid I like your operation? Thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, my pleasure. You look gorgeous, you do,
Speaker 1: and you always do you got that skin? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I really want to say I
Speaker 1: really I want to start out by thanking you for
Speaker 1: even in like for this. It says a lot to me,
Speaker 1: and so it I come with that. I come with
Speaker 1: this open heart, and I know that you invited me
Speaker 1: with an open heart, so definitely, and this is actually
Speaker 1: the first time that I'll actually be talking about my involvement,
Speaker 1: you know, with the church or what have you. And
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you to you first because
Speaker 1: you actually opened the door for this. You did Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did with your communication with Dwayne. Just did you know,
Speaker 1: get you guys up to speed. Dwayne Martin, who um
Speaker 1: we're making reference to it now, happens to be a
Speaker 1: mutual friend of Lee and I both. I remember the
Speaker 1: first time I met you was twenty years ago, and
Speaker 1: then we reconnected at Church of Scientology. I went off
Speaker 1: and did my thing. You eventually went off and did
Speaker 1: your thing, and then you wrote a book, and it
Speaker 1: upset me because I didn't understand why we had to
Speaker 1: be in your book, because you know, when we really
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with this, and there were
Speaker 1: headlines about Scientology and I didn't go seek at Tom's
Speaker 1: and how you know, Will and I had participated and
Speaker 1: I was hurt, but I never said anything but Jada,
Speaker 1: I wasn't even considering that you would be hurt. Like
Speaker 1: I literally, looking back on it, I didn't even consider
Speaker 1: Jada and Will. I was going in hard on my rightness.
Speaker 1: And then I looked at it and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: what responsibility do I have? Can I take here for
Speaker 1: upsetting somebody that I actually really care about? And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that I didn't consider you because I didn't. I
Speaker 1: was I was so caught up and they I don't
Speaker 1: want to cry. I was just caught up in that pain,
Speaker 1: right and also the pain of others and the effects
Speaker 1: that it had. And you know, I come from a world, Jada,
Speaker 1: of of fighting, you know. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: that was particularly your experience with scientology, but my world
Speaker 1: fully indoctrinated as a child. There's a lot of anger
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of fighting, and that is what
Speaker 1: I was raised with. Just a lot of the world
Speaker 1: is bad. Everyone who's not a scientologist is bad. Now,
Speaker 1: what I do know for a fact is you really
Speaker 1: didn't know Leah, because what we're taught is to act
Speaker 1: a certain way around other celebrities. And when the thing
Speaker 1: happened on on on Bravo, like I was floored. I
Speaker 1: was really really like, wow, Jada is not only is
Speaker 1: she in scientology, but now they sent Jada out right.
Speaker 1: I guess that's that's the secret. That's Yeah, we just
Speaker 1: really like each other. I'm sure you've been asked us
Speaker 1: before because Leah Remedy in her book talked about like
Speaker 1: a game of hide and Seek at your house with
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise. It was Tom's house, it was Tom's house,
Speaker 1: and you wanted to play hide and Seek with everybody,
Speaker 1: but she didn't want to play or it didn't happen, right,
Speaker 1: did you have you played to? This is when our
Speaker 1: kids were really small, and Tom loved games. That was
Speaker 1: the whole point of Tom was just fun like that.
Speaker 1: So I know she kind of made it seem kind
Speaker 1: of weird, but it really wasn't. It was just a
Speaker 1: bunch of us goofing off with their kids and playing
Speaker 1: silly games. There's always a backstory. There's always a backstory. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I hope this has been a fun girl's trip to
Speaker 1: the clubhouse. He doesn't tell you what he's going to
Speaker 1: talk about he just throws stuff at you, you know.
Speaker 1: And so when that came up, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: not how I remember that night going, you know. And
Speaker 1: I my producer told me that you felt like I
Speaker 1: wasn't supportive of you. And I just want you to
Speaker 1: know that you had basically created a situation for Will
Speaker 1: and I now, and I didn't know that. I know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I know, but I'm clear on
Speaker 1: that now. So I'm just giving you this where I
Speaker 1: was in that in that framework of why you might
Speaker 1: have felt as if I didn't have your back, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because at that point, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I gotta protect Will and I when the thing happened
Speaker 1: on on on Bravo, And I should also tell you this,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you really do know this,
Speaker 1: but scientology has policies called fair game, and that's too
Speaker 1: discredit and attack anyone who's speaking out against some of
Speaker 1: the abuses of scientology. But I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like she's even more in than I had thought, you know, so,
Speaker 1: and I was wrong. So when I saw somebody had
Speaker 1: tweeted me and said, why is Jada throwing shadey you.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait what So when I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was hurt because like, oh, she's oh so she's
Speaker 1: in she's fair gaming me. Fair game is a policy
Speaker 1: in scientology that calls for the utter destruction of a
Speaker 1: critic of scientology. So the thing to do there's there's
Speaker 1: you get trained on how to do this. You first
Speaker 1: deal with it with a laugh, you know, like it's boring,
Speaker 1: it's not worth watching or not worth reading. And the
Speaker 1: second thing is a discredit the facts. That's why I said,
Speaker 1: and Jada is a scientologist, because there's no reason for
Speaker 1: Jada to be doing that other than fair gaming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I want to apologize to you because
Speaker 1: you know, I'd never just so you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: fair gaming you on Andy Cood but it was yeah,
Speaker 1: but literally it was just like, Okay, that's not how
Speaker 1: I remember that happening. I want to acknowledge that I
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings, and that's the last thing I want
Speaker 1: to do. I don't get any joy out of hurting people.
Speaker 1: I really don't. And when I saw that you made
Speaker 1: that statement, I was like, yeah, I felt the need
Speaker 1: to respond to something that I thought was untrue. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't attack and and listen, this is why it's
Speaker 1: so important just to have communication because this was just
Speaker 1: a big gass misunderstanding because you saw me at the
Speaker 1: Scientology Center, will and I always being accused of being
Speaker 1: scientologists in this and being that, and what's rap I'm like,
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is is that that is literally
Speaker 1: if we've walked into my library right now. Like, I
Speaker 1: love religion because I grew up in the Ethical Society.
Speaker 1: So my grandmother was like, You're gonna learn all the
Speaker 1: religious and then you got to decide which one you
Speaker 1: want to practice that So for me, all religions have
Speaker 1: been my home, which is why I didn't have a
Speaker 1: problem going to the Church of Scientology and saying I'm
Speaker 1: not a scientologist. I want to just be here and
Speaker 1: see what you have to offer, because that was my life.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm used to, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 1: but I totally see with in your shoes, your reality,
Speaker 1: how you could see me the way that you did, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always took the position that I'm here at the
Speaker 1: Scientology Center to learn what I want to learn, and
Speaker 1: I have no interest in being a scientologist. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that I really prided myself in was
Speaker 1: to be able to be amongst that group of scientologists
Speaker 1: and still hold my own in regards to no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't tell me that I'm this because I've read
Speaker 1: past this page. No no, no no, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: if I decided to do that. And you were allowed
Speaker 1: to do that because oh yeah, who you are and
Speaker 1: who your husband is, and regardless of what was being
Speaker 1: presented to you from me as a friend, you were
Speaker 1: seeing a side of me that wasn't a authentic because
Speaker 1: my job was to always be a perfect person in
Speaker 1: front of you or any celebrity, to solely get you
Speaker 1: into scientology, fully indoctrinated, fully on board, and deserting any
Speaker 1: other beliefs or or systems of learning. If you know,
Speaker 1: you cannot dabble in scientologist. I just never got any
Speaker 1: of that, Like, of course you wouldn't. Yeah, I never,
Speaker 1: of course you wouldn't. First of all, your Jada, that's
Speaker 1: number one on its own. Number two. You're married to Will,
Speaker 1: So there's a certain protocol and there's certain things you
Speaker 1: would not see. You would not be privy too. So
Speaker 1: when I saw you, when we became friendly, I was like,
Speaker 1: here's one person. Here's this ballsy, badass chick who is
Speaker 1: a lover but also well, you know, put you in
Speaker 1: your place. Then the wedding, oh yeah, we had it
Speaker 1: was the wedding Tom and Kate's wedding, right, so the
Speaker 1: wedding together, and I'm like tired. I have a newborn baby,
Speaker 1: so I'm not really excited about sitting down to a
Speaker 1: twenty course meal. But I can't say any of that.
Speaker 1: If I say anything that's critical, I would have gotten
Speaker 1: my ass handed to me had I been critical of
Speaker 1: anything that was happening at that wedding. And I have
Speaker 1: people listening to everything that I'm saying. After the wedding, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get sent to Florida, Okay for interrogation for three
Speaker 1: months because I was saying things at the wedding like
Speaker 1: where is Shelley Scavenge, the leader's wife. I when I
Speaker 1: got home to l A, I had a stack of
Speaker 1: reports written on me, internal reports from scientologists saying that
Speaker 1: I was this at the wedding. I was that. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this is what's happening. What
Speaker 1: why am I getting all these? And I know I
Speaker 1: remember that because I do remember when I got home
Speaker 1: and oh that was happening. I was like, you know
Speaker 1: what good for Leah? No, really like the fact that
Speaker 1: where is your friend? Where is she? You know? And
Speaker 1: I had a lot of respect for the fact that
Speaker 1: you would not give up on that question. Well it's
Speaker 1: still not answered today, despite me hiring a lawyer, and
Speaker 1: that lawyer through the Public Information Act trying to get information,
Speaker 1: we are still stop being stone wall today about where
Speaker 1: is Shelley Scavenge, the leader's wife? I guess And three months,
Speaker 1: this is when I'm on a hiatus for King of
Speaker 1: Queens and I spend my time literally being derogated for
Speaker 1: three months. What are your evil intentions towards David Mims Scavenge?
Speaker 1: What are your even towards scientology? Like battering me for
Speaker 1: three months and until I said I didn't see the
Speaker 1: things that I said I saw. I'm sorry, the wife
Speaker 1: is not missing. Was I able to leave? And then
Speaker 1: I went back to work. But I was interrogated for years,
Speaker 1: for years and punished for years, and it took me
Speaker 1: six years to extract myself out of it. And then
Speaker 1: I wrote the book got it? And then you wrote
Speaker 1: the book. Okay, yeah, Leah it's such a trip. So
Speaker 1: now in listening to your experience and everything that you
Speaker 1: went through, I totally understand how we got into that clash,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's just it's just showing me over
Speaker 1: and over again at that how kindness is always the
Speaker 1: way because you don't know what people are going through period.
Speaker 1: And I really truly deeply apologize. I should have thought
Speaker 1: about the names in the book. I should have thought
Speaker 1: about what that meant for you guys, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: It's okay, I love you anyway, and I love you anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the other thing that I'm learning from this is
Speaker 1: just having the courage to show that vulnerability. It's not
Speaker 1: easy because when you do, especially as women, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we need to stit together. We don't see a
Speaker 1: whole lot of that, you know, publicly. You know, both
Speaker 1: of us are strong freaking warriors, you know, and it
Speaker 1: takes a little softness and gentleness to to just lay
Speaker 1: it down. And the moment, the moment Dwayne Martin said
Speaker 1: to me that you reached out to him, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna grab this moment. Thank you, But it was you.
Speaker 1: Do you know that you were really such a huge
Speaker 1: person in this because I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: done that, but you did, and that is that's huge.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, damn near fifty kind of feeling like
Speaker 1: I'm just for the first time really finding out who
Speaker 1: I really am as opposed to what has been taught
Speaker 1: to me. It's even just being a mom now because
Speaker 1: my daughter is now the most important thing. You know,
Speaker 1: Well you hope you also learned I'm selfish as all hell,
Speaker 1: and I realized that a lot. Okay, Like even when
Speaker 1: she's talking to me at the end of day, I'm like,
Speaker 1: is she still like she's just talking at me, like
Speaker 1: like it's a run on sentence like, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: isn't that amazing? Right? You just got me out of
Speaker 1: my self absorbed little world that I'm right, And there's
Speaker 1: such a gift in that way. Absolutely. I I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, my daughter has taught me so much.
Speaker 1: And I really had to learn through my kids how
Speaker 1: to access my more vulnerable side, you know, because they
Speaker 1: happen to be super affectionate kids and I didn't grow
Speaker 1: up that way, you know, And so my journey has
Speaker 1: been through my children to get to um just that gooey,
Speaker 1: vulnerable soft, you know, because how we both have grown up.
Speaker 1: I can see that you've had some tough things to
Speaker 1: deal with, and I know you have to, and so
Speaker 1: it creates that kind of hard exterior. I realized their
Speaker 1: therapy that I have to deal with the paint right right,
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to deal with pain. Right in scientology.
Speaker 1: I'm dealing now for the first time in my life
Speaker 1: and therapy that I do have pain from not having
Speaker 1: a father, but I've never dealt with the pain of him.
Speaker 1: I just pushed it aside. I go, well, that's just
Speaker 1: a bad father. Many people have bad fathers, but I
Speaker 1: never really saw that that might be dictating how I
Speaker 1: look at men, how I treat men. There's an argument
Speaker 1: because I've had to deal with my father issues in
Speaker 1: in in that way of just not bringing the stuff
Speaker 1: that I went through with my father into my relationship
Speaker 1: with Will or my sons. You know, So I totally
Speaker 1: hear you on that. Yeah, it's a lot of that.
Speaker 1: It's dealing with that childhood trauma that I never really
Speaker 1: dealt with, and being ripped from my home and my
Speaker 1: life and going into scientology and I have, of course,
Speaker 1: I fight. I had to because I didn't have somebody fighting.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm starting to learn. You don't need
Speaker 1: to fight every fight, Leah, because I've not had third
Speaker 1: seasons of shows because I was climbing over a table
Speaker 1: in a boardroom going, I will punch you when you're
Speaker 1: I don't give it about the show. And I'm proud
Speaker 1: of that side of myself because I don't put up
Speaker 1: a boat this business. But I was, I said, I
Speaker 1: don't actually like that side of me. I like the
Speaker 1: intention behind it, but I don't like the way I'm
Speaker 1: coming at it like a fighter. Got it. I don't
Speaker 1: mind being it, but not in a damn business meeting.
Speaker 1: I told it. You know what, Leah, I so good.
Speaker 1: It is the little razor inside. Yes. When I turned forty,
Speaker 1: I had a just a complete out of midlife crisis,
Speaker 1: like everything in my life was just upside down, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm ready to take off the vest
Speaker 1: with the explosives because literally that's how I had been
Speaker 1: walking around all my life, like say something else, I'll
Speaker 1: blow us all the Exactly. I have the same mentality,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's from all that pain, yes, and
Speaker 1: it's just that little girl in us that's raging, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how to get past the moment when
Speaker 1: it happens. And so with my therapist, she said, you're
Speaker 1: missing something. You just need to find out what you're missing,
Speaker 1: just in those moments. Just ask yourself or ask the
Speaker 1: person that's saying these things or antagonizing you. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: what are we missing here? What do you think? I
Speaker 1: don't understand. That's lesson. It's a good lesson because I
Speaker 1: will definitely say you showed me that today, like I
Speaker 1: totally I missed it. I missed her too. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing, you know. And I say, that's just never
Speaker 1: too late, you know, for friends, for families. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just never too late to heal Leah. Yes, man,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you. I want to hug
Speaker 1: you back. This is great. Yeah, thank you. On our
Speaker 1: next red Table talk, why black women and white women
Speaker 1: have such a difficult time women of color Sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like they don't want to be my friend. I'm
Speaker 1: not interested. Oh, get over the idea that you are white.
Speaker 1: There's one race, you know what. You need to shut up? Well,
Speaker 1: I saw you, sorry, I saw you cry in there crying.
Speaker 1: You're gonna that's what happens if you get old. It's
Speaker 1: so good to see and I am tired. I really
Speaker 1: didn't mean to join the red table Talk family and
Speaker 1: become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.