The Church of Scientology recently increased its profile in the midwest by relocating to a historic building at Kansas City’s 18th Street and Grand Blvd. Now a former leader is speaking out about what he calls abusive practices in the organization.
The son-in-law of founder L. Ron Hubbard discussed the power shift that followed as David Miscavige took charge after Hubbard’s death. He told of imprisonment in the church’s Los Angeles base and his own dramatic escape in an explosive interview with DailyMailTV.
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Guy White, 63, has become the first family member to break his silence and speak out about his time in Scientology.
“I have never wanted to speak out earlier, because I’ve been followed, I’ve had private investigators on me, it’s very intrusive,” he said. “You know what the deal with the devil is like, ‘Don’t speak out against us and then we won’t make your life hell.’ I didn’t want my life to be hell, because that would be hell for my children. But they’re adult now and I always felt the story needed to be told.”
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Three decades ago, White fled Scientology in a dramatic nighttime escape from its so-called Happy Valley base in the heart of the Soboba Reservation in California. Months before, it would have been inconceivable to him that he would ever want to leave. He was a member of the church’s “royal family,” married to Hubbard’s second daughter, Suzette, the mother of his children.
But that was when he believed he was part of something real. Now the only thing he is certain of is that he is never going back. He has told how the Hubbard family was humiliated and “erased” after the founder’s death and revealed a violent encounter with Miscavige.
Scientology denied White’s claims in a letter to DailyMailTV. “He is reaching back 40 years to manufacture lies about Scientology to capitalize on the popularity of the religion and its leader,” a church spokesperson said.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice