Becky Bigelow, 1962-2025, escaped from Scientology with Ron Miscavige
One of our favorite parts of Ron Miscavige’s book Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me was the elaborate escape plan that Ron and his wife Becky Bigelow plotted in order to get away from Scientology’s Int Base in Southern California.
Ron, of course, was the father of Scientology's leader, and he and Becky had joined the “Sea Org” with its billion-year contract. Living on a guarded base, it wasn’t going to be so easy to get out.
But Ron had a plan. For his 75th birthday the year before, Becky had arranged for Ron’s daughters to mail him 75 individual small gifts as a fun surprise.
So now, with Becky’s mother nearing her 70th birthday, they made it known that they would be mailing her 70 individual gifts — and instead mailed personal possessions that they wouldn’t be able to get out of the base otherwise. (Some of which included Ron’s copies of L. Ron Hubbard books, which he wasn’t yet ready to part with.)
Then came the more risky part of their plan. In March 2012 they cautiously drove to the front gate of the compound and hoped they wouldn’t be questioned.
“I firmly believe that, had we been caught, Becky and I would have been locked up in a remote part of the base under 24-hour guard, and I would have spent the rest of my life like that. I never would have gotten out. Never,” Ron wrote.
But they were let out, the guards thinking they were just crossing the highway to the other side of the base, when Ron turned left on the highway and hit the gas.
“We had made it, We were free.”
Ron soon made contact with us after the escape, but we kept quiet about it until he was ready to go public with the book in 2016. By then he and Becky were living in Wisconsin and were being stalked by private investigators hired by David.
Ron did a lot of media, was pummeled with Fair Game smears by his son, and then entertained viewers on his YouTube channel, playing his trumpet to start the show.
When Ron got sick, Becky was always very helpful when we wanted to talk to him. He did an interview with us about his daughter-in-law Shelly Miscavige just a few weeks before he died in 2021.
We remained in touch with Becky mainly through social media, and we were glad to see that she found a new relationship and seemed very happy.
And then she developed some pretty serious health problems, and again was very open about it on social media. She talked recently about needing a risky procedure. Saturday she had that surgery and initial indications were that it had gone well.
But then yesterday, Becky died from complications of a sudden stroke. She was 62.
Scientology's smears of Ron and Becky remain online today, more than 12 years after they escaped from Int Base and embarrassed Ron's son, David Miscavige.
But we're glad we got to know Becky as much as we did, and we will remember the brave escape she made for freedom. And we wish she could have enjoyed that freedom for a little longer.
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Live each day like it is your last. Because one day it will be. RIP Becky.
I’m glad she and Ron got free together before they died. She was good to and for him. It is sad she didn’t live longer. Every breath is precious. Fly high Becky.