David Miscavige’s nod to John Travolta debunks another tabloid ‘leaving Scientology’ fantasy

Earlier this year, the Daily Mail proposed that because flight data showed that Tom Cruise had not flown his helicopter into East Grinstead in the last three years, it suggested that Cruise was no longer visiting Scientology’s UK headquarters there at Saint Hill Manor, and so he appeared to be leaving Scientology itself.

This assumption was made without checking with any former high level Scientologists, who might have explained to the Daily Mail that since the beginning of the pandemic, Scientology leader David Miscavige himself had not been visiting Saint Hill, and Tom Cruise’s number one loyalty is to Miscavige, so his not flying there probably meant very little.

Instead, other publications jumped on the the Daily Mail’s observation and announced that it was a settled matter: Tom Cruise had left Scientology. On August 27 we pointed out how ludicrous this was, and then on November 3 we got a little vindication: Tom Cruise was spotted flying his helicopter to Saint Hill for the resumption of the IAS Gala and the return of David Miscavige.

The next night, at the Patrons Ball, Cruise made a more public showing of himself with his fellow Scientologists than we’ve seen probably since 2004, when he picked up his Freedom Medal of Valor. Photos of him mugging with other attendees of the Patrons Ball proliferated on social media, to the point that we suspected it was actually encouraged by the church itself. (No photos of Miscavige, for example, were leaked from either night.)

We only saw a little recognition by those websites that had announced Tom’s departure now admitting that he was as dedicated as ever, which is what we’ve been saying all along.

And, you know, they might have learned a little lesson this time.

Oh no they didn’t.

Last week, the National Enquirer and Radar, and even Yahoo jumped in with a new theory: Tom might have been at the event, but John Travolta wasn’t, so that suggests that Travolta is leaving Scientology.

Come on, people.

Once again, these stories relied on unnamed anonymous sources, when there are plenty of former high-ranking Scientologists who would be happy to be consulted on such a story.

We can tell you from our own experience that we’ve been watching the annual IAS galas very closely for many years, and we don’t remember John Travolta ever showing up at one. So the fact that he didn’t attend this one really doesn’t mean anything at all. [UPDATE: Axiom 142 remembers seeing Travolta attend one IAS gala around 2004, so about one attendance in the last 20 years.]

And now, we have evidence to the opposite, that Travolta is still firmly in the fold.

With Alex Barnes-Ross, yesterday we made public the entire three-hour speech by David Miscavige from the first night of the IAS weekend. And about two thirds of the way into it, as Miscavige was boasting about the accomplishments by Scientology “Volunteer Ministers” at the sites of international disasters, he uttered this paragraph…

“Florida hurricane Ian slams the southwest coast making landfall at Category Four. But IAS Freedom Medal winner John Travolta airlifts urgent provisions for utterly decimated communities, whereupon Florida’s megaforce of VMs takes over distribution, relieving stranded families everywhere, all to help 5,000 get back on solid ground.”

This was surprising, not only because Miscavige normally doesn’t mention the church’s celebrities during these speeches (again, we’ve listened to a lot of them), but also because we know that Travolta is not one of David Miscavige’s favorite people, and he does not have the same kind of relationship with him that he does with Cruise.

“Miscavige is always ready throw shade on JT to make sure Tom knows he is the number one favorite horse in the stable,” Mike Rinder tells us. And if he would not normally give Travolta a shout-out during one of these speeches, Dave probably included him this time because, “In the world of Scientology these days, ‘good news’ is hard to come by.”

Mike says that he wouldn’t be surprised if Miscavige and Cruise, while they were palling around at Saint Hill that weekend, “there were snide comments about JT between them.” But the point remains, that Miscavige did include Travolta in his speech, and that’s not something he would have done if Travolta had left the church.

Travolta’s loyalty has always been to L. Ron Hubbard, not Miscavige. And we have seen no evidence that he is pushing away, as the tabloids so desperately want to believe.

And just for fun, here are a couple of photos of Travolta in Scientology that have not been made public before, and we want to thank the reader who sent them in. Travolta can be seen with then-church president Heber Jentzsch, and then sitting next to a younger David Miscavige and his wife Shelly.

No doubt in the coming weeks, months, and years, we’ll hear again and again from the tabloids that Cruise or Travolta have “left” Scientology.

Not only is it lucrative clickbait for them, but we think they simply cannot or don’t want to understand how deeply these two celebrities feel connected to Scientology.

Travolta, we have been told by people who knew him well, ascribes all of his success to L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise, we were told by Jean Brousseau who worked very closely with him, worships David Miscavige like a god.

We’re going to need to see some much more convincing evidence than helicopter manifests or missed attendance at a gala before we’ll consider that either of these figures are walking away.

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