Elisabeth Moss front row again for Scientology celebration of founder L. Ron Hubbard

A year ago, we were stunned to see a very pregnant Elisabeth Moss in the front row at Scientology’s annual L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Celebration in Clearwater, Florida.

Hubbard, the Church of Scientology’s founder, was born on March 13, 1911, and March 13 remains the most holy day on the church’s calendar.

Scientology’s current leader, David Miscavige, holds a few major events each year that wealthy members are expected to attend if they can: New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles, Hubbard’s March birthday in Clearwater, and the October IAS gala in England to celebrate big donors.

At some point after these events, Scientology posts slide shows on its websites to emphasize Miscavige’s popularity with the crowds. And over the years, we had never seen Moss, the Handmaid’s Tale actress, at any of them, even though she had grown up in the church and was a well-known member.

So it was fascinating to see her last year, not only in the front row standing next to John Travolta, but participating in a standing ovation for Miscavige despite being very pregnant.

This year’s LRH Birthday event was held on Saturday, March 15, and last night the slide show for it finally went up at the church’s websites.

In one of the photographs that Scientology posted (seen at the beginning of this story), you can clearly see Elisabeth Moss once again, for the second year in a row, giving David Miscavige another standing ovation.

Here is a wider shot of the front row, showing Moss to the left and actor Michael Peña to the right.

The tall man in the light suit standing in the middle is major donor Tom Cummins, with his electricity deregulation partner Jim Bridgeforth by his side. Between the two of them they have donated about $100 million to Miscavige’s various causes.

Speaking of Miscavige, the slide show had plenty of shots of Dave on stage, giving another of his hours-long speeches.

Highlights of this year’s event included his description of three new L. Ron Hubbard heritage properties that have been purchased and refurbished, such as the house that Hubbard was living in when he put out his first Dianetics shingle in 1950, in Elizabeth, New Jersey…

That property, on Aberdeen Road, had its grand opening on Saturday, which turned out to be a rainy day. (Although we live in New York not too far away, we couldn’t go because we were in Clearwater for Mike Rinder’s memorial service.)

The Birthday Event is also when Scientology gives out trophies to the winners of the “Birthday Game,” when church organizations compete against each other to bring in the most money. This year, the big winner was the San Francisco Ideal Org and its executive director, skateboard hero Aaron Kyro. (He’s sharing the award here with the executive director of San Francisco’s “Foundation,” the night crew at the org.)

Yeah, not creepy at all, skateboard guy.

Miscavige finished up his speech by revealing more plans for L. Ron Hubbard Hall, the event space the church plans to build in downtown Clearwater adjacent to the Flag Building, with a large plaza in between (assuming the city sells Dave a street that is part of the property, something the city is currently considering).

The current Flag building is to the left, the proposed L. Ron Hubbard Hall to the right, with the Way to Happiness pedestals in the plaza between them.

Hip, hip, hooray.

Getting back to the celebrities in the audience, we’ll point out that in some larger shots of the crowd, Moss and Peña are missing, as if they had been moved out of the frame for the image that most people will see. We’ve labeled some of the familiar faces we do see in the larger shot (click to embiggen)…

Nancy Cartwright, of course, is the voice of Bart Simpson and a donor of at least $21 million to the IAS. Jenna Elfman is known for being one of the most militant of Scientology celebrities. Trish Duggan is Scientology’s wealthiest donor, and with her ex-husband Bob Duggan they’ve acknowledged giving at least $300 million to the church, and probably much more.

We looked for more angles on that front row, and noticed that whenever the group was shot from behind, there was a tall bald man standing next to Trish Duggan who didn’t show up in that frontal view…

Here he is from a few more angles next to Trish…

We can’t say positively that this is John Travolta, and there doesn’t seem to be a better view of him. But the Birthday Event is the one that Travolta goes to.

He was there in the front row with Elisabeth Moss in 2024, and in 2023 he was also in the crowd when the event was held at the Fort Harrison Hotel, again by the Elfmans…

For Travolta, the Birthday Event in Clearwater is only a 2.5-hour drive from Ocala, where he lives.

Tom Cruise, on the other hand, is a UK resident, so he shows up at the October IAS gala in East Grinstead, England (here he is in 2023, and 2024), although he has attended the Birthday Event in years past (the last time we saw Cruise in Clearwater for that event was in 2019).

We know you’ve been hearing from the tabloids lately that they’ve decided Travolta must have left Scientology because he was spotted hanging out with a non-Scientology friend somewhere. But those stories never acknowledge that Travolta was definitely at the LRH Birthday events in 2023 and 2024 (well after the 2020 death of his wife, Kelly Preston), and we have posted definite photographic proof of both. (Also, the idea that a major celebrity can’t go out for drinks with just about anyone they want is also a sign that the tabs are just trolling. You never see them ask an expert like Claire Headley or Leah Remini if this “sighting” of Travolta means anything at all.)

If you’re going to claim that Travolta is leaving Scientology, you should at least acknowledge that he has been showing up to give David Miscavige ovations when it counts.

But of course, the really big news is that Elisabeth Moss has, for the second year in a row, made that big showing at the Birthday Event.

Before he died, Mike Rinder told us that seeing Moss there with Travolta suggested to him that Miscavige was grooming her to become a more involved, more visible Scientology symbol, after losing so many other important celebrities. (Leah Remini, Laura Prepon, and Beck to disaffection, and Kelly Preston, Chick Corea, and Kirstie Alley to cancer.)

And sure enough, Moss is back again in the front row. When we tried to ask her about it last year, her representative told us that they wouldn’t be making a comment.

Can someone, as Moss is promoting the final season of Handmaid’s Tale, ask her about her standing ovations for David Miscavige?

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

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