Report: Elisabeth Moss's father still trying to get back in Scientology's graces when he died
In April 2022, the New Yorker magazine published a profile of actress Elisabeth Moss and interviewed former Scientology Celebrity Centre fixture Geoff Levin.
At the time, we gave the magazine credit for asking Geoff about Moss’s Scientology involvement, something Moss herself is generally not very talkative about.
But Geoff wanted us to know that he’d told the New Yorker more about Moss and Scientology, and about her father, Scientologist musician Ron Moss, that didn’t make it into the magazine.
He told us why he had been in a particularly good position to watch Elisabeth as she was becoming more important as an artist, and the reasons why she might have escaped some of the scrutiny that other Scientology celebrities go through.
But the most surprising thing he told us was that after her father Ron’s fall from grace, Elisabeth and her mother had pushed him out of their lives.
And now, Ron Moss has died at 79, and so we went back to Geoff for some more thoughts on his old friend.
“I knew Ron in the early days before he became Chick Corea’s manager. He played trombone on music tracks I composed. He was a musician first and then a very hard working, skilled music manager. We were friends,” Geoff says. “There was a small group of working successful musicians in Scientology in the 70s and 80s and Ron was in touch with all of us.”
And then, Ron managed Chick’s career during the jazz phenom’s most successful years.
“I attended many of Chick’s concerts thanks to Ron’s support in getting tickets,” Geoff remembers.
But then, something around the year 2001 happened. Exactly what, and how it related to Scientology, was explained recently by Mike Rinder, and Marc and Claire Headley in a video.
Mike explained that Chick Corea, the super-successful jazz artist and OT 8 Scientologist, was having serious financial problems and couldn’t pay his bills.
This was potentially a disaster not only for Chick, but also for Scientology if it became publicly known. And so, Mike says, Scientology leader David Miscavige came up with a solution: Buy Chick’s LA recording studio, Mad Hatter, so Chick could pay off his debts with money from the sale.
Mike said the studio became “the biggest white elephant in Scientology history” as it really wasn’t needed.
Meanwhile, Mike explained, a “who” had to be found to explain why Chick had failed so badly. And they settled on Ron Moss, his manager.
Marty Rathbun was used, Mike said, to work on Ron with Scientology sec checking until he agreed that he’d been the problem.
And Ron’s punishment?
“He was no longer allowed to be part of the Chick Corea world, and no longer allowed to be part of the Scientology celebrity gang,” Mike said.
When Chick died in 2021, in an interview on a music podcast Ron said he hadn’t seen Chick in 20 years, that they’d never had a “reconciliation.”
But really, Mike explained, it was Scientology disconnection: Ron was made the scapegoat for Chick’s financial problems, and was then made a sort of un-person. But they could never totally destroy him because of who his daughter was.
“Elisabeth Moss still to this day supports Scientology, right, like she knows that this happened to her dad,” Mike said. “She knows the whole story of what went down and how he was scapegoated and he was made the bad guy.”
We noted that news reports said that Ron Moss had died in Clearwater, and we asked Geoff Levin about that.
“Through a friend who was in touch with him recently, I found out Ron was living near the Scientology Flag Land Base in Clearwater until he died. He was still in Scientology. And he was doing a protracted ethics program to get back on his OT Levels,” Geoff says.
More than 20 years after he’d been kicked out of Chick’s circle, and demoted as a degraded being, Ron Moss was still dutifully trying to get himself back in the good graces of the church.
“The sad thing was, like many people who have gone ‘up the Bridge.’ Ron’s mental condition worsened and the pressure to give more and more money to Scientology increased. And that resulted in issues with his family. Linda, his ex-wife, disconnected from him and so did Elisabeth,” Geoff says. “I heard he was in touch with his son Derek.”
Ron Moss, dedicated to Scientology to the end, even after it took away his daughter and his friends.
“I’m sorry to see him go, still believing the lies of L. Ron Hubbard’s toxic organization,” Geoff says. “So many music artists went downhill the longer they stayed in Scientology. RIP Ron, you deserved better.”
Danny Masterson moved to another state prison
Last night Jeffrey Augustine reported that Danny Masterson has been moved from the North Kern state prison intake facility to a more permanent location: Corcoran State Prison in Central California, where he will be serving his 30 years-to-life sentence.
The That ‘70s Show actor is not eligible for parole until June 2042, when he will be 66 years old.
Notable former inmates of the prison at Corcoran include Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson.
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Reading this story of Ron Moss makes me want to FORGET my son who has disconnected from me. It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen him. “Hope” is awful.
I am very happy, though, that this vile “religion” has been virtually wholly exposed to the world for what it really is and it is now a dying organism. I appreciate all who continue to bring about its demise.
Nothing good rebounds off taking Scientology seriously, only woe.
Hubbard's unchangable overwhelming dastardly regulations trip up all associated with the Scientology pseudo-therapy/exorcism peddling quackery outfit.
Never join a "church" which sends you to their internal "Ethics" department which teaches you that you must shun your friends and family, in order to continue on the Hubbard stepladder to spiritual "freedom". (And that "church" is bound not to even discuss that their spiritual "upper" steps surround a space alien bad guy named Xenu who mass murdered humanoids from other planets he brought to earth, and Xenu implanted the soul minds of these mass murdered humanoids with the famous L. Ron Hubbard "R6 implant" bad ideas,and these bodiless implanted souls now infest all humans and require Hubbard's OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 exorcism steps to "free" those messed up body-thetans/bodiless souls to leave our human body!).
Scientology is a massive load of crock. Which they are bound NOT to discuss with newcomers to the operation.
What a turned around backwards backfiring mess of a group, thanks to L. Ron Hubbard's ill mind.
Scientologists are trained by Hubbard NOT to define even their spiritual beliefs, only ex members who are excommunicated can define the Hubbard spiritual beliefs!