Tom Cruise once again shows up for Scientology gala in the UK

Last year, Scientology leader David Miscavige had a lot to prove to his own followers about the organization’s comeback from the pandemic, as he hosted its annual IAS gala at Saint Hill in East Grinstead, England for the first time since 2019.

Not only had the lockdowns prevented Scientology’s usual slate of annual international gatherings, but Miscavige himself had been dodging process servers and hadn’t been out of the US for years.

As Miscavige made his return to England for the IAS party last year, so did his best pal Tom Cruise, who squelched persistent tabloid rumors about him leaving Scientology by very conspicuously showing up in his personal helicopter, and also by posing for photos with other Scientologists at the Patron’s Ball — photos that were then shared on social media.

As the annual gala returned to Saint Hill this weekend, we wondered if Cruise would repeat his performance from last year. And as you can see from this photo that was shared on social media, Top Gun did make the scene at Saturday night’s Patron’s Ball and once again posed with his fellow Scientologists.

And thank you to ‘Apostate Alex’ Barnes-Ross for spotting that photo on social media, as well as several others which he forwarded to us, such as our first glimpse this year of church leader David Miscavige at this year’s party.

Miscavige is seen here at Saturday’s Patron’s Ball, apparently honoring a new crop of “Patrons,” meaning Scientologists who have donated at least $50,000 to the International Association of Scientologists, the church’s membership organization.

Of course, the Patron’s Ball is an occasion when donors who have given much, much more are singled out for recognition, and to receive new giant bowling trophies. We will be looking forward to a future issue of Impact magazine when those folks are revealed.

But for now, we did spot one of the bigger whales, donor Tom Cummins, in the photos that were posted this weekend.

Among the other notable figures we recognized was a face that was much more ubiquitous in Scientology social media in the past but has been less seen recently. And that’s London staffer Charlie Wakley, here with his wife Kate outside the big tent.

And here are some more glimpses from the weekend. We’re sure a fine time was had by all.

The Russian translators even got in on the act. Good for them.

Now, we can hardly wait for Scientology’s own press release so they can tell us how many people they think were there. They’ll say 6,000 or more for Friday night, and the real number will probably be more like 2,000. But whatever, once again a worldwide organization that claims to have tens of millions of members can still never put more than a few thousand of their most hardcore followers into one place at one time.

But surely, this planet will be cleared in no time.

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