In July 1990, Cruise’s involvement with the church became public in an article in the tabloid Star. (Cruise himself didn’t admit his affiliation until two years later, in an interview with Barbara Walters.) The fact that the information was leaked, probably from a source within the church, was at once a great embarrassment for Miscavige and a relief, because Cruise’s name was now finally linked irrevocably in the public mind with Scientology. He offered an unparalleled conduit to Hollywood celebrity culture, and Miscavige went to great lengths to court him. At Thanksgiving 1990, he ordered
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