Leah Remini Exposes Tom Cruise’s Deep-Seated Hatred of Cookie Dough

Since leaving Scientology over two years ago, Leah Remini has made her opposition to the controversial religion quite clear. She’s become one of the church's most vocal adversaries, railing against it in a number of interviews and, in an even more revealing move, via a tell-all memoir entitled Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.

Today (November 2) marks the book's release date, and in it Remini details interactions she’s had with other celebrity Scientologists that make for some bizarre exchanges — especially when Tom Cruise is involved.

In one instance, she was at Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ house when Cruise had the burning desire to bake cookies. His assistants put prepackaged cookie dough on the counter for him beforehand, but Cruise somehow failed to notice it, soon lighting up with fury (via Jezebel): "Tom was looking for flour and other ingredients and must not have seen the cookie dough, and he instantly got angry...His assistants came running in wanting to explain that it was right there, on a nearby counter, but all one of them could say was, 'Uh, Tom.' They both grew more flustered, and Tom got angry. 'Goddamn it!'”

Remini says the experience reminded her of another time she heard Cruise mistreat his assistant, then over damaged dishware (via E! News): "'Get in the f---king present time, is what you need to do,' he then screamed at his assistant. As he lit into her, I thought about the time a friend had mentioned to me that she witnessed him taking his assistant to task for giving him a chipped coffee mug. 'You served me tea in a chipped mug? Do you know who gets served with a mug that's chipped? F--king DBs,' he said, using the initials for 'Degraded Being,' a term in Scientology that means degraded spiritual being."

Equally strange was the time during Cruise and Holmes’ wedding when Remini claims their daughter Suri was left crying on the bathroom floor: "After about five minutes I headed to the bathroom to offer some help. When I opened the door, I found three women, including Tom's sister and his assistant, standing over the baby, who was lying on the tile floor. I didn't know if they were changing her diaper or what, but the three women were looking at her like they thought she was L. Ron Hubbard incarnate. Rather than talking to her in a soothing voice, they kept saying, 'Suri! Suri!' in a tone that sounded like they were telling an adult to get her s--t together."

And while the Cruise anecdotes make for an entertaining (if mildly alarming) read, Remini also expounds on the organization's nursery. She says members’ babies are often neglected and left to marinate in their own filth, with only an inexperienced teenager put in charge to watch them.

She wrote (via E! News), "'Nursery' was a charitable term for the motel room in the Quality Inn filled with cribs of crying, neglected babies, flies and the smell of dirty diapers. The only ventilation came from a huge fan by the window. This was where Sea Org members and staff dropped off their babies at seven in the morning and then picked them up at ten in the evening when their workday was over...The first time I went to the nursery I was devastated by what I found. The person in charge was a kid like me, just some random teenage Sea Org member on post, who was hardly qualified to be taking care of children. [Sister] Shannon was crying and soaked with urine in her crib."

The Church has denied Remini’s numerous claims, releasing a statement that says (via E! News), "Her repeated ethical lapses and callous treatment of others led to an ecclesiastical review which resulted in her being expelled. She now regurgitates the tired myths the Church has repeatedly debunked, circulated by the same tiny clique of expelled former staffers bitter at having lost the positions they enjoyed before their malfeasance and unethical conduct were uncovered."

Read more excerpts from Remini's book over at E! News.