Finally, I’ve had the opportunity to fully digest the entirety of Maureen Orth’s Vanity Fair story that brings mainstream credence to those long-standing rumors of Tom Cruise’s wife audition process before he settled upon Katie Holmes. Let me tell you — it’s one hell of an article that spans 22 pages. We’ve already talked a lot about the article preview, which introduced Nazanin Boniadi. The story’s been confirmed by Paul Haggis, and some more info filtered out about Nicole Kidman’s ex-communication from her children. Oh, and Lindsay Lohan somehow managed to insert herself into the situation as well.
Now the full article (available in VF’s October issue) completes a lot of details, and now we know why Nanzanin decided to talk. Apparently, she and John Brousseau (who recently spoke to the Village Voice about Tom’s addiction to slave labor and his blind worship of David Miscavige) had an extended discussion after they both left the cult, and they decided the best way to bring down the CO$ was to pull a bit of a media blitz. Is it working? Little by little, yes. If the United States government pays attention to this stuff and finally pulls the cult’s tax-exempt status for good, then the CO$ will finally crumble. (Will it ever happen? Read about Operation Snow White to learn how difficult it is to revoke that status.)
Meanwhile, the horrors that Nanzanin endured at the hands of Tom Cruise and Miscavige are unfolding. After the end of the grand romance, Nanzanin was tortured by being made to watch video clips of Tom! When they were together, he refused to acknowledge her physical pain after she fell off a snowmobile (because Scientologists don’t get hurt). Later, he made her get her teeth filed down. Of course, common sense dictates that one never lets an unhinged, lift-wearing midget dictate their dental care, but you have to remember that by that point, Nanzanin was not able to extricate herself from the situation. She had already been told that she was on an “Earth-saving mission,” but didn’t know she was meeting Tom Cruise until she’d been flown to NYC and heard his voice in the same room. The CO$ told her that if she screwed up on this mission, she’d be punished and possibly removed from the cult, which means she’d be declared a Suppressive Person and never be able to speak to her mother again. Here’s a bunch of bulleted details from the full VF article:
* The search for Tom’s third wife began when Tom whined that his sister couldn’t find him a girlfriend. Also, he and Penelope Cruz argued a lot in bed: “Cruise post-Cruz was apparently tired of having ecclesiastical pillow fights [that] interfered with his sex life: he needed a devout Scientologist to sleep with.”
* David Miscavige really did want to make Tom “inspector general — second-in-command” of the CO$, but Tom’s personal life was weighing him down too much. Hence the wife search, but then Tom married another Catholic. Miscavige is noted as being “a couple of inches shorter than Cruise.” Nice one.
* After Nicole Kidman left the CO$ (which resulted in divorce), one of her auditors was punished by being made to wear a black “boiler suit” and do hard manual labor for months in the blazing hot desert.
* The rumors are true that Miscavige would often read Cruise’s audit reports aloud, and we get the juicy detail that Micaviage obsessed over the parts about Tom’s sex life: “He would roll his eyes and say, ‘Jeez, can you believe it?’”
* Nazanin Boniadi’s wife audition included the composition of a 20-page paper that detailed her goals, aspirations, and impressions of Tom Cruise.
* After she met and started dating Tom, he required that she “work on her hair” and “wanted Boniadi’s incisor teeth filed down.” Nanzanin’s mother, a hairstylist, was not allowed to touch her hair.
* Bonaidi visited Telluride wtih Cruise along with David Miscavige. “One afternoon when everyone was on snowmobiles, Boniadi, who was feeling sick from her period and from the altitude, fell off her vehicle and was badly bruised. She was in excruciating pain, but Scientologists do not believe in medicating in such circumstances. She asked to go back to the house, where she burst into tears, believing she was completely shut off. After lying down to rest, she was told that she had to go downstairs and entertain the Miscaviges.” That was the evening she accidentally said “Excuse me?” to a mumbling Miscavige. “Boniadi was summonded into Cruise’s office, where the actor delivered a blistering denunciation about her disrespect.” Thus the relationship ended.
* During Bonaidi’s subsequent months of punishment at Clearwater, she was not only forced to do hard manual labor every day and night, but “Cruise’s video from the Freedom Medal of Valor ceremony played near her in a constant loop.”
* Bonaidi decided to tell her story to Vanity Fair as part of a pact with John Brousseau, who worked next to Tom (as the leader of his slave labor posse) for many years and spoke to Village Voice as part of a media blitz against the CO$. JB said, “I saw the pain in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks. Her story wrenched me, and that is why I am speaking out. I firsthand observed the type of control from Miscavige into Tom’s household.”
* Miscavige was so excited about Tom’s couch-jumping incident that he was basically fist-pumping with glee. “He’s not backed off! He’s not scared of his beliefs!“
[From Vanity Fair, print edition, October 2012]
Seriously, can you imagine (even under normal circumstances) getting dumped by a guy and then being made to watch video clips of him on endless rotation? Now imagine that you slept with Tom Cruise (and observed his O-face), got kicked to the curb, and then had to witness his Medal of Valor ceremony for months on end? No wonder Nanzanin had a nervous breakdown, but at least she finally left the cult in the aftermath. The VF article mentions that Nanzanin removed herself from the CO$ by choice, but Tom was willing to let her stay in due to his own “generosity.” As if.
The more I think about this story, the more disturbed I feel. Tom essentially had a mail-order bride delivered to him, and then he demanded that she be “corrected” because, you know, Lestat doesn’t like prominent incisors. They interfere with his hetero beejs. Now every time Naz looks in the mirror, she receives a reminder of what Tom did to her.
Photos courtesy of WENN, screencap from YouTube
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