The October issue of Vanity Fair magazine has a Scientology-related cover story about Tom Cruise that makes Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master look like light comedy.
In a feature titled, " What Katie Didn't Know: Marriage, Scientology-Style," special correspondent Maureen Orth reveals the details of a top-secret 2004 mission that Shelly Miscavige, the wife of Scientology head David Miscavige, undertook to find a girlfriend for Tom Cruise.
The sweepstakes winner was Iranian-born, London-raised actress Nazanin Boniadi, who had a recurring role in General Hospital and How I Met Your Mother. Boniadi dated Cruise from November 2004 until January 2005, after Orth reports, a month-long preparation in which she was "audited" every day — a Scientology-based process in which she revealed "her innermost secrets and every detail of her sex life."
Boniadi also underwent a physical transformation that allegedly included losing her braces, the red highlights in her hair and her boyfriend. (Orth cites a "knowledgeable source" who says that the actress was shown "confidential auditing files of her boyfriend to expedite the breakup," although the church denied any "misuse" of confidential information.)
According to Vanity Fair, Boniadi was flown to New York in November to meet Cruise. After dinner at Nobu and ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center rink there, which had been closed to the public but not "an entourage of Scientology aides,", the actress spent the night with Cruise. Orth cites several sources who say the two did not have sex, but that Cruise told Boniadi, "I've never felt this way before."
Approximately one month and at least two confidentiality agreements later, the magazine reports, Boniadi was kicked to the curb. Orth writes that anything the actress said or did that met with Cruise's disapproval was relayed to a member of the Scientology staff. Boniadi, also reportedly offended fast-talking Scientology top gun David Miscavige by repeatedly telling him "Excuse me?" while she was entertaining him in Telluride. (A representative for Miscavige told Vanity Fair, “Mr. Miscavige doesn’t remember any girlfriend of anyone, in his entire life, insulting him.”)
Despite these reportedly stressful conditions, Boniadi "was in love with Cruise," Orth writes. That said, she was "overwhelmed" by "the intensity of his affection, especially his predilection for public displays" — a detail that should not come as a surprise to those who remember Cruise expressing his newfound love for Katie Holmes on national TV by jumping on a couch on Oprah Winfrey's show in 2005,
Cruise, on the other hand, told Boniadi "I get more love from an extra than I get from you."
By the third week in January 2005, Boniadi was asked to move out of Cruise's house and into Scientology's Celebrity Centre. She was told that the Mission Impossible actor "wants someone with her own power — like Nicole," as in Cruise's ex-wife Nicole Kidman.
Cruise would meet Homes later that year and announce his engagement to the Dawson's Creek actress that June.
Boniadi would not fare nearly as well. The magazine reports that when the actress ran into a friend at a Scientology Center in Florida, Boniadi spilled the beans on her relationship with Cruise, only to have the friend report her. As punishment for her indiscretion, a "knowledgeable source" told Orth that Boniadi's punishment was "to scrub toilets with a toothbrush, clean bathroom tiles with acid and dig ditches in the middle of the night." She was also tasked with selling copies of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's book, Dianetics on street corners. (A Scientology spokesperson told the magazine, "The Church does not punish people, especially in [that' manner.")
A spokeswoman for Cruise called the Vanity Fair story, which includes a number of other revelations about Scientology and Cruise, "false." [Vanity Fair]
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