Ex-Scientologist Michelle LeClair Says Church Humiliated Her After Coming Out Gay
Michelle LeClair, an ex-Scientologist who once described herself as a “poster girl” for the church just gave an epic interview with People promoting her book Perfectly Clear.
In it, she claims that the church humiliated and persecuted her over her sexuality, ultimately leading her to defect. The church denies her claims, calling them “delusional and paranoid.”
“L. Ron Hubbard considered homosexuals and other ‘perverts’ as ‘evil, untrustworthy, a criminal,’” she wrote in an excerpt featured in this week’s issue of People. “My hands trembled.”
The second time she tried to open up about her sexuality, she was punished, She said to the magazine, “I had to go around to all the members inside the church, confess to them what I was thinking, what I was doing. People would look at me in the face and say, ‘You are disgusting.’”
She added, “I think I was so confused within myself. I was being taught how to push down those feelings.”
“I was ordered to walk the halls of the Scientology Celebrity Centre [in Hollywood] asking random members to read and sign my confession,” she recalls. “I needed 25 signatures to be allowed to rejoin the church. I was so mortified that, after 10 or 15 requests, I ran to the bathroom and sobbed.”
Read more at PEOPLE.