RealTime

Alex Recounts “Nightmare” of Leah Remini’s Demeaning Conduct

The accommodations manager of a Scientology religious retreat recalls how Leah Remini was a “nightmare” during her stay, with her “demeaning” conduct and ungrateful demands.

TRANSCRIPT:

The only difference I can see with Leah, at least in the first three weeks, was just—it was way more stressful than anybody I’ve ever had to service.

Already the first three days, she was ready to basically fire us. She didn’t want us around, she didn’t think that we were going to do a good job, like we just couldn’t get it, and she was ready to pack up and leave. And it was just very rough because she didn’t even let us find out what she wanted until it went wrong. And then she would be—she was very upset—every time. And it was very little things like, you know, there was a crumb of coffee in the fridge one day and that turned into “the room is disgusting,” you know.

Or there would be, you know, a day where there was fingerprints on the TV. And obviously she’s got a two-year-old kid at the time, running around, putting her fingerprints everywhere. I mean, that’s what kids do.

Or if the—you know, she had these scented candles and they were all over her room. But if they weren’t turned on at an exact time it was a disaster.

She went outside, she would smoke, she came back in and if the cigarette butts weren’t handled right away it was like, we’re totally not doing our jobs.

It was very nerve-racking. If we knew that she was coming back to the room it was definitely like a lot of the stress levels went no end to make sure everything was in place so we wouldn’t have to hear about it. You know what I mean?

So it was just—until we really got to know every little thing, it was definitely—I would call it a nightmare. It was definitely very—for me personally—it was very pressing, I guess. And I felt that she wanted to be “on top of us.” Like, she was definitely more important, obviously, and that’s how we felt, that we were not important. And we were just there, you know, at her beck and call and if we didn’t do it then she’d be like, “whatever.” Sort of—she’s very demeaning—or she was very demeaning at that time. And, I mean, I definitely felt like I could just get stepped over by her is really, I guess, how I felt about it and I was trying to figure out how to overcome that.

And I know all of us here, you know, being staff members, we were all working very hard to make it good for her, including when she was doing services. And everybody was really going out of their way. There’s not one person that wasn’t bending over backwards for her.

You know, at the end of her stay she was very thankful. She was crying because she was leaving. She didn’t want to leave me behind. And then she told me a lot later that she was—when she went back home she was like, “I didn’t realize how good of a job you were doing because now they’re fucking it up big time in my house.” And I was like, “So typical of Leah.”