RealTime

Mark Rathbun Reveals Leah Remini “Exit” Staged with Mike Rinder, Tony Ortega

Mark Rathbun reveals the publicity plan behind Leah Remini’s departure from Scientology, orchestrated with sidekick Mike Rinder and blogger Tony Ortega to create her new image as “warrior princess.”

TRANSCRIPT:

Rinder explained to me that they had literally worked out—the three of them [Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, Tony Ortega], the troika—had literally worked out an operation where Leah’s departure from Scientology would be orchestrated, okay. And it would be reported in a way that they wanted to manipulate it being reported, which was completely and utterly an act. It was a classic troll job.

Leah would act as if she were being persecuted by Scientology for disagreeing with it and for having all this “scandalous” information about it. All the while, she was orchestrating and having her agents create the story of her leaving. And it was done in such a way as to try to create a reaction on the part of Scientology, to get Scientology—it was a sting operation to try to get Scientology to reach out to try to salvage her, to get Scientology to have people disconnect from her, all of which would be part of the ongoing story.

And it was all going to be a rollout to increase her profile and to create this mystery and to create this figure who was this warrior princess—innocent warrior princess. She’d be this innocent princess who was converted into a warrior because she was hunted down and persecuted by Scientology. Okay, that was the story. And they literally—and you know, as it rolled out, Scientology never played its part. And they just acted like it did. In other words, she never did get persecuted, she never did get hunted down, she never did get people begging her to come back. None of that stuff happened. But Rinder and Ortega just kept spinning the ball, giving the impression that it did.

You know, this op that is run by Rinder, Remini and Ortega is—and the reason why I refer to them as a troika and as a cluster at the top of this thing—is that they have this penchant for having one arm of them, they act like Mickey the Dunce whenever one of them does something.

You know, that’s how they rolled out Leah Remini in the first place. Tony Ortega literally reported as if he were onto a hot tip from a “tipster.” The tipster was Leah Remini—you know, like an insider that knew what was going on with Leah. And he literally quoted Leah’s husband. He reported that he called Leah’s husband and said, “Hey, we heard you’re having a big break with the Church of Scientology.” And her husband reportedly said, “Oh, no, no, not at all. We get along just peachy keen. And if we ever did, we would resolve it with the Church.” And Tony Ortega says—goes all the way as to saying, “And we thanked him for being so candid,” right. Well, the whole thing was scripted by Leah Remini and her husband and Mike Rinder and Tony Ortega. So it was like they literally made up this news. And that’s how the whole thing ran down—rolled out and started.

And so, they continue that whole op to today, where one of them does something, the other one can say, “Well, that’s not—I didn’t, I don’t know anything about that.”