EGN NEWS DESK
Mike Rinder, a former spokesman for the Church of Scientology who grew to become certainly one of its fiercest critics and who gained prominence as a number of the Emmy Award-winning tv sequence “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” died on Sunday in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 69.
His demise, at a hospice heart, was confirmed by his spouse, Christie Collbran Rinder, who mentioned the trigger was esophageal most cancers that had metastasized.
Mr. Rinder was raised within the Church of Scientology and rose to develop into a global spokesman, the pinnacle of its Office of Special Affairs and a member of the board of administrators of Church of Scientology International from 1983 till 2007, in line with his 2022 memoir, “A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life within the Highest Ranks of Scientology.”
Shortly after Mr. Rinder graduated from highschool in 1973, he joined the Sea Organization, or Sea Org, an elite corps of workers members who maintain the Church of Scientology working, and met the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, for the primary time.
He remained on the Sea Org till 2007, he wrote in his weblog, when he “lastly determined there was no means I might change the tradition of violence and abuse that had develop into endemic beneath the ‘management’ of David Miscavige,” Mr. Hubbard’s successor.
After leaving, Mr. Rinder spoke out in regards to the abuses he mentioned he had witnessed. The church responded by denying accusations of abuse and by attacking Mr. Rinder’s credibility, saying he had been expelled for malfeasance and had develop into a “skilled anti-Scientologist” who “spews non secular hatred.”
Mr. Rinder mentioned he felt an obligation to talk out due to the a long time he had spent as a high-ranking church aide and certainly one of its chief defenders within the information media.
“I don’t need folks to proceed to be harm and tricked and lied to,” Mr. Rinder instructed The St. Petersburg Times in 2009, when he served as an important supply for a three-part sequence on Scientology. “I used to be unsuccessful in altering something by way of my very own lack of braveness once I was contained in the church. But I consider these abuses want to finish.”
Mr. Rinder was maybe finest often called a number, with the actress Leah Remini, of the documentary sequence “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” which ran for 3 seasons on A&E beginning in 2016. The sequence, primarily based on the accounts of former church members who mentioned their lives had been harmed by Scientology, gained Emmy Awards in 2017 and 2020.
Ms. Remini, who left the church in 2013, has additionally been an outspoken critic of Scientology. Her 2015 e-book, “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology,” helped encourage the sequence.
Mr. Rinder was additionally featured within the 2015 HBO documentary movie “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” primarily based on a 2013 nonfiction e-book of the identical identify by the journalist Lawrence Wright.
“I hope this film will increase public stress for the church to alter its abusive practices,” Mr. Rinder instructed The New York Times in 2015.
Michael John Rinder was born on April 10, 1955, in Adelaide, Australia. His father, Ian, was a “serial entrepreneur,” he wrote in his e-book, and his mom, Barbara, was “a homemaker who generally helped out in my father’s numerous enterprise ventures.” The household, he wrote, was launched to Scientology by a neighbor who attended lectures by Mr. Hubbard.
“So, actually, my life was preordained into Scientology,” Mr. Rinder wrote in his e-book.
As a church official, he wrote that his days have been “filled with holding observe of Scientology’s enemies, conducting applications to neutralize them, placing out fires on the web and coping with the fixed celeb points.”
He determined to go away in 2007, he wrote in his e-book, after a BBC reporter requested him if he had ever been struck by Mr. Miscavige. Mr. Rinder wrote that he instructed the reporter that Mr. Miscavige had not hit him, though he mentioned that was not true.
When he left, “it started a metamorphosis, slowly transitioning me from a fanatical follower of the cult I had been raised in to a devoted whistle-blower in regards to the abuses I skilled, witnessed and dedicated,” Mr. Rinder wrote in his e-book.
The church has denied that Mr. Miscavige ever struck workers members and has accused Mr. Rinder of mendacity.
In addition to his spouse, Mr. Rinder is survived by their son, Jack Rinder; a stepson, Shane Collbran; and two kids from a earlier marriage, Benjamin Rinder and Taryn Teutsch.
In a ultimate publish on his weblog, printed on Sunday, Mr. Rinder wrote that he had been “fortunate — dwelling two lives in a single lifetime.”
He mentioned he remained deeply involved in regards to the follow of “disconnection,” beneath which members of the church break contact with buddies, relations or associates who’re deemed to have develop into hostile towards Scientology. Mr. Rinder had been estranged from his two oldest kids since his departure from the church.
“My solely actual remorse is just not having achieved what I mentioned I wished to — ending the abuses of Scientology, particularly disconnection and seeing Jack into maturity,” he wrote. “If you’re in any means combating to finish these abuses please maintain the flag flying — by no means quit.”
