Days after Leah Remini claimed that Jada Pinkett Smith is a member of the Church of Scientology, the Girls Trip actress took to Facebook to shut down the rumors.
“I recently lit Shabbat candles with Rabbi Bentley at Temple Sinai… but I am not Jewish,” Smith, 46, wrote on Tuesday, September 19, without mentioning Remini, 47, by name. “I have prayed in mosques all over the world… but I am not a Muslim; I have read the Bhagavad Gita… but I am not a Hindu; I have chanted and meditated in some of the most magnificent temples on earth… but I am not a Buddhist; and I have studied Dianetics, and appreciate the merits of Study Tech… but I am not a Scientologist.”
The Nutty Professor actress concluded, “I practice human kindness, and I believe that we each have the right to determine what we are and what we are not. NO ONE ELSE can hold that power.”
Smith’s post came just three days after The Daily Beast published a new interview with Remini, in which she claimed that she spotted Smith at the church’s Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles multiple times. “I know Jada’s in. I know Jada’s in. She’s been in Scientology a long time,” the Kevin Can Wait star alleged. “I never saw Will [Smith] there, but I saw Jada at the Celebrity Centre. They opened up a Scientology school, and have since closed it. But Jada, I had seen her at the Scientology Celebrity Centre all the time.”
The elementary school that Remini referred to was the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California, which was funded by the Smiths prior to its closure in June 2013.
The King of Queens alum left the organization in 2013. She has since spoken out against Scientology in her bestelling 2015 book, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, and her Emmy-winning A&E series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. In Troublemaker, Remini recalled the time that she and the Smiths played hide-and-seek with famed Scientologist Tom Cruise.
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