Jada Pinkett Smith has been making the headlines lately after opening up about her marriage to Hollywood actor Will Smith, and now her new memoir has revealed her previously denied links to Scientology.
Pinkett Smith recently dropped the bombshell of a secret separation from husband Smith, and while fans are still coping with the fallout, her new memoir, Worthy, reveals another hidden side to the celebrity couple's life.
The duo previously denied allegations about being members of the Church of Scientology, but an extract from her new book shows that she follows some of its teachings and "didn't hold the same stigma around the Church of Scientology" as many others do.
Worthy was released on Tuesday, and extracts show that she "embraced" the church's "Basic Study Manual" while homeschooling her children, Jaden and Willow Smith.
Her links date back to 2008, when the couple opened a private elementary school, the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California.
In her book, as reported by The Daily Mail, she wrote: "Some of the controversy about my approach to education probably had to do with the use of the Study Technology learning method I'd discovered when I was introduced to Scientology.
"Study Tech, although it came from Scientology, is legally defined as secular. Because of my experiences on Sundays at the Ethical Society and my Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Buddhist, and Sufi studies throughout my adult life, I didn't hold the same stigma around the Church of Scientology as most do."
Despite following those teaching methods, she confirmed she didn't become "a member" of Scientology.
She continued: "I was very clear when I stepped into the Church of Scientology that becoming a member would not be possible nor was it my goal. My goal was to embrace the Basic Study Manual to educate myself about a method of learning."
In her book, she said Study Tech aims to "help a student achieve 100 percent proficiency with a subject," and: "The system offers many different processes for how to engage children in their education and to create habits that make them lifelong learners."
Although she admits that her son Jaden "thrived" with home schooling, daughter Willow asked to attend regular school when she reached middle school age.
Another link to Scientology revealed in her book is with Narconon, a program affiliated with Scientology to help people with addictions. She put her father through the program after he suffered a painful relapse of his drug addictions.
In 2018, Pinkett Smith conducted one of her trademark intimate discussions on her Red Table Talk show with former Scientologist and actor Leah Remini.
The pair had fallen out as Remini accused the Red Table Talk host of being a Scientologist after her appearance on a talk show with Andy Cohen where she questioned Remini's 2015 book Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology.
In the book, Remini claims Pinkett Smith took part in an adult game of hide and seek at Tom Cruise's house; Cruise is a known Scientologist.
In the roundtable, Remini revealed a policy called "fair game," which "calls for the utter destruction of a critic of Scientology." Remini believed Pinkett Smith was doing that in her interview with Cohen as her comments seemed like an act of trying to discredit her and, therefore, followed the rules of "fair game."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
