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Oscar-Winning Writer-Director Paul Haggis — Who Famously Had a Falling Out With the Church of Scientology — Confirms Vanity Fair Report That the Church Tried to Groom Actress to Wed Tom Cruise

Sep 5, 2012  •  Post A Comment

"Oscar-winning ‘Crash’ writer-director Paul Haggis has confirmed for me the story of Naz Boniadi, the beautiful Iranian-born actress whom Scientology tried to groom as Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in 2004-2005. Vanity Fair has just released a teaser of their extraordinary story (kudos to Graydon Carter) about Cruise’s auditioning of women to be his wife in the months leading up to his choosing of Katie Holmes in April 2005. Haggis left Scientology two years ago. … His exit was then chronicled in the New Yorker. "

So begins an article by Roger Friedman, the editor in chief of Showbiz 411.

Friedman’s article continues, "Haggis confirms Boniadi’s saga, and tells me that she, too, has left the cult. Here’s his email to me from Rome, where he‘s prepping a film. Haggis says he will have no other comment on this situation beyond this:

“I’ve known Nazanin for about three years. I met her through a mutual friend when I was doing my own personal research into the allegations against Scientology, before I wrote my letter of resignation. Naz was embarrassed by her unwitting involvement in this incident and never wanted it to come out, so I kept silent. However I was deeply disturbed by how the highest ranking members of a church could so easily justify using one of their members; how they so callously punished her and then so effectively silenced her when it was done. It wasn’t just the threats; they actually made her feel ashamed, when all she had been was human and trusting."

To read the rest of what Haggis has to say, plese click on the link to the Showbiz 411 article above.

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