Ever since actor Tom Cruise became a member of the Church of Scientology in 1990 after his marriage to actress Mimi Rogers, who was a member, and he became an outspoken advocate of the church, Scientology fascinated people. The church had other celebrity members, including actress Leah Remini who left Scientology in 2013, wrote a book in 2015 and made a TV documentary titled “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.”
Since then, Leah Remini has become a critic of her former religion and came out with a book “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology” in 2015. On Tuesday, her new eight-part documentary of Scientology, “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” premiered on A&E, a cable channel, and the expose broke viewer records of A&E, indicating strong public interest in the subject.
Record-Breaking Viewer Ratings
Time reports that the first installment of “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” got 2.1 million viewers. The docu broke the 2014 record of “Bus Smo.” More than half of the viewers, or 1.1 million, were in the age bracket 25-54, a market targeted and coveted by TV producers and broadcast companies. Another 913,000 came from the age group 18-49.
Although the first installment of “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” did not make earth-shaking revelations about the church she left since she had already written the details in her 2015 book, the impressive viewer numbers say a lot. For one, it shows the documentary is within A&E’s true crime and reality focus. Second, it showed that TV viewers remain interested in the secrets of Scientology.
“Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” has higher ratings than the 2015 “Going Clear” documentary of HBO which was also about Scientology but had fewer viewers at 1.65 million. The document, if it would reveal more details in the remaining seven installments, is expected to further boost viewer numbers for A&E.
More Exposes
She hinted of more exposes in the coming installments of “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” Leah Remini shared that when she started to film the docu, she thought the initial focus would be on families destroyed by Scientology due to the church’s practices and policies. However, she uncovered deeper and darker secrets beyond her expectation that would be tackled in the rest of the documentary, Business Insider reports.
