Elisabeth Moss Claims She ‘Went to the Bathroom’ When Leah Remini Won Award for Scientology Show: ‘I Wish It Was More Exciting’
02.05.2022 - 19:01
/ usmagazine.com
No drama intended. Elisabeth Moss explained the real reason she wasn’t present when Leah Remini won a Television Critics Association award for her anti-Scientology series — and it wasn’t an intentional snub.
“I went to the bathroom. I wish it was more exciting than that,” the Handmaid’s Tale star, 39, told The New Yorker as part of a profile that was published on Friday, April 29. Both actresses were nominated at the awards ceremony in 2017, when Moss reportedly “walked out” as Remini, 51, accepted the Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming award for her documentary series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
In the wake of the drama, the King of Queens alum claimed that the church had forbidden Moss from speaking with anyone labeled an “antisocial personality,” like Remini. The Mad Men alum denied her allegations to the outlet: “I have never been approached by her. I have never received any request to talk to her. So there hasn’t been an opportunity for her to say that. I don’t know her that well, so it’s not like we were friends.”
Moss has been a member of the controversial church since she was a teenager, but rarely speaks about her affiliation with Scientology in interviews. “I don’t want to come off as being cagey,” she told the New Yorker. “If you and I met, just hanging out as friends, I’m, like, an open book about it. [But] I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me. I want them to be seeing the character.”
She continued: “People can obviously hold in their mind whatever they want to, and I can’t control that. If it’s not that, it’s going to be something else. [Scientology is] not really a closed-off religion. It’s a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in