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Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are, certainly at present, one of the most fascinating Hollywood couples.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, you realise there’s more to unpack.

It appears as though they are/ have been heavily into Scientology, that controversial cult/religion that believes in “intergalactic overlords, dead alien souls, “body thetans,” and the curious theory that humans evolved from clams”.

The Smiths were at one stage running a mysterious private pre-K to the sixth-grade school called New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California, with a curriculum reportedly based on Scientology teaching methods.

This news came from former staff members who spoke to The Daily Beast in 2020, who allegedly saw posters of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard all over the walls.

They claim they were forced to teach a curriculum that was secretly Scientology based:

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Jacqueline Olivier, who the celeb couple hired to help found and run the school, was asked to take classes at Scientology’s Celebrity Centre and affiliate organisation Applied Scholastics to learn study technology, a learning method developed by L. Ron Hubbard:

“I had to go down to the Celebrity Centre and do stuff with the E-meter, and Jada was always at the Celebrity Centre,” she continues. “My feeling is that Jada was really into [Scientology] and Will was sort of whatever… but he took all the courses too.”

 

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“There were pictures of L. Ron Hubbard on the walls,” Olivier adds of the school. “And in the study technology book, there was a picture of [Hubbard] and a whole mini-biography of his life, and that was the first thing [kids] had to word clear — before anything. I mean, it was total Scientology. There’s no question.”

“Word clearing” is yet another Scientology-based practice

There was also a revelation from Leah Remini and Mike Rinder, two former high-ranking Scientologists. Rinder was the school’s ex-spokesman and senior executive.

After leaving the Church of Scientology and setting out to expose its alleged abuses, they said that study technology is basically a “back-door way of getting people into Scientology”.

The school opened its doors in 2008 before quietly closing in 2013, and the Smiths have repeatedly publicly denied the school’s association with Scientology over the years.

But besides the whistleblowers coming out with evidence to suggest otherwise, their bank records also pointed towards Scientology.

It was found that the Smiths gave $122 500 to different Scientologist groups in 2008.

So there you have it. Strangest, freakiest Hollywood couple, ever.

[source:dailybeast]