CELEBRITY TWEETS

Jada Pinkett Smith Denies Being a Scientologist After Being Called One By Leah Remini

“I practice human kindness.”


Jada Pinkett Smith Portrait Shoot
Tim Hunter/Newspix/Getty Images

Jada Pinkett Smith, whose family’s faith has been the subject of a lot of speculation over the past several years, has just issued an official statement, via Twitter, on her religion in the wake of Leah Remini’s recent suggestion that the Smiths are scientologists. The family matriarch says, point blank, she is not a Scientologist. “I have studied Dianetics, and appreciate the merits of Study Tech… but I am not a Scientologist,” Smith tweeted.

Her denouncement came in a string of similar sentiments where she explained that just because she’s experimented with other religions, that doesn’t mean she adheres to them. “I recently lit Shabbat candles with Rabbi Bentley at Temple Sinai… but I am not Jewish,” her tweets began this morning. “I have prayed in mosques all over the world… but I am not a Muslim. I have read the Bhagavad Gita… but I am not a Hindu. I have chanted and meditated in some of the most magnificent temples on earth… but I am not a Buddhist.”

Instead, Smith says she ascribes to one belief, which is to treat everyone equally. “I practice human kindness, and I believe that we each have the right to determine what we are and what we are not,” she writes. “NO ONE ELSE can hold that power.”

Remini’s accusation came along with an anecdote about one night she shared at Tom Cruise’s house with Jada Pinkett and Will Smith. After the trio were allegedly coaxed into a game of hide-and-seek by Cruise. “I know Jada’s in,” she told The Daily Beast. “I know Jada’s in. She’s been in Scientology a long time. I never saw Will [Smith] there, but I saw Jada at the Celebrity Centre. They opened up a Scientology school, and have since closed it. But Jada, I had seen her at the Scientology Celebrity Centre all the time.”

This isn’t the first time that the Smiths have been linked to scientology. Will Smith, for instance, has spoken about his relationship to it. Back in 2007, he told Access Hollywood, “I was introduced to [Scientology] through Tom, and I’m a student of world religion. I was raised in a Baptist household and went to a Catholic school, but the ideas of the Bible are 98 percent the same ideas as Scientology; 98 percent the same ideas as Buddhism or Hinduism… How you gon’ not know nothing about Scientology and attack [Tom]? It’s dangerous, and it’s ignorant. How am I going to condemn someone for what they believe and I believe God was born from a pregnant virgin?”

However, years later, a former senior executive at the Church of Scientology denied that Smith was a scientologist to The Daily Beast. This is the first time Pinkett has spoken out about her ties to Scientology. Meanwhile, Remini has spent much of her recent career speaking out against the Church of Scientology, most notably with last year’s documentary series [Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.](http://www.aetv.com/shows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath)

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