Leah Remini only found out her father died "a month ago".

Leah Remini

Leah Remini

The 'King of Queens' star has blamed the Church of Scientology - of which she was a member before leaving and becoming an outspoken critic of the controversial religion in 2013 - insisting the organisation used her dad George Anthony Remini against her.

In a lengthy post on Instagram, she wrote: "On Friday, I received a message from my sister Nicole, who had been contacted by a stranger passing on his condolences for the passing of our father, George Anthony Remini.

"We had no idea that he had died a month ago. We weren't aware that he had been sick leading up to his death. A funeral came and went and none of us knew anything about it. We were not able to say goodbye.

"He was not able to redeem himself, to ask for forgiveness for his failures and hurts, to become a better man to those of us who couldn't help but love him."

The 49-year-old actress - who has been open about the difficult relationship she shared with her father - is upset she never had a chance at "some closure", and that she was "crying for someone who didn't ever cry" for her.

Turning her attention to the church he was still a member of, she continued: "I'm angry that the last chapter in our relationship was dictated by Scientology ... Scientology took my dad in as a pawn against me and likely robbed him of any last ounce of heart that might have been left in him.

"I'm angry that Scientology found his personal weak spots and got him on board not with their beliefs but with their smear campaign against me. That was his last presence in my life. Knowing my father, after taking the offer from Scientology to betray me, he wouldn't have thought that he could ever come back from that in our relationship.

"If he thought that, though, he would have been wrong. I would have forgiven him as I always did. The little girls inside of my sisters and me will never forgive Scientology for taking away our last chance to have the one thing we always wanted from our father."

Scientology was created by by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 with followers subscribing to a programme of ideas known as Dianetics.

Bizarrely, Hubbard claimed that billions of extra-terrestrial beings were sent to Earth by Xenu - the dictator of the 'Galactic Confederacy', comprised of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth - who gathered them around volcanoes and then destroyed the aliens with hydrogen bombs.

The aliens' souls attached themselves to chosen humans, known as thetans, who will be one day be saved from their life of spiritual harm.


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