Elisabeth Moss doesn’t often discuss her beliefs, but the lifelong Scientologist opened up about her controversial religion in a new profile for The New Yorker.
In the interview, Moss confronts a rumour that she bolted from the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton during the 2018 Television Critics Association’s TCA Awards when ex-Scientologist Leah Remini gave her acceptance speech after winning an award for her series “Scientology and the Aftermath”.
“I went to the bathroom,” Moss said of her absence from the ceremony during Remini’s speech. “I wish it was more exciting than that.”
According to The New Yorker, Remini has claimed that Moss is forbidden from speaking with her due to Scientology edicts declaring that, as an ex-member of the church, she’s an “anti-social personality.”
“I have never been approached by her,” Moss said of Remini. “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.”
Meanwhile, Moss also addressed another rumour, which emerged after The Hollywood Reporter published a piece saying that Moss ticked off Scientologists when she used profanity during her speech for her 2017 Emmy win, in which she thanked her mother for teaching her “that you can be kind and a f**king bada**.”
Moss admitted that report upset her.
“That was a really, really big moment for me, and it was a big moment for my mom and me,” she said. “My mom, who has supported me through the years and been such an incredible mother to both me and my brother. And to tell a lie like that, about that — I didn’t deserve that, and it was wrong.”
READ MORE: Elisabeth Moss Says Scientology Hasn’t Impacted Her Success In Hollywood
Moss also explained why she’s reluctant to discuss Scientology.
“I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me,” she said. “I want them to be seeing the character. I feel like, when actors reveal too much of their lives, I’m sometimes watching something and I’m going, ‘Oh, I know that she just broke up with that person, or, I know that she loves to do hot yoga,’ or whatever it is.”
She also claimed that Scientology is “not really a closed-off religion,” but “a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in somebody who wants to learn more about it. I think that’s the thing that is probably the most misunderstood.”
