An Open Letter To The Proprietor Of Scientology, Tony Ortega

First of all, what do you mean you’re the “proprietor” of Scientology, Tony? Is that you admitting that your involvement in all things Scientology is a business? Good, I’m glad we got that out of the way.

Open letters are an interesting thing. They can be powerful. Writing them to people you don’t know like Tom Cruise is something I’ve seen people do, including you to people who are usually running from some pretty serious problems. Problems like ignoring taking responsibility for their part in the harm they’ve created or calling someone out for their hypocrisy. It’s almost incredible how much I’ve learned about the way you operate & “do business.” So if you decide not to appreciate why I’ve had to take such an extreme measure to get through to you, I don’t care. I should have done this a long time ago. But hopefully the people reading this will understand that this isn’t a business for me. This is real life. It’s my life. And I won’t accept your mistreatment or misuse of the influence you have as a journalist.

 That’s what you are, aren’t you? A journalist? Or an ijournalist? Do you model journalistic integrity?  If I could answer that question for you, I’d say no. Because that’s been my experience with you. Writing an open letter is my very last ditch effort to find peace with all this. Not so you & I can pretend to “fix” this. No, that will never happen. What you’ve done is unforgivable. But it’s all I can do before I decide whether or not this is worth suing you in court over. You see, I don’t know who you think you are but if you think I’m somebody you can devalue on your path to making a career out of a religion that I’ve lived through & have intimate knowledge of, you’re  mistaken. I won’t let Scientology fair game & harass me. The last person I’ll allow to do it is someone who’s made a business out of it.

For the record this is what happened so people understand. Before I went to New York to give an interview with NBC about Scientology in 2012, someone from their office gave me your phone number & said you wanted to meet me. I called you, you were friendly & we chatted for about 10 minutes. Nothing heavy. Honestly, you talked more than I did. You dominated the conversation by telling me about what happened between you & Jason Lee, my ex husband on Twitter before that & were so proud of yourself for how stupid you thought you made Jason look. Now, I’m not taking up for Jason in any capacity but these things come back to a person when you see them treat you in the same way & I had to wonder if it made you feel just as good when you talked about me. Not to me. About me. And judging by the way you reacted to me on Twitter last Christmas when I found out what you said via the WWP Scientology board, It was obvious taking responsibility wasn’t something you were intent on doing. I do have to say, it was gross how you had no qualms about treating it like a joke. How’s that for humanitarianism? (Oh wait, it’s a business, how naive of me.)

 During that phone call with you we lightly touched on a few subjects but nothing serious. You said you wanted to set up an interview & we would speak later. But after that initial meeting I never heard from you again. I tried to tweet you a couple of times to see what was up & it was all dead cold silence. Nothing. I didn’t expect that to happen but what could I do? I moved on only to see you behave in ways that I won’t include in this post today because I still want it investigated. Things like legalities concerning privacy & hack job style campaigns. Plagiarism. But I will say that if obsessively mirroring & covertly trying to correct another person is your thing, (which it is) then Ive already thanked my lucky stars I never worked with you.

Three years went by. In that time a lot happened. I got constantly trolled & treated by people acting like I was some secret Scientologist spy. I had no idea where this madness was coming from for a long time. I was very confused why I was being accused of still being a Scientologist no matter what I said. I would later put it together that it was you & your clique that were all parroting these same things.

 During that time I did a series (yes, a series Tony. I spoke on camera for over 2 hours) with Radar that REALLY pissed you off. I’m guessing me talking about my sexuality wasn’t going to be tolerated by you & your moralistically superior self. (I’m a grown woman by the way if you haven’t noticed & I’ll say & do whatever I choose with no concern to you. That Radar interview I did most certainly pushed your buttons. I hope you don’t actually believe you have some right to insert yourself into my narrative. But if you must know, the reason I decided it was best to speak out to Radar about such a personal topic wasn’t for whatever reason you slimed it into appearing like. You’re very good with the impressionistic accusations by the way. Any form of homosexuality & sexual confessions given in session as I’m damn sure you know is something that Scientology will drag you through the mud about in their attempts to indiscriminately make your life hell & I WAS NOT going to let them have that power over me. I won’t be humiliated by my sexual preferences so I told the world myself, in my own way & I took back that power. Radar understood that. So, you can act as pretentious as you want but you’re no better than what you call tabloid news companies like Radar or The National Enquirer yourself. In fact you’re worse because you use your blog to talk shit about people you pretend to protect.) You had to show your disapproval by telling everyone at The Bunker how wrong you believed I was, like you just couldn’t take it anymore. Poor you Tony, did you recover? From there your quote was used to hijack a thread that was originally meant as support at WWP in order to scatter gossip & innuendo about me. But my question to you is if you’re going to act like I’m so unimportant & that I’m a big nothing, why in the hell are you watching my interviews? 

Then last Summer in 2015 Gawker asked me to write an essay on some of my life experiences in Scientology for them. Now that interview was extensive Tony in case you thought you were going to  get away with lying about doing an “extensive” interview with me, you didn’t. Of course I know Gawker isn’t the LA Times but if anything it’s only made them more careful because it took months to write & edit that piece. The editor & I must have emailed back & forth 30 times with her asking questions & getting me to explain what she didn’t understand. We communicated & there’s a very long paper trail to prove that there’s no doubt what extensive means. She & I worked very hard on it together & if I said something she became doubtful of, she wasn’t afraid to ask & clear it up. My whole story had to go through their legal department & my divorce attorney got involved in order to provide reliable documents to show proof for what I wrote. I was very pleased with it. When it came out I was interested to see if you were going to support me. It was something that I’d hoped would happen because I wanted to believe this was all in my head & maybe I was just being overly sensitive. It’s bizarre because I’ve seen you write posts on practically anyone that mentions  Scientology. Friends of somebody’s friends who ever even met a Scientologist is featured on your blog. The way I see it, you would interview a dog if it barked in a Scientology Church, what reason in the world would you have to purposely ignore & not support an ex scientologist such as myself, let alone later insinuate (which is the same as saying) I was a liar? Well, regardless of you, my Gawker essay went viral. Which I’m proud of. But during that time, I still waited to see if you’d make any mention of it. You didn’t. It became obvious to me, among other things that there was some concerted behavior going on. 

After all this, I was finally shown last Christmas by a friend what you said about me on your blog. Your business. Wow, your ridiculous insults & insinuative quotes were a low blow Tony & that was the move of a petty coward. You took a 10 minute phone  introduction we’d had & repackaged it as an “extensive interview” so you could make it look like I was a liar. If you never wrote a word about me because I was so unbelievable, why didn’t  you ask me for proof? Or talk to me at all? What you should know is that you’re just as bad as Scientology. Your arrogance & lack of compassion will be your downfall. The worst part in all of this is when I decided to finally confront you, out came more lies. Since you tried to ruin me publicly, I figured I could at least return the favor & ask you in front of everyone what caused your actions against me. Your reaction? You doubled down on all of this being a result of that extensive interview you said you did with me,  regardless of there being absolutely no proof that you & I ever even spoke. For a journalist, that is a stupendous out point. You added you’d done a “lengthy” interview with me despite the fact that I told you over & over that you didn’t do an interview at all. Does it matter what I say? Obviously not, it’s not like you listened. Which you very well know. People know when they’re being interviewed Tony. These miscommunications don’t happen in real journalism. You claimed you took “notes” of our conversation, like that was the smoking gun proof for this so called interview that gave you license to publicly insist I was liar. Maybe you did take notes but how on Earth could a journalist insist this is proof of an extensive interview? Notes on a 10 minute conversation? Please. Remember, I was there. I know what happened. Anybody can take notes on a conversation they’re having, it doesn’t mean they’re interviewing the person. But it does mean you’re very sneaky. 

In 2014 you also claimed on your blog that you interviewed me 4 years ago. How does that work when you admittedly know the date we spoke was actually in July 2012? That’s 2 & a half years Tony, not 4. Are you kidding me that you don’t know the difference? I’m curious how you keep blindly repeating this like its a fact even though I pointed it out to you when you said the same thing to me on Twitter last year while I was confronting you about all this. Yet, you stayed on script & insisted it was 4 years ago to me. How can you blatantly be so  wrong about something as simple as how long ago we spoke & remain unwilling to correct the situation? How very tabloid-ish of you.

I gave you the opportunity to apologize during that same time on Twitter.  An opportunity you chose not to take. Instead you decided to make a joke out of me by doing your best Scientology disconnection imitation & dared to “wish me the best” after treating me like I was nothing. Now that was a bitch move Tony & you know it. I mean, did you see Going Clear? You know what that meant & if you don’t then you need a lesson on exactly what being disconnected from feels like. In fact, you should probably quit your day job. 

You need a climb down. I hope no one is stupid enough to ever trust you again with their vulnerabilities. I hope another person gains enough momentum in the anti Scientology world to come up & do a better job than you & take the control out of your hands. This isn’t a contest. It’s a brutal & traumatic recovery from a controlling cult that you’ve found a way to exploit & make about you. I want you out of business. Now it’s your turn to make of that as you will. 

Sincerely, 

Carmen Llywelyn 

Ex-Scientologist