Elvis, Marilyn Monroe ... John Travolta?

MSNBC/April 17, 2007
By Jeannette Walls

John Travolta doesn’t suffer from lack of ego. The “Wild Hogs” star recently boasted that he was as big a star as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe — but didn’t suffer the same fate as them because of his values and religion.

“I have fame on the level of a Marilyn Monroe or an Elvis, but part of the reason I didn’t go the way they did was because of my beliefs,” Travolta told the Irish Independent.

The star went on to credit his sometimes controversial religion for the difference between his fate and theirs.

“People make judgments about it [Scientology], but often they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Travolta said. “I would advise anyone who wants to know about it to read up on it. We [the Church of Scientology] are only getting bigger and we help people all over the world, from disaster zones to drug rehabilitation.”

Travolta also explained how he used his celeb status to help Scientology in Germany, where it had been under attack in some circles. “We were having a problem in Germany [where some critics called Scientology a money-making entity rather than a religion],” he told the Independent. “I talked to [former president Bill] Clinton who talked to Chancellor Kohl and things have improved since then.”