Kimora Lee Simmons - celebrity designer, ex-wife of Russell Simmons and great beauty - is not happy with Scientology.
On Thursday, we had to call her press person and inform her that Kimora is being featured in a new Scientology promotional video. The sect's chief, David Miscavige, can be seen in the video telling followers that Simmons has been distributing the group's "Way to Happiness" propaganda pamphlet in New Jersey and Los Angeles.
The news that Simmons is somehow involved in Scientology comes around the six-minute mark in the eight-minute video posted at YouTube.
Miscavige, dressed in a tuxedo, seems to be addressing a large crowd in the gauche, ornate Celebrity Center in Hollywood from the same podium on which he gave Tom Cruise an Olympic-looking medal in 2004.
He tells the gathering that to reach new recruits 12 to 18 years old, they can do better than Simmons, who "funnels booklets" in the aforementioned locales. On the screen behind him, Simmons' face is shown.
Only one problem, though, Simmons' publicist told me on Thursday while her client was traveling. "I've asked everyone," said the flack. "Kimora is not a Scientologist. We have nothing to do with this."
Of course, Miscavige also claims support in the video for Scientology from Philips Electronics in Pakistan, Dell computers "all over Africa," Coca-Cola Pakistan, 7-Eleven in Taiwan and Ecuador's postal system. He says that 70 million people are reading or in possession of "Way to Happiness."
But mostly, Miscavige - who gave the speech at a New Year's Eve rally at the end of 2006 - has one goal: to obliterate psychiatry. He tells his listeners about the group's progress in breaking "the dark spell cast across Earth by psychiatry."
"We booby-trapped the entire psychiatric ecosystem," Miscavige says. "We've already yanked 21 psychiatrists' licenses in the last four weeks."
Miscavige is under fire these days, by the way. His 24-year-old niece, Jenna, has left the group after being raised in it, and has a lot to say about what's gone on behind the scenes. She's already turned up on one syndicated show, "Inside Edition," and likely will have more to say in the next few days, I am told.
