Reader’s Digest on Cruise Control

Radar Magazine/June 8, 2005

Did Reader’s Digest sell its soul to the Church of Scientology to get Tom Cruise on the cover of its current issue? According to several sources inside the world’s largest-selling monthly, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jackie Leo, wanted Cruise as her cover boy but was impeded by the magazine’s history with the controversial group.

Back in 1991, Reader’s Digest excerpted an in-depth investigative piece from Time magazine entitled Scientology: The Cult of Greed. Among other things, the article asserted that the Church “is a highly profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.”

In response, the Church filed injunctions aimed at blocking Reader’s Digest from publishing the story in its international editions. But Scientology’s lawyers ultimately lost, and the mag gained cred beyond its walker-waving readership for standing up to the cult’s bullying ways.

With so much bad blood between them, how did Reader’s Digest land a rare sit-down with Scientology’s top celebrity spokesman? By caving in to a long list of bizarre demands. According to well-placed sources at the magazine, to ensure Cruise’s cooperation, the Digest’s reporter, Meg Grant, promised to give “Scientology issues” equal play in her profile of the star, and agreed to enroll in a one-day Church “immersion course.” Before the interview took place, our sources say, the magazine also agreed to submit its questions for Cruise to his Church handlers, who weeded out any queries they deemed inappropriate. But they were still not taking any chances. When the exclusive interview finally took place, one of Cruise’s handlers asked the star the list of pre-approved questions, as Grant recorded Cruise’s responses.

Needless to say, the Church is thrilled with the resulting story, we hear. With such fawning treatment in the pages of the global magazine that denounced it only a decade ago, it’s scored a significant coup. As for the magazine? “Reader’s Digest has sold out with no turning back as far as I’m concerned,” laments one former editor. Asked about her journalistic horse-trading, Editor-in-Chief Leo explained she didn’t “know anything about [Cruise’s] ‘requests’ because I wasn’t the one who did the interview,” and suggested we talk to the writer of the piece. Reached in L.A., Grant denied providing her questions in advance or relaying them to Cruise through a third party during the interview. ”I would never do that journalistically, and the magazine wouldn’t allow it,” she claims.

But, after some prodding, Grant admitted she was indeed put through an immersion course in Scientology, but that it was a surprise. “Before the interview, I went to a lunch with [Cruise’s sister/publicist] Lee Anne DeVette, which turned out to be at the Scientology Celebrity Center, and turned out to be not a lunch but a six hour tour of the center,” she says. After the tour, Grant says she was taken to the church’s “anti-psychiatry museum” on Melrose Ave. (at which point her guides made clear they somehow knew her husband was a practicing psychiatrist).

“I suppose I could have left at any time, but it would have been awkward,” she says. Did you hear that, celebrity journalists? If you’re looking to score an exclusive with Cruise, Beck, Kirstie Alley, Greta van Susteren, John Travolta, or Jenna Elfman, don’t forget your Paxil—and a pair of running shoes.