Jada Pinkett Smith has been on a mission to put old feuds to bed ― be it with Gabrielle Union or husband Will Smith’s ex-wife ― and now she’s turned her attention to Leah Remini.
The “King of Queens” alum claimed the actress was a “longtime” member of Scientology in an interview with The Daily Beast last year, sparking a heated exchange between the two.
“What was really emotional about it was realizing that there was two broken little girls in us that were abandoned by their fathers and turned into fighters who clashed,” Pinkett Smith told People about resolving her conflict with Remini.
“You have to treat people with kindness because you don’t know what they’re going through,” she added. “When she told me her story, I had so much more compassion and it reiterated the necessity to just be gentle and kind because we’re all f****** devastated.”
Remini apparently was the one to make contact with Pinkett Smith after the spat, which resulted in the two settling their differences on an upcoming episode of “Red Table Talk,” which returns Oct. 22 on Facebook Watch.
Remini, who was raised as a Scientologist from an early age, is one of its most famous detractors. She made a public exit from the church after more than three decades and has since called out various high-profile members like Elisabeth Moss, as well as exposing its alleged abuses in her A&E series “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.”
The actress claimed she’d spotted Pinkett Smith at the Scientology Celebrity Centre “all the time” when she was still a practicing member.
“I know Jada’s in. I know Jada’s in. She’s been in Scientology a long time,” Remini said. “I never saw Will [Smith] there, but I saw Jada at the Celebrity Centre. They opened up a Scientology school, and have since closed it.”
In 2008, Will and Jada did open the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California, which some claimed spread Scientology teachings to its students. The two later spoke out about the speculation, declaring that the academy was a secular institution despite having multiple Scientologists on the faculty. The school shuttered in 2013.
Pinkett Smith was having none of it, however, shutting down her claims on social media, explaining that she’s been a student on many religions.
“I have studied Dianetics, and appreciate the merits of Study Tech,” she tweeted, referring to practices developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. “But I am not a Scientologist. I practice human kindness, and I believe that we each have the right to determine what we are and what we are not.”
“It was really beautiful and she reached out to me,” Pinkett Smith said. “She was much more bigger than me in that way. It was nice to reconnect and release ourselves from all that nonsense that doesn’t matter.”