Tragic Details About King Of Queens Star Leah Remini

Actress Leah Remini got her start by landing guest or recurring roles on TV sitcoms like "Who's the Boss?" and "Cheers," and eventually became a star with her breakout leading role in "The King of Queens" opposite Kevin James. But despite all the success she's had in her career, she might still be best known for the difficult life she's led, most notably her time in the Church of Scientology — and her controversial exit from the organization that led her to wage a personal crusade against it.

A vociferous critic of the church to this day, Remini spoke out after Scientology member Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years in prison for rape, and released both a tell-all book about the church and a documentary miniseries, "Scientology and the Aftermath." Aside from facing all manner of troubles in the church and out of it, Remini has also dealt with serious challenges all her life. While she's admitted to being guilty of her own sins, one can't help but be impressed by her perseverence and fortitude in enduring all kinds of trauma and tragedy.

Leah Remini was forced into the Church of Scientology when she was just a child, as she and her siblings were brought into the fold by their mother. But what many may not realize is that when Remini entered Scientology, it also meant ending her formal education, which meant dropping out of school at just eight years old. Decades later, after escaping Scientology, Remini went back to school, ultimately earning a degree from NYU.

Following her second year at the university, Remini shared news of her accomplishment on Instagram. "Two years ago, I had an 8th-grade education thanks to spending 35 years in a cult," Remini said. "And now, at age 52, I've successfully finished my second year at NYU." Determined to get a proper education, no matter how challenging for a woman in her 50s, Remini is proud of what she was able to achieve. "Undertaking this educational journey has been one of the most difficult experiences of my life," she wrote, admitting, "There have been days where I've thought about giving up."

A year or so after that post, in 2024, Remini received an associate's degree in liberal arts at the age of 53, and said she would begin the pursuit of a bachelor's degree next.

When Leah Remini's mother brought the family into the Church of Scientology, it was more than just taking the future "King of Queens" star out of school. It later meant moving the family to Florida, mostly at the behest of her new stepfather. But that stepfather didn't come with them, and Remini and her family were all alone with no support system but the church. And as Remini described it, the church wasn't a great place to find support.

"We were working from morning until night with barely any schooling," Remini said of the first year or so as a part of the organization, where she was forced to work endless hours with few or no breaks. "There was no saying no. There was no being tired. There was no, 'I'm a little girl who just lost her father and everything I've ever known.' There was only, 'Get it done.'"

Ironically, the Church of Scientology's treatment of her helped Remini develop a strong work ethic. Before long, the Reminis moved again, this time to Los Angeles. "Moving to L.A. had nothing to do with me wanting to be an actress," said Remini in a chat with Buzzfeed. "My mother had a friend who was willing to take us in for a month until we could get on our feet. So we lived on her floor." Eventually, the family did get back on their feet, and Remini began her pursuit of an acting career, even beating out Jennifer Aniston for a role on "Cheers."

Leah Remini has been through hell and back, sucked into what she claims is a dangerous, abusive cult and enduring a harrowing journey to escape its clutches. But just because Remini managed to find a life beyond the Church of Scientology doesn't mean it's been all sunshine and rainbows since. Remini also had to deal with the devastating death of a loved one in 2025, with the passing of Mike Rinder — the man who co-hosted the 2016 documentary "Scientology and the Aftermath" with Remini — from cancer.

"I lost a man who was more than a friend — he was family," Remni said in a social media post (via People) upon Rinder's passing. Although she'd known Rinder for more than a decade, their relationship went far beyond them being co-hosts of a documentary. "When I left Scientology, Mike was one of the first people I turned to. From that moment, he became my lifeline," Remini wrote. "But Mike was so much more than my partner in this fight — he was my brother, my father, and my best friend."

As Remini tells it, Rinder wasn't just a close friend and confidante during her exit from Scientology. She credits him with quite literally saving her life and that of her daughter, providing support when the church declared her an enemy. "I haven't come to terms with the reality that I can't call him and hear his voice anymore," she added.

A decade before Leah Remini lost surrogate family member Mike Rinder to cancer, she lost someone even closer to the same disease: her half-sister, Stephanie Remini. Stephanie was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 after undergoing surgery to remove a tumor in her brain. The surgery was sadly too late, as the cancer had already spread throughout her body, with "a large mass attached to her left lung" and "cancer in her left hip bone and several more bony growths on her spine," according to Remini's other half-sister, Christina Castelluchi (per Radar Online).

Leah, however, doesn't seem to have been particularly close to Stephanie and had little to say upon her passing. But Leah's third sister, Nicole Remini-Wiskow, had plenty to say, eulogizing her sibling and even purchasing a star in her name, via the website StandUp2Cancer.org. "Today, you left us," she wrote at the site. "You were such a little nut (in the most humorous of ways)! I know you are charming the pants off of Jesus as we speak. Your contagious smile, your sense of humor and love of God will always be remembered."

Like many, Leah Remini grew up in a complicated family: Her biological parents were divorced when she was very young, and it was her stepfather whom she was closer with for years. Despite her stepfather also abandoning the family, Remini admits that she never felt any real resentment for the only dad she ever really knew. That can't be said, however, for her biological father, George Remini, who she alleges subjected her and her siblings to years of abuse before her parents divorced. When he died in 2019, Remini acknowledged their difficult relationship — and the many years they were estranged, right up until his passing.

"Regardless of his neglect and abuse, I had hoped to one day have some closure," she said in a social media post shared by People. "I hoped for him to acknowledge who he had been and what he had done to us as his children. That alone would have been healing in its own way. We never got that, yet I can't help but grieve." Demonstrating the depths of the pair's estrangement, Remini says that when her father passed, she received the news only from a third party who sent her sister condolences.

"We weren't aware that he had been sick leading up to his death," Remini admitted. "A funeral came and went, and none of us knew anything about it." Sadly, Remini says, her father was never able to seek redemption or forgiveness, though the actress herself has no regrets: "I always forgave him with a daughter's painfully endless love and hope."

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

It's no secret that Leah Remini and her biological father, George Remini, had a contentious relationship. But while she claims she suffered abuse at his hand, her father also slung bitter allegations against her decades later. Following the passing of Remini's sister from cancer in 2013, George Remini took to the press to throw dirt on Leah, joining a smear campaign against her that the actress believes was orchestrated by the Church of Scientology via a site dedicated to discrediting Remini's claims against Scientology and Sea Org.

George Remini called his daughter manipulative and narcissistic, and called her attacks on Scientology a part of an elaborate plan to blame everyone else for her own problems. He detailed how when Remini's sister was dying of cancer, Leah denied her half-sister financial assistance during her treatment, and even accused the star of psychological attacks against her "King of Queens" co-star, Kevin James (who was known to fight with Remini on the set of their sitcom). 

In response, Remini has claimed that, while George was never a member of the Church of Scientology, the organization was using him in their battle against her. "Scientology took my dad in as a pawn against me and likely robbed him of any last ounce of heart that might have been left in him," Remini said on a social media post (via People).

If receiving no education and being forced to work long hours as a child wasn't enough trauma, Remini also claims that her time in Sea Org — the militant wing of the Church of Scientology — was marked by extensive abuse, both physical and psychological. In her book, "Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology," Remini describes how Sea Org leader Mike Hurley would subject the children to violent reprisal over even the most innocent transgressions.

In one instance, Remini says that she used a hotel pool by mistake and was harshly reprimanded for it later while out on a boat with Hurley. "He cut the engine and started screaming at me. 'Never do you sit in a public place. You are Sea Org members,'" Remini recalled in the memoir. Although she apologized for using a pool intended for hotel guests, the abuse didn't end. "Mike kept trying to get me to say 'yes sir.' But I couldn't do it," she wrote. "Then he picked me up and before I even realized what was happening, he threw me overboard. The shock of the moment and the freezing water took my breath away, and for an instant I thought I was going to drown."

Remini's book, full of allegations against the Church of Scientology, set off a firestorm in Hollywood that was even parodied on Prime Video's superhero series, "The Boys."

Not only did Leah Remini face a public smear campaign when she decided to leave the Church of Scientology, but she also claims to have lost many close friends. And not just because they didn't see eye to eye with her decision to depart the church, but because — according to Remini — the rules of Scientology prohibit friendships with those who are critical of them. 

Appearing on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show (via Us Weekly), Remini was asked bluntly if she was no longer allowed to communicate with old friends who still followed Scientology. "Correct," Remini replied simply, adding that these weren't just fellow church members, but "friends that we've had for dozens of years." In one of the more famous Hollywood feuds, in fact, Remini had a falling out with fellow sitcom star Kirstie Alley, though the "Cheers" alum disputes that it was against the rules to remain friends (and Alley's own public fights are why we didn't hear much from her in the final years before her passing).

Thankfully, Remini's circle of friends wasn't exclusively those who belonged to the Church of Scientology, so she wasn't completely alone. "I have great friends, other friends that are not in the church, that have stood by us," she said. "Our family is stronger, we're together, and that's all I can ask for."

The fallout due to Leah Remini's exit from the Church of Scientology upended her entire life: She lost friends and faced public smear campaigns, but Remini also slapped a lawsuit on the organization in 2023, alleging more than a decade of criminal harassment and intimidation.

"For 17 years, Scientology and [church leader] David Miscavige have subjected me to what I believe to be psychological torture, defamation, surveillance, harassment, and intimidation, significantly impacting my life and career," Remini said in a statement published by NBC News in 2023. As stated in the lawsuit, Remini claims that the church hired private investigators and thugs to follow, and sometimes even stalk her, while out promoting her book. Things got so bad that in 2015, Remini was forced to hire bodyguards. But that's not all: Remini also accused the church of holding meetings with their members and pressuring them to attack Remini in the press and elsewhere, even creating a set of talking points like a political campaign.

Remini claims that she wasn't in it for the money and that her lawsuit is more intended to prevent the targeted harassment of future church members who leave Scientology. "While this lawsuit is about what Scientology has done to me, I am one of thousands of targets of Scientology over the past seven decades," she stated.

Leah Remini also believes that the Church of Scientology went further than just trying to discredit her. In fact, the actress believes that they even tried to sabotage her career, making public statements to defame her in an effort to stymie her working life. In her lawsuit against the church, she alleges that it was all part of a coordinated campaign to prevent her from getting jobs in Hollywood.

In one instance, when Remini was announced as host of a new game show, the church publicly posted, "What's next? A game show 'hosted' by a KKK leader? Neo-Nazi Jeopardy." The church made statements calling Remini a bigot, an abuser, and a hatemonger, but because the actress is a public figure, the statements are harder to allege as criminal in a court of law. 

Remini also believes, however, that Scientology put pressure on Remini's business relationships, a charge also included in the lawsuit. In March 2024, these parts of Remini's suit were tossed out by the presiding judge, but the harassment claims were allowed to proceed, which many saw as a big win for the church.

Surprisingly, Leah Remini has been more than open about her own flaws. In her book, Remini admits that she is selfish and self-centered, and acknowledged doing awful things to some of the people she loved. But she also revealed in the same breath that Angelo Pagán, then her husband of 12 years, was "a serial cheater." Of course, this might not have been a surprise to Remini, as it had long been rumored that they began their relationship while Pagán was still married to his previous wife.

Remini and Pagán met way back in 1996, and were married in 2003. A year later, they had their first child, and the star's husband — cheater or not — showed his loyalty by remaining at her side as she fled the Church of Scientology. After decades together, though, the pair called it quits in 2024, and — perhaps ironically — it wasn't because of any infidelity. "This decision came after a lot of thought and care, and as hard as divorce is, we are approaching this with a positive outlook because we know it's what's best for us," the couple said in a joint statement published by the Los Angeles Times.

In addition to her ongoing battle with former friend Kirstie Alley and the troubles she's faced since leaving the Church of Scientology, Leah Remini has feuded with plenty of other people during her career. More recently, Remini got into another public spat with an unlikely figure: Sharon Osbourne, wife of the late, legendary Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne. Both Remini and Sharon were hosts of the daytime talk show "The Talk," and in 2011, two years before she left Scientology, Remini claims that Sharon got her fired from the show.

A year after being dropped, Remini let loose on Twitter (via E! News) about why she believed that she and fellow "The Talk" co-host Holly Robinson Peet were dismissed. "Sharon thought me and Holly were 'ghetto' ... we were not funny, awkward and didn't know ourselves," Remini said. "She has the power that was given to her."

For her part, Sharon — who came to fame from her days on the reality TV series "The Osbournes" in the 2000s — insists that she had nothing to do with Remini's exit. She fired back on social media, saying, "I had absolutely nothing to do with her departure from the show and have no idea why she continues to take to Twitter to spread this false gossip." Ironically, Osbourne was later fired too, and she's still bitter about it.