Talk about doing double duty.

Jennifer Aniston has turned to Katie Holmes’ ex-bodyguard to watch over her while she shoots her latest film in Connecticut.

She’s not the bodyguard’s only celebrity client: the hired muscle — known as Sheldon — also protected Holmes’ daughter Suri and still works for her ex-husband Tom Cruise. In fact, Sheldon just jetted back from the UK, where he was protecting the Top Gun star on the set of All You Need Is Kill.

His work relationship with Cruise and Holmes was certainly fruitful — but part of it sank fast when the couple’s marriage tanked.

“Katie really liked him, but she hired a whole new team once she split up with Tom in case Sheldon reported back to him,” a  source told Celebuzz.

That’s left him free to protect the likes of Aniston.

“Sheldon is a cool guy, one of the best in the business,” a set source said. “He has been very attentive to Jennifer, following her around set with an umbrella and protecting her from the nasty weather.

“He is very experienced in dealing with both paparazzi and production staff, and no unwanted persons will trouble her with him around.”

That’s certainly a priority. As Celebuzz previously reported, producers of the new flick — based on an Elmore Leonard novel — have been paying off locals to keep their distance from the star.

Between the cold cash and Sheldon, Aniston is sure to have a peaceful shoot.

Said the source: “Nobody will get too close to her with him around.”

The Church of Scientology and its poster child Tom Cruise are the subject of a new, tell-all documentary from Britain’s Channel 4, Celebuzz has learned.

Tony Ortega, the investigative reporter who chronicles the inner-workings of the church, conformed he has been working with the television network, filming in California, Texas and New York during recent months.

“I’m glad to help them,” Ortega, the former Editor in Chief of the Village Voice who now runs his own website, told Celebuzz via email.

“I think their one-hour show, airing in March, is going to be a major addition to the field.”

The Channel 4 documentary comes at a time when 50-year-old Cruise’s involvement with the controversial religion has been sharp in focus, in the wake of his split from ex-wife Katie Holmes.

Indeed, as this site previously reported, ex-Scientologists — including one of Cruise’s former advisors — spoke out about how Cruise has lived life in a gilded cage supervised by the leaders of his religion, for more than 20 years.

The split from ex-Dawson’s Creek star Holmes was also deemed to be the “biggest nightmare” in Scientology history, according to some defectors.

When asked more about the focus of the documentary, Ortega said: “I better let them say more about what’s in it. I’ll just say I’ve been impressed at their level of research and how much they understand that this is s critical time for the church.”

In an interview with Woman’s Day magazine in Australia, Ortega warned: “This is terrifying for Scientology celebrities in an organisation that has destroyed so many lives and so many families.”

He added, “One of the most powerful things about this documentary is that those interviewed took part in the wrongdoing.

“Now they’re speaking out, revealing everything Scientology tried to bury.”

It’s not the first time Channel 4 has investigated the church. In 1997, John Travolta, the actor, wrote to Michael Jackson, the network’s controller, asking him not to allow a documentary because it would slander him and the religion.

John Travolta has claimed he helped a car crash survivor who was suffering “constant pain” from a broken ankle by using a mysterious Scientology procedure called “an assist” — leaving the victim “noticeably better” afterwards.

The Saturday Night Fever star, who has been studying Scientology since 1975, spoke about the incident in the controversial religion’s latest edition of their publication, Celebrity Magazine.

“I was in Shanghai recently at a work event and the Master of Ceremonies’ best friend had recently gotten into a car wreck. He had broken his ankle and was in constant pain,” the 57-year-old revealed in an article titled “John Travolta: Stayin’ Very Alive.”

“I asked him permission to do some Scientology assists and he said, ‘Okay sure’.

“People were standing around watching as I did them. You could actually see him confronting the pain and after a while he looked up at me and said ‘I feel better’ so I said ‘Okay end of assist.’

“He had gotten noticeably better and I was chomping at the bit for more.”

The popular star and devout Scientologist spoke about how he liked to use his unorthodox skills to help people that he meets on the street.

According to the Scientology handbook, an ‘assist’ is a process whereby a Scientologist helps an individual to heal himself — or to be healed by another agency — by removing his or her reasons for precipitating and prolonging his condition and lessening their predisposition to further injure themselves or remain in an intolerable condition.

The TV and film icon, who holds 11 licenses to fly jet airplanes, credits the religion for helping him become such an accomplished aviator.

In the interview, Travolta reveals that he used to drive his aeronautics instructors crazy because he was so detailed in his requests about how every part of a plane worked.

“I’m a high school dropout. Now, what are the odds of a high school dropout having 11 jet licenses? Not very high. Well, with just a little bit of Study Technology under my belt found I could totally understand the subject and for that matter any subject that I chose,” he added.

Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston are enjoying being parents again to their infant son Benjamin Travolta, 2, after their son Jett, who suffered from autism, died at the age of 16. He hit his head in a bathtub at the family’s vacation home at the Old Bahama Hotel on the Grand Bahama Island in 2009.

And during a recent appearance on The Doctors, Preston opened up for the first time about Jett’s autism and what she believed caused it.

“He was autistic, he had seizures, and when he was very young he had Kawasaki syndrome. I strongly believe as a mother, as does my husband, that there are certain contributing factors that lead to autism,” Preston, 50, revealed.

For her, those included a bout of food poisoning while she was pregnant, her ‘fast and hard labor’ and taking antibiotics while breast feeding, which gave Jett thrush (a common yeast infection in the mouth which has been linked to a symptom of autism).

Travolta and Preston, who also have a 12-year-old daughter Ella, are among Scientology’s highest profile celebrities in Hollywood, as well as Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley and Jenna Elfman.

As if the Church of Scientology didn’t have enough trouble already, what with the end of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ marriage and the muckraking epic article about their union in Vanity Fair. Now comes a little art house movie, one that made just $736,311 on five screens when it opened over the weekend, yet could be the biggest PR disaster of all for Scientology.

The Master, a thinly veiled biographical drama about a self-help guru much like L. Ron Hubbard who founds his own religion in the 1950s, seems poised to be a solid hit. Though it opened in a very limited release over the weekend, it scored a record-breaking $147,262 per-screen average in those five theaters, which suggests a strong buzz about the film that bodes well for its fortunes as it moves into wider release. Plus, the movie has critics raving — over the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) and the performances of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams — making The Master the year’s first awards frontrunner and guaranteeing that it’ll be the subject of conversation for the next six months.

And that could be bad news for Scientology, already reeling from Cruise’s divorce and other PR nightmares. For an organization heavily dependent on its association with prominent Hollywood folk like Cruise and John Travolta, a group whose litigiousness often scared away anyone who might say anything negative in print or on film, the release of The Master suggests that both Scientology’s sway over Hollywood and its ability to intimidate naysayers and defectors is on the wane.

Just how potentially embarrassing is ‘The Master’?

The Master tells the story of a Hubbard-like character named Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), a science fiction author who launches his own faith, one that promises self-improvement through the use of “processing,” a series of questions intended to uncover inner trauma and resolve issues that have lingered in past lives. The movie depicts him as a charismatic demagogue who buys his own line of con artistry and lashes out when confronted with the contradictions in his belief system.

The Master’s release comes on the heels of Maureen Orth’s Vanity Fair article detailing claims that the Cruise-Holmes marriage came about only after the Mission: Impossible star auditioned several actresses as possible brides, settling for a time on Iranian-born actress and church member Nazanin Boniadi. It’s an account that’s been confirmed by Crash director Paul Haggis, Hollywood’s most famous Scientology defector, who says he is a friend of Boniadi’s. Over the weekend, an eight-page cease-and-desist letter to Vanity Fair was revealed, threatening legal action and calling the story a regurgitation of old falsehoods. The magazine is standing by Orth’s reporting.

“There’s no question that the movie comes at the worst possible time for the church,” wrote Tony Ortega, editor of the Village Voice and a Scientology expert who has been writing about the organization for 17 years, in an e-mail to Celebuzz. “Scientology is literally splitting apart as David Miscavige’s controversial tenure as church leader reaches a kind of breaking point. He’s trying to get more and more money from fewer and fewer people, and many longtime, loyal members are now breaking away to form an independence movement. That would be enough of a crisis for Miscavige, but the Cruise-Holmes divorce made things exponentially worse because it brought so much media attention to what’s been going on. And now, The Master is going to reach potentially millions more, and many of those audience members will naturally want to learn about the real figures behind its characters. They’ll turn to the Internet for that information, which will only increase interest in news stories about Scientology and its problems.”

According to Ortega — who gave the church another bit of bad news last week with his decision to quit the Voice and turn his Scientology columns into a book — the current crisis goes back much further than the unflattering Tom Cruise stories of recent months. “Scientology has been in serious trouble since 2009, when the Tampa Bay Times released its devastating series, ‘The Truth Rundown,’ which featured former high-level church executives speaking out for the first time,” Ortega told Celebuzz. “In the three years since, we’ve learned even more about the shocking conditions at Scientology’s international base in California, where officials who have fallen from favor are kept in appalling conditions, according to court testimony.”

But recent weeks have provided such a perfect storm of bad news for Scientology that some Hollywood observers wondered if distributor Harvey Weinstein — who knows better than anyone in Hollywood how to milk a controversy for silver at the box office and gold at the Oscars — had moved The Master’s release date up a month from its initial October berth just to cash in on Scientology’s current PR woes. The Weinstein Company has denied such a motive, insisting that it’s just taking advantage of positive buzz for the film generated at Venice and other recent film festivals.

The Weinstein Company reportedly received some anonymous threats over the film’s impending release but did not take them seriously. There have been no threats of legal action from the church, perhaps because Anderson’s screenplay has changed all the names, some of the details, and invented some characters and events out of whole cloth, allowing the distributor legal cover. Or perhaps the church realizes that ignoring the film is a smarter strategy than calling attention to it. “I’d be really surprised if the church filed a lawsuit over the movie,” Ortega told Celebuzz. “As you saw in the letter to Vanity Fair, they make a lot of threats, but that didn’t stop [Vanity Fair editor] Graydon Carter from publishing Maureen Orth’s story.”

Is Scientology avoiding threats because filmmakers and studios are no longer afraid of the church? Back in the early ’90s, the church was vigilant about policing potentially unflattering content in movies and TV shows; even a single proposed joke at Scientology’s expense could provoke a campaign of harassment, as the makers of the 1991 John Candy film Delirious discovered. By 1999, however, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy could make a movie, Bowfinger, that mercilessly lampooned Scientology (fictionalized in the film as a cult called Mindhead), without suffering any repercussions. The church ignored that film, which was soon forgotten. That seems to be the strategy it’s taking today with The Master.

Ortega told Celebuzz that such a strategy is “playing it smart,” but Mike Rinder, the former chief spokesman for Scientology (who left the church in 2007), said it’s a sign of confusion and desperation. “The organization (read Miscavige) is probably troubled by The Master because they tried to stop it and couldn’t,” Rinder told Celebuzz in an e-mail. “In my estimation (and I have NOT seen the movie) based on the statements of Paul Thomas Anderson, the church would have been much smarter to take him at his word — that this is a movie ‘inspired by’ events in L. Ron Hubbard’s life and use it as a springboard to promote to people the real story of the life of L. Ron Hubbard.”

But that’s not the approach the church is taking, either with Vanity Fair or the Weinstein Company. Instead, Rinder said, the organization is either pouting or blustering. “The Weinsteins may receive a similar letter,” noted Rinder, “but it will [present] no more of a threat than the empty bleatings sent to Vanity Fair. The only difference being that they won’t sue Vanity Fair because the story is true, and they won’t sue the Weinsteins because the story is NOT true (and you cannot defame a dead person….). Miscavige and Cruise have lost all credibility.”

He added, “Sooner or later the media would realize that the threats from the church were all bark and no bite. As time has gone on, David Miscavige the leader of the church, has become increasingly ensconced in a bubble of sycophants. And thus his inability to understand the ramifications of his actions that create one public relations disaster after another. From sending “squirrel busters” with cameras on their head to try and harass and intimidate former members, to denying on national TV that they engage in “disconnection” to writing increasingly shrill “threat letters” that are now the subject of derision, Miscavige is in a tailspin that I think it is too late to pull out of.”

In any case, It’s not likely that an awards contender and art-house box office hit like The Master will drop off the radar any time soon. And its presence will only exacerbate what Ortega said “is the biggest crisis in the church’s 60-year history, and it shows no signs of slowing down.”

Anderson, who directed Cruise’s Oscar-nominated performance in 1999′s Magnolia, reportedly screened The Master for the actor as a courtesy. No word on what Cruise thought of the film.

UPDATE: (Tuesday, September 18, 10:30 AM ET) Amy Scobee, a former top church insider who left Scientology in 2005 after 27 years, told Celebuzz she thinks The Master is a major concern for the church (“I think it worries them greatly,” she said in an e-mail), but that Hollywood no longer finds the organization intimidating. “They are a laughing stock in Hollywood and they have lost respect,” she wrote. “No one likes a bully, which they are to the ‘t,’ and people are no longer afraid to speak up, thanks to the numerous defectors and media outlets that weathered the storm of retribution. We lived and kept speaking out. And were not worried about being sued (though threatened several times) because what we’re saying is true and can be easily proven. They would definitely not want to go legal and get all their dirty laundry out in the open even more.”

The man who once served as Tom Cruise‘s Scientology auditor is predicting that the actor’s divorce agreement with Katie Holmes will ensure she doesn’t blame Scientology for their breakup — and give her custody of their daughter, Suri.

On his blog Sunday, Mark “Marty” Rathbun wrote that Holmes will surely sign “a document that indicates there is to be joint/equal custody of the daughter of Tom and Katie.  However, there will be a side agreement (that will sit locked up in their lawyer’s safes) that gives Katie sole custody, control over education, and some visitation rights to Tom.”

So far, one of Rathbun’s predictions has been proven correct: in the same July 8 post, he said that Cruise would “aggressively and intensively negotiate the [divorce] case to settlement.”

Early Monday afternoon, just two weeks after they separated, the couple announced that they had, in fact, reached a divorce agreement.

Rathbun says he audited Cruise in 2001 just after he’d separated from Oscar winner Nicole Kidman; Scientologists claim the process of auditing clears negative influences in order to heighten spiritual awareness and access untapped potential. Rathbun left the Church of Scientology in 2004 and now offers counseling to former church members.

In his blog post, Rathbun also stated that Holmes will sign a document “that indicates that Scientology was never an issue nor consideration in the filing for divorce.”

Any such declarations would support utterances from an unnamed Cruise source who last week told TMZ: “She [Katie] was totally committed to Scientology. She had enthusiasm for it and would voluntarily and gladly participate in it when Tom was off shooting movies. This is not a fight over religion. It’s being used as a way to hurt Tom.”

But Rathbun isn’t buying it — and says Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige is behind those statements.

“As to the claim that they are so suprised [sic] because Katie only expressed ‘love’ for Scientology, that is right out of Miscavige’s well-worn strategy to use pressured, documented, positive utterances (called success stories) against former members in the following wise,” he wrote.

“Those success stories are the first thing that are mustered and organized for defense when a former member sues or speaks ill of Scientology Inc. to the media. Miscavige has Scientology Inc lawyers and hacks wave about previous success stories and claim that Scientology Inc. is shocked the person who wrote such stories has ‘suddenly’ had a change of heart.”

Rathbun — who calls Miscavige the “Scientology Inc. cult leader” — also criticized Cruise’s lawyer Bert Fields last week for suggesting that Holmes was intentionally orchestrating the international media storm swirling around the divorce.

“Has Katie Holmes made a single utterances [sic] publicly about the divorce in the past week?  No,” he wrote. “Yet, the august, venerable Bert Fields snidely claims as a fact that Katie has been working the media against poor Tom.

“Miscavige … loves the victim card and when his back is against the wall he always plays it, and plays it well.  He has, and will, pay untold sums of money to orchastrate [sic] the apparancy that he and Scientology Inc. were the victims.”

Miscavige will also pay handsomely to buy Holmes’ cooperation, according to Rathbun.

The terms of the Cruise/Holmes settlement will be obtained at “an astronomical price (Miscavige may even need to dip into Scientology Inc’s war chest to help pay the price),” Rathbun said in his post.

“The scenario I predict (buy silence at any price) …He has been doing it for thirty years.  The price to accomplish it keeps getting higher. While the price will likely be in a whole new strata when it comes to Katie Holmes, Cruise and Miscavige have plenty of cheese in their Scientology Inc. war chest to pull it off.”

It is early morning in the summer of 2010 and the staff at Tom Cruise‘s $35 million Beverly Hills, Calif. mansion are already hard at work.

Laundry is being pressed, food prepared and the everyday essentials of life for a multi-millionaire A-lister readied.

The football team of maids, cooks, gardeners and cleaners is as ever meticulous. After all, the smooth running of the 7-bedroom, 9-bathroom household is crucial to the well-being of Cruise, his wife Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri. Naturally, the staff is the best — specialists in their fields, diligent and exacting.

But one more thing unites them — most, if not all, are hand-picked and paid by the Church of Scientology, according to disaffected members of the faith who are now speaking out.

They claim Cruise has lived life in a gilded cage supervised by the leaders of his religion who has controlled every aspect of his life for more than 20 years, right down to designing and furnishing his house, providing a luxury SUV, caring for his children and running his finances. They even made sure he had slippers in a custom-built trailer so the carpet wasn’t damaged.

But this was not selfless generosity: their aim was influence. Cruise’s celebrity was Scientology’s greatest recruitment weapon, and the Church did everything within its power to protect its asset.

Interviews with former high-ranking Scientologists reveal a behind-the-scenes account of the super-secret organization’s deep connection to Cruise, whose role as the Church’s ultimate evangelist is in sharp focus after 33-year-old Holmes’ decision to file for divorce in a New York court, citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Indeed those differences could well center on Scientology.

People close to the Cruises have suggested the religion was the breaking point for Holmes to walk out after almost six years of marriage. She had “grown tired of living the strictly controlled life of a member of the religion,” one insider suggested. She also “fears that if Suri remains a Scientologist, she will eventually be brainwashed into rejecting her own birth mother,” best-selling biographer Andrew Morton, author of Tom Cruise: An Authorized Biography, told Celebuzz.

One thing is certain. There were three people in the marriage: Cruise, Holmes and the Church of Scientology.

So what control and influence could the Church possibly wield over its best-known Hollywood adherent, 49-year-old Cruise?

“It is crazy,” former high-ranking Church executive Amy Scobee told me. Scobee joined the Church at age 14 and oversaw the recruitment of celebrities until she “blew” the organization — Scientology speak for an unauthorized departure — in 2005 after 27 years.

The Church allegedly began its iron grip on Cruise’s life more than two decades ago, when he married Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman. Everything was, of course, kept top secret. According to Scobee, she and other influential Church staffers were assembled to work on a hush-hush project for Church leader David Miscavige in the early ’90s.

Their mission, not that those chosen had a choice whether to accept it or not: establish Mission Impossible star Cruise’s home with Kidman, finished with the best staff Scientology dollars could hire and top-of-the-line gadgets and gizmos.

“It was a confidential project that I was not allowed to discuss with any other staff member… it was being run directly by Miscavige and his wife,” said Scobee. “To that effect, it was a privilege: an honor to set him and Nicole up. But the clear goal was to ensure that he was set up with Scientologists only around him. Now that I am out of the Church, I have discovered that it is against the law — because the Church was using members to give him special favors. Members working for him, directly. Putting together his sound theater, cooking, various work.” Everything was designed to put him “in debt” and obligated to the Church.

As a result of the extravagance bestowed upon him, Scobee said Cruise turned over multiple facets of his life to the Church.

She says he allowed a nanny who believed in the faith to supervise his and Kidman’s two adopted children, Isabella, now 19, and Connor, 17. She claims he permitted a Church-approved financial advisor to manage some of his investments, who when it was discovered he’d lost some of the actor’s funds in a failed scheme, the man named ‘Alan’ was sentenced to manual “hard labor.” She also says Cruise granted officials, including Scobee and the controversial faith’s spokesman Tommy Davis, free rein to enter his home even when the couple wasn’t there.

Davis, the head of the L.A. Celebrity Centre International and the son of Oscar-nominated actress Anne Archer, did not return our request for comment.

For its part, the Church disputes Scobee’s history with its organization and even claims she was “expelled from the religion in 2005 for dishonesty and unethical conduct.” Undeterred, the Seattle-based Scobee — who admits she no longer believes in the devotion — has released a self-published memoir, Abuse at the Top, that alleges the Church engages in unpaid labor.

Indeed, some of those were the very best people the Church could provide. Scobee claims Cruise was given personal staff who once worked for the religion’s founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986.

“The Household Unit personnel were Hubbard’s staff that took care of his personal needs (cooking, laundry, cleaning) and after LRH [in the Church, he is referred to by his initials, LRH or as Elron] passed away, they became responsible for maintaining LRH’s personal possessions and spaces located at the Int base [the international headquarters of Church of Scientology, located on 500-acres in San Jacinto in Riverside County, Calif.],” Scobee wrote in Abuse at the Top.

She recalls how one member of the Household Unit showed her around Cruise and Kidman’s Pacific Palisades, Calif. house and briefed her on all of the functions she was “personally performing for them, which would need to be turned over to the new staff I was hiring.” The woman named Jenny showed her the “in-house theater and described how two highly trained audio-visual personnel (also from the LRH Household Unit) had put many, many hours into the A/V set-up to make it perfect.”

Scobee added, ”I had no idea that one of LRH’s personal staff members was being used to service Tom Cruise. I thought I was one of the only Sea Org members off my own job to work for Tom Cruise, which was unusual enough. Come to find out, David Miscavige had several of us catering to Tom, behind the scenes.” (The Sea Org, or Sea Organization, is the body within the Church whose members wear maritime uniforms.)

Sinar Parmen, another ex-Church staffer who was once a member of the Sea Org, told me how Miscavige personally ordered him and his ex-wife to attend Cruise and Kidman’s Christmas Eve wedding in Telluride, Colo. in 1990. “We were Church staff and not paid by Cruise,” he said.

In another instance, on orders of Miscaviage, Parmen “had to go to an interior designer to go over the details of their new kitchen being built to make sure the appliances and layout was correct. I know others who also did jobs to establish audio visual facilities, cinema facilities at the time,” he told me.

There is more. While Scobee and Parmen’s account of the Church’s links to Cruise pre-date the star’s six-year relationship with Holmes, Miscavige has continued to maintain a close friendship with the star.

In a clear indication of just how close the Church was to Cruise, 52-year-old Miscavige even served as his best man at the 2006 wedding to Holmes, held at a 15th century Italian castle before a Church of Scientology minister.

Other discharged Church members, like 30-year veteran John Brosseau, paint a portrait of a kind-of factory line of Church staff pandering to its biggest star. Having been denounced by the Church after participating in an explosive Feb. 2011 The New Yorker report, Brosseau has released a secret dossier of work he completed for Cruise — complete with photos showcasing the Ford Excursion limousine he built for the actor. (Celebuzz obtained copies of the images, which you can view here.)

Brosseau, the former brother-in-law of Miscavige, also says he worked on two custom motorcycles and an airport hangar for Cruise.

According to Brosseau, he spent six months and “2,000 man-hours” creating the limousine “like no other ever built” so Cruise could accommodate a pregnant Holmes — all while being paid just $50 per week in wages. “The truth is that DM (Miscavige) had Sea Organization staff spent thousands of hours doing personal projects for Tom Cruise while being paid $50 per week as their salary,” Brosseau wrote, in the document seen by Celebuzz.

Both Cruise’s attorney and the Church have said Brosseau and Rathbun’s stories are fabrication. “Whatever small economic benefit Mr. Cruise may have received from the assistance of Church staff pales in comparison to the benefits the Church has received from Mr. Cruise’s many years of volunteer efforts for the Church,” a spokesperson said last year. Cruise’s lawyer added, “the Church of Scientology has never expended any funds to the personal benefit of Mr. Cruise or provided him with free services.”

Retorts Brosseau: “Fortunately, I took a lot of photos of things I worked on over the years.”

The extravagance and attention to detail knew few bounds. The Church also gave Cruise a custom-built trailer-style bus called Silver Screen, claims Mark ‘Marty’ Rathbun, another former top lieutenant to Miscavige who left the Church in 2004 and now runs a blog that exposes some of Scientology’s innermost secrets.

Cruise used the luxury vehicle as a base for Holmes to begin her “Purification Rundown Program,” a controversial detoxification and introductory program to the religion, claims Rathbun. He suggests the work amounted to “slave labor” — nearly 9,000 man hours for wages as low as $50 a week.

According to an email he says was written by Yvonne Gonzalves, the Director of Vehicles at Sea Org, an unabashed Cruise even asked Silver Screen be fitted with a drawer for slippers because he didn’t want people ruining the carpet.

“Mr. Cruise arrived at the Bluebird (a temporary bus for Cruise while he waited upon completion Silver Screen) yesterday on set and said that it was awesome — the interior upgrades and audio visual,” the email read. “He requested that a space be figured out for placement of slippers in the front of Silver Screen as he does not want any shoes on the carpet. This is figured out; there is a drawer right at the entrance which can be used for this.”

Said Rathbun: ”While Cruise paid the costs of material and non-Scientology core structural labor, many hundreds of hours of Sea Org labor and craftsmanship coordinated, designed and executed the plan to deliver a one-of-a-kind product, from Dave (Miscavige) to Tom with love.”

The claims uncovered by Celebuzz suggest this “small economic benefit” could be greater than the Church would have people believe. Which begs the question, what is Miscavige’s motivation to shower three-time Golden Globe winner Cruise with luxurious goods and Church personnel?

For one woman, there is a simple explanation. “So that everything about their life was Scientology… that no other influence was dragging them out,” said Scobee, who watched from Scientology headquarters when Cruise received the organization’s “Freedom Medal of Valor” at a ceremony in 2004. (See video, below.)

“Celebrity is almost everything to the Church. It is one of the most important things… a celebrity will give Scientology credibility. People would come in to inquire about the Church, because a star followed it (and) once they were in the doors, they had them. Celebrities have influence. It was therefore really important to treat them perfectly.”

It seems to have worked. When a Church of Scientology video was leaked onto the internet in 2008, the world was left under no illusion about Hollywood’s most bankable star’s devotion to the controversial faith. “When you’re a Scientologist and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help,” Cruise declared.

“We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures.”

Scobee is unrepentant. “My purpose is not to smear Tom Cruise. My purpose (in writing the book) was to show how dedicated a Scientologist he is, that he even wanted to join the Sea Organization,” she told me. “I am determined to get my story out and I’m dedicated to exposing their abuse to hopefully prevent others from getting hurt by this so called ‘religion’. I think people should be allowed to believe in whatever faith they wish – and that’s why you don’t see me badmouthing that aspect of Scientology, even though I no longer consider myself a Scientologist because of the damage that group is causing to so many good people.

“I have lifelong friends who still believe in the technology (Scientology’s religious doctrine) and I respect that – it is when that organization stands behind the mask of ‘religious freedom’ to justify blatant violations of civil and human rights is where I draw the line. It must be exposed, and it must be stopped.”

Whatever Scobee achieves, some things will not change any time soon. Cruise’s religious allegiances will remain and two broken marriages are unlikely to change his devotion to Scientology, nor Scientology’s devotion to him.

• Forbes reports that Gisele Bundchen is the highest paid model in the world. Right at this moment Naomi Campbell is angrily clutching a phone and aiming for Gisele’s head. (Wonderwall)

• An ex-Scientologist claims that Tom Cruise is arrogant and abusing his power within the Church of Scientology. Gee, it’s like he’s a famous movie star or something. (PopEater)

• Jailed rapper Lil Wayne got in some trouble this week when he was caught with an illegal MP3 player in jail. Are you telling us that famous people can’t get a few perks in jail? (LimeLife)

• While most celebrities abide by PETA’s wishes when they get called out for wearing fur, singer Kelis basically told the animal rights organization to STFU. (Dlisted)

• Are you into leather? Well, if you are, here are some pictures of Shauna Sand and some porn star friend in bikinis. (The Superficial)

• “Julia Luis Dreyfus” got her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! Unfortunately, Julia Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t too happy about this. (PopEater)

• David Boreanaz‘s wife is reportedly not going to divorce him because they have “a great family.” Yes, cheating is usually one of the hallmarks of a strong family relationship. (Hollywood Life)

• Corey Haim died of pneumonia complications, not a drug overdose. (Wonderwall)

• Hills star Kristin Cavallari pinkie-swears that reports of her doing cocaine are untrue. And we all know that when a young star who is a fixture in the LA club scene says they don’t do drugs, they are telling the truth! (Starpulse)

• Is Jim Carrey a scientologist? All signs point to yes, but nothing still explains his penchant for weird emoticons on Twitter. (Celebslam)

Following the death of John Travolta and Kelly Preston‘s 16-year-old son Jett in the Bahamas on January 2, the teenager’s body has been cremated and was laid to rest in Ocala, Florida, today.

However, one notable fellow Scientologist was not on hand to pay his respects.

TMZ reports that Tom Cruise, 46, was stuck in New York taping an episode of The View, and was not available to attend the services.

The site points out that the episode will air on Friday. But while the ABC talk show is usually broadcast live, the ep will air tomorrow after being bumped by President-elect Barack Obama‘s economic stimulus speech.

Catch a preview of Tom from The View below, wherein he talks candidly about the passing of Jett.

Jett’s death was officially ruled as being caused by a seizure.

John Travolta, 54, and Kelly Preston, 46, also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu.

On Monday the couple issued an official statement of thanks to their supportive fans, via Preston’s website.

“We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief,” they wrote. “We will cherish the time we had with him for the rest of our lives.”

Apparently Will Smith was a big giver in 2007, as the tax returns for his charitable foundation show.

The actor, whose latest film Seven Pounds opens in theaters this weekend, donated $1.3 million to various religious and civic arts groups, Fox News reports.

In what’s sure to add fuel to the fire that Smith, 40, is a closet Scientologist, Fox points out that a combined $122,500 was given to the Church of Scientology, via several donations:

• $67,500 to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund
• $50,000 to the group’s Celebrity Center in Hollywood
• $5,000 to ABLE, another Scientology offshoot

Rumors of Will Smith being a Scientologist have followed the actor since he developed a close friendship with Tom Cruise, 46.

Will and wife Jada Pinkett Smith, 37, opened a private school called New Village Academy this fall in Calabasas, California. The educational institution uses Scientology learning concepts.

At the Lakeview Terrace premiere in September, Smith commented directly to journalists who asked if he is in fact a Scientologist.

“I am not. The school is using one of Scientology’s teaching tools,” he explained. “You can take different parts of things you like and put them all together.”

Smith’s tax returns also show that he gave born-again Christian organization Yesha Ministries of Philadelphia $250,000 in 2007.

Suburban L.A. Christian ministry Living Waters received $200,000 from the charitable actor.

Maybe he just likes to cover his bets.

Apologist Tom Cruise‘s new Nazi-drama-thriller Valkyrie premiered in New York City at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

The film details a failed plot by highly placed Nazi’s to assassinate German dictator Adolf Hitler during World War II.

The debut narrowly escaped a group of anti-Scientology protesters who were planning on throwing a monkey wrench into the proceedings.

Anonymous.net, an organization dedicated to exposing what it considers to be shortcomings in Cruise’s religion, obtained their permit to assemble very late Monday. That, compounded with a location mix-up, meant only a few protesters got near the red carpet.

Cruise, 46, a major spokesperson for Scientology, has been one of Anonymous.net’s favorite targets. A faction protested at the opening of Tom’s wife Katie Holmes‘ Broadway debut in All My Sons in September.

“Anonymous ruined [Katie's] photos by being in the background. They didn’t want the same thing [at Valkyrie],” an insider told MSNBC. “Tom loves being with his fans, signing autographs. It’s really where he shines. He and the fans lose out this way.” 

“Tom never came out to talk to us,” complained one protester. “That said, I think we were able to get our message out about Scientology peacefully.”

Despite the group’s disruptive efforts, Cruise spoke easily to media outlets about his role as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the film.

He even took time to confess to ET that daughter Suri has become a bit of a fashionista and is dictating her Mom’s wardrobe.

“We went to some huge event, and Suri had insisted that Kate wear these blue shoes,” Tom said. “So she’s very insistent.”

So Suri is responsible for some of Katie’s more outlandish fashion choices. It’s all coming clear now.

So, remember Matt Lauer‘s 2005 Good Morning America interview with Tom Cruise wherein the clumsy-paparazzi savior told Lauer, “See, here’s the problem: You don’t know the history of psychiatry—I do,” and “Matt, Matt…you’re glib,” while discussing Scientology and the “negative” effects of prescription drugs?

OK! now reports that, since he’s in the Big Apple, Cruise cruised over to the Friars Club roast of Lauer last night to surprise him with a few comedic jabs.

“Everyone in the room was shocked,” says an audience member. “Tom just walked across the stage after a video segment.”

Tom threw out a few zingers while Photoshopped images of the two palling around were projected behind him.

“When we can’t get together, we’ll talk on the phone two, three, four times a day and say, ‘Matt are you watching this?’ And he’ll say, ‘yeah.’ And we’ll sit there,” joked the Scientologist.

“In front of all these people, I just want you to know I can’t believe I flew all the way out here… Now lose my number, you glib putz.”

When Cruise bolted from the stage, Matt called after him, “Come on, Tom… Stay. We can get a booster seat! Oh, guess his spaceship has to leave.”

Check out Howard Stern, Jeffrey Ross, Bob Sagat and Clay Aiken (?!?) at the event.

Poor Suri Cruise. She’s constantly being lugged around by mom Katie Holmes and dad Tom Cruise—and not looking too thrilled about it.

Now Page Six is reporting that the little tyke doesn’t get to interact and play with other toddlers.

“Whenever she sees kids, she gets excited and runs up to them and hugs them as if she never gets to see kids her own age,” says a source. “There’s not a lot of socialization there.”

Well, there’s always the chance Suri will make friends when she finally starts kindergarten.

Of course, if she brings any pals home for a sleepover, they might be scared out of their socks with what they see.

If you’re having trouble recognizing Jennifer Lopez these days, maybe it’s just because you don’t know her all that well.

In an interview with the Gigli actress on Web site The Daily Beast, Lopez makes a few eyebrow-raising revelations, including the fact that she would entrust her twins’ education to Scientologists.

Though not officially a Scientologist herself, she and husband Marc Anthony are chummy with a number of celebrities who are, and her father, David Lopez, has been a practicing Scientologist for 20 years.

Consequently, she doesn’t share the disdain for the religion that many do.

When asked if she would allow her tots Max and Emme to attend a Scientology school along the lines of the one Will Smith is opening, Lopez replied, “I wouldn’t mind. Not at all. Because I know that the technologies that they have are very helpful… It’s all about communication.”

Lopez also discusses the nervous breakdown she suffered in 2002 while filiming Enough, revealing that she shunned psychiatric assistance for the problem.

“[The doctor] told me to go back to work on Monday after a weekend of sleeping because if I waited longer that I would only get more panicked about working,” Lopez recalls. “So that’s what I did. I’ve still never been to a shrink. I’m not a shrinky person.”

Well, certain parts of her definitely aren’t prone to shrinkiness, anyway.

Hey, now…don’t anyone go calling Will Smith a Scientologist!

The site What Would Tyler Durden Do? notes that sexed-up Smith was at the Lakeview Terrace premiere with wife Jada Pinkett-Smith when he was asked about giving a press conference to Anonymous, a group that protests Scientology.

“Not exactly a press conference, but I did talk to them,” says the actor.

Among the questions: What about that elementary school you’re opening up, Will—the one where kids are raised to be miniature Tom Cruises? Are you a Scientologist or what?

“I am not. The school is using one of Scientology’s teaching tools. You can take different parts of things you like and put them all together.”

So there it is. Will flat-out denies being a part of the religion. Despite using the tools of the trade. (Not to mention other tools at his disposal.)

Oh, man. Pink is gonna be so pissed.

Is Pink about to join the illustrious list of celebrities who’ve embraced the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard?

Star Magazine reports that the “Stupid Girls” singer and lawnmower enthusiast, still distraught over her divorce from daredevil Carey Hart earlier this year, has turned to her Scientologist pal Juliette Lewis for a shoulder to cry on—and Lewis, in turn, is introducing her to the ways of Dianetics.

“Pink is in the beginning stages of checking out the religion, but she has taken to it and she wants to get more involved,” says the mag’s source.

Hopefully for Pink, the church’s doctrines don’t include a ban on licking one’s own armpit.

Erika Christensen and Leah Remini were all smiles, but let’s be honest here. Kelly Preston was probably the biggest name at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre (that’s actually what it’s called) on Saturday for the organization’s anniversary gala.

For a group that boasts membership by a good chunk of Hollywood‘s elite, including Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, they could have rounded up some A-listers for the soiree.

Kelly couldn’t even get hubby John Travolta to throw on his weekend hairpiece and make an appearance for the gang.

WWLRHD? (What Would L. Ron Hubbard Do?)

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes took their daughter Suri to see Hairspray on Broadway. The show’s star, Jenifer Lewis, told the New York Daily News that Tom claims Hairspray is Suri’s favorite video. (We wonder if Tom wears a Tracy Turnblad wig when he watches it with Suri.)

“I turned and there was Tom Cruise saying to me, ‘Oh my God, you’re wonderful!’ ” Lewis said.

Sound that one out aloud.

Lewis said that Suri was “so sweet in her little velvet and taffeta dress” when the couple brought her backstage to meet the performers.

Tom and Katie reportedly sent the cast flowers and a basket of treats from NYC’s Dylan’s Candy Bar the next day. No word on whether Tom asked to try on Edna Turnblad’s gown from the final scene.

Tom Cruise and his captive wife Katie Holmes are reportedly considering having a second child. Sources say that Katie is feeling “the itch” to get pregnant again. It’s probably just that the implant in her brain has been activated.

“Now that Suri is more toddler than baby, [Katie] said she misses having an infant in the house. And, of course, she thinks Suri would make a great big sister,” says a source close to the couple.

Tom is all about this. The more people to convert the better, and toddlers don’t require a lot of wining, dining and trickery.

“He said if Katie wants to make another baby, she doesn’t have to ask twice,” said the pal of the power couple. “He always wanted more. It was Katie who has been holding off. Until now,” the source says.

Keep in mind that Katie recently reported to Gold Base, Scientology’s stronghold in Hemet, California, for a three-day course of purification and auditing sessions. Now she wants to have another kid. You’d agree to get knocked up again, too, to get the hell out of Xenu Camp.