David Miscavige, micromanager – “say it you motherfucker”

Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder have several videos you can watch on youtube.  In this one, they talk about how David Miscavige would micromanage everything, including phone calls to journalists.  In this video they specifically mention phone calls during the height of the Lisa McPherson case.

Miscavige would do this by sitting beside Rathbun or Rinder and listening in on the conversation.  Then he would frantically scribble down what they were to say, verbatim. As you can imagine, this system is as inefficient as it sounds.

Inevitably, lags would occur which made no sense to the journalists on the other end of the telephone.  As Marty Rathbun says in this video

“They thought we were cult members!”

The good bit starts at 1:40, but it’s all worth a listen.

They go on to talk about CNN, and the time went Anderson Cooper first wanted to do a story on Scientology. Rinder worked for months to set up a “puff piece,” as he calls it.  Miscavige, as he always does, refused to be interviewed by the media (because he knows he will come across as a psycho); he told them he had no time and was too busy, which is the usual reason he gives to cover up his cowardice.

Then he got it into his head that Rinder was trying to usurp his power.

In the end David Miscavige accused Rinder of trying to set him up for failure with Anderson Cooper.  Because Miscavige obviously lives in another reality.

Or is just bonkers.