Scarlett Johansson has given a statement to The Hollywood Reporter strongly denying a former scientologist’s claim earlier this week that she was one of the women who auditioned to be Tom Cruise‘s girlfriend in the mid-’00s.
“The very idea of any person auditioning to be in a relationship is so demeaning. I refuse for anyone to spread the idea that I lack the integrity to choose my own relationships. Only a man aka Brendan Tighe would come up with a crazy story like that.”
ScarJo – who used to be married to both Ryan Reynolds and ad guy Romain Dauriac – is currently dating Saturday Night Live head writer Colin Jost. Cruise, meanwhile, has been divorced three times, first from Mimi Rogers in 1990, the woman who introduced him to the Church of Scientology; then from Nicole Kidman in 2001; and finally from Katie Holmes in 2012.
On Wednesday, former scientologist, and member of Cruise’s scientology security unit, Brendan Tighe appeared on Megyn Kelly Today, where he said he had read reports of women auditioning to be Cruise’s girlfriend, when they were accidentally sent to his printer. When pressed by Kelly for the names of the women, Tighe said: “By name the only one I recognised was Scarlett Johansson,” but apparently the audition “didn’t go well“. You can watch the full interview HERE.
Karin Pouw, a spokesperson for the church itself also denied Tighe’s claims: “Brendan Tighe was a Church of Scientology Flag Service Organisation security guard/night watchman from 2002 to 2009. The ‘access’ he boasts of having was largely limited to viewing security cameras from a guard booth. He was removed from that position for dereliction of duty.”
Since 2012, there have been plenty of stories going around that the Church of Scientology auditioned high profile women for the role of Tom Cruise’s girlfriend, including one report from Vanity Fair, which describes the organisation’s mistreatment of Nazanin Boniadi, the woman ultimately selected for the part.
Sources who were once part of the church told the mag that actresses who were already members of the ‘religion’ were told they were auditioning for a training film, but were instead asked a series of questions like ‘What do you think of Tom Cruise?’
Then in 2013, Lawrence Wright published Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison Belief – which was adapted into a film by Alex Gibney in 2015 – a book that repeated the claims about Cruise’s potential girlfriends, naming Johansson, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Bosworth as candidates, who apparently thought they were auditioning for a role in the Mission: Impossible series.
