Before Katie Holmes, the Church of Scientology reportedly auditioned a slew of women to be Tom Cruise’s bride.
Holmes wasn’t the church’s first choice- actress Nazanin Boniadi was, and she secretly dated Cruise for three months November 2004 until January 2005.
Despite the denials over the weekend from the Church of Scientology, Oscar-winning director and former Scientologist Paul Haggis supports Vanity Fair’s story that Boniadi was auditioned by the Church of Scientology to be Cruise’s real-life girlfriend.
In an email to ShowBiz411.com, Haggis says he has known Boniadi for three years.
“Naz was embarrassed by her unwitting involvement in this incident and never wanted it to come out, so I kept silent,” Haggis wrote in the email published on the website Sunday. “I was deeply disturbed by how the highest ranking members of a church could so easily justify using one of their members; how they so callously punished her and then so effectively silenced her when it was done.”
The Church of Scientology told ABC News in a statement that ,”The entire story is hogwash. There was no project, secret or otherwise, ever conducted by the Church to find a bride (audition or otherwise) for any member.”
Marc Headley, who wrote the Scientology expose “Blown for Good,” claimed he watched several audition tapes.
Candidates were expected to “toe the line for Scientology,” he said – as former Cruise flames Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz had failed to do – or the superstar actor would “freak out.”
Do you believe that women were auditioned to play the role of Cruise’s wife?
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UacwsqhmUM8']
What do you think?