Actor Jason Lee is the latest celebrity to sever their affiliation with Scientology. Best known for his work on NBC’s My Name is Earl and films like Mallrats and Almost Famous, Lee had been one of the organizations most notable members. But during a recent interview with Denton, Texas’ lifestyle blog The Dentonite, the actor casually revealed that he and his wife, Ceren Alkac, no longer practice Scientology:
If Ceren and I had an idea for a business, it certainly wouldn’t happen at the cost of someone else’s. And being that we don’t practice Scientology, and that we aren’t particularly interested in opening religious centers in general, we have no plans to open a Scientology center.
Last year, Lee’s ex-wife, Carmen Llywelyn, wrote a piece for Gawker about her volatile relationship with the polarizing religion. In the article, Llywelyn revealed that Lee had been a Scientologist for about five years when they first met, and that he was introduced to the organization through his ex-girlfriend, Marissa Ribisi, and her family.
Llywelyn admitted that Scientology had become a source of contention between the couple.
“Eventually, I started to feel like he was forcing Scientology on me, past the point where I didn’t want to go any further,” Llywelyn wrote. “He would never stop talking about it. It became a source of contention and I realized that unless I accepted Scientology the way he did and the way he wanted me to, we would most likely cease to know each another.”
Lee’s revelation comes almost one year after the publication of Leah Remini’s Scientology tell-all, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, which details her own experiences while she was a member of the controversial organization.