Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Blind Item #5

This former back in the day A+ list mostly movie actor made a $1M donation to his church for a special dispensation that no other member of his congregation would be allowed.

37 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. And Cristian Scientists
      Or Scio-Travolta?

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    2. $1M so you don't die from not treating your conditions seems fair

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    3. That’s what I thought it might be because he’s back and seemingly healthy when his religion (CS) forbids treatment of any kind

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    4. I'd pay $1m to have geeljire and his fellow terrorists dumped at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

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  2. I was actually thinking it could be Mel Gibson. Doesn’t he have a private Catholic chapel on his California property?

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  3. I want to know what the dispensation was.

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  4. I would bet Mel Gibson for having his bastard baby christened in a catholic church.

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    1. Anybody can get their baby baptized in the church.

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  5. Both Kilmer & Gibson good guesses. Toss up.

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  6. @Timebob: Yes, this! I said Mel and Catholic above, just could not put my faith Nigeria on the “dispensation”. You got this!

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  7. There is no question Val received medical treatment. He clearly had a tracheostomy and likely radiation.

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  8. I really hate disagreeing with @Tricia though! 😆 lol

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    1. Lol don’t! It’s a great guess !
      So many former A+ listers so little room 😂

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    2. Wow climb out of her asshole lmao absolutely pathetic

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  9. Mel Gibson's Church is not Roman Catholic, in fact it doesn't recognize the Pope as it's head. Mel has put way more than $1million to his Church,he practically runs it. Val Kilmer did get medical treatments that Christian Scientists would not approve. It is him.

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  10. I could easily see it fitting Travolta if the stories about his sexual abuse during massages etc are about to break. That would be cheap insurance given Scientology’s long time odious stalking & harassment policies (had an attorney friend who defended a client who mirrored the leaked content of the OT 3 training materials on his website in TX & got to see the staring at his house at all hours, the refusal of their attorney to call him in his office during normal business hours (she would call him at home no earlier than 10pm, knowing full well he & his wife had a new baby). They are bullies. I could see them happily bullying claimants against Travolta for a million bucks.

    Though it is true Christian Science has lost a lot of members (now has maybe as few as 250,000 worldwide, at its peak it was a just a few million). The church has been in financial trouble since the 1990s (a failed cable TV network, expensive redesign of the Monitor publications both the newspaper & magazine, crazy expensive remodeling of the big Boston church, efforts to rebrand the doctrine to fit ’New Age’ movement including some watered down editions of their sacred texts that longtime members despise). CS was *the* trendy religion of Old Hollywood though (Joan Crawford was a member & she might have gotten special dispensation for her cancer treatment close to her death). The much bigger though still controversial financial deal for CS was a tycoon who was a member & wrote a book that the heads of the church did not like & would not allow to be published. When he died (in the middle of the financial reversals), the leadership went ahead & published it to get a big share of his ~$100 million estate (I think around $40 million), otherwise they would have gotten nothing. Other church branches & reading rooms (their bookstores) refused to carry it. $1 million would not go far in 2018 so I am dubious about Tricia’s 1st guess. Depends on how desperate they are (in terms of finances & declining membership now (& that I do not know). I do not think they would risk alienating more longtime wealthier members for a pittance.

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  11. there was a blind somewhere, cant remember...saying after his injury on set of MI:6, tom cruise got addicted to pain pills....

    maybe he made the donation so he could get some more....without 'judgment' from $cio

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  12. ah, wait a second, says former back in the day. yea, this isnt cruise. maybe it is val kilmer then and getting a blood transfusion - which he cant do since he's LDS and they are against blood transfusions (STUPID!)

    science > religion

    he prbably needs to get healthier since he's apparently going to be back for that much unneeded Top Gun sequel.

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  13. There was just a big "Tombstone" thing that Kilmer was supposed to attend, from the looks of it he was the big draw. He didn't go- doctor's orders, all confirmed on his twitter.

    Thinking it's him.

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  14. Thank you, Tricia, you are so gracious in victory! Just saw Val in the DM today. 😊

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  15. Mormons/LDS allow blood transfusions. It's the Jehovahs Witnesses who do not. (Prince was a Jehovahs Witness)

    Val Kilmer is Christian Scientist, a different religion entirely.

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  16. A bunch of damn religious nutjobs.

    ... Organized Religion is the oldest scam on earth

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  17. I find it hard to believe that Val Kilmer still has $1,000,000 to give to anybody.

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  18. Jeez, even the Amish accept modern medical treatments.

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  19. Tommy Cruise getting to see Suri! The negative press is getting to him.

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  20. Anonymous11:24 AM

    Why would you pollute the Marianas Trench like that?

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  21. I just do not think the Christian Science powers that be would let someone slide for a mere $1 million dollars when they are easily $100 million+ in the hole. Not after the hue & cry from that $44 (?) million for publishing the hated book. That is not enough money to risk even more people en masse getting mad, quitting the faith, pulling donations & legacies. They cannot afford to lose any more of either.

    And yes he has admitted to having surgery, issues with being able to eat & swallow, issues with recovering his voice (it is slowly improving), a 'healing' from cancer, a lot more on various social media platforms. Though I wonder if he is really still in the CS leadership's good graces (surgery, radiation, drugs are all no-nos in CS, unless Mary Baker Eddy used them or approved them: she had eyeglasses, dentistry, some broken bones set, help in childbirth & was a student of homeopathy before founding a religion). She died in 1910 leaving their faith in chaos (I think she was in hardcore denial about healing herself one more time, who knows maybe she had dementia too? ) It is clear to me she would not consider not being around to be their leader & so no viable succession plan was made (there is a small faction of CS that believes that the faith died with her & since she did not choose them or their ancestors they are not legitimate leadership & they read her texts & worship & observe on their own). So they are stuck with rules frozen in that late Victorian era & many many factions squabbling amongst themselves and the squabbles only increase with each passing year (it is a wonder to me they do not do what Old Order Amish & Mennonites do, each church breaks away from the main church in Boston to set its own rules & revisit them as new issues come up). Many church branches have closed since their financial crises in the 1990s, the Monitor publications lost a lot of readership (they were a good revenue source until the tinkering began and that is a diminishing revenue stream), the renovations on the main church in Boston might not be fully paid off (they were between $20 & $60 million in 1990s dollars, they would be a lot more now), the jazzed up 'New Age' versions of MBEs writings did not make money or bring in new followers (they are given away to people attending informational lectures on the church), and the cable TV fiasco cost them $40-$60 million in 1990s dollars. So I just do not see Tricia's initial guess being correct. 1 man giving 1 million dollars at the possible loss of thousands more members, more church branches closing, & less money coming in (lost from leaving members & estate planning changes). He is just not wealthy enough to come close to making up the potential shortfall if the 'deal' is found out & I do not see them saying yes for what is a tiny fraction of what the hated book brought them ~20 years ago.

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  22. A Scientologist (Travolta or Cruise) fits better because Sea Org are basically slaves & would do whatever the bidding of Travolta or Cruise is (including harassment & intimidation of people like the Travolta accusers or anyone not wanting to go along with Cruise's whims). If they fail, I doubt they would lose much money (some face maybe) because they are wildly prosperous & could afford that monetary loss. I do not think Travolta is A+ anymore & he fits pretty well (& likely has more money to spare on buying a dispensation or indulgence of not having to retrain (which costs a fortune in money & time) or hold onto the cans & confess what he has done. Not sure if Cruise is still A+ but it could be something like paying the leadership off so he can see his 'suppressive person' daughter or if he has an addiction to pain pills avoiding the retraining & confessions there. So my best guess is Travolta (also he has had to take all that time & money to get retrained when his career tanked & Tom Cruise & Will Smith were on the rise so I bet he would buy his way out of that if he could).

    Gibson I do not know much about (his wealth, what his 'Catholicism' is like etc. Potentially a fit too but would need more info.

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  23. @Zebra Seasoning

    Shooting for Top Gun 2 with the non flying parts (right now they are on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Florida) is supposed to start sometime in September. I was under the impression that a *set doctor* nixed the Doc Hollidays event, not his own medical team. I do believe it is going to be a close call as to how his voice will be for shooting & I think given the choice of doing the Tombstone thing (which also had Dennis Quaid attending) or a highly anticipated movie role, the fan event was dropped at the last minute. His voice is getting better & better (better speech articulation, more volume, I have heard recordings & had one in person conversation with him back in February & have definitely heard improvements over time). If he conserves his voice & he keeps doing speech therapy, he might not have to be dubbed like he was for 'The Snowman'. I think he would like to prevent that from happening (that was some seriously messed up ADR in 'The Snowman, not the film's only issue, but a striking one). Also most productions have medical personnel to answer to so that totally makes sense to me that they would be against him attending the fan event & risking them having to spend more doing ADR later.

    I also think @NateInSoCal makes an excellent point: there is a long history of recent financial issues (difficulties paying child support & alimony, selling off a lot of land in New Mexico at a loss of a few million dollars, legal fees, etc) Where is this million dollars coming from given no more multi-million dollar roles booked?

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  24. Travolta doesn't have the pile of money he used to. He probably can't give a million right now.

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  25. Kilmer is signed up for my local comic convention next year. I'm not sure he's rocking the big bucks if he's working conventions.

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  26. Speaking of, there is this breaking news:

    https://variety.com/2018/film/news/tom-cruise-top-gun-sequel-maverick-delayed-1202920891/

    I figured 11 months was too tight a schedule to try & make this film. Smart move to push it back to 2020.

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  27. Anonymous5:11 PM

    @Sd Auntie +1

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  28. CS doesn't give dispensations and have never really forbidden followers to go to the doctor.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/nyregion/24heal.html

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  29. @purejuice Excellent article find (it is a little more recent than the book I read on CS called God's Perfect Child)

    It puts CS church membership at ~100,000 (really really low), it mentions recent church branch closures & it also gives the #1 reason why CS members do not seek medical treatment: social ostracism from other members who are more hardline in their interpretations of Mary Baker Eddy's original writings (which are confounding to read, understand & interpret). The stories of people who have left CS (some for medical reasons, some for disagreement with religious doctrines, some because CS does not fit who they believe themselves to be) talk about how psychologically traumatic the loss of that social & institutional support is. I agree with the sentiments in the article that it is an open question as to how many people in the faith will now seek medical treatment for an illness given fellow members who would blame, shame & shun them for doing so. I do think the hardliners are dying off & becoming a minority, but they are still there. & their influence lingers. I also think it is difficult for children who grew up with CS (as Kilmer did) as adults to go against what seems to have been 'normal' to them, a fixture taken for granted in their lives (and I believe it was his own adult children who ultimately convinced him to seek conventional medical treatments). I can imagine the same is true of others who grow up in a religious minority (or a recognized cult) to walk away from what they have taken in as a fundamental belief since birth & choose something that risks all their social & institutional ties (for example I think of Old Order Mennonites & Amish in my area who have left their sects, but at least around here they have more liberal Mennonite & Brethren churches to turn to that have mostly similar beliefs they can use to mitigate their losses). I do feel empathy for those who have had no choice in how they were raised as far as religious beliefs go (the child abuse scandals in the Catholic church being a very big timely example). And yes I did have a college friend in his 20s die of a pneumonia who was CS & refused medical treatment. The world lost a great artist & cartoonist sooner than I would have liked.

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