Church of Scientology Celebrity Centres are
Churches of Scientology that are open to the general public but are intended for "artists, politicians, leaders of industry, and sports figures".
The Celebrity Centre International was established in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
in 1969 by Yvonne Gillham and
Heber Jentzsch in the
Château Élysée, a 1920's building that had been built to replicate a 17th century French-Normandy chateau.
Other Celebrity Centre organizations have since been established around the USA and in Europe.
As of 2022, there were ten Celebrity Centres open: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nashville and New York in the USA, and Vienna, Düsseldorf, Munich, Florence, and two in Paris in Europe.
Critics of Scientology point to
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianetic ...
's launch of "Project Celebrity" in 1955 to recruit celebrities into the church, and that the centres were established as an extension of this initial purpose.
Though the Church of Scientology denies the existence of a policy to recruit high-ranking celebrities, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reported, "internal church documents show that their primary purpose is to recruit celebrities and use the celebrities' prestige to help expand Scientology," and the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
'' wrote, "The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard's teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America."
Mike Argue of the band Chester said, "We made a lot of money for the church", referring to the original Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles which attracted "a boatload of notables" in the 1970s.
Violent incident
On November 23, 2008, Mario Majorski arrived at the Los Angeles Celebrity Centre wielding dual
samurai swords and threatening to injure people. Majorski was shot by Celebrity Centre security guards, and was later pronounced dead at
Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. Police regard the guards' actions as justifiable. Majorski was a
Scientologist in the early 1990s; however, he left the group fifteen years prior to the incident, according to church spokesperson
Tommy Davis. When he was still a member of the church, Majorski had filed lawsuits, later dismissed, against
Louis West, a psychiatrist who was critical of Scientology.
See also
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Scientology and celebrities
*
Château Élysée
References
External links
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*
2022 version
{{Scientology
Religious organizations established in 1969
Scientology organizations
Organizations based in Los Angeles