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FORMER Scientologist Leah Remini has claimed in a bombshell interview that Katie Holmes left the “extremist religion” to protect her daughter, Suri Cruise.

Holmes fled her marriage to Tom Cruise — and the infamous sect — in 2012, taking Suri with her.

		Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Remini claimed that, just like Holmes, she left the Church to protect her daughter. She said she didn’t want 11-year-old Sofia with husband Angelo Pagan to ever have to choose between her faith and family.

“I now know she did what she did, leaving in the way she did because she had to protect her daughter which in a way connects us,” Remini told ABC News about Holmes in the US on Monday.

Since leaving the Church in 2013 after 30 years, Remini has become one of its most high-profile critics.

blistering memoir

The King of Queens actress is currently promoting her blistering memoir, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, which makes explosive claims about the Church, including the involvement of Cruise.

The 45-year-old revealed last week she first began to question her faith at the lavish 2006 wedding of Holmes and Cruise. She said she fought with Holmes after the actress wrote a “knowledge report” complaining about Remini’s behaviour at her wedding.

The Dawson’s Creek star later released a statement, saying: “I regret having upset Leah in the past and wish her only the best in the future.”

Remini choked up in Monday’s ABC News interview when Holmes’ statement was read to her.

“It makes me emotional because at that time that Katie and this particular crew were writing reports it caused me a lot of time and pain and my family being reprogrammed,” she said.

“At the time I was fighting with her for lack of a better word within the Church and now I know really what she was going through. At the time I was thinking of myself and my family and what we were going through and although painful I had no idea she was going through probably a lot more.

she felt nervous

“Seeing her and Suri out there in the world and her being able to be with her daughter and live her life, I’m touched by it.”

The star also revealed she felt nervous around Cruise, and was afraid to do things like drink alcohol in his presence.

“There seemed to be a lot of power there,” she said. “I mean if I’m at dinner, you know, we’re going to dinner together, you’re not going to write an internal church report on me that you thought I got a little tipsy at your dinner party.”

Since quitting Scientology, which she labelled an “extremist religion”, the TV host said she has reconnected with her Catholic faith.

“I was baptised a Catholic. I got my daughter baptised a Catholic. And yes I’m reconnecting with my faith and it’s been a beautiful thing and I want that for my daughter,” she said.

left to cry on a bathroom floor

The Church has sent numerous documents and complaints about Remini to ABC News, claiming she is a liar and was expelled from the religion.

“Sadly, bitterness and anger are common threads through Ms Remini’s life. Rather than take responsibility for self-inflicted problems, she is quick to blame others,” the Church said. “When her firing from The Talk erupted into a public embarrassment for her in 2012, we tried to help pick her up off the floor. But she treated everyone around her in a degrading, bullying manner. Her behaviour was intolerable.”

Yesterday, more bombshells from Remini’s book were revealed, including that Suri was left to cry on a bathroom floor during her parents’ pre-wedding dinner.

Remini wrote that she went to see what was going on, only to find Cruise’s sister and an assistant staring at the screaming seven-month-old as if she was [Scientology founder] “L. Ron Hubbard incarnate.” Suri is now nine years old.

The book also claims that Nicole Kidman’s adopted children Bella and Connor only spoke to their Australian mother when forced to.