Mimi Faust Reveals More Details About Being Abandoned at Age 13 By Her Scientologist Mother
Mimi Faust has always been open and honest about her complicated relationship with her late mother - and now, the Love & Hip Hop Atlanta star is opening up to reveal more about the religion that tore them apart.
Last night, Mimi made an appearance last on the A&E show Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. The series seeks to uncover the controversial practices and inner workings of the Church of Scientology as told by ex-members. Mimi, like others who have been on the show, have witnessed unspeakable acts that have gone on inside those church walls.
Mimi says that when she was just 9-years-old, her mother joined Scientology's Sea Organization. After being uprooted from her life in Atlanta to attend school with fellow Scientologist students in Los Angeles, Mimi claims she was bullied by other children who hurled racial slurs at her. At age 13, church members tried pressuring Mimi into signing what is called the billion-year Sea Org contract (a symbolic pledge that binds you to the church forever). When she refused, the church's members forced her onto streets while her mother stayed behind. "They didn't give me one red cent, not even a $1.50 to take the bus, or a blanket," she says in one clip. "My mother did not utter one word. She watched me walk out of that building and said nothing," Faust recalled. "The feeling of abandonment right in your face like that is terrible. It was terrible."
Faust didn't see her mother again until she was 17, and claims the visit was interrupted by the church. She claims four Sea Org members and her mother locked her in the room, taped the billion-year contract to the door, and once again tried to force her to sign it. "They're all surrounding me at the door, and they're chanting again. I just lost it. And after about a good ten minutes of me going ape sh*t, they let me out."
Sadly, Mimi's mother passed away from pancreatic cancer just a few years ago. But to this day, she denounces the church's practices based on her own painful experiences. "If you can't keep a mother and child together, how are you supposed to unite the planet?" she said. "Does that make any sense to you? 'Cause it doesn't make any sense to me at all."
Stevie J and Mimi discuss their individual relationships with their mothers and how it may be affecting their own relationship with one another in this Love & Hip Hop clip.