Celebrity

Leah Remini Slams Kirstie Alley After Star’s Comment on Ukraine Crisis

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Leah Remini joined the crowd of voices slamming actress Kirstie Alley over the weekend following her tweet about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As reports continued to pour in from the conflict, Alley on Friday wrote in a since-deleted tweet that she didn’t “know what’s real or what is fake in this war,” and would not “be commenting. I’ll pray instead.” Alley’s tweet immediately sparked a flurry of backlash, with Remini on Sunday taking to social media to call the Cheers actress out.

In a Twitter response, Remini shared a screenshot of Alley’s original tweet, asking, “So, [Kirstie Alley] can comment on things she knows nothing about like mental health, psychiatric drugs, and virology, but she won’t comment on Putin who is an evil tyrant? No comment about Russia invading Ukraine? The killing of innocent people? The displacement of Ukrainians?” She went on to ask, “She has no comment on these crimes against humanity? But she’s going to pray,” pointing out that Alley is a Scientologist, and “Scientologists aren’t allowed to believe in anything else other than Scientology. So who is she praying to?”

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Remini continued her response to Alley’s post on Instagram, where she shared several screenshots that included the actress’ tweets seemingly reacting to her former Dancing With the Stars partner Maks Chmerkovskiy, who also criticized her remarks. In the post, Remini said she doesn’t typically “like to make a habit of engaging with people like [Kirstie Alley],” she said that “Scientology banks on its horrific, criminal policies not being called out.” Alley is a member of the Church of Scientology, whereas Remini gave up that religion in 2013 and has frequently spoken out against it ever since. She continued, “Scientology thrives when people are silent. I won’t allow their threats to me or anyone else go un-answered.”

In the series of screenshots, Remini responded to Alley calling Chmerkovskiy a punk a- t-,” writing that Alley and other “p- a- Scientology b-es” are “very brave on social media but can’t handle any real confrontation.” She went on to note that Chmerkovskiy “is in a war zone and innocent people are dying. Pretending you pray to any God is sad. I wish you did. Stand by your own belief system which tells you there is no God.” In later tweets, Remini dubbed Alley “sophomoric, vitriolic, and all around hateful.”

The series of tweets come amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The invasion began last week, with reports of explosions and airstrikes surfacing. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a status report that there have been at least 64 civilian deaths as a result of the invasion, which has been widely condemned across the globe.