Chuck Lorre reveals decade in Scientology in new memoir

Chuck Lorre spent 10 years as a Scientologist and signed a billion-year staff contract, he reveals in his new memoir Sitcom: A Memoir.

The account, detailed by Variety, traces his entry to his days as a young, starving musician. He writes that he was invited to a Church of Scientology event and then signed a Sea Org employment contract for one billion years. Sea Org is the church’s full-time staff order.

Lorre says he believed Scientology could heal his dying father. He stayed after his father’s death. While still inside, he developed severe ulcerative colitis, a bowel disease, and believed Scientology would heal him too.

He eventually decided to leave with his then-wife Paula. He writes that their Scientology friends cut them off, effectively excommunicating them. The church did not pursue him afterwards, he writes, because he was destitute. In his telling, it only chases departing members who have money.

He says he kept the chapter hidden out of shame. He had never spoken about it publicly because it embarrassed him. “Burned a decade of my life up in that thing,” he writes.

What makes this stand out is how long Lorre kept the story back while running some of network television’s biggest comedies. He does not frame it as gossip. He frames it as lost time.

The memoir ranges well beyond Scientology. Lorre writes about bruising clashes with comedy stars Roseanne Barr, Brett Butler, Cybill Shepherd and Charlie Sheen. Of the four, he says he has reconciled only with Sheen.

He also criticises Roseanne producer Carsey-Werner and former CBS chief Leslie Moonves. No response from those parties is detailed in the reporting.

On The Big Bang Theory, Lorre admits disappointment that the established cast would not accept a pay cut to free up money for newer co-stars. The show ended when Jim Parsons decided to leave, as Yahoo recently recapped. Co-star Kaley Cuoco has said she was called to Lorre’s office and was shocked to hear the series was finishing, according to Business Insider.

Two smaller personal details land hard. Lorre changed his surname from Levine to Lorre because he hated “Levine,” which he says his mother used like a curse word. And he signed away games and home video residuals, meaning repeat payments, for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song he wrote.