Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith

Movies

Documentary says Tom Cruise had Nicole Kidman’s phone tapped

PARK CITY, UTAH — A former top official of the Church of Scientology says he ordered Nicole Kidman’s phones to be tapped at the suggestion of Tom Cruise and church head David Miscavige.

Former Scientologist Mark “Marty” Rathbun, a member of the church for many years and a key aide to Miscavige, makes the allegations in an explosive new documentary, “Going Clear: Scientology & The Prison of Belief,” which debuted here Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival.

Kidman and Cruise’s relationship, which began after they met on the set of the 1990 film “Days of Thunder,” was looked upon with disfavor by Scientology officials from the start, according to the documentary, directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”).

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard disliked and distrusted psychiatrists and psychologists, and the animosity toward the field remains in today’s church, according to the documentary. Kidman’s father, Dr. Anthony Kidman, who died last year, was a prominent psychologist in Australia.

During his marriage to Kidman, Cruise was only tenuously connected to the church from about 1992 to 2001, according to Scientology experts interviewed in “Going Clear,” which is based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book of the same name.

The church, according to the documentary, wanted to break up Kidman and Cruise so that Cruise would more enthusiastically embrace the church and help publicize its mission.

The Church of Scientology denied the claims in a statement, saying: “The accusations made in the film are entirely false and alleged without ever asking the Church.”

After Cruise and Kidman split in 2001, Cruise did indeed become a more vocal proponent of Scientology, culminating in his bizarre round of media appearances in 2005, when he strayed from the script while promoting his movie “The War of the Worlds” and publicly chastised the field of psychiatry and Brooke Shields for using antidepressants in a notorious “Today” show appearance.

The church became particularly worried about Cruise’s dedication to Scientology in the late 1990s, when he spent an entire year in England with Kidman filming “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Around that time, Rathbun says in the film, Cruise said he was worried about Kidman and suggested her phones be tapped.

Rathbun said he related this idea disdainfully to Scientology Chairman Miscavige, who swore, “Goddamn it,” and ordered Rathbun to get it done.

Rathbun says in the film that he ordered the phones tapped, but it’s unclear what information, if any, might have been uncovered by the process.

Rathbun, who alleges that Miscavige beat and abused him and says he himself served as an “auditor” who extensively interviewed Cruise about personal traumas, left the church after more than 20 years in 2004.

He has previously said he believes the church brainwashed Kidman and Cruise’s adoptive children, Connor and Isabella, to turn them against their mother.

The church slapped Kidman with the dreaded label “suppressive person,” Rathbun told NBC’s Brian Williams in 2012.

HBO had 160 lawyers vet “Going Clear,” which it plans to broadcast on March 16.

The film contains footage of Cruise praising Scientology at revivalist-style meetings of the faithful — at one point, saluting a portrait of Hubbard while calling out, “To L.R.H.”

At the film’s Sundance premiere, some of the people involved in the movie said they were being watched.

“They’ve been following me for five years,” said Mike Rinder, the church’s former spokesman. “I get followed everywhere. I get followed to the mall, I get followed to the supermarket. They go through my garbage.”

The Church of Scientology released a statement last night that attacked the movie, and saying filmmakers refused to meet with church reps.

“Their sources are the usual collection of obsessive, disgruntled former Church members kicked out as long as 30 years ago for malfeasance, who have a documented history of making up lies about the Church for money,” the statement read.

A rep for Cruise did not return a request for comment from The Post on Sunday.

Additional reporting by Mara Siegler