The private churches that serve Hollywood’s most famous celebrities operate far differently from a typical Sunday service, with armed guards, non-disclosure agreements, and six-figure membership fees separating the faithful from the general public. Scientology’s Celebrity Centre International sits in a 1920s French Normandy chateau in the heart of Hollywood, where Tom Cruise and John Travolta regularly attend services. The church’s origins trace back to 1955, when founder L. Ron Hubbard launched what he called “Project Celebrity,” a recruitment strategy aimed at using famous members to grow the organization.
The chateau was purchased outright by the church in 1973, and today eight Celebrity Centres operate worldwide, including locations in Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, Vienna, and Paris. Cruise and Travolta remain deeply involved. In March 2026, Cruise attended the church’s annual L. Ron Hubbard birthday celebration, seated in the front row next to Travolta.
Reports indicate both men have donated millions of dollars to the organization over the years. In November 2025, Cruise was also reported to have flown a helicopter unusually low over the area while heading to the church’s annual Patrons’ Ball, causing what witnesses described as chaos. Leah Remini, who left Scientology in 2013 after more than three decades as a member, has been sharply critical of the organization and its most famous adherents. In June 2025, she said of Cruise, “Can you imagine Tom being in a normal world without Scientology doing his dirty work for him?
No. I now see where the cracks are in our church, and it’s David Miscavige, it’s Tom Cruise. They were bringing Scientology down. ” She also claimed she was sent to Florida for “reprogramming” for four months.
Speaking about both Cruise and Travolta, she said, “I believe it’s hurt Tom and John. If they ever wanted real life to be who they really are, they’d have to leave. ”
The security measures at the Celebrity Centre became tragically clear in 2008, when a man named Mario Majorski approached the facility carrying two samurai swords. Scientology security guards shot and killed him on the spot.
A very different kind of operation, Zoe Church was launched in 2015 by pastor Chad Veach, who moved from Seattle to Los Angeles with the stated goal of breaking into the Hollywood celebrity world. The first services were held at 1OAK, one of Hollywood’s most famous nightclubs, before moving to the El Rey Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard. When the New York Times asked Veach how the church had grown so quickly, he answered directly: “Instagram built our church. ”
The congregation has included Justin Bieber, Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Selena Gomez, Hailey Bieber, Kourtney Kardashian, and Maria Shriver.
The church has 65,000 Instagram followers, yet only around 1,600 people attend services in person each week. Critics have described it as an online brand that sometimes holds church services. The church has also faced controversy over its positions on LGBTQ issues. In 2017, Veach served as executive producer for a film about “sexual brokenness” that treated same-sex attraction as an example of that brokenness.
Actor Elliot Page publicly called Zoe Church “infamously anti-LGBTQ,” while Pratt denied the claim, saying the church “opens doors to absolutely everyone. ” An investigation by the organization Church Clarity in 2019 found that Zoe Church’s policies on LGBTQ people and women were, in their words, “terribly difficult to find and unclearly located. ” The church’s official doctrine states that the only legitimate marriage is between a man and a woman. When asked about it directly, Veach said he lets Jesus “deal with divisive issues.
” In August 2022, Zoe Church purchased a 98-year-old Buddhist temple in Highland Park for its next location. Churchome, formerly City Church, was founded in Seattle in 1992 by the parents of Judah Smith, who inherited the leadership after his father’s death. According to the church’s own origin story, Smith’s wife Chelsea had an epiphany while reading People magazine in the bathroom, noticing how many celebrities seemed lost and empty despite their fame and wealth. The couple moved the entire operation to Beverly Hills, where services are now held at the historic Saban Theatre.
By 2019, Marie Claire was calling Churchome one of the most influential Christian congregations in Hollywood. The front rows are reserved exclusively for celebrities. The membership has included Justin Bieber, who has considered Smith his personal spiritual advisor since 2010, along with Russell Wilson, Ciara, Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Selena Gomez, Tim Tebow, and Maria Shriver. Wilson sits on the church’s board of directors.
The church describes itself in the press as “a spiritual Soho House minus the cocktails. ”
The financial details are striking. In 2023, whistleblower documents revealed that Churchome was paying up to $100,000 per year in membership fees to remain part of Hillsong’s elite network. In 2017 alone, the church collected $17 million in tithes.
In 2025, the church faced a public crisis when Justin Bieber’s former road manager, Ryan Good, publicly cut ties with Churchome and with Bieber himself, calling the church a cult. TMZ reported that Good was concerned about the degree of influence Smith had over Bieber’s life and decisions. When confronted by paparazzi and asked directly whether the church was a cult, Smith laughed it off and said, “If we’re a cult, we’re the worst cult in history. We meet once a month.
” In 2016, Smith also signed with Hollywood management firm Management 360 to develop faith-based projects for millennials across television, digital, and books. Kanye West launched Sunday Service in January 2019 as a traveling private gathering with no fixed address. Attendance is by invitation only, and according to the Huffington Post, guests are required to sign non-disclosure agreements before attending. Kim Kardashian described the experience on Jimmy Kimmel Live in April 2019, saying, “There’s no praying.
There’s no sermon. ” Instead, a gospel choir performs renditions of West’s own songs, including “Famous” and “Jesus Walks,” mixed with traditional gospel music. Everyone in attendance wears matching outfits. In April 2019, West took Sunday Service to Coachella, where the entire crowd wore matching purple ensembles.
Some attendees and observers described the atmosphere as “cultish. ” Brad Pitt made his second appearance at Sunday Service in September 2019 in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, telling Entertainment Tonight, “I think he was doing something really special there. It’s a pure celebration of life and people. ” The guest list has included the Kardashian-Jenner family, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Dave Chappelle, L.
A. Reid, and Adrienne Bailon. West announced his album Jesus is King in September 2019, and in retrospect, Sunday Service functioned as a nine-month marketing rollout disguised as a spiritual gathering. Beyond these churches, conspiracy theories have long circulated about occult symbolism in celebrity culture, centering on figures like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Diddy.
During Beyoncé’s 2013 Super Bowl performance, she made a diamond shape with her hands, which the internet quickly labeled an Illuminati sign. The 2018 Apeshit music video, filmed at the Louvre, was analyzed frame by frame by theorists who pointed to images including a fallen angel, exactly 13 dancers on screen, and Jay-Z positioned directly in front of I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid.
Books have been published analyzing Beyoncé’s alleged occult symbolism, particularly focusing on her Sasha Fierce alter ego. Jay-Z was once photographed wearing a hoodie bearing the phrase “Do what thou wilt,” associated with early 20th-century occultist Aleister Crowley. His label, Roc-A-Fella Records, has been noted for sounding similar to Rockefeller. In December 2024, allegations against Jay-Z surfaced that were directly tied to Diddy’s network.
None of this occult symbolism is provably true in a way a court would require. But the parallels between the structure of private celebrity churches and the conditions that enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse to continue for decades are difficult to ignore. Epstein’s island had a private location accessible only to elites, invitation-only access with NDAs and strict confidentiality, zero law enforcement or public oversight, and a circle of powerful people with reasons to stay quiet. These churches offer reserved parking and private back entrances so celebrities are never seen coming or going, NDAs at the door, and no public accountability.
The comparison is explicitly structural, not an accusation of equivalent conduct. Private location, celebrity access, confidentiality agreements, and zero oversight is the exact structure that allowed abuse to continue for years without anyone on the outside knowing. Religious spaces have always been places where people hand over extraordinary trust. These churches ask for something beyond trust.
They ask for silence.
