Leah Remini fights back tears over how Katie Holmes 'left extremist religion Scientology to protect her daughter Suri'

• e-mail

Leah Remini fought back tears during an emotional interview with ABC News while talking about her decision to leave Scientology - and how she now understands why Katie Holmes also left the Church.

Remini told Amy Robach that she did not want her 11-year-old daughter Sofia to have to choose between her family and the Church, a decision she believes that Holmes also made for her daughter Suri.

'I know now she did what she did because she had to protect her daughter, which in a way connects us,' Remini said of Holmes.

She then said of Sofia: 'I didn't want my daughter to choose the Church.' 

Scroll down for videos

Emotional: Leah Remini discussed leaving Scientology in a new interview saying she decided to break with the Church for her daughter

Moving on: She also said that she now understands that Katie Holmes left the Church for the same reason, to protect her daughter Suri (pictured above earlier this year)

Difficult: 'I didn't want my daughter to choose the Church,' said Remini of Sofia (left with her mother and father Angelo Pagan)

Remini, 45, also detailed the 'fighting' that went on between her and Holmes after the actress wrote a knowledge report about Remini following her 2006 wedding to Tom Cruise.

'I was dismayed at the behavior of Leah Remini during the events leading up to our wedding,' Holmes allegedly wrote in a knowledge report that Remini read during an interview with 20/20 that aired on Friday.

'At the wedding, the behavior as a guest, a friend... was very upsetting.' 

Holmes released a statement on Friday saying: 'I regret having upset Leah in the past and wish her only the best in the future.'

Remini got choked up while Robach read Holmes' statement to her, saying: 'At the time I was fighting with her - I guess for the lack of a better word - within the Church and now I know really what she was going through because at the time I was thinking of myself and my family and what we were going through.'

She then added: 'I had no idea she was going through probably a lot more.'

Holmes and Cruise split in 2012 and the actress and her daughter both left the Church.

Remini also called Scientology an 'extremist religion' in her interview to promote her autobiography Troublemaker, which will be released this week. 

Despite her criticism of people within the Church however, Remini said that Scientology did help her in many ways growing up, and gave her confidence.

ABC News revealed that the Church had sent them numerous documents and complaints about Remini, including one that said she had been expelled from the Church and did not in fact leave of her own volition. 

Over: Holmes left the Church with Suri in 2012 after she split with Tom Cruise (above in October 2011)

Trouble: The alleged knowledge report submitted by Holmes about Remini following her wedding to Tom Cruise

Remini also discussed her relationship with Cruise within the Church once again, and how nervous she would feel around the actor. 

'There seemed to be a lot of power there,' Remini said of Cruise's role in Scientology. 

She said it was difficult however loosening up around Cruise, and that she was afraid to do things like drink around the actor.

Opening up: Remini's autobiography Troublemaker will be released this week

'I mean if I'm at dinner, you know, we're going to dinner together, you're not going to write an internal church report on me that you thought I got a little tipsy at your dinner party,' said Remini. 

'And have to deal with that financially within your church.'

Remini had previously revealed that it cost her $300,000 to get 'reprogrammed' after Church members including Holmes complained about her in knowledge reports following Cruise's wedding.

Soon after, Remini was sent to the Church's Sea Org facility in Florida for 'reprogramming,' spending every day from 9am to 10pm being audited.

'Basically they were just trying to get me to recant what I said, to apologize for ruining the wedding of the century,' said Remini. 

Remini has said that there were multiple incidents at the wedding that made her upset, including her belief that the Church was trying to recruit her friend Jennifer Lopez. 

She said that she was invited to Cruise's wedding but asked that she bring her best friend J.Lo and her then-husband Marc Anthony.

'The Church was really the one who invited them. On Tom’s behalf,' said Remini in her 20/20 interview.

Once Remini and her husband Angelo Pagan arrived at the wedding however with Lopez and Anthony, Remini said that she felt they were constantly trying to separate the two women. 

Remini claims that they were sat at different tables, and even driven to the venues over the course of the wedding weekend in different cars.

'They were always trying to extract me,' said Remini.

'I could only assume because they wanted to make Jennifer a Scientologist and maybe I was barring that road for them.'

Plan: Remini said that when she was invited to Tom Cruise's 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes she was asked to bring her friend Jennifer Lopez (pair above with Marc Anthony and Pagan at the nuptials)

Troublemaker: Remini was attacked for asking about the absence of her friend Shelly Miscavige (above), the wife of the Church's leader, at Cruise's wedding

Awful: Remini claims in her book that Bella Cruise (far right with brother Connor and mom Nicole in 2004) attacked her mother for being an 'SP' after Cruise's wedding to Holmes

Even more of an issue for Remini however was the absence of her friend Shelly Miscavige, the wife of the Church's leader.

'Shelly was always where David Miscavige was,' Remini explained in the interview.

'It was a wedding of the century… it was like, "where’s Shelly?"'

Making things even more odd was that she could never get an answer when she asked people at the wedding.

'It’s such a simple thing. It’s a big wedding that the leader of the Church is here and his wife isn't. It’s getting weirder because you're making it weirder,' said Remini. 

In her book - which will be released on Wednesday - Remini also claims that Cruise's children attacked their mother Nicole Kidman while at their father's wedding.

The New York Daily News reports that Remini writes in one passage about driving with Connor and Bella Cruise to the airport and asking if the two had seen their mother recently.

'Not if I have a choice,' said Bella, according to Remini. 

'Our mom is a f***ing SP.'

An 'SP' is a suppressed person and used to identify those who are not in the Church and enemies of Scientology.

Remini also claims that during the wedding festivities Suri was left crying on the floor of the bathroom as Cruise's sister and assistant just stared at the baby as if she were 'L. Ron Hubbard incarnate' - despite the fact that she was just seven-months-old at the time. 

After Remini's interview with 20/20 aired her husband Angelo Pagan - who joined the Church after the two began dating - wrote on Twitter; 'Free at last free at last thank god almighty.' 

Hard at work: Members of the Church were seen on surveillance video dropping off documents attacking Remini last Tuesday at ABC headquarters

Since leaving the church in 2013, Remini has become an outspoken critic of the religion, and much of her new autobiography, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, is dedicated to her years in the church. 

Remini got her start with guest roles on major shows like Cheers, Saved by the Bell and NYPD Blue before landing the lead on King of Queens.

She filmed over 200 episodes of the show while also starring in films such as Old School.

After Queens ended its run she appeared as a host on The Talk, on Dancing With the Stars and acted on the TV Land show The Exes.

She and her family currently star in the TLC reality show Leah Remini: It's All Relative.

Scientology is also still keeping a close eye on Remini, as witnessed in security footage aired by ABC last week that showed members of the church dropping off a large packet about the actress at its New York headquarters on Tuesday.

'Leah Remini knows the truth she conveniently rewrites in her revisionist history,' wrote the Church.

'The real story is that she desperately tried to remain a Scientologist in 2013, knowing full well she was on the verge of being expelled for refusing to abide by the high level of ethics and decency Scientologists are expected to maintain.

'Her repeated ethical lapses and callous treatment of others led to an ecclesiastical review which resulted in her being expelled.

'She now regurgitates the tired myths the Church has repeatedly debunked, circulated by the same tiny clique of expelled former staffers bitter at having lost the positions they enjoyed before their malfeasance and unethical conduct were uncovered.

'Ms Remini is now joined at the hip with this collection of deadbeats, admitted liars, self-admitted perjurers, wife beaters and worse.'

Remini was not surprised by this, admitting that she was a flawed person before her interview began, saying she knew that the Church would come out attacking her.

'I know what my former Church - how they deal with people who tell their story,' Remini said on 20/20.

'And so I wanted to be the one to say it.'