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The Missing Tea: The Reason Why Mimi Fausts Mother Abandoned Her For “Scientology”

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Mimi Faust Love and Hip Hop Atlanta

 

Last night while watching Love and Hip Hop Atlanta my interest was piqued when Mimi Faust began telling the story of how her and mother lost contact for 10+ years.  During her confessional, Mimi briefly touched on the subject of Scientology and it being the reason behind her mother Olaiya Odufunke abandoning her at the age of 13.

Being the curious cat that I am, I took to my online best friend [Google] and began to search for information on both her mother and Scientology.  To my surprise I was lucky to come across an article on VillageVoices Blog that had a detailed account of the situation behind Mimi Faust, her mother and the “religion” that left her abandoned, alone and on her own at 13.

According to MiMi, she was forced out of the religion after she refused to sign a contract that would force her to work exclusively for the organization at the age of 13.

 

Mimi Faust mother Olaiya Odufunke

Olaiya Odufunke and scientology co-worker Joyce Earl

 

Story via Village Voices:

Olaiya (who also apparently went by “Gloria”) was a member of Scientology’s “Sea Organization” or Sea Org, the hardcore elite of employees who sign billion-year contracts and promise to work for the church lifetime after lifetime.

And inside the Sea Org, there’s a department Olaiya was assigned to known as the Office of Special Affairs — it’s the church’s intelligence, public relations, and covert operations wing. In other words, Olaiya worked in what many consider Scientology’s secret service.

All Sea Org members — whether they’re in OSA or not — work long hours for little pay. We’ve talked to former members who worked 100-hour weeks, grabbing only a few hours of sleep a night as they were pushed to extreme limits while living with no privacy and often on meager provisions.

In that kind of work environment, there’s little time for anything outside Scientology work — no television, no reading of non-Scientology materials, no days off. And that’s why we hear about Sea Org parents essentially abandoning their kids — they simply have no time for them.

That’s the situation Mimi Faust was in as a 13-year-old. On Monday night’s show, she said that she was asked to “sign a contract” and work for the church, but refused. (Children of Scientologists are pressured to join the Sea Org and sign its contract at a very young age.) At the time, her mother Olaiya was based at Scientology’s administrative headquarters in Los Angeles, a former hospital painted blue that is known as PAC Base, for Pacific Area Command. But later in her life, from 2000 to 2003, Olaiya was with OSA in Clearwater, Florida.

 

What was Olayia doing while working for the religious group? According to an ex-co-worker, Olayia was something like an auditor for the group.

Scientology is a very security-conscious organization. Not only is the church constantly on the lookout for outsiders trying to infiltrate it, it also constantly interrogates its own members to sniff out anyone who might be tempted to speak to the press or to law enforcement. Also, it wants to know when a member has secrets which might compromise them. If they’re hiding something, they are not allowed to get access to the church’s counseling, called “auditing.”

What was Olayia like?

I knew her when she and I were both working at OSA US (based in LA) in 1988-89. At the time she was using the name “Olaiya Olayinka” and was posted in the Treasury Division.

Olaiya was tough as nails and totally serious about her job in the Sea Org. I recall one time she was sitting at lunch talking about someone who had irked her and she said, “I KR’ed her ass,” meaning “I wrote a knowledge report on her.”

A lot of the OSA staff walked around with a chip on their shoulder and were really bitchy at each other, so her remark was typical of the mood they were usually in.

Well dang.

Thoughts?

Read the FULL story here!

About Jae.Renee

JaeRenee is the Co-Founder and Senior Editor of www.LoveMyBlack.com as well as her personal blog www.JaeRenee.com. JaeRenee has been blogging professionally in the entertainment industry for 10 years.