My Friend Mike

Superman Has Left the Building

The first time I talked to Mike Rinder on the phone was sometime in 2014. Most of our conversations were quick texts or short phone calls. He was a busy man. He had his blog. The movie “Going Clear” was released in January 2015. He also had oh so many other irons in the fire.

Once he and Leah started working together, they became a force of nature. It was awesome to behold.

I occasionally helped him behind the scenes with research. I worked at a law firm, so I had easy access to cases and other resources. At that time, I had chosen not to go public with my experiences. I had been poorly treated by members of the former Scientology community. They had brutally attacked me when I attempted to go public with my story.

Although he was disappointed, Mike did not once push me past my comfort zone. And my story remained untold. I continued sharing information with him sporadically. At one point, I stepped away from reading about Scientology for a couple of years. It just became too much.

By the time I started speaking out in 2024, Mike and I had fallen out of touch. I spoke out January, 2024, with Tony Ortega’s help. Mike immediately contacted Tony to get my email address. I, of course, told Tony I’d love to talk to Mike.

Mike asked me if I’d be willing to do a podcast with him. I told him I’d be honored. We finally got our schedules to mesh and recorded the first one in May, 2024. We got through about a third of what we wanted to say in that one. He contacted me June 7, 2024 to see if I could record another one that weekend. Luckily, our schedules meshed, and we recorded this one. It went live on his site July 2, 2024.

He told me before we started recording that he was starting chemo on the 11th of June. He was very optimistic about the outcome. He really believed it would be just another bump in the road. I did offer to record a second one that day. He had been recording several already that weekend and we didn’t do another one. I believed there was still plenty of time to talk to him.

I was also impressed that a person facing down chemo prioritized getting podcasts in the can before starting chemo. He was that dedicated to eradicating Scientology abuses.

Even when he stepped down from the Board of Directors of The Aftermath Foundation, I wrote a post about it. I still believed he would be okay.

Today at 10:22 a.m. MST, I was one of the people who received this email;

I had to wait until I could write a coherent sentence before I could post this.

Mike fought the valiant fight. His tigress wife was by his side the whole way. He had very close friends who cared for him and did things for him selflessly. Yashar Ali, Leah Remini, Amy & Mat, Claire & Marc stepped up. Of course, Christie and the boys also did. A whole host of others stepped up as well. If love could have saved him, he would have lived forever.

And his memory will. He made a difference.

Michael John Rinder

April 10, 1955 – January 5, 2025