'Seven Pounds' actor
Will Smith has been denying claims that he's a Scientologist for years, but recent
reports suggest otherwise.
According to federal tax filing for the Will Smith Foundation, Will and his wife
Jada Pinkett Smith gave $1.3 million in donations last year to a variety of religious, civic and arts groups, with $122K going to the Church of Scientology.
"Smith gave a combined $122,500 to the Church of Scientology, broken into these donations: $67,500 to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxication Fund, $50,000 to the group’s Celebrity Center in Hollywood and $5,000 to ABLE, another Scientology offshoot," the report reads.
That donation must have bought
Tom Cruise's friendship for at least another two years.
Will and Jada have also supported a private school called "New Village Academy" they opened this fall in Los Angeles that uses Scientology learning concepts.
When asked earlier this year if he was a Scientologist, Will replied: "I was introduced [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion. I was raised in a Baptist household, I went to a Catholic school, but the ideas of the Bible are 98 percent the same ideas of Scientology, 98 percent the same ideas of Hinduism and Buddhism."
To be fair we should mention that he also donated $250,000 to a Christian based organization run by Reverend James Robinson.
Regardless of his religion or beliefs, the point is Will is donating a lot of his money to help schools and the arts. We can't say anything negative about that.
