Former Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill joined HuffPost Live Thursday to share her personal story of growing up in the church and to explain how she escaped from it.
Hill, the niece of church leader David Miscavige and author of Beyond Belief, told HuffPost Live host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin about the oppressive practices of the church, which include forced abortion and abuse.
"If you do become pregnant when you're there, you get kicked out," she said. "Or many of my friends were actually coerced into having abortions."
Hill also described tales of forced labor and abusive teachers, and said she knew she had to leave the church after being exposed to the outside world on a mission trip abroad.
"When we went back to LA after that mission, it was like, everything was in plain view," she said. "Back to fifteen minute meals, you can't go to bed before 1:00 AM, you have to stay up all night even though you did yesterday...It put a lot of things in plain sight. There was no denying it. They started taking away your phones, your internet access...that was a big turning point for me."
RELATED ON HUFFPOST: