Will Smith defends Tom Cruise, Scientology

LOS ANGELES - Will Smith opened up this past weekend on “60 Minutes,” and he was equally revealing with Access Hollywood, as he defended friend Tom Cruise’s passion for Scientology.

“What about Scientology do you embrace?” Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson asked the “I Am Legend” star.

“I was introduced, [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion,” Smith said. “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.”

Impassioned and serious, Will came to the defense of his close friend, whom some have criticized for his passionate stand on Scientology.

“It seems like it makes you angry that people have attacked him because of what he believes?” Robinson said.

“When I sit and I talk with Tom Cruise, he is one of the greatest spirits that I’ve ever met – someone who is committed to making the world better,” Will said. “You have people [that] are attacking and wanna fight that don’t know nothing — how you gonna not know nothing about Scientology and attack somebody? It’s dangerous and it’s ignorant.

“How can I condemn someone for what they believe and I believe that God was born from a pregnant virgin?” Will continued.

He’s dead serious taking on Scientology adversaries, but Robinson did get to have a little fun with Smith as she talked to him about his new film, “I Am Legend.”

Incredibly charged with emotion and crying, it will be another big hit at the box office and it all goes back to when he was 16. Smith says that it was his cheating first girlfriend motivated him to become a movie star.

“I was so devastated that she cheated on me and I remember making a decision that she cheated on me ‘cause I wasn’t good enough right? And I remember laying in my mother’s bed crying and making a decision that if I was the best at everything, that my woman could never cheat on me,” he said.

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