David Miscavige, the 50-year-old head of the church, comes across as the "villain of the piece,"
says Kyle Buchanan at New York. Many defectors allege Miscavige would regularly lose his temper and physically attack those around him — claims the church denies — and Wright recounts the tale of a particularly sadistic Miscavige exercise. Miscavige allegedly gathered almost a hundred church leaders who refused to enforce the church's "aggressive, even violent, discipline," and told them they were going to play a game of musical chairs. Only the last person standing, said Miscavige, would be allowed to stay. The rest would be sent home to their families, from whom they had long been cut off. As Miscavige played Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," church leaders "fought over the chairs, punching each other and, in one case, ripping a chair apart." The church confirmed that a game of musical chairs had taken place as an administrative exercise — but called claims of violence and coercion "nuts."
