Linkin Park - From Zero (November 15th, 2024) • Page 8

This is very well said.

 

The only tough thing with the "maybe it's too dangerous to speak up" narrative is that it automatically grants her the assumption that she wants to leave, instead of the entirely realistic possibility that's she doesn't want to leave the church and holds their beliefs currently

 

This is true, so I guess each person will just have to decide how comfortable they are with that uncertainty.

I'm also thinking about how cutting ties with scientology would probably also mean cutting ties with her parents. I can't really fathom the weight of being cut off from your family.

The whole thing is messed up.

 

not just her parents but any friends or family or partners who are in the Church which is probably most of them

 

This.

I very much appreciate Mary V’s post and agree that cults are complex and I sympathize with victims of it, especially the ones struggling to leave the church

But then you have the likes of Chrissie and Cedric Bixler speaking out against Emily and the rest of Linkin Park to be held accountable. My guess of the reason they’re putting pressure on the latter group is likely due to Emily Armstrong’s willful involvement with the church/support of Danny Masterson

 

from the comments on Cedric's latest IG post

 

Yeah, I can empathize with those who were raised in a cult but I have no reason to doubt anything Cedric and Chrissie are saying. If they're hinting that there's more to it or that she is still very much an actively harmful person, I can't stand by that. The things they went through were heinous.

 

Not to doompost but I hope Cedric and Chrissie are safe

 

genuine question, but other than the lyrics of the new song, where have people been hearing any rumors that Emily is no longer a Scientologist? i just got a ridiculous TikTok full of misinformation claiming that she left a long time ago and that Cedric is still a member of the church. obviously the latter part is false, but i've literally seen nothing that's indicated she's left, and wondered what's fueling the rumors.

 

That’s literally all people are clinging to - the lyrics. There’s nothing else.

 

I don't know about rumors, but it's just a lot of hopium based on something between blind faith in the band and a particular interpretation of the new single. There's nothing concrete to support that, it's just people trying to will it into existence.

 

In my eyes, all current evidence is that she's still a scientologist

 

I'm not going to pretend to know how I would feel or how I would act if someone really close to me was accused of something as heinous as rape, or what it would be like to be born into and raised following a cultish movement like scientology. But I imagine both of those things would be extremely difficult to grapple with and figure out the best way to handle them.

If her statement is true that she went to an early hearing for Danny Masterson before a lot more details came out to support who she considered a close friend, and then soon after realized after the case went along that it was wrong and never spoke to him again, that seems like a valid way to handle it.

I'm kinda ignorant to scientology in that I really don't know about the things they believe in or do, but with any religion/movement you have the extremist people who might hold severely harmful values and those who believe in some of it but reject the extreme parts. I don't know if there's room in scientology for that, but based on what others have said I'm going to imagine it's on a whole other level compared to other religions

 

Yeah, Scientology is evil as a whole and considering the positions her parents hold I’m gonna lean towards her not being separated from the Church. That statement was extremely ambiguous and casual for how awful the connotations are for anyone connected with Scientology.

 

I really wanna know what the band’s thinking was. I mean yea she’s talented but that Scientology/Masterson shit had to have given someone anyone pause right???? Right????

 

I think it’s realistic the band didn’t know about the Masterson stuff. There’s no way they didn’t know about the Scientology stuff.

it makes me wonder if she clicked with them so well that they were willing put up with any potential backlash. That kind of sucks, but also makes me excited to hear the album?

 

If you listen to the Zane Lowe interview, it sounds like this return came together fairly organically. Like, various people were doing writing and recording sessions, and eventually a line-up crystallized where… they were like, oh, yeah. This is Linkin Park.

The scenario that paints makes me think the full criteria was good creative chemistry and fun to be around, without any sort of further research or whatever. No thought of, hey, what if one of these people has direct ties to a dangerous cult, which we should pull at to see what that does & doesn’t entail?

 

They've got to boot her. I just don't see any other way past this. It sucks that they kept this all on the down low with an album ready to go and everything rolling out at light speed, because now it's all gotta be scrapped.

And they have to make a statement. I would be honestly shocked if one of the band members didn't say anything at least by Monday. I just don't see how this continues.

Like, what the fuck were they thinking?

 

What a fucking disaster.

 

I’m pretty flabbergasted a band of this size (presumably) didn’t do a background check before secretly putting together this massive comeback

 

Their subreddit is imploding, look how embarrassing this is

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinkinPark/s/j7RzEpIOvk

 

This is going to turn into them releasing the album, touring, then kicking her out afterwards under the guise of “due diligence”.

 

I've been looking at it all day and it's so fucking depressing because most of the threads are from drama queens threatening to leave with their nose turned up in the air because the rest of the fanbase has the gall to be concerned about who the band is letting sing their music. It makes me physically ill.

 

embarrassing as hell. i don't think they're gonna cancel the album or tour, but i do think they'll probably limit certain lines of questioning during the press cycle, or attempt to find some sort of way to spin it (which will probably appeal to general audiences, but do nothing for their goodwill).