SCIENTOLOGY LEADERS OFFER SEVEN-PAGE MISSIVE TO BLAST CRUISE EXPOSE

Scientology leaders have prepared a seven-page statement damning biographer ANDREW MORTON's new expose on church celebrity TOM CRUISE.

The Brit's new tome, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, hits bookstores across America on Tuesday (15Jan08) and features wild claims about the movie star's personal life, his marriages to Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes and his Scientology beliefs.

Church leaders are determined to dismiss the book, by revealing Morton didn't interview anyone close to Cruise or even any of the directors the actor has worked with while researching what they call a "bigoted, defamatory assault replete with lies."

Morton accepts he didn't interview the major people in Cruise's life, but insists he did try.

The author, who stunned the world with a Princess Diana expose a decade ago, says, "Most people in Hollywood are scared of talking publicly and candidly about Tom Cruise."

Morton also defends himself against the Scientology leaders' new accusations that his Cruise biography won't be released in the writer's native Britain because publishers there rejected the project.

Morton insists the book will not hit shelves there because libel laws in the U.K. favour plaintiffs far more than they do in America and other parts of the world.