Chuck Lorre’s billion-year Scientology contract lasted two days

Chuck Lorre, the television producer behind “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men,” says he once signed a one-billion-year contract with Scientology’s Sea Org and lasted two days.

Mr. Lorre recounts the episode in his memoir “Sitcom,” which was released Tuesday, Entertainment Weekly reported. Before his TV career, he was a struggling young musician. A saxophone player in his band introduced him to Scientology at a church in Columbus, Ohio, the outlet said. He later moved to Los Angeles and visited the church’s headquarters there.

He describes a hard sell to join the Sea Org, which the church calls its most dedicated order of members. He says three Scientology executives cornered him in a small room and pressed him to sign. Mr. Lorre said he was struggling with a dead-end music career and felt overwhelmed when he agreed.

His service did not last. He says he spent two days handing out free personality-test invitations to homeless people in MacArthur Park. “I owe the Church of Scientology a billion years of labor minus two days,” he wrote.

Although his Sea Org service lasted two days, Mr. Lorre told the Los Angeles Times he spent about a decade as a Scientologist, calling it “one of my darker secrets.”

According to Entertainment Weekly, Sea Org members commit to a billion-year pledge, which the church says is symbolic. A 2021 peer-reviewed analysis in the International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation argued it is far more than that.

Mr. Lorre’s ties to Scientology have surfaced before. After an episode of Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method,” which he co-wrote, depicted the church, Tony Ortega reported in 2019 that a musician who knew Mr. Lorre in the 1970s described him as deeply involved at the time.

Kirkus Reviews said the memoir, published by Dey Street Books, covers failed marriages, heavy drinking, a “misguided detour into Scientology” and his public split with Charlie Sheen.