Mamamia Team Saturday 14 July 2012 7:00am

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Tom Cruise and his kids

Nicole Kidman was “bent on destroying others”.

That’s what Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s adopted children, Isabella and Connor were taught in the aftermath of their parents’ divorce, according to a former Scientology official.

Marty Rathbun – who worked for the Church for almost 20 years before leaving in 2004 – has claimed that the Church of Scientology meddled in Tom and Nicole’s 2001 divorce and brainwashed their two children against Nicole.

There have always been rumours about why Nicole Kidman has rarely been seen with her two eldest children in the past 11 years. Could this be the truth coming out at last?

Appearing on a US television show, Rathbun said while he was counseling Tom Cruise after the 2001 divorce, Church staff who were nannying and tutoring Isabella and Connor (who were 9 and 7 at the time) taught the kids their mother was a suppressive person – someone “bent on destroying others”.

Take a look at the video:

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This from the UK press:

Mr Rathbun claimed that he had counselled A list star Cruise, 50, in countless sessions that the church refers to as ‘auditing’ at the Scientology celebrity center in California.

And when the children were with the father they were left in the grip of Scientology staff, according to Mr Rathbun.

Mr Rathbun told NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams: ‘…they were being indoctrinated, and they were reporting to Tom on how that was going in my presence.

He claimed that church officials told Isabella, then nine, and Connor, then six, that their mother was a ‘suppressive person’, which the church’s website, , defines as ‘a person who seeks to suppress other people in their vicinity.’

He said: ‘It was more than implied….[Kidman] was somebody that they shouldn’t open up with, they shouldn’t communicate with, and they shouldn’t spend much time with,’

The Scientology website reads: ‘A suppressive Person will goof up or vilify any effort to help anybody and particularly knife with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or more intelligent.

‘The ‘suppressive person’ is also known as the ‘anti-social personality’. Within this category you would find ‘Napoleon, Hitler, the unrepentant killer and the drug lord,’ according to the website.

The Church of Scientology denies the conversations ever occurred.

Earlier this year, Isabella (now 19) spoke publicly for the first time about her relationship with her mum Nicole, who has since married Keith Urban and had two children.

Isabella said: “I love mum. She’s my mum. She’s great. I see her sometimes and I speak to her … We’re a very close family. I love all of our family.”