Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis has broken his silence about Leah Remini's defection from Scientology -- the same move he made four years ago -- saying he the "can’t express how much" he admires the King of Queens star for her brave decision to defect, as "her parents, family and close friends are almost all Scientologists.

"Leah is an incredibly strong woman and will get through this with the help of her family and her true friends," the Crash director wrote in an open letter published by The Hollywood Reporter. "She is kind and generous and loyal; she has always cared more about others than herself."

Haggis, who wrote Million Dollar Baby, noted that Remini was one of the two Scientologists to acknowledge his existence after he left the church in 2009 after nearly four decades, in direct contrast to the church's policy of current Scientologists “disconnecting" from those estranged from the outfit.

He said during an encounter after he left, Leah "walked up, asked me why I was being weird and told me she would always be my friend and would never 'disconnect' from me."

Remini's criticism of Scientology leader David Miscavige reportedly paved her path out of the church, and Haggis gave a startling example of how Miscavige, who was Tom Cruise's best man during his wedding to Katie Holmes "is held to be infallible" in the eyes of his followers. He said during the time after his own defection from the church, he was visited by two higher-ups. They discussed Miscavige, and at one point, Haggis "made the polite suggestion that even great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. were human and fallible" -- a trigger for the devoted Scientologists.

"Two of the senior church leaders leapt to their feet and shouted at me, 'How dare you compare a great man like David Miscavige to Martin Luther King!'" Haggis wrote.

Citing his own personal experiences, Haggis said he was not surprised at the Kirstie Alley controversy that sprouted soon after Remini's defection, saying church officials will instruct everyone from underlings to high-profile celebrities to smear the actress. Still, he said he was "shocked to see how quickly those friends -- some of whom had known Leah for 20 or 30 years -- jumped on the 'malign Leah' campaign, and with such apparent glee."

Remini's leaving the church took "an enormous amount of integrity and compassion" and he said he'd leave it to the reader "to decide if the same can be said of Scientology’s executives and Leah’s many former friends -- especially those Scientologists who are watching her be smeared now and are choosing to stay silent."

In response to the letter, the church told THR Haggis is a “status-ob