The Celebrity Centre was first established in 1969 by Yvonne Gillham and
Heber Jentzsch in the
Château Élysée, a 1920s building that had been built to replicate a 17th century French-Normandy chateau, and which the Church of Scientology purchased in 1973. Other Celebrity Centre organizations have since been established around the USA and in Europe. As of 2024, there are eight Celebrity Centres open: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nashville and New York in the USA, and Vienna, Düsseldorf, Florence, and Paris in Europe. Critics of Scientology point to
L. Ron Hubbard's launch of "Project Celebrity" in 1955 to recruit celebrities into the church, and that the centres were established as an extension of this initial purpose. Though the Church of Scientology denies the existence of a policy to recruit high-ranking celebrities,
The New York Times reported, "internal church documents show that their primary purpose is to recruit celebrities and use the celebrities' prestige to help expand Scientology," and the
Los Angeles Times wrote, "The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard's teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America."
Mike Argue of the band
Chester said, "We made a lot of money for the church", referring to the original Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles which attracted "a boatload of notables" in the 1970s. == Violent incident ==