Leah Remini Is 'Grateful' for the Support She's Received from Friend Jennifer Lopez Since Cutting Ties with Scientology

"She didn't waver in our friendship," Leah Remini tells PEOPLE

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Leah Remini is opening up about her three decades in Scientology and why she decided to leave. Subscribe now for this exclusive interview full of explosive new details, only in PEOPLE!

Leah Remini credits her longtime friend Jennifer Lopez with offering her support and good advice as Remini made the nerve-wracking decision to leave the Church of Scientology.

“She told me to keep the good things and move on with love,” Remini, 45, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “She doesn’t judge.”

Remini was worried Lopez might have to cut off ties because her father is a Scientologist. But Lopez “didn’t waver in our friendship,” Remini says.

In her book, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, Remini details the moment that she broke the news to Lopez that she was leaving the church. She writes when she suggested Lopez might be pressured to end her friendship with Remini, Lopez said: “I don’t ever want to talk about this bulls— again.”

She then handed Remini a chocolate chip cookie.

Remini, who can often be seen goofing around with Lopez on Instagram, says she is “so grateful to her.”

For much more from Remini – including her revelations about Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and more – pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

After publicly splitting with Scientology in 2013 after 35 years, Remini is now releasing a tell-all book, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, detailing her time in the church.

She claims Scientology leaders asked her to invite Lopez and Lopez’s then-husband Marc Anthony to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ 2006 wedding “on Tom’s behalf.” But once the wedding festivities were underway, Remini maintains that church officials repeatedly tried to separate the two friends.

“I could only conclude that it was part of an attempt to perhaps recruit her and Marc,” Remini tells PEOPLE.

In a statement, the Church of Scientology responded to her claim: “The Church does not single out anyone for its services, while its doors are open to all to make the able more able. The Church has not cared that Ms. Lopez was Ms. Remini’s friend. The only dealings the Church had with Ms. Remini with regards to Ms. Lopez was having to listen to her complaints about Ms. Lopez.”