Last Friday during Leah Remini’s highly publicized 20/20 interview about her defection from the Church of Scientology, ABC aired a short statement from Katie Holmes. The statement was pretty benign but, as Remini explains during a new interview on Good Morning America, it hit the former King of Queens actress pretty hard.

The statement, which, contrary to early rumors, came via the Holmes camp and not from an on-camera interview with Tom Cruise’s ex-wife, read simply, “I regret having upset Leah in the past, and wish her only the best in the future.” So why did such a gently worded sentence upset Remini? “It almost makes me want to cry,” she told G.M.A.’s Amy Robach. “It makes me emotional because at the time that Katie and this particular crew were writing reports it caused me a lot of time and pain—and my family being ‘re-programmed.’ At the time I was fighting with her . . . within the church, and now I know really what she was going through . . . because at the time I was only thinking of myself and my family and what we were going through. And although painful, I had no idea she was going through probably a lot more.

“Now seeing her and Suri out there in the world,” Remini added in reference to Holmes, “and her being able to be with her daughter and live her life, you know, I’m touched by it. I’m touched by it. Because I know now she did what she did, leaving in the way that she did because she had to protect her daughter, which in a way connects us now.”

Related: Suri Cruise Made a Rare Public Appearance with Katie Holmes

When she says Holmes caused her pain in the past, Remini is referencing a few instances where her outspoken disapproval of Cruise and Holmes got her in trouble with the organization. “Being critical of Tom Cruise is being critical of Scientology itself,” Remini said during her 20/20 interview. “You are evil.”

And though there has been plenty of insider reports about what Holmes herself experienced during her marriage to Cruise, we’ve yet to hear any in-depth commentary from the actress herself. But the New York Daily News has seen an advance copy of Remini’s Scientology tell-all, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, and says that the actress has included even more information about the Cruise-Holmes saga in her book. Remini’s book goes on sale Tuesday, November 3.