Beck says he is “not a Scientologist.”

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he says he thinks “there’s a misconception” that he belongs to the Church, but that he isn’t connected or affiliated with it.

While he mentions that his father “has been a Scientologist for a long time,” he says he’s “pretty much just focused on [his] music and [his] work for most of [his] life, and tended to do [his] own thing.” He thinks his connection to Scientology was “just something people ran with.”

People probably ran with it because he’d previously stated multiple times that he was indeed a member of the controversial church. As The Hollywood Reporter pointed out, he flatly told the Irish Sunday Tribune in 2005, “Yeah, I’m a Scientologist. My father has been a Scientologist for about 35 years, so I grew up in and around it and stuff… I don’t have anything to hide. I am completely proud of my life.”

So what’s changed? Perhaps it has something to do with his recent divorce from second-generation Scientologist Marissa Ribisi. She and her twin brother, actor Giovanni Ribisi, are highly active in the Church of Scientology, publicly appearing at many events over the years. Beck and Ribisi separated in February of this year after 15 years of marriage.