Tony Robbins was accused of sexually harassing staff and berating vulnerable audience members on Friday. He denied all the claims
Self-help guru Tony Robbins has been accused of berating vulnerable audiences and sexually harassing staff by former audience members and employees.
In a lengthy article on Friday, BuzzFeed cited anonymous accusers who say Robbins showered in front of them, scorned audience participants during arena shows where they had gone for help and asked bouncers to scour crowds looking for attractive women.
The 59-year-old angrily hit back with his own article on Medium where he denied all of the allegations and said he had been unfairly pursued by the news outlet for a year.
His lawyers also batted away all of BuzzFeed’s claims, saying they were made up or came from discredited, disgruntled former employees including women who were ‘obsessed’ with him and had to be let go from the company because of it.
The sexual harassment claims are related to alleged incidents which happened before he married his second wife, Sage.
Robbins, who counts the Kardashians among his many celebrity fans, has spoken openly in the past about having consensual relationships.
Among the accusations are secret recordings from shows, obtained covertly by people who had agreed not to film any of it in disclaimers beforehand.
At one 2018 show, Robbins allegedly told a woman who described being abused by her husband that he had ‘had to put up with her being a crazy b***ch’.
He also said she was ‘lying’. That woman said afterwards that she was grateful for the experience and did not find it to be damaging.
He also told the crowd the hadn’t been in love unless they’d thought about killing their partner, according to a leaked transcript of the show that BuzzFeed published.
In 2003, after a show in Australia, he allegedly boasted to staff about telling a woman who claimed she had been raped that she was using it to ‘manipulate’.
‘I don’t support anybody f*****g raping her or taking advantage of her but I don’t support her f******g manipulating herself, men, and other people by trying to use that tool when it’s really not the primary experience of her life now,’ he said.
He boasted that he cut her off in a ‘warm’, ‘elegant’, ‘fantastic’ way.
The tactics were slammed by abusive specialists and experts who spoke to BuzzFeed and called his unorthodox messages damaging but the women themselves have not spoken out in complaint.
Two assistants claimed they were forced to be in the same room as him while he showered or was naked.
‘He would call you into the bathroom with him. “Hey come here, I need you to make a note of something,”‘ one, who declined to be named but said she worked with him for 18 months in the 1990s, said.
‘He just didn’t care, he was too powerful,’ she added.
I don’t support anybody f*****g raping her or taking advantage of her but I don’t support her f******g manipulating herself, men, and other people by trying to use that tool
What Robbins told an audience member in 2003
She claimed that he once came out of the bathroom and dropped his towel in front of her in a hotel room. She said she ran out in tears and that she had wanted to share her story before, using her full name, but that she was afraid of him.
Kate Ritasse, another assistant who went into the bathroom to take notes said she did not think it was abusive or inappropriate, just ‘strange’.
‘My job would be to get him out of bed in the morning so I’d wake up and pull his naked butt out of bed.
‘I had to get his naked butt into the shower and into his suit. I guess some people would think it was weird.
‘Yes I could be a victim, I could go down the victim road but I just chose not to,’ she said, standing by him.
Gary King, a former long-term employee, said he had seen audience members become mentally ill and unstable after his Date With Destiny Shows. He said he became sensitive to it after the suicide of his son.
Robbins is shown on stage during one of his shows. They are rarely taped or photographed and he asks audiences to sign disclaimers before entering promising that they will not film
One former employee, who did not want to be named, said he immediately called her ‘beautiful’ when she started working for him.
My job would be to get him out of bed in the morning so I’d wake up and pull his naked butt out of bed. ‘I had to get his naked butt into the shower and into his suit. I guess some people would think it was weird….Yes I could be a victim, I could go down the victim road but I just chose not to
Former employee Kate Ritasse
The woman started working for him in the late 90s.
She said that over the course of the next few years, he encouraged her to end two relationships and offered to fly her places to see him.
During one show, she said he told a crowd to simulate having an orgasm then leaned over to her and said: ‘I want to see you having an orgasm.’
She told BuzzFeed that the more she rejected him, the more he pursued her.
‘It’s part of what he teaches: Go after what you want.
‘And he wants to acquire you as a woman,’ she said.
Former employee Gary King said he became worried about Robbin’s unorthodox methods on vulnerable audience members
His lawyers dismissed her claims as ‘preposterous’.
A different woman claims to have had an affair with him that she said ended when his then-wife, Becky, became suspicious of it.
That woman, who called herself ‘J’, was fired, she claims without explanation, afterwards by King.
Robbins made headlines last year after being filmed covertly by someone in the audience of one of his shows slamming the #MeToo movement.
He was heard saying: ‘If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else, you haven’t grown an ounce.
‘All you’ve done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good.’
He apologized afterwards.
He has a religious-like following, with many of his fans crediting him with saving their lives after his shows.