LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) Self-help guru has been accused of making inappropriate sexual advances on fans and staff, plus berating abuse victims, according to Buzzfeed.
The click-bait website said its report comes from leaked recordings, internal documents related to Robbins’ work and a serieis of interviews with fans and insiders. The allegations include sexual misconduct or harassment from the 1990s and early 2000s, before Robbins was married, plus claims Robbins berated rape and domestic abuse victims during his self-help seminars.
The report could not be verified by NBC News, and Robbins vehemently denied the report, saying Buzzfeed an “inaccurate, agenda-driven version of the past, pierced with falsehoods.”
“It is intended to disparage me personally, my family, my life’s work, and the efforts of the millions of individuals around the globe who have taken this journey with me over the last 40-plus years,” Robbins wrote.
Robbins said BuzzFeed News’ reporters “rejected and otherwise ignored factual accounts” from individuals and said others contacted him “to let us know that you attempted to manipulate their testimony and, in some cases, even ignored their legal counsel when they pointed out inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of their client’s personal accounts at the hands of your reporters.”
In a statement to NBC News, BuzzFeed said its reporting was “based on records of Mr. Robbins berating victims of rape and domestic violence, and the testimony of former staffers and followers who accused him of inappropriate sexual advances.”
“It does not appear that Mr. Robbins read the story itself before he published his open letter, which contains a number of demonstrably false and defamatory claims about both our reporting and the resulting article,” the statement said.
The Buzzfeed report claims it has signed statements from two former followers, swearing under oath Robbins sexually harassed them by pursuing them after they rejected his advances. Two female assistants also reportedly said that Robbins, about 20 years ago, expected them to work alone with him in his hotel room while he was naked in the room or in the shower.
Buzzfeed’s credibility was called into question earlier this year when it published a report involving the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that was disputed by Mueller himself.
