The self help industry is alive and well in the United States. People flock to books and seminars to help them overcome their issues, whether those be issues of self confidence, self worth, or abusive relationships they are in and need to get out of. Everyone has problems, so of course there's an industry to solve them.
One of the biggest gurus on self help is Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins has been providing motivational speaking seminars for decades, and is so big he's even been in films playing himself, and has a hit documentary on Netflix. He's the top of the top when it comes to the self-help business.
Toby Robbins has a no-nonsense approach when dealing with the people at his seminars. He's not afraid to dig into them to get to their truth, which might be ugly to them at first. It's all in the effort to help, but recent allegations show that Robbins may have a history of abuse towards women.
Buzzfeed News recently broke a story about famed self-help guru, Tony Robbins. Buzzfeed's reporting brings to light four allegations of sexual misconduct, which are actually in addition to some past allegations. These allegations come from a personal assistant and three of his former fans. The allegations include Robbins exposing himself and groping them in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
Buzzfeed News has worked on this investigation for a year, probing both staff members and former fans of the 59 year-old guru. Tony Robbins has responded via Twitter, criticizing Buzzfeed's reporting. He even cited them as one of the least trusted news sources. That's an easy criticism to make on a website that got their start with "Which Harry Potter character are you?" quizzes. Regardless, Buzzfeed has grown to be a somewhat reputable news source despite the website's past.
Robbins claims that Buzzfeed's investigation is "inaccurate, agenda-driven version of the past, pierced with falsehoods." Robbins lawyer jumped in as well. As of now, Robbins denies any of the allegations. Robbins and his legal team cite the fact that there had never been a verbal or written complaint against Robbins in the entire time the alleged victim worked with him.
Robbins posted a video to Youtube on Wednesday to address the claims as well. In the video he claims that Buzzfeed is "flat-out lying." Interestingly, he does admit that he's a "better human being than I was in my 20s and 30s," which sounds like a clever way of admitting to some kind of misdeed, illegal or otherwise. He goes on to say, "I'm not perfect, I never claimed to be. I'm perfectly committed to growing."
Four women are included in the report. One of them is former personal assistant, Kimberly Stokes, who was a live-in assistant. She claims Robbins exposed himself to her. One of Robbin's former fans, Sophiah Koikas says that Robbins forced her to feel his penis while in Hawaii during one of his self-help seminars in the 90s. "It freaked me out. ... I tried to pull my hand away as fast as I could, but he had a grip on my hand so tight and he wouldn't let go."
Last year Tony Robbins had come out as criticizing the #MeToo movement, which brought some backlash onto him. As of Thursday, his representative had this to say, "Tony Robbins has never behaved in the reckless and malicious manner suggested by the false and unfounded allegations published by BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed has manipulated facts and sourcing to present a false and one-sided negative narrative supporting its predetermined agenda to use Mr. Robbins as a convenient celebrity target. What BuzzFeed has published is unsubstantiated and sensationalized tabloid journalism largely relying on alleged events from 20-30 years ago."
