What’s the Snark on Jay Shetty?

24:25Before we get into all the controversies, let's just talk about all of his career accomplishments because, unfortunately, there are many. So like I said, in 2013, after he spent a couple years being a monk, you know, in India or maybe in London, excuse me, in England, who's to say? Was it India? Was it London? Was it years? Was it months? Right, right, right. All very confusing. I would love to just sit him down and ask him very directly. But he describes struggling to assimilate back into civilization. He was depressed. And he says, you know, like many of us kind of integrating back into society, you know, I went to a corporate life.

24:57And he worked at Accenture, which is a management consulting firm. And in 2016, he started kind of becoming like an independent creator. And he kind of did his own like offshoot of like outside of corporate life, I'm going to create my own small business being this content creator. And in 2016, his page started to kind of recognize, get some recognition. And Ariana Huffington of the Huffington Post tapped him and she was like, hey, I love your videos. I want you to make videos for the Huffington Post. I want you to move to New York and I want you to make videos on relationship and wellness. And so he's like, OK, sure.

25:27So he was under this umbrella that was the Huffington Post. He gained and acquired a lot of new followers from his gig there. But he soon realized, he's like, listen, I don't even need the Huffington Post anymore. I can do my own thing independently. So just after a year of working or maybe even less than a year of working at the Huffington Post, he broke away and did his own thing independently on Facebook and on YouTube and Instagram. And he experienced virality by 2019. He had amassed over a million on YouTube and over 20 million on Facebook, which actually makes so much sense that Facebook would be his biggest, right?

25:55Because it's like older women. I could see. Yeah, I could see like the boomer subset loving him. Exactly. And during this time when he amassed a lot more followers, he also started his podcast on purpose. And it acquired more than 64 million downloads in the first year and became the world's number one health podcast. Since then, they've released over 800 episodes, a reported 35 million downloads per month. Like insane. And it's consistently in the top five and ranked number 24 on Spotify's most listened to in 2025. And it's, I mean, it's a huge show. We see it all the time, all of our devices and social media networks.

26:34So he signed with iHeart initially, and that distribution deal ended, excuse me, that distribution deal was signed in April of 2023, and it ended just this year. And interestingly enough, I Heart begged him to stay and they were seeking a four year renewal contract to keep on purpose on their media network. But ultimately, the two sides could not agree on the terms. He was probably realizing my show is worth way more than what you're offering. So he broke away. And now he I'm just scrolling down to a little bit lower. So now he's moved exclusively to Netflix and Spotify. And he, along with Jake Shane, Netflix is like forcing on us.

27:12And I always see it on my like, what you may be interested in. No, I'm not interested in it. Yeah, no, I'm not. Downvote it. I saw that Jake Shane actually was just on Jay Shetty. Did you see this? Of course I did. Enough. Like, I don't want to see these two together. And Jake Shane was like, I love gossip. Gossip is my love language. And everyone was like, yes, queen. And it's like, how original. Gossip is my love language. No one has ever said that before. Oh my God, you're so relatable. You're so relatable and original. Again, my culture is not your costume. Stop acting like you were reading Perez Hilton and like watching Hillary Duff on Lizzie McGuire.

27:42Like, please, you were too. I know. It's not funny. I'm sorry. I'm clearly in like a bad mood today. No, please. I love this energy. I say that every week now. I say that every week. It's too much. I'm being such a cunt. No, it's too much. You know, I just learned that Mercury just got out of retrograde when I tell you the last like two months have been probably the most excruciating of my entire like six years. It's just it's too much these days. Maybe I need a self-help coach like Jay Shetty to help me wind my life down. Maybe you need to sign up for one of his courses. Yeah, his seven, we'll get into it, but his$8 ,000 course.

28:14So not only is he a podcaster that makes hundreds of millions of dollars from Netflix, but he has two books, Think Like a Monk. That was released with Simon & Schuster in 2020, unfortunately, a New York Times bestseller. And then he also released Eight Rules of Love in 2023, which is also a New York Times bestseller within a week. And he offers his Jay Shetty certification school that he started in 2020. If you want to sign up, do you have$7 ,400? because that's what he charges. Wow. Sure. Crazy. He was named the chief purpose officer of the meditation app Calm in Feb 2022. And it reminds me of like that whole like thing that we went through with like chief creative officer.

28:49There's like these titles that will just stick on to brand ambassadors and make them sound like they're a C-suite executive when in fact they're just the face of the brand to help distribute and market. But that's a whole other topic for a different day. He also has beverages that he co-founded with his wife in 2021. And he also built it with a millionaire who was a co-founder and CEO. Her name is Kim Harrell, and she previously sold her tech company to another tech company for$235 million. So he aligns himself with very smart and savvy business people. He also founded another tea line previously called Joyo, J-O-Y-O, and it was since rebranded to Juni, J-U-N-I, standing for just you and I in 2023.

29:27And it's a proprietary zero-sugar, five-calorie, super five, adaptogen blend, which is rolled out with Whole Foods in November of 2025. five, which like, why does everyone have like a drink now? Did you see that Kristen Cavallari also has a five calorie natural health tea with Target? Enough. I don't want to see it. I don't want to drink it. You should be drinking water, coffee, tea, but don't drink these like weird. It's so it's just like so weird that people are like, yes, there is, you know, a market here for all of these random beverages when I feel like there really is. I mean, I guess there is like what was the olipop like the healthy soda that sold for like a billion dollars to pepsi yeah yeah and i think poppy to coca-cola like people are trying to copy and paste that for me but it's like dude it's been done it's been done like there's nothing else to invent in the beverage space i'm sorry i agree and it's like how often am i going to target and saying you know god damn it i am i am craving a june i am craving an unwell hydration did you see that it's um i think they're facing some potential suit or something because they were marketing the fact that they were non-artificial flavors when in fact they of course are so i think they're facing oh my god we tried we did a video for patreon actually where we did a taste test of a bunch of like different influencer drinks including unwell hydration and you can taste the chemicals it's it really is disgusting i'm not just saying this because like we trash alex cooper constantly but it really is not good yeah it's not we should try christen cavallari's new zero calorie non-sweetener whatever the heck yeah for sure curious okay so he also was very close to really big celebrities so he officiated multiple a-list celebs weddings lily collins and charlie mcdowell's wedding in 2021 as well as bennifer's uh wedding in 2022 which obviously we now know is failed he's the personal spiritual advisor to will smith oh god he rubs shoulder rubs elbows with ellen degeneres And he was also in J-Lo's This Is Me, dot, dot, dot, now.

31:24So he's just close with all these really high-profile people. And not only just, like, pop culture celebrities, he also interviewed President Joe Biden at the White House in 2023. He attended a White House state dinner for the Prime Minister of India with Modi. And he spoke at the Princeton Class Day in 2025, which, if I were a student at Princeton, which, like, LOL, I could never be. I'm not that smart. But I would be so pissed if Jay Shetty were my class leader. Can you imagine? and presenting Jay Shetty. NYU got Taylor Swift and you want to give me Jay Shetty? I had the worst commencement speaker.

31:56Who did you have? The president of Ireland, randomly. Right. And like, I'm sure he's a good guy. I really don't know much about him, but we could not. I'm sorry, we couldn't understand a word he said. We couldn't. I wonder, I think he might still be the president. No. Oh my God. It's so funny. I couldn't understand. No, because like, I love Irish people. You guys know this. One of my colleagues is Irish who works with me, my brother-in-law. But some accents are very thick, thicker than others for sure. Was he the president or the prime minister? I'm such—I sound so stupid. But the thing is, it's so different in other countries.

32:32You know, for us, we have the president. We don't have a prime minister. But like, you know, it's—guys, please don't be mad. We try and do our best. But he stated in his 2020 book, Think Like a Monk, that he lived in India as a Hindu monk for three years, which is a narrative that is very central to his authority that people see him as a spiritual guru for. But there's considerable evidence that points to him having spent much less time in India, and he actually spent much of the 2010 to 2013 period that he purports to spend in India actually traveling throughout England blogging and giving lectures.

33:04And we'll get into that right now. So he says, you know, three months in India when in fact he actually spent that three years in Watford, England, and he actually spent less than four months in India actually practicing being a monk. And when all this kind of came out in the 2024 Guardian investigation, he took swift measures to respond to attorneys and hired a crisis PR firm to run an SEO campaign because he realized, oh my God, they're going to catch on. I have so much of a digital footprint all the way back in 2010 to now. Like we need to scrub the internet. He's like Paige Lorenz, you know?

33:38Yeah. I see the parallels. Right. And honestly, Sophie, I forgot that he had this scandal and cancellation in 2024. Do you remember this? Yes. Okay. What do you remember from all this? Honestly, not much. I just remember people being like, yeah, this tracks. Like, there's something so fraudulent about him. None of it is really that surprising. But he, like, wasn't really, like, affected by it, really. No, I would actually say he's bigger than ever. Yeah. And this scandal only escalated his fame and notoriety. So he claimed that, you know, during university, he spent his summers and Christmas breaks living with monks and one of his former girlfriends that had dated him for over eight months says quote he went to india probably once during that year and a half that i was in a relationship with him and that was probably for just two weeks at a time and a lot of his reps were like listen j shetty and lilia only dated for a portion of j shetty's college experience so who is she to say that he only spent eight months um excuse me two weeks at a time living in india like she wouldn't she wouldn't know but regardless his claims about his life in india are very shaky even based on his own blog.

34:44So again, he says, between 2010 to 2013, I was living as a monk in an ashram near Mumbai, India. I was meditating for up to eight hours a day. And his teacher urged him, you need to leave this ashram and you need to share your wisdom with the world. And according to a 2023 LA Times profile by Amy Kaufman, who also wrote this amazing book about Bachelor Nation that I read. I read that too. Yeah, it was really good. So according to this profile that she did, He traveled to India, underwent the whole traditional head-shaving ritual, relinquished all material possessions. He stayed in a couple of ashrams.

35:17And he shared, you know, he was so diligent about being a monk. He shared quarters with up to 10 to 12 men at a time. And he says, when I was 21 years old, I skipped my college graduation to join an ashram in a village near Mumbai. Three years after I moved to Mumbai, so he keeps emphasizing this three years. quote, three years after I moved to Mumbai, my teacher, Gwanga Das, told me he believed I will be of greater value and service if I left the Ashram altogether and shared what I had learned with the world. And I'm sure. Sure. I'm sure that happened. Yeah. What's interesting is that his own blog post and multiple international society of Christian sources, the Ixon, says that he actually spent most of his period at, I'm going to botch this, I apologize.

35:53It's Bhaktivanta Manor in the UK, not Mumbai, and that he was actually in India for less than four months, not three years. And he says that in an early blog post in 2011, he writes on his blog literally dispelling his claim that he spent three years. He says, I came back from India, went to see a few people at Sydney University, was a good laugh, planned an action-packed weekend, got sick, stuck at home in bed for 10 days, came back to stay at the temple where I've been busy going to programs, distributing flyers and books on the streets all over the UK and enjoying festivals. After almost four months in India, I realized there was so much to process from my trip.

36:31So that reads as if he spent four months and he went to the UK to distribute like his lessons thereafter. So it's just, again, a lot of difference in experiences based on blog posts versus what he's said to publicly. It also kind of reminds me of Hilaria Baldwin. It's like he might not be like, I mean, he is kind of directly lying, actually. Yeah. But it's like I feel like so much of it is like obscuring the truth and just making it more confusing than it actually is so that you can't really figure out what he's lying about exactly because he'll say things publicly maybe in youtube videos or at seminars but then his blog posts from like way back in the day that are archived from you know over a decade ago say something very different so it's just it's very confusing and even as i was like doing research for this episode i was like wait i'm confused because there's so many different reports that say different things and i think just the tldr without getting into like every single receipt is that there are just varying details from himself that dispel what he said in the other video.

37:30But what I think is funny is he says, you know, I claim to be a monk and I started my monkhood in 2010, but there's like a really vast digital footprint of him blogging, making promotional videos, giving paid lectures as early as 2012. And it's like, if you're a monk living in India from 2010 to 2013, how are you like doing get readies with me and like making videos and blogging? He's doing a day in my life. Yeah. like stay in my life as a monk right you're not doing the monk life which is leading a life of seclusion and a quiet life and traveling and posting online and a former student that like lived adjacent to him said quote i saw him in sweatpants more than i saw him in robes which i thought was like so funny like it's so unnecessary but the fact that this fellow student was like he's full of shit he never even wore the robe right he was never in the garb like come on and And, you know, he says, you know, I fell into depression after returning from the monkhood.

38:23And where it doesn't really add up is another thing. Not only is like the timeline not adding up, but he doesn't really identify where his studies took place. And he also is very unclear and vague about where he has learned his like spiritual and religious teachings. So he occasionally references like ancient Hindu texts. But the vast majority of his content is generalized like secular pop psychology. kind of like the girl wash your face or like that millennial self-help personality. And he's pulled off this like contradiction of like, yes, I'm a spiritual guide and I practice Hinduism. But like he never really specifies, I don't know a lot about Hinduism, but he doesn't really specify the religious traditions that he in fact practices.

39:02He just has this umbrella of like Hinduism. And he often identifies himself as a Vedic monk. But Vedic monk is shorter and emphasizes like the philosophical roots rather than actually specifying like a denomination at which you belong to. Because you could say I'm Christian and I practice Christian principles, but under Christianity, there's many denominations under that. I think people are wanting him to specify that denomination, but he fails to have ever specified it at all. And Vedic is a term that is a very overarching theme that kind of houses many different philosophies. And it's very vague.

39:33It's like a collection of Sanskrit writings that are amongst the old religious texts in the world and encompasses thousands of distinct Hindu practices. But there's really no such thing. You can't really just say, oh, I'm Vedic. Like people need more than that if you're purporting to be this like expert in historical religious teaching. And as I said, the majority of his teachings did take place in the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. And there's a whole documentary about this on Netflix called Wild Wild Country, which I've seen like on my whatever the version is of FYP on Netflix.

40:06But I guess it talks much about this. Yes. It talks much about this dark side of this society. Yeah, I remember that documentary or docu-series being really, really, really popular when it came out. And I don't think I ever watched it for some reason. Now I really want to because it basically talks about the Hare Krishna movement that grew in the 1960s and appealed to a lot of people that were disillusioned with, like, the hedonism of counterculture that was really popular in the 60s. I think of, like, what's that one music festival? It's just, like, life and drugs and acid. Woodstock. That's what I think of when I think of 60s.

40:41Oh, Woodstock. Woodstock. Yeah, that's what I think. When's Woodstock? It was in the 70s and then they like rebooted it in the 90s and it was like a disaster. Or no, it was 1969. Got it. Yeah. So I think that Hare Krishna was kind of there to like, we're the opposite of that. And instead of the free love and the psychedelics that people were experiencing during this time, Krishna saw enlightenment through self-denial. So denial from drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, even caffeine and meat. And after like a little over a decade, the ISKCON leaders were basically exposed as being very abusive and very cult-like.

41:14And people who grew up as part of this movement actually were beaten as children and sexually assaulted by their ISKCON teachers. And children as young as five have been separated from their parents and sent to these Krishna boarding schools in India called Gurukulas, where boys were ordered to have sex with their spiritual masters. And girls were married off to men twice their age. Oh my god, that's horrible. The conspiracy to commit murder that I spoke about up top, two ISKCON members were murdered by a fellow devotee for speaking out against the organization. So it's like, speak out, you're literally going to be killed for it.

41:45Oh my god, like Scientology. Yes, exactly. People compare, like, Tom Cruise is to Scientology, but Jay Shetty is to, like, the spiritual health and wellness movement. But basically, both of these murders were carried out by this gentleman by the name of Thomas Drescher, who is now serving a life sentence in prison where he kind of now acts, scarily enough, as a guru to those incarcerated. So he's taking his principals from the streets into the prison. But what's even weirder is Jay Shetty. Like, I'm not saying he's obviously he's not responsible for all this like darkness that is ISKCON. But he became involved with them in 2006.

42:18And it was just a year prior. So in 2005, just a year before he became involved with them. This is when ISKCON had been ordered to pay$9.5 million to over 500 students who had suffered abuse at the hands of these like abusers in the 70s and the 80s. So he saw that like this is well known. and he was like, you know what? I'm okay with that. Exactly. Just a year after they were, all the stuff had come out and they were forced to pay huge sums of millions of dollars. Jay Shetty's like, you know what? I'm going to go there. Yeah. They like had to file for bankruptcy in LA. They closed all of its boarding schools.

42:50And I think now ISKCON has been revived. I think prior it was for a lot of the times like white hippies who they became more associated with. But I think now they're a little bit more to like their normal Eastern roots. And I think a lot of people in the Indian diaspora are more leaning towards it because it's less problematic and they got caught. So I don't know. I feel like it's less problematic now than it was. But the most important thing to know is Jay Shetty entered it when it was weird. Yeah. And called out for its really weird behavior. Like that wasn't a deal breaker for him. I know. It's kind of like hearing about NXIVM after they, you know, everyone knows about NXIVM.

43:26But being like, you know, that seems like a good cult to join. When it's like very well known that it's not a good cult to be a part of. Yeah. So let's talk about him using religion as a jumpstart to pushing along his influencer career. So in 2016, he left his job as an eccentric consultant to pursue a new career. And this is when he released his first video as an independent media personality. And it was a piece about one of his mentors talking about how people can accomplish their New Year's resolutions. And this video, what was made and what would become his kind of signature style, which was delivering a nonstop stream of bumper sticker wisdom, quotes from prominent spiritual and cultural features, like Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Ringo Starr.

44:08And he basically told an Ick song news site that he's like, listen, I want to take all the practices that I've learned and make them more palatable to Western audiences. And Jay Shetty and a team of urban monks wanted to present this Krishna consciousness to the Apple generation, to like the millennials through blogs, social media, videos, presentations at university. It's so self-serving. Like, it's just, that's what's so grating about it is that I feel like he uses it as, he says, you know, I just want to, like, show all of these people who need me the ways, you know, I want to show, I want to help them through the internet.

44:47And it's like, no, it is so self-serving. You're just doing this to gain a following. Right. And gain influence and gain power and money. And I think the one thing that's really frustrating is, like, there's nothing wrong with starting an online business. I mean, hell, we have an online business. Right. It's the fact that what you are reporting to know about and what you're teaching people is literally the opposite of what your religion and what your teachings tell you to do. So it's this weird kind of contract. Tension. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you're you're not really. It's like do as I say, not as I do.

45:19Exactly. And I feel like, I mean, taking a step back, it's really amazing what he's been able to create. I mean, not many people can say that they used to be a monk and then they can create a multi-million, hundreds of millions of dollars of business. I mean, that's not normal. I mean, it's an accomplishment for sure. And I think I'm certainly jealous of the wealth he's acquired. But at the same time, it's like the reason he is so frustrating to me is not that he's this savvy businessman. It's that you are teaching something that is so different from what you're supposed to. and it just makes, it's just so antithetical to what you should be.

45:49And I think that's what's really frustrating for me. And then you're also kind of westernizing these principles in a way that becomes more, to your point, palatable to white people when it's like a practice that is intended in the East, that is practiced by people in the East that aren't making any money from it. So he said that when he started making this video content, he could release his, he's like, oh, I can make all this money on YouTube and Facebook. And that he did. He told Nashville that in the early aughts, he was making six figures a month through Facebook ads. And he would relentlessly reach out to young members of the ISKCON to post his content everywhere, essentially like working for him for free.

46:25And the funny thing was, he was pushing all this stuff that purported Eastern religion and practices, but the stuff that he was actually pushing was not even his own. And therein we come into the plagiarism of it all. So in 2019, YouTuber Nicole Arbor, she released a YouTube video called Jay Shetty's Full of Shit, And she showed him posting inspirational quote after inspirational quote after meme, saying that it was his own original content, but he was cropping out or failing to attribute these quotes and these memes to people that actually created it to begin with. And he didn't even offer them credit and didn't even ask them whether he could use this content.

46:59And there was many an example that she provided, but I actually watched, it's like a three-minute video. He made this melodramatic video in 2018 where a blind woman, she dumps her boyfriend after receiving an eye transplant that discovered that her boyfriend was actually blind himself. But the whole twist is that this woman only had eyes because the boyfriend had donated his eyes to her, which is an act of selflessness on the boyfriend. And basically the teaching at the end of the video and Jay Shetty is kind of telling you, you know, don't judge people's past. You never know what their journey is and never forget where you came from.

47:32And it's like this supposed to be this like really enlightening type of three minute short. But what's funny is that this story had been previously posted on Reddit five years prior and then again on 2017. So he's just like taking other people's little short fables and making them into his own as if he came up with this idea himself. Taking like Reddit posts from like the subreddit that's like, what should I do? Yeah. I got my eyesight back and my boyfriend's blind. Because, yeah, exactly. That's basically what he's doing. And I thought what was the most pervasive was there is this man by the name of Varun Agarwal.

48:06And he posted this long thing in May 2015 about how when you come from a family that motivates you to be someone, you should be an engineer, you should be a doctor, you should be a lawyer, you should be an accountant, you should be whatever, a mathematician. How hard it is for these children to feel like they can kind of live up to these expectations brought upon by their families. And this man by the name of Varun writes this whole thing about how parents should actually urge their children to, you know, no matter what you score, you should love them no matter what. We won't judge you for what you decide to pursue.

48:36Jay Shetty quite literally takes this paragraph from this man named Varun and puts it in one of his seminars verbatim, word for word, failing to credit this man named Varun. And it's not like ambiguous, like, oh, maybe they had the same story. And like, you know, he kind of it's a little bit of a watered down version. No, no, no, copy and paste what Varun said, used it as his own. And when Ms. Arbor's video came out, Jay Shetty, of course, as he does, hires a crisis PR firm or orders all of his employees to basically scrub through the entire decade long of his internet history and to either one, delete the post or two, include attributions to the content that he had taken from somewhere else.

49:12Yeah. So what he said here, it literally was word for word. Tell them no matter what they score. And he's talking about like grades in school and making sure your kids know that like they're still love no matter what they score. He goes, tell them no matter what they score that you love them and don't judge them. Yeah. And it's literally verbatim. Word for word. And it's like a long paragraph, but this is not something that you could have possibly come up on your own. Right. Right. Right. It's more than that. That's just in the screenshot. But yeah. Yeah. It's like the whole thing. Right. So let's talk about also his butting up to celebs to expand his business.

49:47So in 2018, he moves from England to Los Angeles to create more content. He realized that he'll be more adjacent to bigger names. He can rub shoulders with other people that could help push his brand along. I'm sure that's what like the master monk or whatever told him was like, you need to move to Los Angeles. Move to Los Angeles and teach the principles of ISKCON to everyone in LA that wants to spread the good work. You know, LA is so woo-woo. That's a perfect destination for Jay Shetty to push his narrative. It's people that live in LA that take it too far. It's just there's this person that I knew when I lived in SF who was like a normal bro-y like tech guy, lives in LA.

50:20Now he's always posting like he's going to these weird seminars. He's posting this like weird motivational stuff. I'm like, just tell everyone that you're hurting. Tell everyone that you're struggling right now. Like, it's enough. But one of Jay Shetty's earliest Hollywood pals, interestingly enough, was Russell Brand. And I was like, ugh. Oh my god. If you could align yourself with anyone, you choose to be Russell Brand. Yeah, that doesn't. Yeah, that's not good. He made one of his first appearances on Ellen and then on Red Table Talk, which is how he ultimately became one of Will Smith's confidants and spiritual advisors because he was on Jada's show.

50:53And Will Smith took Jay Shetty on as his personal advisor, and the pair would end up spending so much time together that they would literally joke that their wives suspected that they were in a romantic relationship. And someone by the name of Fareeha Roi-San, who's an Australian-Canadian commentator who authored the book Who Is Wellness For? She said, quote, about Jay Shetty, He's an Indian man. He's attractive. He's charming. He's sweet. I've been in the same room as him, and he's appealing in the sense that he seems quite humble in person, almost shy. There's something compelling about that story.

51:25Someone who accidentally came to fame, who, which I probably think to some degree is true. Yet it's questionable that a monk left his life in a monastery to instead live a life of what? Making TikToks? Hang out with celebrities? Being on YouTube? It's almost the opposite path of what you assume a spiritual person to arrive at. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And it wasn't, and when she says who accidentally came to fame, like none of his fame is accidental. He was working really, really, really hard to be famous. Yes. I mean, his podcast is quite literally called On Purpose. His purpose was to move all of his teachings to Los Angeles to become quite literally a multimillionaire.

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54:58They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to$5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. And while his celebrity friendships blossomed, his business continued to get bigger.

55:35He's like, you know what? The podcast isn't enough. The two books isn't enough. I'm going to launch the Jay Shetty Certification School, which is a six-month online course that trains people in how to build a successful coaching business, how to build a successful business. So people think like, is this a coaching school or is it actually an MLM where like the person at the top is collecting all the money from the people at the bottom? And it kind of it's like a pyramid scheme, literally. So he charges$7 ,400 for this, what he says to be to earn a postgraduate diploma, level seven qualifications, which he says is equivalent to a master's degree.

56:08Is it? I'd like to see the accreditation of this of the school. Oh, he has one. And it is like so shady, too. So, oh, my God, it's definitely not real. It's like not real. So the Guardian journalist who did that whole scandal article in 2024, they did an intro call with them. And interestingly enough, that 7 ,400 signup cost is not even included on the website. Like you have to pay to, you have to like get on a call with them, be fully invested and be told that, hey, it's like almost$8 ,000. And the advisor followed up with the journalist and said that he went through the program himself and he made back the 7 ,400 investment in two months through setting up his own life coaching business and that he eventually built a big enough book of clients to make 10k a month from that business.

56:47But it's like, yeah, there are certain people, I'm sure, that can go into this online coaching school and earn a lot of money thereafter and it becomes well invested. The ROI is definitely there. But I think that's not necessarily the norm. The Guardian spoke with several graduates of the certification school that didn't necessarily make$10 ,000 after leaving the school. And some of them were overwhelmingly positive. But a lot of them said, like, listen, even though the tuition was expensive. It was a good deal relative to other life coaching courses that are on the market. And even though like none of us are actually earning a full-time living from our coaching business, we still think it was like worth the hefty price tag.

57:23And I feel like, of course, you have to say that if I'm investing$7 ,400 in a thing, in a business, and I'm not necessarily making that money out the gate, I would also be saying I would try to like cognitive dissonance myself to make myself believe that it was in fact worth it when in fact the ROI is like not really right there um it's accredited more than 100 1100 students in three years according to its brochure which would mean more than seven million dollars of revenue but the interesting thing when we talk about accreditations is j shetty certification school it pays othm from what i looked up on the internet it's not even an acronym for everything but the othm is a private exam certification company in the uk and it basically certifies certain it creates accreditations for certain schools and it is like a uk-based awarding organization that provides vocational academic qualifications.

58:08It is officially regulated by the UK government, but the OTHM claims that while it approves the qualification, it doesn't regulate anything. So basically what's happening is Jay Shetty is paying OTHM to accredit his school, his$7 ,400 course, but they're not actually going in and auditing. Like what are the courses that you are actually offering to your students that will make it like a legitimate accredited program? Like a regular, yeah, like a A regular university has way stricter, higher standards to get and maintain accreditation. This is just something he's paying to play, basically. Yeah, no, exactly.

58:48He pays OTHM to have his school basically listed on their website to say, yes, it is an accredited school. But they're not, like, going in and taking the courses and making sure that it aligns with the principles that it purports to align with. And an anonymous Reddit user observed that even, like, it's not even really anything where you get FaceTime with Jay Shetta. you would think that like with$7 ,400 for this program, he would at least maybe teach one seminar or you would get some kind of FaceTime with him. But they said that like, listen, it's just like some recordings, monthly Q &As. You do not interact with Jay Shetty directly.

59:19The lessons are often pre-recorded, team-led. And there's been five complaints filed against the certification school. Reasons cited include failure to respond to a certain complaint, complaints described, refund difficulties. There's only one refund that was actually issued after someone complained. But there's aggressive sales tactics. Interestingly enough, I was on TikTok and I was just kind of scrolling the Jay Shetty feed to see what people had to say about this school. And there was this woman that basically said that she was laid off from her corporate job and she was trying to do her own online coaching school.

59:50And she said that she like signed up for some type of listserv and someone basically on Jay Shetty's team reached out to her via DM on Instagram and was being super aggressive. She posted the screenshots and they were like, hey, are you interested in coming? It felt very MLM. Hey, girl, I work for Rodan and Fields and I think you want to be a Lash consultant. It was literally just like that. It was like, hey, girl, I'm hoping that based on your interest in Jay Shetty's accreditation school, you were hoping to sign up for a six-month online coaching course. Is this something you're still interested in?

1:00:18And she literally like specifically said, I literally don't even have the money to enter your school. Like, please stop. and they continue to like reach out to her. And she's like, it's too aggressive. Like, I don't want anything to do with this. But this is just like one example. But clearly it's like he, it just seems very. Yeah, it seems predatory. And also, it's funny, if he's not teaching the seminars, I don't know why I just assumed he would be. Me too. Like, who is? Like, imagine being a professor at the Jay Shetty Certification School. And it's like, what is he teaching them to make them qualified?

1:00:48Because he doesn't even have a qualification himself other than spending three months in India. So where do you get off even saying that you can qualify other people to teach your principles that aren't even real principles? It's just like, again, it feels MLME. Yeah. And he, again, creates a lot of mental health content despite not having like any license to do so. And interestingly enough, that same girlfriend that was like, he didn't spend three years in India. He spent like a couple weeks and he was on and off throughout university. She herself is actually a practicing psychotherapist and head of a UK university's mental health services.

1:01:22And she even spoke to Guardian in 2024 and said, quote, My issue as a mental health professional is that Jay Shetty has misrepresented his persona, his knowledge, and his credentials. Misinforming others is not only unethical, it is potentially harmful to vulnerable people. And this is what we were saying up top. Yeah, it's true. Like, I'm sorry, you and me are not. I think, well, we're also in our 30s. I think we're more self-assured. We've had jobs for a long time. Like, we're not really the people that are reaching for this type of schooling. But people that may be younger that are struggling with mental health problems, they may see someone on Instagram that's flashy and good lighting and really well edited videos.

1:01:55And they're like, this guy could help me. And when in fact, the people you should be seeking help from are your providers or, like I said at the beginning, a mental health professional. But people aren't. So then it's like, what are you actually teaching people and how are they bringing these principles into their normal life? And is it really actually helping their life when they're at a very vulnerable spot? It's just it's very dark sided. I think that's actually where I have a huge problem with it. It's like, again, coming from myself who has dealt with issues in the past. And the only way I was able to seek help and get myself out of this rut was through professional help.

1:02:25I can say with complete confidence, had I not sought professional help, I would still be very deeply clinically, mentally not well. And it's just dangerous that people could be seeking these types of help from people like Jay Shetty. God, I'm looking at his face and it's really triggering me. With not actual real tools that could help you in your day to day. Yeah. And I mean, I've also talked about how I've gone through bouts of depression. And I remember at one of the points in my life that I was probably at my lowest, I had already been in therapy, but I was like, you know what, I'm going to see one of these life coaches that everyone talks about.

1:03:00And as soon as I got on the phone with this life coach, I'm like, this bitch has no idea what she's talking about. No, Sophie, it's such a good one because I feel like all of us can maybe relate. Maybe we didn't necessarily like seek out a life coach, but we have all been there where we're like going to someone on the Internet. Where you're so desperate for help and for guidance and for, you know, something. And you will pay any amount of money. You will, you know, see someone that actually has no qualifications. I was just lucky that I clocked this person right away. I was like, this is like a scam.

1:03:31Like this person has no idea what she's talking about. Right, right. And thankfully, we can discern that. But maybe some people who are in the throes of it are unable to, which is all the more scary and kind of what his ex-girlfriend is basically saying. She's like, as a mental health professional myself, I am qualified to say this is a dangerous practice that he is putting on people. Right. So two years later, just actually this year in February, there was a New York Times podcast with Dave Marchese who defended Jay Shetty's kind of business and said basically that the Guardian article was kind of just like Jay Shetty was better than that and that the Guardian article was misleading.

1:04:08and the Guardian guy who wrote that article in 2024, he called the New York Times interview astoundingly lazy and shoddy journalism. And it's like, the title says, Jay Shetty has raised some doubts, including his own. And it's like, it's basically like a think piece of like, you guys might've tried to cancel me in 2024, two years ago, but I'm back better than ever. And I'm here to tell you, I'm still out here helping you guys. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm here to stay. And I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, it's like, no one wants to hear from you. Like, I just, I don't know. I remember in a past episode, I talked about ashwagandha and how I know some people say, at least on Bravo, like Chef and Jesse.

1:04:43Oh, ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. Sorry, not ashwagandha. You're right. Ayahuasca. Yeah. That may be all well and good, but you should also do that in congruence with like real professional help. I feel like that's what I'm kind of urging. I'm not saying if you necessarily do these online coaching programs, you're a bad person or you're not seeking real help. Just make sure you're doing it maybe under someone who's licensed to help you also. Like you can do both. Maybe do. Right, right, right. Right. It's so like case by case. Like some people might actually genuinely be like, this changed my life. And same with ayahuasca.

1:05:11Like we got like messages from people that are like, actually ayahuasca did change my life. So I understand that it's so different for every person. But I do think it's fair to say that Jay Shetty and, you know, these online wellness gurus are predatory. Yeah, they are. They are. And I raise my eyebrows at every single one of them. And I think just because they help some people doesn't mean that they aren't still predatory. Yes. Yes. I think that's a very good point to make. And also that just because they help certain people doesn't mean that they should be looked at as like, at the end of the day, he's still a human and he still has flaws.

1:05:46And we'll get into like this last piece. He has marital issues as well, apparently. And I'm not saying people who have marital issues are bad. Everyone has them. But it's more so people look to him as if he's like otherworldly, that he's like godly, that he doesn't have flaws or that he's perfect. It's like we need to look at these people as who they are, which is just human. And I think that's also troubling as well. So there's also some speculation that his wife, who he's been married to since 2016, Roddy, R-A-D-H-I, there's a lot of speculation online that there are issues. They don't really post each other nearly as much as they used to.

1:06:21and both are highly visible people with independent brands outside of each other. They have Junie, that Oshawaganda, Adaptogenic, whatever the heck, T. But maybe could they still be posting together because it's more of like a business relationship to push their brand and push their product? And when launching his relationship podcast, which, oh my God, he has a relationship podcast too, he told people that the project reminded him that, quote, the work is never done and that skipping daily investment in your marriage means you'll eventually pay the price. That's like such a boo-boo type of thing to say.

1:06:50like the work is never done. Of course, in every relationship that you have, the marriage probably being one of the most important relationships you will have, of course you have to work at it. It's not something that you can skate by. But at the same time, it's like, you just, you put these sweeping generalizations that you know people are going to hold on to and it's just, you're saying a bunch of nothing. The work is never done. Skipping daily investment in your marriage means you'll eventually pay the price. No, duh. And the sky is blue. Yeah, exactly. Groundbreaking. Yeah. So Roddy and Jay Shetty apparently have separated.

1:07:19So she actually moved back to London, it seems, in December of 2021. Like she went there for the holidays and she never came back. And now she seemingly has moved to her whole other apartment in London and has a whole other new routine going on there. And he has this$8 million mansion in Los Angeles. And it just seems like they barely interact with one another's content. They don't even live together. He continues to post her on his profile, but not nearly as frequently. And they just seem physically separated all the time. and they seem together maybe for their business and for the sake of social media.

1:07:50But people have thought that, you know, he purports to have this like great life and this great relationship that he works at daily. But it's like you and your wife don't even live together. So are you guys even together? Right. Are you even married? Also, like, I don't know if you remember this, but this is what I was referencing at the beginning, that there was like maybe cheating rumors. Because Ashley Park from Emily in Paris posted a photo like three years ago, it looks like. And you can see Jay in the background. if you google um jay shetty what did i google to find out you can see jay i think jay shetty cheating scandal reddit and you can see jay in the background with a woman that's not his wife looking really cozy who is that i don't know who the woman is but it's really weird that ashley park like if there was something going on like it's weird that she would post that because it's very obvious that that's jay shetty in the back it's not just like a little bit in the background It's like front and center, you know, with another with another woman.

1:08:45And I remember this happening and I was like, oh, that looks like he is getting a little too close with a woman. But also the separation rumors started before this. So they could have been separated by this point, which is why maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. But it's like, why not like come out and like say it that we are, you know, I'm separated from my wife. Who knows? It seems like his relationship is not, you know, it's not sunshine and rainbows. Yeah. And I guess, oh my God, I just came across a comment on Reddit because someone posted this picture and this username's deleted, so I can't even say who it is.

1:09:18But someone said, for me, it was when he interviewed Taylor Tomlinson and he described his wife as, quote, so abundant. Immediate sirens went off in my head. Ew! Nobody in a healthy relationship feels the need to describe their partner as a demigoddess to a stranger. Too abundant? That's such a weird thing to say. What if I was like, Henry's so abundant? It's so weird. No, it's not normal. It's people that go out of their way. It's like the longer the caption, the worse the relationship. Exactly. Overcompensating. Yeah. That's such a weird adjective to describe your wife. Yeah. And this picture is very damning.

1:09:52He's like, she's nestled into his like neck and he's holding her. They look very cozy. Yeah. He has his arm around her. She's cuddled up with him. And it's clearly not his wife. Interesting. I wonder if she deleted that post. That's not a good look. Why would she post that? I don't know. Ashley. So that's that on Jay Shetty. He sucks. I want to know. I feel like baby snarks are discerning enough to not listen to him. But if you do, no judgment. I would just be curious. I don't listen to his podcast, so listen. What do the Jay Shetty podcast listeners call themselves? Purposators. Purposators? Like arianators?

1:10:24Yeah, arianators, purposinators. I don't know. I'm curious if any of you guys listen to him. If you do, what makes you drawn to him or his teachings? Yeah. As always, we want to hear, do you disagree? Do you agree? are you a Jay Shetty fan? We won't make fun of you. We won't judge you. We're just curious. Too hard. We just are genuinely curious. Yeah, we are curious because I was asking one of my friends because I thought that she listened and I was like, do we need to stop being friends? I was like, that's really weird that you listen. She's like, no, no. I just respect the business he's created.

1:10:54I'm like, okay, yeah. But off of the back of like being - Lies. Lies and plagiarism. Yeah. So he sucks. I wish him nothing but the worst. Also, I came across a TikTok of him, you know hey you look really confident what are you wearing how do you say confident and he was like you know he was like oh hey man i'm a really big fan of your work and of course it was like clearly staged but when he asked you know what makes you confident he's like not caring that what people think of me you know you will never be for everyone and that's okay you're surely not for me surely not for us that's that's for damn sure so okay like you know what he has found success shilling his bullshit.

1:11:33So I guess good for him. You know, we're shilling bullshit three times a week. You know, we're shilling bullshit too. It's like, oh, can't really talk. So you guys follow us on Substack. We do newsletters every Friday where we link what we're loving, funny things we found on the internet, sometimes some recaps of reality TV. Last week on Patreon, I don't think we ever talked about it. We discussed the tragic death of Naya Rivera. And that was last week on Patreon. And then this week on Patreon, Sophie, do you want to talk about what you talked about yesterday? Yes. We are about to record this episode actually right after this.

1:12:11But we were talking about recent Reddit drama and scandals. Hell yeah. So the girl that posted herself breaking and entering. The Carly Weinstein breakup. the emily kaiser subreddit kind of changing their yeah so we're talking about you know some some reddit drama over on patreon uh that was yesterday's episode so yeah bonus episodes every wednesday ad free over on patreon and all those links are in our show notes per usual but thank you guys for being here then i was gonna say sorry the emily kaiser thing is crazy i've been following it too there's a lot yeah there's a lot we will we'll cover if you're curious about that yeah we will be covering that on Patreon.

1:12:52But in the meantime, I wonder how Jay Shetty signs off on his podcast. Stay purposeful. He actually just had Emily Kaiser on. I know. I know. Which we also discuss on Patreon. So it kind of lines up perfectly. But yeah. So stay purposeful, everyone. We love you. That was such a bad accent. I'm sorry. I need to work on my accent work. Stay purposeful. We'll talk to you later. Bye.

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