Bikram Choudhury gets the Bryant Gumbel treatment on the October 25 episode of HBO’s Real Sports. And if you thought he said outrageous things before, this is a whole new level for the shockingly outspoken yogapreneur. In the segment, Real Sports correspondent Andrea Kremer goes to India to question Choudhury on the multiple claims of sexual assault he faces, and also interviews three of his alleged victims, one of whom is speaking publicly for the first time.
The last we heard from Bikram Choudhury, creator of the uber popular and lucrative Bikram Yoga and founder of heinous word vomit, he was reportedly packing his bags for India after he was ordered in January of this year to pay over $7 million in damages for sexually harassing and retaliating by firing his former legal advisor, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden. This, coming after years of multiple sexual harassment and rape suits brought against him by former students and employees who have come forward to share their stories.
Choudhury has fiercely denied any wrongdoing, so much so, that he has proceeded to call his accusers liars for whom he feels “sorry.” In the Real Sports interview, he maintains his innocence and signature braggadoccio, but goes even further, claiming that he has a line of “5,000 women a day” who want to sleep with him and that he can make “a million dollars a day” on a single drop of his sperm. Choudhury boldly states that four women have even gone so far as to commit suicide because he wouldn’t sleep with them. As for the accusers, they’re “trash.”
“I picked them from trash and gave them life,” Choudhury tells Kremer, who appears in disbelief at this man. A man who may have even out-Trumped Trump himself. Choudhury gets angry during the interview and storms off ending it early, calling Kremer “the same trash” and a “piece of shit psychopath.”
The Bikram train is full steam out of control. In a time when rape culture is all too prevalent and we have a presidential candidate accused of sexual misconduct and yes, rape, this speech from the most popular yoga guru in the world strikes with such a sickening blow that it’s almost unbelievable…if you didn’t already have an idea of who Bikram was. The truth is, we should have been listening to the stories of his abuse of power all along. SAD.
Though he hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since January, Bikram Choudhury is still holding teacher trainings abroad.
The episode of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel airs on Tuesday, October 25 at 10pm ET. Watch the preview below (honestly, it may be enough for you).
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More…
- Is Bikram Choudhury Gone For Good? Reports Say He’s Packing Up And Going Back To India
- UPDATE: Bikram Choudhury Ordered To Pay $6.47M In Punitive Damages In Sexual Harassment Case
- BREAKING…First Bikram Studio In Manhattan Drops Bikram Name Amidst Rape Allegations
- UPDATE: Appeals Court Affirms Bikram Can Not Copyright Yoga Sequence
I wonder if Bikram realizes he has a brother in his victimhood known as Donald Trump? So interesting to watch his body language during this interview. During this segment, it was very rigid and closed.
Ya and the “brother Donald Trump” is from Mars because all the high morals live in the United States where children as young at 7 years old watch pornography while their sex is exploited through the toy factories of America through the mind manager tube (TV-Phone etc)! Since when America became a moral country where sex is considered a sin or an amoral thing? It is the most exploited commodity in USA! So why sit on your fake moral high horse and make judgmens while you are watching the porn!
Who says, especially now, that Bikram is “the most popular yoga guru in the world”?
Using that phrase as a way to create hyperbole sensationalises the story. Hell, it’s Bikram, it’s already sensational enough.
Bikram has been one of the most successful yoga instructors. Some people in the past may have perceived him as a guru. The teachers I know who training with him certainly didn’t. They appreciated his skill and techniques as a teacher, and teacher of teachers. They didn’t perceive of him as a guru.
I doubt there’s anybody left now who sees his as a guru. And he’s not very popular either.
The sentence could have read ‘Once, one of the most popular yoga teachers and yoga teacher trainers…’
So often the person in front of us is a mirror for our own projections… so I find it very interesting that Bikram accused the interviewer of being a ‘piece of shit psychopath’. Just sayin’.
He was exactly the same in 2000.
I was sexually humiliated in front of our entire class. (apparently my big breasts are the reason I can balance in his “stick pose”, he explained how they assisted in the balance of the weight”)
I was younger and loved the heat and the yoga- the man was a frightening, abusive mess. I took his abuse and got my certificate… the future was worse than I could Imagine.
When I started yoga in 2007, the studio had some old magazines around. One issue of “Yoga Journal” pictured Bikram on the cover, next to his Rolls-Royce and (iirc) wearing a Speedo. The article itself was oddly equivocal (most such stories in YJ are adulatory puff pieces), mentioning injury and humiliation of students in classes, among other things – essentially a hatchet job, considering the source. I worked in finance for a long time and have a good nose for cons, and that YJ feature triggered all my red flags. I resolved at that time to have nothing at all to do with Bikram Yoga, not wanting to put money (even indirectly) in Mr. Choudhury’s pocket. I’m surprised that so many people fell for that POS (sorry for the language but hey, turnabout is fair play). On the plus side, I doubt he’ll ever be seen in the USA again.
Doesn’t this donkey use an air conditioning fan above his head in classes, while everyone else is sweating their balls off? That’s a little bit hypocritical given that he “invented” hot yoga.
I was a witness to the way HBO set up Bikram Choudhury for this “interview”, as were all of the 71 teacher trainees, several staff members, Bikram’s family and visiting studio owners and teachers present in the Fall 2016 class. HBO asked to do a biography of Bikram. Bikram invited HBO to come to India immediately and record the training in progress, his first of fifty trainings ever to be held in his homeland. Bikram said, come and shoot a pilot, and if I like it, I’ll agree to the documentary about my life. Instead what HBO cut was this same regurgitated story. Many of the “blind followers” and “disciples” in the worldwide Bikram Yoga community have been silent witnesses to the two-way adult exploitation at trainings. It is true that some women are always trying to get close to him. Some accusers were jealous of other women, trying to win a yoga championship, or trying to sell a book. No one in our community wants to be seen as blaming the victims, and there may be some truths to the accusations, but there is a reason the community has been mostly silent, and continuously labeled “blind followers”. The label is insulting and lazy to be honest. Look past the veil of this community’s silence and you’ll find a much much more realistic story of jealousy, business manipulation, and what I call a two way exploitation. But it’s probably too much for HBO to spend time and money investigating. It’s so much easier to vomit up the same story over and over. And in doing so you hurt the countless small, independently owned studios, run by people who are walking testimonials to the yoga we practice. Every single one of us “blind followers” have experienced immeasurable healing because of Bikram Yoga. Bikram Yoga is bigger than the founder of this yoga, and we are refining our organization to refocus the conversation to what we do and how we are contributing to the world of healing.
It is irresponsible to ask “should people on principle practice bikram yoga?” This yoga saves lives, so the answer should be a resounding “YES!” We are all independently owned and if there was not a scandal, we may be paying him a voluntary stipend. But currently, no studio owner I know is paying anything.
There is so much more than you will ever see on HBO. AND it will likely take an insider in our community to make a documentary that can capture anything remotely close to the collective truth of our global Bikram Yoga community.
Did you just dismiss the victims claims by way of jealousy? Are you not supporting the very man who has had multiple people come forward to state what the article is about? Is “regurgitating” a story about a rapist so that others may continually be informed truly hurting you and your community of “blind followers”? Wow.
I’m a teacher and been one for a long time and one of the girls that was raped was in my group, so shame on you for believing anything that comes out of that disgusting mans mouth, did you even listen to him in that interview. Get your head out of your arse ……because just because you just became a teacher doesnt give you the right to comment on the bikram community as a whole. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME !! Now good brush his hair and drink that cool refreshing drink…..koolaid
Anyone who dismisses rape and sexual assault for money is sick. Change your bloody name from Dickram to another yoga name.
“…This [“Bikram”] yoga saves lives…”
Really? LOL. Surely no more so than countless other “brands” of yoga (pick your own favorite), not to mention simply practicing the eight limbs on one’s own without reference to any particular “school”. So why patronize a flaming, egomaniacal, greedhead horse’s ass?
innocent until proven guilty
This is a very heart wrenching story
I sincerely hope that those words aren’t taken to heart by the victims