Is Indian-origin life coach Jay Shetty's self-help empire built on lies?

Jay Shetty, a highly popular self-help guru, has found himself in a soup. A report in The Guardian has found glaring holes in the life story of the former Hindu monk. The British Indian is a self-help podcaster who has lured many in Hollywood.

However, the British newspaper’s report says that the author of the bestseller Think Like A Monk has been cagey about his past life and misrepresented the narrative about his spiritual awakening during his college days. Then there are also allegations of plagiarism.

Let’s take a closer look.

‘Holes’ in Jay Shetty’s backstory

Jay Shetty, who officiated the wedding of Hollywood power couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in August 2022, was born to Indian parents in the United Kingdom’s London.

His website states, “During his school years, Jay Shetty spent vacations living with monks in India, immersing himself in their wisdom and teachings.”

Shetty, who has recounted his backstory on multiple platforms, claims he lived as a monk in a Hindu ashram in India from 2010 to 2013.

“When I was 21 years old, I skipped my college graduation to join an ashram in a village near Mumbai,” he wrote in his book 8 Rules of Love.

According to Shetty, he moved to Mumbai after he heard a lecture by an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monk named Gauranga Das at his business school in London. He says he had a major spiritual awakening after the lecture and decided to leave for Mumbai where he lived for three years before returning to England.

The Guardian report points out inaccuracies in Shetty’s version of the tale, saying that he has told different ages –18, 20 or 21 years old – to news outlets about when he attended the life-changing talk.

The monk Das told the British daily that the lecture took place in 2007 when Shetty would have been at least 19. But this is not it. There are other conflicting accounts.

While Shetty claims he spent three years in Mumbai, people previously linked to him claim otherwise. Chaitanya Lila, a member of ISKCON and Shetty’s former partner, told the British newspaper that he went to India for a much shorter duration at the time.

She also said that Shetty was in “ISKCON before 2007”. However, Shetty hardly talks about his association with ISKCON, which the piece says might be because of the organisation’s controversial past.

According to The Guardian article, Shetty possibly had a “spiritual epiphany” in the summer of 2006 during a trip to France for members of Iskcon Pandava Sena (IPS), the organisation’s youth group.

The piece also claims that Shetty spent most of his time as a monk between 2010 to 2013 in an estate called Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford, a town just outside London, visiting India only sometimes during the period.

Shetty’s attorneys told The Guardian that he became a monk in May 2010 and moved into Bhaktivedanta Manor. After three months, he moved to India.

“Shetty spent most of his time in India with trips back to Bhaktivedanta Manor as Shetty was encouraged by his mentors at the monasteries in India to spend time serving in the community where he was raised. He also visited elsewhere in Europe and the US as part of his service,” the lawyers said.

However, Shetty’s previous blogposts conflict with this explanation where he marked out Bhaktivedanta Manor as his primary ashram during his time as a monk.

He also did not spend this time cut off from society but made several viral YouTube videos on London’s streets. “I saw him in sweatpants more than I saw him in robes,” a former ISKCON devotee was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Plagiarism allegations

Shetty, who has hosted the likes of Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian and Matt Damon on his On Purpose podcast , has also been earlier accused of plagirising content.

The Guardian piece mentions that the self-help figure was accused by social media influencer Nicole Arbour in 2019 of lifting content from other people without giving them credit. After Arbour’s video surfaced, Shetty was forced to delete over 100 posts.

While he still uses content from other people on his Instagram, he now attributes them to original creators. However, it is alleged that he does not seek their permission or compensate them for using their content, the British daily reported.

Scrutiny on his coaching school

The piece alleged that Shetty’s life-coaching school, the Jay Shetty Certification School, charges thousands of dollars to teach the “Jay Shetty discipline”.

As per The Guardian, “Shetty has used his spiritual authority to launch a number of subscription and education services, including the life-coaching school, which charges $7,400 a term for “Postgraduate Diploma (Level 7) qualifications” – equivalent to a master’s degree.”

However, the school’s accreditations are dubious. Ofqual, the UK government’s exam watchdog, which is listed as an approving entity in Shetty’s school’s brochure denied regulation work for the courses.

Shetty’s Lawyers told The Guardian that the school pays OTHM, a private exam-certification company in the UK that is approved by Ofqual, to assess it. But OTHM told the British newspaper that “Ofqual do not recognise Jay Shetty – the Centre is not linked to any OTHM Ofqual-regulated Qualifications”.

The school’s brochure also mentioned affiliations with some universities, all of which rebuffed links to Shetty’s online programme.

With inputs from agencies