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| Cracks Show in Bikram Yoga Empire |
| Cracks Show in Bikram Yoga Empire Amid Claims of Rape and Assault
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 24-February-2015
7:49:12 AM |
| He is the yoga guru who built an empire on sweat and swagger. He has a stable of luxury cars and a Beverly Hills mansion. During trainings for hopeful yoga teachers, he paces a stage in a black Speedo and holds forth on life, sex and the transformative power of his brand of hot yoga. "I totally cure you," he has told interviewers. "Whatever the problem you have."
But a day of legal reckoning is drawing closer for the guru, Bikram Choudhury. He is facing six civil lawsuits from women accusing him of rape or assault. The most recent was filed Feb. 13 by a Canadian yogi, Jill Lawler, who said she was raped by Choudhury during a teacher-training in spring 2010.
This month, a Los Angeles judge cleared away several challenges to a lawsuit from a former student who said Choudhury raped her during another 2010 teacher-training.
The first complaint was filed two years ago. As more surfaced, and more women spoke publicly about accusations of assault and harassment, their accounts have created fissures in the close-knit world of yoga students and teachers who have spent thousands of dollars to study with Choudhury; opened studios bearing his name; and found strength, flexibility and health in his formula of 26 yoga postures in a sweltering room.
Many have stayed loyal to a man they call Boss and revere as an eccentric guru. Others are walking away.
"A lot of people have blinders on," said Sarah Baughn, 29, a onetime Bikram yoga devotee and international yoga competitor whose lawsuit against Choudhury in 2013 was like an earthquake among followers of his style of yoga. "This is their entire world. They don't want to accept that this has happened."
Choudhury, who remains the face of his yoga empire, his grinning photo placed prominently on the home page of Bikram's Yoga College of India, denies any wrongdoing and faces no criminal charges.
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