Robbins apologizes for comments
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has apologized after suggesting that some women are using the #MeToo movement to gain “significance” through “victimhood,” remarks that drew severe backlash from people, including the founder of the #MeToo movement, who accused Robbins of grossly misrepresenting their intentions.
Robbins made the controversial comments last month in San
Jose, where he was hosting one of his multiday self-help seminars called “Unleash the Power Within.” There, in an arena filled with thousands of participants, a woman named Nanine McCool took the microphone and brought up the #MeToo movement, as Now This News first reported.
“So I think you misunderstand the #MeToo movement,” McCool started. “I think ...” Robbins interrupted her midsentence. “Not for you, personally. I’m not misunderstanding you,” he said, then responded with a string of slight non sequiturs. “You can educate me. I’m telling you I’ve read these. My life is about helping people . ... I’ve read so many, thousands. Have you read thousands? Or are you going to tell me what your experience with the #MeToo movement is?”
He went on to say that he was “not knocking the #MeToo movement” but suggested some women were using it to play the victim for personal gratification.
“If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else, you haven’t grown an ounce,” Robbins told the arena. “All you’ve done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good.”
After a lengthy back and forth, McCool, who identified herself as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, said she disagreed with him. “You are a leader and an influential man, and you are doing a disservice, in my opinion, to the #MeToo movement,” McCool told Robbins, to cheers in the audience. “Certainly there are people who are using it for their own personal devices, but there are also a significant number of people who are using it not to relive whatever may have happened to them, but to make it safe for the young women. So that they don’t have to feel unsafe.”
Robbins, 58, is a motivational speaker known for his self-help books and massive seminars that promise to help people “get the life you desire and deserve.” Tickets to his events go for between several hundred to several thousand dollars.
The exchange lasted more than 10 minutes, and included other tense moments in which Robbins got in McCool’s face and towered over her. At one point, Robbins relayed an anecdote to the crowd about an unnamed “famous” acquaintance who had passed on hiring an attractive woman.
“I was with someone the other day, very famous man, very powerful man, he’s saying how stressed he is because he interviewed three people that day,” Robbins said. “One was a woman, two were men. The woman was better qualified but she was very attractive, and he knew, ‘I can’t have her around, because it’s too big of a risk.’ And he hired somebody else. I’ve had a dozen men tell me this.”
Robbins did not specify what that alleged risk would have been.
The San Jose session took place March 15 but gained wider attention after Now This News published a video of the exchange last week.
On Sunday, Robbins posted an apology for his remarks in San Jose to his Facebook page, saying he was “committed to being part of the solution.”
“I apologize for suggesting anything other than my profound admiration for the #MeToo movement,” Robbins wrote. “Let me clearly say, I agree with the goals of the #MeToo movement and its founding message of ‘empowerment through empathy,’ which makes it a beautiful force for good.”