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UPDATE April 7, 2018: #MeToo founder Tarana Burke tweeted Saturday that people affiliated with internationally renowned self-help guru Tony Robbins reached out to do “damage control” with her immediately after a video went viral last month, showing him criticizing the #MeToo movement at a seminar in San Jose.

The video, which the original Facebook poster said had to be taken down for “legal reasons,” shows Robbins at the March 15 event confronting a seminar attendee named Nanine McCool who questioned his #MeToo criticism. He responds to McCool by arguing that women who speak up about sexual harassment or abuse are mostly trying to feel important.

In a series of tweets, Burke explains that she didn’t want to hear what Robbins’ people had to say and lashed into him for misogyny that “runs deep.” In one tweet, she also shares a new video version of his talk at the SAP Center and of his controversial exchange with McCool.

The civil rights activist wrote that Robbins’ people “wanted to ‘give me context’ apparently. I don’t need any. I have eyes. The full video is 11 mins. And it’s gross. Bravo to this woman.”

I was made aware of this video BEFORE I ever saw it because Tony Robbins people reached out to do damage control within 24 hours. They wanted to “give me context” apparently. I don’t need any. I have eyes. The full video is 11 mins. And it’s gross. Bravo to this woman. https://t.co/gjbm9GF1Mz — Tarana (@TaranaBurke) April 7, 2018

This is the video Burke shared:

Life coach Tony Robbins says women are using #MeToo to make themselves 'significant' — but this brave sexual abuse survivor called him out pic.twitter.com/wYxhlmc10u — NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 6, 2018

The original story follows:

Internationally renowned self-help guru Tony Robbins is fending off criticism from some of his devoted fans for #MeToo-related comments he made at a seminar in San Jose earlier this month, during which he suggested that women who speak up about sexual harassment or abuse are mostly trying to feel important.

Speaking to a packed crowd at the SAP Center on March 15 — as part of his “Unleash the Power Within” seminar — Robbins earned heckles and an online backlash for suggesting that #MeToo is a negative example of people hyping their “victimhood” in order to gain “significance,” Vice reported.

Robbins, known for his commanding 6-foot-7-inch presence and his often profanity-laced style, suggested that women risk engaging in self-defeating behavior by speaking up — and by accusing powerful men of predatory behavior.

“I’m not knocking the #MeToo movement, I’m knocking victimhood,” said Robbins when a woman from New Orleans named Nanine McCool stood up to challenge him on his #MeToo remarks.

According to a video of the exchange, which an attendee posted on Facebook before Robbins’ people apparently demanded it be pulled, the life coach said “Anger is not empowerment.”

Robbins, 58, continued, employing his brand of self-help-speak: “If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else… all you’ve done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good.”

“Significance” and “certainty” are key concepts in Robbins’ teachings. They are among the “six universal needs” make people tick and that drive all human behavior, he explained in a 2014 column for Entrepreneur magazine. “Significance” is people’s need to feel important or unique, he explained, while “certainty” has to do with people’s need to feel in control, to enjoy basic comforts and to avoid pain and stress.

At the three-day SAP Center event, which people reportedly paid $695 to $2,995 to attend, Robbins argued that embracing an identity as a sexual assault victim is a way that women appear to strive these days for “significance.”

Robbins also talked about how he had met up with clients in Hollywood, “where this is the most intense.” Robbins shared an anecdote about “a famous, very powerful man” who told him how “stressed” he was. The man had recently interviewed three people for a job: a woman and two men.

“The woman was better qualified,” Robbins said his client told him. “But she was very attractive and he knew he couldn’t have her around because it was too big of a risk. And he hired someone else.”

Robbins’ #MeToo comments mostly came during his exchange with McCool, who told Vice that she was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and physical violence.

McCool said she stood up to challenge Robbins because he may have called #MeToo “great” but he also said “it’s being used by all these women who don’t want to deal with their own problems.”

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In the video, viewed before it was deleted, McCool could be observed telling Robbins: “I hear you mischaracterizing the #MeToo movement. 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 … to make it safe for the young women.”

Robbins’ demeanor with McCool was particularly unsettling to attendees who shared their concerns with Vice or on Facebook and Twitter. At one point, Robbins did an exercise in which he told McCool to hold out her fist. He then pushed her fist with his own to make the make point that “when you push someone else it doesn’t make you more safe, it just makes them angry.”

Robbins could be seen pushing the much shorter McCool to step backwards several times. McCool told Vice she worried that Robbins was going to “knock me on my ass” if she kept pushing back.

A Davis-born musician named Butterscotch is the attendee who captured that moment on video and shared it on Facebook. Butterscotch wrote that Robbins’ “physical display of dominance towards Nanine, the woman who spoke up, was incredibly disrespectful and insensitive.”

Butterscotch added that she had been a fan of Robbins’ for years and understands that he was perhaps trying to make “a point about victimhood and not letting problems rule your life.” But Butterscotch wrote that she became “furious” when he started bashing the #MeToo movement. She said she walked out of the event and requested a refund.

“It wasn’t just his “MeToo,” comments,” Butterscotch wrote. “It was also his blatant sexism of calling men feminine or … or a ‘bitch’ for being weak. Yes, at a motivational event.”

In a subsequent post, Butterscotch said she was told to remove the video “for legal reasons.” Her followers agreed that Robbins’ behavior with McCool was unsettling, with one calling it a representation of “toxic masculinity.” Others attending the seminar or aware of his comments took to Twitter, including this San Francisco woman:

During his presentation, Robbins sought to tout his pro-women credentials and deflect the challenge from McCool, asserting: “I’m not saying the movement’s wrong.”

He added that he has always treated women fairly and noted that his company is “70 percent women.” He only objected to people who get “into a pattern of victimization.”

His spokesperson, Jennifer Connelly, told Vice in a statement that his #MeToo remarks movement were not derogatory in the full context of his presentation.

“Tony Robbins is and always has been supportive of the #MeToo movement,” her statement read. “He has devoted his life’s work, over 40 years, to help people end their pain and suffering and most importantly improve the quality of their lives. Tony is against abuse of any kind, to anyone, period.”

Like Butterscotch, some attendees came away from the seminar. One woman told Vice that Robbins used his presentation to focus on victimhood, rather than on bringing to light “the massive problem that we have in our society of the type of behavior men deem appropriate.”

A male attendee told Vice that he was disturbed by the “apparent sexism” in Robbins’ remarks, saying he probably wouldn’t spend any more money “on anything Tony Robbins until he makes changes to ‘actually’ empower women.”