British podcaster, author, and life coach Jay Shetty garnered a huge amount of followers after he started sharing inspirational videos in 2016. However, Shetty, who was born in London and raised there by his Indian parents, is under scrutiny after a report claimed that he lied about his life story and plagiarized social media posts over several years. 

Shetty, who has over 15 million followers on Instagram, is widely popular among celebrities including Michelle Obama, Matt Damon, and Gwyneth Paltrow. According to his official website, “During his school years, Jay Shetty spent vacations living with monks in India, immersing himself in their wisdom and teachings.”

In several talk shows, Shetty claimed that while in business school, he had a major spiritual awakening after attending a talk by monk Gauranga Das. However, a report by The Guardian claims that Shetty’s background is not as amazing as it appears to be. The report also claimed that the author of the best-selling book 'Think Like A Monk’, falsely claimed to have spent three years in an Indian temple. 

In an article published in The Guardian, journalist McDermott claimed he was commissioned to write a profile for Esquire, and that during his research, he discovered many inconsistencies in Shetty's statements.

The report claimed that Shetty misrepresented certain portions of his biography, including the story about how his life transformed at the age of 18 after hearing a monk's lecture. It also alleged that Shetty uses his spiritual identity to make a huge amount of money. 

“Shetty is hardly the first self-help guru to embellish his spiritual credentials to amass followers, but he demands huge sums of money for his guidance. 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,” the report mentioned. 

According to the report, Jay Shetty had removed over 100 YouTube and Instagram posts in 2019 when YouTuber Nicole Arbour disclosed the original sources behind his stories. “Many of Shetty's “original” videos were based on pre-existing parables and social media posts that had gone viral years earlier,” it mentioned. However, Shetty has so far made no remark over these allegations.