A Fake Monk? The Guardian Report Reveals That Jay Shetty Fabricated and Exaggerated His Life Story

The story around which British Indian Jay Shetty’s whole persona is built is distorted, new reporting in The Guardian has revealed. According to an expose by journalist John McDermott, the life coach, author, podcaster and former monk has “committed rampant plagiarism and grossly exaggerated and at times fabricated his origin story.” 

McDermott, who last year began working on Shetty’s profile for Esquire, which was eventually killed, interviewed dozens of people, including members of his religious community, academics who study Hinduism, his former employees and his ex-girlfriend.  “A lot of questions remain about Shetty,” McDermott says, “but it’s clear the story he tells about himself is not true,” he wrote in a post on X.

Last year, Esquire assigned me to write a profile about Jay Shetty, the ultra-famous self-help influencer and guru to the stars.

At first, I thought Shetty was smarmy but ultimately harmless. But as I began my background research, I found Shetty had committed rampant plagiarism… https://t.co/pduWSDlZ7e

— John McDermott (@mcdermott) February 29, 2024

The U.K.-born-and-raised Shetty claims that he became a monk in India for three years after attending a talk by an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monk Gauranga Das in 2007. People who know Shetty at the time told McDermott that although he traveled to India late 2007, he didn’t live there for long. He reportedly spent most of his monk stint not in Mumbai but at Bhaktivedanta Manor, an estate outside London.

Shetty was also not nearly as cut off from society during his stint as a monk as he would have people believe, some people told McDermott. They say he spent a lot of this time filming viral YouTube videos in London, and was not cut off from civilization as he earlier claimed. “I saw him in sweatpants more than I saw him in robes,” one associated told McDermott. 

There’s also discrepancies about Shetty’s age when he met Das, McDermott said.  He sometimes says he was 18 but has also claimed to have been 21 and 22. Das and Shetty’s legal team confirmed that their encounter happened in 2007, which would have made Shetty 19 or20.

Shetty has also “been cagey” about the fact that someof his religious education seems to have happened  at ISKCON, McDermott said. His lawyers told The Guardian that he grew up in the Hare Krishna faith, “but didn’t find it meaningful until his encounter with Gaurangas Das in 2007.”

Shetty launched “On Purpose” podcast in 2019, and interviews celebrities and other successful people on what they believe is their purpose in life. “I wanted to create a conversation that went beyond the athlete, beyond the celebrity, beyond the personality, the profile, the persona, and to me, that essence that everyone has, that truth that everyone has is their purpose,” he said on “The Build Series” in May 2019. “It’s what we’re ready to die for and what we live for.”

Before launching his podcast, he produced videos about relationships, wellness, mental health and purpose for the Huffington Post in New York. 

He is married to Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, a vegan chef and Ayurveda expert. They have been married since 2016. She was the first guest on the podcast. She appeared on the show again for its first anniversary. On the show, she revealed that she was in awe of Jay. “He also looked really cool – he had a bald head. He didn’t look like the type of person who would be thinking about these things because he had tattoos and a bald head, but then he was in robes. And I said, ‘This is really, really cool, but weird at the same time.”

Shetty officiated the wedding of actress Vanessa Hudgens and professional baseball player Cole Tucker in Tulum, Mexico, on Dec. 2. In August 2022, he officiated the wedding of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, following their impromptu July Vegas nuptials, at Affleck’s family estate Riceboro estate in Georgia. Before that, he officiated actress Lily Collins and director Charlie McDowell’s September 2021 wedding in Colorado. 

Talking about Shetty’s plagiarism, McDermott noted that he “took down” about 00 YouTube and Instagram videos after YouTuber Nicole Arbour found the original sources of several of his self-help lessons. Although he “now credits and tags the Instagram accounts he pulls videos from,” MCDermott said that a few creators told him that they weren’t asked permission or were paid for their content which was reposted by Shetty. 

McDermott also looked into the Jay Shetty Certification School, “a $7,400-a-term self-help course that purports to give students a master’s degree in life coaching.”He found out that “the school’s accreditations are questionable at best.”

However, Shetty seems unfazed by the accusations. As of March 5 morning, his social media has been posting inspirational clips from his own talks and interviews from his podcasts. 

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