Self-help guru Tony Robbins allegedly isolated and then forcefully kissed and groped an underage girl at a California summer camp in 1985, the alleged victim told BuzzFeed News.
Robbins, 59 denied the claim Friday and said he’s suing the media outlet.
BuzzFeed revealed the disturbing new claim in the sixth installment of a seven-month series detailing multiple accusations the “Unlimited Power” author engaged in sexual misconduct stretching back decades.
The new report identifies the victim only by her first name, Elle, and says she provided a 2,400-word account through her lawyers. Two more people who say they witnessed the alleged assault also gave corroborating accounts.
According to Elle, Robbins seemed to fixate on her during that SuperCamp session held at Westmont College in Montecito that summer in 1985, when she was an underage high school student and he was already rich and famous at the age of 25.
She said he pressed himself against her back during one activity, called her fascinating and asked her what it felt like when she orgasmed.
Elle said the alleged assault happened when Robbins claimed he wanted to apologize and led her out of a building to a nearby clearing that appeared to be private.
She told BuzzFeed he forced himself on her and only stopped when he “got frustrated and realized that too much time had passed.”
“Next he tried to manipulate me into believing I had initiated it before taking off at a fast run through the trees and brush toward the gym,” she said.
Steffanie Scott, then 15, told BuzzFeed she was jogging nearby and saw Robbins pinning a camper’s arms back as he aggressively kissed her.
“He was going for her, his whole body was pressed up against her,” Scott said.
Eva Bush, 16 at the time, said she also saw Robbins with his arms around the helpless camper.
“It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen,” she told BuzzFeed.
Tamara Drean, a camp counselor who was 31 at the time, said she recalled comforting Elle after the girl reported the incident that same day.
“I believe she told me he touched her breasts and tried to kiss her,” Drean told BuzzFeed.
Robbins vehemently denied any wrongdoing Friday and said he’s going after BuzzFeed.
“I am now suing BuzzFeed following a premeditated and malicious campaign against me and my life’s work,” he said in a statement on Medium.com.
“In a series of articles this year, BuzzFeed falsely accused me of abusing my position and making inappropriate advances toward employees and event attendees as well as berating abuse victims at my seminars,” he wrote.
“BuzzFeed once again has published false stories. Enough is enough,” his spokeswoman Jennifer Connelly said in an email to the Daily News Friday.
A spokesman for BuzzFeed said the outlet stands by its reporting.
“BuzzFeed News’ series of reports on Tony Robbins are based on hundreds of interviews, audio recordings and documentary evidence. Our latest story about an alleged sexual assault is based on the accounts of dozens of people, as well as contemporaneous journal entries,” spokesman Matt Mittenthal said in a statement to The News.
“The evidence speaks for itself, and we stand by our rigorous reporting,” he said.
Elle’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Robbins left the SuperCamp session shortly after the August 1985 incident and didn’t return.
One former camper provided an Aug. 25, 1985 diary entry to BuzzFeed recalling the explanation she heard about his departure.
“Well, Tony Robbins won’t ever come back to SuperCamp again,” Jennifer Munn wrote in the diary entry published by BuzzFeed as a photo.
Munn wrote that Robbins allegedly took a girl on a “short cut” where “he promptly began kissing her and basically started to molest her.”
“It really irks me that he exploited his power like that,” she wrote.
