In an attempt to encourage mental freedom, Tony Robbins once instructed a predomiately black audience to sing racial slurs. The world-renowned self-help guru admitted this during a presentation in the 1980s, when he recalled a tense exchange between him and a "militant black" crowd.
He told them: "As long as someone calls you a n***er and gets that kind of response I’ve seen right now, where you’re ready to explode, and what you’ve done is given that person absolute control of you," Robbins recalled in an earthed video shared by BuzzFeed News. "I'd like to have you be free, 'cause I'm free and I'm white [...] just do what I do just for a minute if you really want to be free and if you want to have some fun."
Robbins then began to dance will singing: "I’m a n***er, you’re a n***er, be a n***er too."
Hours after BuzzFeed reported on the video, 50 Cent returned to Instagram to ask Robbins a question: "What the fuck kinda point were you trying to prove😠," he captioned a clip of Robbins' aforementioned speech. "I know @oprah is not cool with this shit."
BuzzFeed reported on the video just days after it published a story about the various sexual misconduct allegations against Robbins. The motivational speaker, who has worked with countless celebrities like Oprah, the Kardashians, and Donald Trump, has attempted to discredit BuzzFeed's recent reports with various testimonials.
Robbins attorneys have also criticized BuzzFeed in their response to the racial-slur video.
"By all accounts, the presentation was positive and was accepted in the context in which it was conducted: a passionate discussion about racism and how to rise above it," his legal team wrote in a statement. "Any suggestion that Mr. Robbins is somehow racist or insensitive to the African-American community is absurd and false."
