Doc, how pleased are you with Tiger King's depiction of you?
This is not a documentary.
Not a documentary.
It's fake. It's a silly fake show.
An incredible wild ride of a fanticiful tale.
[John Reinke] Doc Antle hated Tiger King.
He thought he was misrepresented in a bunch of lies.
[Doc] They hid the fact that this facility
is the Ritz-Carlton of keeping big cats.
No one's even close to the grandeur and beauty of this facility.
[Joe Exotic] It's an illusion. He creates an illusion for people to believe.
I haven't spoke to Doc since this came out but he's not happy about it.
[Barbara Fisher] Doc is a very skilled con artist.
He thinks that he's smarter than the rest of the world
and he designs his environment around him to confirm that.
[Barbara] He creates his own truth always.
[motor whirring]
[Barbara] He doesn't live in a world where people challenge him.
He doesn't-- He's not used to that anymore.
The silly little girl Barbara Fisher, that bitch is on there talking, saying,
"They forced me to get a boob job after a month." Like, are you mad?
She was obsessed with having boobs.
Those boobs didn't live here, she's living out there,
test driving them on every Tom, Dick, and Harry she can find.
[host laughs]
-That's why she's pregnant all the time. -Oh, fuck.
In terms of what he said about me, it's pure misogyny, that's what it is.
[somber melodic music plays]
[Barbara] Since Tiger King, we had people coming by the house, recognizing the dog.
Just the fact that everybody probably could figure out where I lived
and that means Doc knew where I lived.
That was scary to me, so we just went out into the deep country
and that's where we remain.
[Barbara] Doc has gotten away with this for so long, he thinks he's bulletproof.
But after Tiger King, all these people contacted me with their own stories.
I knew that if I came forward, other people would too.
[dramatic music plays]
[Barbara] There is safety in numbers.
[Barbara] Maybe he doesn't think that you'll look back into his past.
But what's going on with Doc won't survive in sunlight.
[music crescendos]
[mysterious music plays]
[guide] Good morning! It's nice and warm today, isn't it?
-[crowd] Yeah! -[guide] Just a couple rules on it.
No cameras are going to be allowed at all today.
This is your final warning.
If we see recording or taking pictures, you will be asked to leave.
I'm Dr. Bhagavan Antle, director here at Myrtle Beach Safari.
Myrtle Beach Safari is an incredible wildlife encounter
where you get to have an up-close, interactive experience
with a variety of incredible exotic animals
up-close, uncaged and unbelievable interaction.
[insects chirping]
[crowd laughs]
A handful of people in the world get to have an eagle living in your house.
Sitting on the glove watching Game of Thrones.
That doesn't happen a whole lot for a lot of people.
When I was 12 years old, I got a photo taken in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
I looked at my mom and said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life."
And when senior year came around, I called up Doc Antle and I said,
"Please let me come volunteer for you,"
and he said, "Well, how soon can you move here?"
And it was like I'd gotten the golden ticket for American Idol.
I'm like, "Ah! Okay."
[melodic music plays]
[Jewels] I worked for Doc Antle for seven years.
My parents were actually really happy that I was doing something
that I believed I wanted to do.
I don't think they realized what I was really signing up for,
which is just 24/7 working at a place that I can't really leave.
Barbara was the first person to come and talk to me.
Me and Barb focused a lot on training little cubs
to become walking adolescents.
We would go to this place called Barefoot Landing every day,
and we would do photos with tiger cubs and big cats.
[indistinct chatter]
[Shavit Perel] One summer, I went to call a friend of mine in Myrtle Beach,
and he offered me a job operating a climbing wall in Barefoot Landing.
[Shavit] As the summer went on, I started developing relationships
with the people that worked at Preservation Station.
It started with Barbara, and then it was China.
Everybody looked like Crocodile Dundee.
And everybody was tan and blond and had a knife
and it was really impressive.
And then eventually Doc would show up.
He just blew me away.
By the time we reached the end of summer, he said, "How about you come work for me?"
I said, "I'm in."
I stayed at the barn where the elephant was living.
So I would go to sleep with Bubbles and I would wake up with Bubbles.
Who the heck am I to be lucky enough to be in this position?
And then they would give me those clothes, and I got my knife.
Now I'm looking like Crocodile Dundee, right?
I'm the cool guy.
And it got to the point, like, I'm living a dream.
But everything completely turned on its head once Julie came into the picture.
I'm talking to Doc and he goes,
"I just want to let you know, there's a couple of new girls."
"I don't want you getting involved."
Somebody told me, "Hey, Doc rated you a nine."
Part of me was like, "Oh, yeah," and then part of me is like, "What?"
[Magenta Brooks] Women and men at Doc's compound
were treated very differently.
He definitely showed off his giant bed a few more times than was necessary
to do with an employee.
I had always wondered if I had misread things,
and then seeing Tiger King
and hearing Barbara talk, it was so cathartic.
It was just this amazing confirmation that I didn't make this up,
and other people saw it too. [sighs]
[Magenta] I am a polyamory relationship coach
and I've been noticing that people keep talking about Doc as being polyamorous.
Polyamory requires respect that flows both ways.
It requires autonomy.
And Doc is not encouraging his partners
to create healthy relationships outside of him.
-It's a harem, it's not polyamory. -[cryptic music plays]
[Doc] I have my three beloved partners who've been with me for 20 years each.
My son, my three daughters.
[birds chirping]
And that group of people,
along with the peripheral characters around them,
love doing this and plan on to continue to do it.
So if I move to the Himalayan Mountains today,
those guys should be able to step up and run some facsimile of it.
[Magenta] He's got this very highly overinflated sense of self.
He sees himself as kind of a guru.
And so, having followers or having animals that are
subservient to him
kind of bolsters that narrative.
[Barbara] After we all changed our names, he gave a bunch of us different chains.
The medallion signified to all of us
this union of us all being one family.
It's a symbol for the integral yoga that Swami Satchidananda purported.
He was the guru that opened Woodstock.
A picture of the big bearded guy going, "Let's start."
That's Swami Satchidananda.
[Doc] Tons of famous people are longtime devotees.
[crowd murmurs]
[Barbara] He met Swamiji Satchidananda in Yogaville.
[eerie music plays]
[Barbara] All these people devoted to Swamiji
and listening to everything he says,
and basing every aspect of their life around him.
[Barbara] If there's somebody he idolized, it's Swamiji.
The way he talks about him, it's beyond hero worship.
[man] How did you go from Yogaville to being a--
[Doc] Once you add Yogaville,
you're dropping in this incredibly complicated,
cult-ridden, strange entity, like, "What?"
[female voice] The Reverend Sri Swami Satchidananda
experienced the spiritual oneness of all creation
and dreamed of creating a shrine where that oneness could be seen and felt.
[gently melodic music plays]
Swami Satchidananda used to always laughingly say
that the yoga institutes were asylums and we were all the inmates.
And people would go, "Ha-ha-ha. That's so funny, Swamiji."
But it was true.
-We were having crisis times. -[tense music plays]
People were choosing between yoga and Scientology, and I thought,
"I wasn't raised by wolves. I am going to go with yoga."
[Satchidananda] Everywhere there seems to be the cry.
We hear people shouting in the name of peace,
but they want to fight for peace.
Most of the people at Yogaville are loving, caring individuals,
who want to better themselves spiritually and want to better the world.
[melodic music plays]
[female voice] Yogaville is an intentional community
where people choose to live together
practicing yoga, vegetarian diet, meditation.
There's probably close to 250 permanent residents.
My parents met Swami Satchidananda when I was five years old,
and I started meditating myself when I was 11, by choice.
I was doing, I don't know,
four to six hours a day of yoga and meditation, yeah.
We were a very peaceful, loving, accepting…
[chuckles] …community.]
[crowd singing indistinctly]
Hari om, hari om, hari om.
[female voice] People believe Swami Satchidananda is a god.
-A Jesus Christ. He can do no wrong. -[gentle music plays]
They would drop to the ground when he walked into the room
and bow to his feet.
Kiss his feet.
[Sachi] I watched Tiger King, and I was like, "Damn."
"They don't even know the story before that."
Doc Antle got ideas from Swami Satchidananda.
He was attracted to the power that he wielded over other people.
Bhagavan was a very well-known character at Yogaville.
Swami Satchidananda loved him. He was, you know, lots of flash.
He had Bubbles, the little baby elephant.
[applause]
He was like a celebrity there.
[female announcer] Bhagavan Antle of Bhagavan's Celestial Magic.
[mystical music plays]
[crowd cheering]
[applause]
[Joan] He was the cute boy of the '80s. He had long dark hair, a mustache.
He was a magic man.
["Magic" by Pilot plays]
♪ Oh, ho, ho it's magic, you know ♪
[cheers and applause]
♪ Never believe it's not so ♪
♪ It's magic, you know ♪
♪ Never believe it's not so… ♪
[Steven Diamond] The two of us had an instant connection through magic.
I was about 15 or 16.
I had my own career at that time, so I was doing fairs and festivals.
And I was very popular all up and down the East Coast.
Bhagavan saw me as a great way to make some money.
[camera snaps]
[Steven] And so, right away we kind of formed this little informal partnership.
A 50/50 plan was the deal.
[Steven] Come down, guys! Run!
["Theme from Superman" by John Williams plays]
[Steven] He had this place called The Buckingham Zoological Park.
Right outside of Yogaville.
You'd drive down this little country road and you wouldn't know that it was there
unless you knew exactly how to find it.
You walked through the little gate and you see this A-frame house.
It kind of looked like something a hobbit might live in.
And immediately, as soon as you walked in, you could see an elephant in the distance,
and you could see tigers back there, you could see lions.
Good boy.
[Steven] In the beginning, it was such a great place.
[soothing music plays]
What I liked about the Buckingham Zoo was the community that Bhagavan had built.
[man] I met Bhagavan right out of high school.
He would do local shows around here for schools.
And then I worked with him at the Renaissance Festival.
[David] I made my living as a juggler for like 25 or 30 years.
[motor whirring]
[David] I'm sort of an entrepreneur.
I had a video business
and I used to videotape his magic show that he would perform.
[hissing, popping]
[mystical music plays]
By the constant practice of the control of the life force,
you will not only be able to control the life force of your mind and body,
you will also be able to control the life force of the universe, as well.
[David] Bhagavan supposedly had psychic powers
because he had practiced yoga and his pranayama and acquired
these superpowers.
He would walk on coals and he would supposedly levitate things and whatnot.
[mysterious music plays]
Your body can become so fit
that you are immune to the outside world coming in and influencing you.
[Steven] He would create this illusion
that if you listened to him and you followed his ways,
you would be able to do some of the same things.
[David] These people getting paid almost nothing in promise of getting
these super powers from Bhagavan, when he didn't really have them himself.
He was not a great magician.
[Doc] This is the Two of Hearts.
[David] Ninety-eight percent accuracy.
[muffled laughter]
It was horrible. [laughs] I mean, it just-- It was horrible.
But people liked it because he was the cool guy with the tigers.
[melodic synth music plays]
These things are nothing in comparison to the accomplishments…
of the thoughts-- of the control of the thoughts and emotions of the mind.
They are but a drop in the ocean by comparison.
The guru gave Bhagavan all of his teachings, the yoga teachings.
This philosophy and psychology of how to approach the world.
[sitar music plays]
[Joy] I still love the yoga teachings,
but the experience in retrospect
taught me so much about how
to be aware of a cult-type approach,
of wanting to attract people for the purpose of power or greed,
and giving…
the feeling that you're going to receive something that isn't possible to get.
[eerie music plays]
[Joy] He had complete control.
We had to wear a certain type of clothing, we had to eat a certain type of food.
I mean, you give everything.
You give not just your material possessions, but your whole belief system.
One day, you'll be surprised how obedient your mind is.
One will have a body of all health and vitality, free from disease.
It will make the mind calm, clear, and dynamic.
[Joy] Bhagavan learned how to use the teachings in a manipulative way.
[Steven] To be part of the zoo,
you give up your entire life, you give up your name,
you give up your world, you give up your family, your friends.
The tigers become the first priority to the exclusion of everything else.
And he's always been that way, and it's just a way of getting free labor.
[guide] Being in the presence of a big cat
can be a life-transforming event.
When Doc started building his facility,
he wanted to embody, like, a Yogaville type of environment,
where he's, kind of, the leader of the group
and everyone's working for a greater cause, working with animals,
and also incorporating yoga.
[melodic music plays]
[male interviewer] Do you practice yoga?
Cult, cult, cult alarm, um… [chuckles]
Myself, I have practiced yoga throughout my life, I've practiced…
Myself, I've practiced martial arts from the time I was very young.
I've practiced throughout my life.
I always tell my staff that they should go and practice yoga
so they get a steadiness of mind and body.
[pensive music plays]
[Shavit] It makes so much sense to use those characteristics of the guru
to basically create a culture where you're like God.
[high-pitched growl]
[Doc] They come as teenagers and decades later they're still here,
because there is a fulfillment from spending time with wildlife.
[growling]
There's a song,
"I'm on a vacation because I love my occupation."
"If you don't love what you're doing, change your station."
It's perfect. It's a perfect song.
[insects chirping]
Bhagavan definitely had the desire to create his own following,
and he did and he was very good at it.
[birds chirping]
[Steven] I met Joe a couple times at his zoo.
and I was shocked at what I was seeing,
because in every way it was a poor man's version,
it was a copy of what Bhagavan had built.
This is what we are going to create.
Press play.
[dramatic instrumental music plays]
[Joe] I want you to look at the landscaping here.
One man does this entire park because he takes pride in it.
The staff take pride in what they do.
Joe tried to make his park look exactly like Doc Antle's.
Everything was about Doc Antle.
We will buy safari-looking clothes
so you feel like you work in a jungle atmosphere.
It's very simple, you get up in the morning, you get dressed,
you come to work with a shiny, sparkly attitude.
[Joe] Until you can get some self-discipline,
we can never do this.
I have my own following and people. It's called the Temple of the Beast.
[Joe] We're a nondenominational church here at the G.W. Zoo, and I'm Pastor Joe.
And if you would like to get married with tigers,
we can decorate and do it all
just for you.
We are here today in the sanctuary of the Church of the Beast
where the sky is our ceiling and the grass is our floor.
[gentle music plays]
[Jewels] People like Joe Exotic and Doc Antle love dressing in costumes.
That's their thing, that's what they love to do is boast,
"I'm Tiger King with all these, you know, beautiful women around me
that all have big boobs and all dressed in leather."
I can't believe I was actually okay with wearing those costumes.
I think the one thing that I said absolutely not is not putting on tights.
[dramatic instrumental music plays]
[Barbara] I've been deep into Bhagavan's closet before,
and you can find the most insane pieces of clothing.
This is the Renaissance Fair outfit. I was proud of my chain mail halter top.
[male voice] King Richard's Faire! Weekends, September 4 through October 24.
[Steven] Renaissance Fairs are this gathering
of thousands of people that come
and all the performers and everybody that works at the fair,
they're all dressed up in these medieval type costumes.
And there's usually a swordsmith there, and there will be jugglers,
and there will be any type of performer
that might have lived back in medieval times.
Whenever we went to Renaissance Fairs, Bhagavan was kind of on the prowl,
searching for girls.
There's no greater pick-up line in the world than,
"Do you want to pet my tiger?"
[Magenta] That's how I met him.
I was traveling from state to state doing Renaissance Fairs
and I was walking my ferret through the forest area
and ran smack into a guy walking a lion.
Right now, he is gaining almost a pound every single day.
I said, "Do you ever hire people?"
And a week later I was hauling elephant poop. I had moved in.
[Magenta] He can talk a good game.
When he would talk about the requirements of the job,
like how many hours we had to put in, how dedicated we had to be,
it really was framed in a very, you know,
"These animals come first and it's going to be hard work
and it's going to be difficult,
and you've got to be strong to manage this."
And that appealed to me greatly.
[music crescendos]
[Joy] Bhagavan knew how to work people beautifully,
because he got his beginnings of learning from Swami Satchidananda.
[mystic music plays]
[Joy] In order to be a Swami you take vows of celibacy,
obedience, selfless service, and poverty.
He was Swami Satchidananda and he had taken those vows,
but they didn't apply to him anymore because now he was enlightened.
Yoga expects one to reform himself.
[Joy] During the years that I was there, the guru had sexualized the relationship
with many of the disciples.
[Satchidananda speaks inaudibly]
[Joy] With any kind of sexual abuse,
they bring you in, and they make you feel like you're going to be…
[pensive music plays]
…friends with this powerful person.
So, what they would want gets changed.
No, they wouldn't want an old man with a long beard
to be fondling them and having intercourse with him.
Jerking him off.
[interviewer] How many women was he involved with?
Oh, I don't know. I bet there are some that never came forth.
Um…
But I would say at least a dozen.
[dramatic instrumental music plays]
[Joy] They believed that this made them special somehow,
that this close intimate relationship gave them
a certain connection to God.
And Bhagavan was emulating the guru.
[Joy] Women were very attracted to Bhagavan.
[Sumati] His first wife was "Brahmi" Betsy.
There was, you know, only "Brahmi" for a little while on her own.
[Joan] "Brahmi" was a beautiful woman.
[Glen] She was beautiful. Slender, long dark hair.
[David] They seemed like a happy married couple, in a sense.
And Bhagavan used to use them as an example about how happy they were
and what a wonderful couple they were, which is sort of interesting.
I think it was not her lifestyle.
You know, Bhagavan being interested in multiple women.
[somber music plays]
[man] I have to believe that's part of why my sister is
where she's at now in her life.
I mean, it has to be.
She never dealt with it.
And she's just been destroying her life, slowly but surely.
[Glen] She's had a problem with drinking for a long time.
She almost died a few years ago.
It's a shame because she's--
[sighs] I'm getting emotional.
[Betsy] I'll probably never get over it. My mother always likes to bring that up.
She goes, "He was the love of your life." I'm like, "Yeah, he was."
[laughs]
Nobody's ever gonna change that.
[insects chirping]
[mysterious music plays]
[Betsy] Me and Kevin, that was his name back then,
I met him in high school.
And before we started dating, my boyfriend lived next door to him.
So I used to go to Kevin's house to spend time with my boyfriend,
'cause Kevin's mother didn't care.
She was like, "Cool Mom."
[laughs]
But, he broke up with me so that he could be with Kevin's mother.
[interviewer] Didn't people think it was strange
that she started having sex with your teenage boyfriend?
Only the people that knew about it, which was only us.
She felt bad because she said, "Well, I know you're upset about this."
"Why don't you try dating Kevin?"
Meaning her son. And I did.
[Betsy] Of course I fell in love.
I wanted to be with him all the time.
[somber music plays]
[Betsy] He was very confident and really beautiful.
[Glen] My sister used to bring him to the house.
I don't think my dad liked him a lot in the beginning.
I know Kevin dropped out of high school, maybe that was part of it.
But he had long hair. [laughs]
That was-- My dad didn't really like that.
[Betsy] Oh, he was a rebel.
He always wanted to be in trouble.
[Betsy laughs, sighs]
He actually sought out trouble. [chuckles]
[Betsy] After we got married, we changed our names
because we went to this one-month retreat at Yogaville
to become certified yoga instructors.
And Swami Satchidananda gave us a new name.
I went from Betsy to Brahmi.
And he went from Kevin Antle to Sri Mahatmayavi Bhagavan Antle.
Pretty big change.
[mysterious music plays]
[Sumati] Bhagavan Antle in 1982 was very good-looking.
He was very charming.
He had a lot of bling, you know, he drove a DeLorean and a Porsche.
[Sumati] I first met him in the Lotus Lake,
which is a lake around the Lotus Temple in Yogaville.
I remember it very clearly
because he hit on several of the teenage girls that day in the lake.
and I talked to them about it and asked them like,
"Did he touch your butt or boobs?"
"I mean, did that happen to you guys too, or was it just me?"
[interviewer] How old was he?
He was 22, yeah, and I was 14.
[cryptic music plays]
[Sumati] That's not legal in the state of Virginia.
He spent a long time, he spent, like, six months
sending me poetry, getting me flowers, just really wooing me.
[Sachi] I remember having some outings with Bhagavan,
you know, to the movies, or, you know, out to dinner.
He had all the toys. I remember playing with a lot of toys.
They had a Jacuzzi. We'd play with the baby animals a lot.
When you were over there, you were in his world.
[Sachi] I minimized everything that went on,
but now that I look at it as an adult,
I was kind of passed on…
to a person who worked with Bhagavan.
I felt a pressure…
to have a sexual relationship with this person,
and he was 30 years old.
I was 15.
[somber instrumental music plays]
[Sachi] At the time, I thought it was my choice and I played the role.
I didn't have the tools to make those kind of choices.
It was part of the culture, I think, that Bhagavan cultivated.
There was a lot of photo shoots.
[Sachi] There were some inappropriate photos, definitely.
And we were underage.
Naked photos.
[Sumati] He did a nude photo shoot of me and a boa constrictor.
And luckily his wife "Brahmi" found those pictures and burned them.
Otherwise, there could be nude photos of me floating around who knows where.
[Sachi] He preyed after young women
and it was important to him that they were virgins.
My 15th birthday was the first time that we slept together,
but before we slept together, we had a spiritual wedding ceremony
in his meditation room upstairs at his house.
And he put a wedding band on me,
and I was supposed to be his wife, and he was supposed to be my husband,
even though he was already married.
He told me she was totally polyamorous and totally into an open marriage,
and this was all copacetic, and that was not the case.
The worst part is that the other women that lived around there,
they actually thought that I condoned it.
They were like, "Oh, I thought you were okay with it."
I was like, "Are you kidding me? Of course not."
You have to remember I was always the last person to know.
[Sumati] He took me on a honeymoon down to the Virgin Islands
with "Brahmi" Betsy, his first wife,
which was really awkward for me
because "Brahmi" and I weren't talking about
the fact that I was in a relationship with him.
[Betsy] I didn't know it was Sumati's honeymoon.
I was spending all of my time snorkeling.
Apparently he was spending all day screwing women.
But I didn't know that.
[somber music plays]
He would just reassure me that she was okay with it.
[Betsy chuckles] One of his many lies.
But she was really young
and I can imagine that she would've believed him, of course.
[Sumati] He did one of those power and control maneuvers
where he isolated me.
I moved out of my parents' house at 15 and moved on to the Yogaville property.
[Betsy] You know, he was pretty careful about picking teenage girls
whose parents didn't pay attention to them.
Sumati lived in a tent right behind my house.
He would come and visit me in my tent in Yogaville sometimes.
[Betsy] He was only interested in me as long as I looked like I was 12.
Until the age of 30, I weighed 100 pounds.
I had no curves, just nothing.
That's what he liked, he liked women who looked like they were still teenagers.
[somber music plays]
[Magenta] You needed to be very, very thin.
I was eating Doc's very restricted diet, so I was eating around 800 calories a day.
A very nutrient-light food.
[Doc] You cannot make someone into an animal trainer.
It takes a certain degree of mental and physical toughness.
One needs to be light on their feet,
one needs to have a physicality of timing and understanding.
[Magenta] I was starving.
I was blacking out when I stood up.
I almost got killed because you're working with wild animals and you…
My blood pressure was so low, I'd stand up and start to black out.
One of the volunteers saved me.
She had been taken out for her birthday, and she comes back to me the next day,
and she says, "You don't know what's happening to you."
"You're being brainwashed."
"This is what cults do when they're taking over people's psyches."
And she says, "You've been doing this for so long,
you don't even know how off your brain is right now."
[cryptic instrumental music plays]
[Magenta] So, she says, "You have to eat."
And she ended up chasing me around the parking lot with a Fig Newton bar,
screaming, "It's fat-free, for fuck's sake!"
And I refused to eat it because a Fig Newton bar was just too much,
but I started eating carrots
and I started thinking straight.
My brain started working a little better, and I went to Doc
and I was like, "I want to stay for the next year."
I was going to finish up my two-year thing.
But I decided I didn't want the boob job.
I decided that wasn't who I wanted to be.
And he said, "If you're gonna look like a fat ass, you don't need the tits."
I mean, I was still skeletal, I was still concave,
and I thought, "Oh, I'm never going to win this game."
"And I'm starting to believe him."
[Magenta] I felt like if I stayed, I was going to be subsumed.
[insects and birds chirping]
[Doc] In the '80s when we started out,
Swami Satchidananda had a new idea that was really fresh,
that what you act like, what you think, what you eat, shapes your health.
You are what you eat. Please remember that.
Most of our physical problems are caused by our food that we eat.
Swami led you to believe that he was…
now an enlightened being and a perfect instrument of God.
[pensive music plays]
[Joy] Bhagavan saw the guru as someone that could get away with everything.
I was very close to the person who took care of Swami Satchidananda
and she would confide in me, she would tell me that he would hit her.
If you want to punish somebody who hurts you…
do something beautiful to that person.
She accepted it so easily and lovingly.
It was totally crazy, but now I think of it that way,
but at the time, I just put on my rosy-colored glasses, I guess.
[giggling]
[indistinct chatter]
Stop. Oh no! Flippity-floppity. You big old guy.
[Steven] Bhagavan didn't like it
when someone, in any kind of way, challenged him
and that was a problem between me and him.
If I did it in front of a group of people, there would be hell to pay.
You got to not love me.
[Steven] And I learned very quickly not to go there.
[woman] In order to get them…
-We're trying to not let you film. -[cameraman] Sorry. Okay.
If you come here going, "That's not fair. You didn't listen. I know the way,"
we have no tolerance or time for anyone like that.
Look how calm…
[Barbara] He had a bad temper for sure.
You do not want to have something you're attached to in front of Bhagavan
because he will torture you with that.
-[eerie music plays] -I loved this one capuchin monkey.
From the time that I saw her, I just was obsessed with her.
Bhagavan knew I loved her. He liked that I was taking good care of her.
But he did also like to torture me with the fact that I was so attached.
In one instance in particular, he took her and put her in a freezer.
I mean, she's a little tiny baby
and he took her and put her in the freezer and closed it
and just stared at me, waiting for me to stop being upset…
[chuckles] …about that
That's what he was telling me. "I'm teaching you not to be so attached."
"I need you to just think about how you're feeling
with the monkey in the freezer and calm yourself down."
[grim music plays]
[Sachi] He was capable of doing harm more than your average person.
He could go from very charming to very angry.
[interviewer] Did you ever see him lose his temper in a way that was scary?
Yes.
With me, one time.
[sighs] Can we stop for a second?
Yeah. I just need a drink and…
There were four times in four years where I thought he was going to kill me.
He was so incredibly violent to me that I thought, "That's it."
"He got me. This is going to be the time."
[somber music plays]
The first couple times was, I was going to leave him,
it was soon in the relationship.
I wanted to leave. I didn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
[voice breaks] And he would beat me or be violent with me.
And it scared me into staying with him.
Choked me to the point where I passed out,
and one time, he even bragged to his girlfriends
that he broke two of my ribs to shut me up.
And it's true, he did.
[Betsy] He didn't like to hit because it'd leave a scar,
so he used to strangle me because it didn't leave a mark.
[grim instrumental music plays]
He got so mad at me when I got pregnant. He said it was my fault.
When I started giving birth,
somebody tracked him down, and of course he was with his girlfriend at the time,
and so then, while I'm still in labor, he calls.
"Is it okay if I just don't show up?" And I was like, "No!"
So what he did was he actually came and he laid on the bed next to me
and slept while I was having a baby.
[Betsy] Luckily, you're in so much pain that you don't think about it too much,
but yeah, it was sad, but…
That whole thing about what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
Well, guess what.
There's not a whole lot of things that will happen to me worse than that.
So…
[Betsy] As soon as the baby was born, he was gone.
He was back on the road with his girlfriend.
[insects chirping]
[Sumati] I remember I was shocked when "Brahmi" got pregnant.
[birds chirping]
[Sumati] He told me he wasn't even sleeping with her.
[somber sitar music plays]
[Betsy] He used to tell Sumati,
"I can do some kind of voodoo magic on you and you'll never get pregnant."
She believed he could put a spell on her and she wouldn't get pregnant.
But my daughter had just been born and she was already showing.
[Sumati] Right before the Lotus Temple opened,
I told Bhagavan that I was pregnant with Tilakam.
First he said it wasn't his child… [sighs]
…and then he said I needed to get an abortion,
and he tried to guilt trip me into one.
[Doc] Tilakam's mom was a crazy teenager
that, you know, I just happened to have been hanging out with a little too long,
and she got pregnant.
I drug her ass
to the Downtown Marriott in Washington DC, and didn't follow through
on the birth control the way we were supposed to do it
and, lo and behold, baby!
[Sumati] I called Swami Satchidananda and I finally confessed to him
I'd been in a relationship with Bhagavan for four years and I was pregnant.
[somber music plays]
He basically said, "You're going to be a great mother."
He said, "If Bhagavan will marry you, he can stay in Yogaville."
"If he continues with the women like he is now, he's gonna have to leave."
There was a family meeting that was called to deal with this
devastating news.
And in the family meeting, they…
were trying to blame the girls
for their… wanton behavior.
[Joan] My husband and I said, "Excuse me."
"This is a man who was promoted by our teacher as this great Yogi,
and you're saying the girls should not have trusted him?"
"That doesn't seem reasonable. It seems to me the bad guy is the adult."
[tense music plays]
[Sachi] There was a culture of pointing the finger at women.
We were seducing men, that somehow it was our fault.
All of a sudden, the community decided
that every student, and parent, and teacher involved in the school
should sign a pledge.
Basically saying that they won't date.
[Sachi] And also there's something about not questioning Swami Satchidananda.
We felt like we were being punished.
We needed to just cover up, shut up.
Get permission to do… anything.
People of the opposite sex would not be in the same room together alone.
And if a parent, a child, or a teacher was unwilling to sign the pledge,
they couldn't attend or teach at the school.
I didn't want to sign it.
When I spoke out, the community
asked me to leave.
[Sachi] Swami Satchidananda told me directly.
He was like, "You're a rotten apple."
"You're going to make the other shiny, bright apples rotten, too."
[Sachi] Being excommunicated and shunned was painful.
My whole world was Yogaville. I didn't know anything else.
Yogaville failed our kids
by not taking a stand.
By the time I got pregnant,
he was already in a relationship with another 14-year-old.
Once you've married a 14-year-old… [scoffs]
…what could possibly…
hold you back?
[cryptic music plays]
[Radha Hirsch] Never in a million years
did I ever think I would be sharing this story publicly. [laughs]
When I hear myself, I'm like, "Wow, it is pretty crazy."
I was 14 and he was 25.
My mom was wanting me to realize how inappropriate the situation was.
And I remember him saying,
"Don't worry, we're going to deal with it. It's all going to work out."
"Don't worry. We're going to be together."
Bhagavan and I were talking on the phone
and he wanted me to give him very specifically my route to school.
We went over it and over it, and he came and pulled up next to me
in a disguise of some sort.
He looked bizarre, like all the hair up in a hat and like, crazy funky glasses.
And I jump in the car, I dumped my book bags in a dumpster
and we flew off.
In my mind, I ran away, yes, but I still, kind of, wasn't thinking
that it was really an abduction.
[sirens wailing]
[music crescendos]
[closing theme music playing]