Marianne Williamson accused of terrible temper, making staff cry

Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru who preaches a message of love, has been accused of doing just the opposite, including throwing a phone at a staff member, becoming enraged and yelling at people until they cried.

A shocking new report released Thursday paints a stark contrast between Williamson’s public persona teaching love, peace and forgiveness with the behind-the-scenes version of her.

The spiritual leader announced in March that she would run for president for a second time, challenging Joe Biden in the Democratic primary. Her announcement speech was peppered with her philosophy of love and light.

“We are angry about this country, we are concerned about this country,” she said at her campaign kick-off on March 5. “Our job is to create a vision of justice and love so powerful that it can defeat the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”

But a new report has arrived Politics paints a different picture of Williamson, 70. And it echoes allegations that have been made about her since she emerged on the spiritual scene in the 1990s, where former associates accused her of having a huge ego that overshadowed her work, a screaming temper, and a lack of compassion, including firing a staffer with breast cancer.

Williamson attracted a celebrity who followed her spiritual teachings and thousands of people say she helped them through difficult times in their lives.

But former staffers describe a different experience when it comes to working closely with her. A dozen former associates said she is cruel and demeaning and has bouts of explosive rage.

They note that she would yell about seemingly minor infractions such as booking a hotel room with a walk-in shower and no bathtub.

“It would be foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage,” said one former employee. “It was traumatic. And the experience ended up being terrifying.”

Among the incidents described: Williamson threw her phone at staffers and how she became so angry about the logistics of a campaign trip to South Carolina that she slammed on a car door until her hand began to swell.

She eventually received treatment at a local emergency room.

All 12 former staffers told Politics they recall incidents where Williamson yelled at people until they started crying.

She denied the allegations.

“These slanderous accusations are flat out false. Former staffers trying to score points with the political establishment by smearing me may be good for their careers, but the intent is to divert attention from the important issues facing the American people,” Williamson said in a statement. to DailyMail.com.

She confirmed the car incident, but noted, “A car door is not a person. I would never physically hurt anyone.’

Williamson feared leaks from her staff about her behavior, the Politico report said, noting that she required staff to sign nondisclosure agreements, making it clear they would be strictly enforced.

She defended the NDAs to DailyMail.com, noting, “Staff NDAs are campaign procedural. From proprietary material to strategic planning, there is always a working legal framework for campaign communications.”

Williamson dropped out of the 2020 presidential race in January of that year, before the primary began in earnest. She had gone through two campaign managers and dozens of associates in her short candidacy.

But she had some breakaway moments as a candidate, including during a Democratic presidential debate in July 2019, when she addressed then-President Donald Trump directly, telling him, “I am going to use love for political purposes. I’ll meet you on that field. And, sir, love will prevail.’

Williamson is the author of more than a dozen books and became famous as a self-help guru. She markets her A Course in Miracles as a way to achieve inner peace. Its foundations emphasize love and forgiveness.

But Williamson has faced allegations in the past that she has a terrible temper. And she has been accused of running a cult with her A Course in Miracles seminars and book empire.

In an interview with Los Angeles Times in 1992, she acknowledged the criticism, saying she came across as “the bitch for God.”

In the 1990s, after Williamson came onto the scene thanks to Oprah Winfrey giving a blessing to her book, A Return to Love, several profiles of the spiritual guru mentioned her anger issues along with internal problems at the Centers for Living charity she founded in Loose Angels.

In reports dating back to that period, Williamson has been accused of having an out-of-control temper and unchecked ego, along with a cruel management style.

She was accused of putting a staffer in her New York office on probation a week before the person’s scheduled double mastectomy. The staffer was subsequently fired and had to spend months haggling over health insurance.

‘Marianne is a tyrant. She is cruel – unnecessarily – and very controlling,” said one of her former associates People magazine in 1992. It doesn’t mean her works aren’t great. They are. But her own ego is going to destroy her.”

Another of her collaborators said at the time: ‘Marianne’s ego is omnipresent. When she’s angry, it’s like watching a 3-year-old throw a tantrum. I’ve seen her cry a volunteer and swear he’d never come back.”

One person told Weekly entertainment that Williamson has a “despotic, tyrannical streak and is incapable of even hearing dissent.”

“Purely human exchange shouldn’t be where you bark orders, yell at people, have contempt for them, tell them they don’t know what they’re doing when they volunteer — she’s disgusting.”

During her failed bid for a seat in the House in 2014, a prominent Los Angeles Democrat accused her of leading a cult.

“She has some very unusual views about the world, a cult following, but she’s not a credible candidate,” said Eric Bauman, chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. L.A. weekly. “She’s done a lot of work to help people heal, but that’s no preparation to be in Congress.”

However, others have spoken of how her work has helped them through difficult times.

And her defenders note that while she asks for donations at her lectures, she doesn’t need them, allowing people to come for free. Often she will talk for hours with those who want advice from her.

She founded the Los Angeles Center for Living and Profit Angel Food to deliver meals to AIDS patients and others battling serious illnesses. Her early spiritual work consisted of advising dying AIDS patients at a time when the disease was at its peak and not well understood, leading to shunning and isolation for those suffering from it.

She formed her teachings from A Course in Miracles, a 1,200-page volume she saw lying on a friend’s coffee table. She did not write the book, but is one of the most famous prophets.

The book was dictated by Helen Schucman, who claimed in the 1960s that she heard an inner voice dictating to her what to write about faith. For more than seven years she recorded what became a three-part work. She later said that the voice that dictated it to her was Jesus.

Williamson began teaching courses based on the book’s principles, and her following grew from there.

Her classes attracted a number of high-profile celebrities, including Madonna, Raquel Welch, Rosanna Arquette, Cher, Kim Basinger, and Barbra Streisand. She performed at Elizabeth Taylor’s last wedding.

She said Vanity Fair in 1991: ‘I didn’t write A Course in Miracles. I’m just giving a book report. No one comes to A Course in Miracles thinking that I personally have the answer. The Course attracts a very sophisticated type of thinker; it is not a path for people looking for someone else to do it for them. It’s a lifelong study and there’s no graduation day.’