Self-Help Guru Settles Libel Lawsuit

Best-selling author Deepak Chopra and The Weekly Standard have reached an out-of-court settlement of his libel lawsuit, the magazine said Monday.

In a July 1, 1996, article, the conservative weekly accused the self-help guru of plagiarism and of three times hiring a prostitute who claimed he had paid her with a credit card.

“While we operated in good faith in publishing the article, we are now convinced that certain allegations reported in that story were false,” the Standard said in a “correction and an apology.” It added that the tone of its original article was unfair to Chopra.

The magazine said it now believes someone else used a credit card with Chopra’s name and forged his signature.

The Standard also retracted the allegation that Chopra had plagiarized another published work.

And the magazine said, “We also would no longer state that his company’s herbal remedies have high levels of bug parts and rodent hairs or levels higher than other such organic products.”