HBO Max teams with Vanity Fair on a docuseries of Guru Jagat, the controversial celebrity wellness guru who died in August

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Jagat, who died at age 41 in August following complications from surgery on a broken ankle, drew celebrities like Kate Hudson and Alicia Keys to her controversial RA MA Institute with her teachings on Kundalini yoga. HBO Max has commissioned the four-part Breath of Fire on Jagat's practice based on a Vanity Fair story that was released today. "Depending on whom you ask, Jagat was a bona fide spiritual leader—or a fraud; a controversial thought leader; a bigot; a feminist; a rape apologist. Now, at the age of 41, she was dead. Maybe," writes Vanity Fair's Hayley Phelan. "The official story, as per Ra Ma Institute, was that Jagat had died of a pulmonary embolism following ankle surgery, a chronology of unluck they painstakingly detailed to all who’d listen. But those outside Jagat’s circle of followers weren’t necessarily convinced. Wild theories abounded. Drugs, suicide, complications from COVID-19—a disease she had publicly questioned the existence of and refused to be vaccinated for—were all rumored culprits. Others believed she had merely faked her own death to avoid a cancel campaign that had been brewing against her." Breath of Fire will be made with Vanity Fair Studios.