In May of 2022, VICE aired an episode on OneTaste, in which a key theme repeated throughout the episode was the allegedly unknown whereabouts of Nicole Daedone, OneTaste’s cofounder, who they suggested had fled the country. Given the formulaic nature of their “reporting”, this narrative is as predictable as it is wrong.
From VICE:
In the year prior to the OneTaste expose, Nicole sold the company allegedly for millions of dollars. Nicole’s current whereabouts are unknown to most former OneTaste members.
Nicole’s trail has gone cold. A tip from an independent writer offers the most promising lead in months.
In the VICE episode, a character called “Jenna,” who spoke under a pseudonym, wonders where Nicole has fled to and discusses her disappearance with others.
Netflix picked up on this theme in an October 2022 promotional post for the documentary “Orgasm, Inc”:
Daedone is currently the subject of an FBI investigation after fleeing the country and selling her stake in OneTaste in 2017.
This is a demonstrably deliberate attempt to smear Nicole based on false pretenses. Nicole sold her stake in OneTaste over six months before Ellen Huet of Bloomberg Businessweek was introduced to the organization. Nicole is a resident of New York City whose work has brought her to travel internationally. Her whereabouts are never unknown to her friends. For anyone trying to engage with her, she is very easy to find on Instagram.
The statement that “Nicole’s current whereabouts are unknown to most former OneTaste members” is also worth commenting on. “Members” is a term that media outlets intent on making OneTaste sound sinister have used. It’s a term that helps to make those who chose to participate sound stupid and gullible. Reading these accounts, one is subtly invited to regard the 35,000 people who came through the doors of OneTaste as if they were members of a banned political party or a dangerous criminal gang.
People participated at OneTaste in various roles: As readers, subscribers, course attendees, employees, certified coaches, OM practitioners, attendees of the many free community events OneTaste hosted. They were not called “members” and didn’t refer to themselves that way, and nor did OneTaste. They chose their roles and their level of engagement. It would be like calling anyone who ever played an instrument a “member” of the musicians’ group. There is, in reality, no such group. Just individuals making music. “Jenna” did enroll for a year-long program called Membership (she later withdrew and obtained a sizable refund per her purchase agreement).
The program was based on a similar program offered by Tony Robbins and was quite popular. Just over 150 people out of 35,000 in-person participants enrolled in it over time. However, Bloomberg, BBC, VICE, and Netflix use the term “member” as a catch-all to describe anyone with any form of association with OneTaste because it best conveys the “it was dark and stormy night and gullible, vulnerable people were being fleeced” feeling they are seeking to convey.
The depiction of “Jenna,” who appears consumed with Nicole’s whereabouts in VICE, is not at all in accordance with her genuine experience. In particular, “Jenna” had only incidental exposure to Nicole as a OneTaste customer. For her to be speculating in VICE on Nicole’s ‘mysterious disappearance’ without knowing Nicole personally and when Nicole‘s “trail” never “went cold” is a storytelling contrivance attempting to add drama to make up for the lack of any substance.
“Jenna” could have reached out to Nicole at any time via Instagram and received a response. VICE knew full well that the notion of ‘Nicole on the lam’ was pure bunk, as did Netflix. Indeed, there was extensive pre-publication correspondence between VICE and Nicole’s attorneys to present facts to VICE that would help them avoid repeating the falsehoods broadcast by the BBC and published by Bloomberg.
Similarly, the Netflix producers were often in contact with Nicole’s representative about the possibility of an interview and the location for such an interview. The notion that she “fled” was known to them to be fiction. Further, the statements in VICE suggest that there is something alarming about the fact that five years after selling her stake, most former OneTaste participants don’t know Nicole’s current whereabouts when, in fact, there is no reason any of them would.
