Marianne Williamson, a longshot candidate for the presidency, responded to a Politico article accusing her of being abusive to her staff, referring to it as a “hit job”. While she denied some of the claims made by the dozen former staffers from her unsuccessful 2020 campaign, she also acknowledged that she is still in the process of personal growth.

The article described Williamson, a 70-year-old spiritual leader who recently announced her second consecutive run for the presidency, as a hypocrite prone to “foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage”.

“If I’ve been a tough boss lady, if I have some lessons to learn, which obviously maybe I do, then I hope that I will learn them,” Williamson told BBC’s Americast podcast.

The Politico article alleged that Williamson, a best-selling author, threw her phone at a staffer, screamed at employees until they cried, and even had a tantrum that resulted in her hospitalization after pounding on a car door. However, Williamson denied the accusation that she had thrown a phone at a staffer.

A 2019 resignation letter from her former Iowa State campaign director called the left-wing candidate’s behavior “belittling, abusive, dehumanizing and unacceptable.”

In the meantime, Williamson’s former New Hampshire state director supported the allegations made in the Politico article. Williamson, however, dismissed the former staffer as a man who is “trying to make his way back” into the Democratic party politics.

Despite previously vowing to defeat her opponents with love, Williamson told the BBC that playing hardball in politics is hardly an anomaly, stating “I’m not running for sainthood here.”

She also called some of Politico’s reporting “slanderous.”

Her Marianne 2024 website says, “A new kind of American — a new kind of thinker and a new kind of citizen — needs to arise now.”