Frank Parlato
The source of almost all the information on OneTaste’s allegedly abusive practices is Ayries Blanck, 34. Known also as Ares Milligan, she was a one-woman wrecking crew.
Blanck’s claims of forcible sexual and domestic abuse caused a once profitable company to lose millions. Bloomberg, Netflix, BBC, Vice, and Playboy reporting Blanck’s story led to the criminal prosecution of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz.
Blanck presents herself as a victim-survivor, forced into sex by OneTaste, which also condoned the domestic abuse by her wealthy boyfriend because he was a big-spending customer and potential investor.
Odd Couple Recalled
Ayries Blanck, then 21, and her boyfriend Ravi, then 34, took their first OneTaste class in Boulder, Colorado, in October 2012.
Ravi, whose wealth came from family money, moved to NY to become a OneTaste coach. Blanck came with him. The couple lived in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Hells’ Kitchen from 2013 to 2014. During much of the time, they lived in what OneTaste calls OM houses – larger multi-level apartments – where OneTaste students offer each other support and group practices while living together and attending classes.
Louisa, who credits OneTaste with helping her get off drugs, was a student who became close to Blanck. Louisa lives in South America and has not been active in OneTaste for years.
Louisa said:
Ayries was very muscular, healthy, and worked out. That was one of the most impressive things about Ayries: she was very fit. She was also loud, dominating, and bossy— ‘We got to do this.’ ‘This is how you should be,’ kind of forceful person.
Ravi had an autoimmune condition. He was very sick with fibromyalgia. He’s very, very intelligent, kind of complicated and quiet.
Rachael Hemsi, a OneTaste teacher, confirmed Ravi was ailing.
His body always hurt. When things got stressful, his body hurt all the more. He had various illnesses, and some days he felt better and strong. Other times, he felt weak and could not get out of bed.
Another person who remembers the couple is Courtenay Lapovsky. She lived in an OM house with Blanck and Ravi for six months. A former NYC school teacher with a master’s degree, Lapovsky told FR about her impression of Blanck.
She wasn’t a steady, stable person. She had a bit of the ‘psycho’ in her that made you think, ‘Was that just shtick, or is she really a psycho?’
When I first moved in, she told me that she couldn’t be roommates with me because she might murder me in my sleep. It wasn’t so serious that I was like, ‘Oh, God, I can’t live here‘. It was more like, ‘Wow, this is an intense person I’m rooming with,’ I definitely didn’t sleep well the first couple of nights. Those first few nights, I was definitely like, ‘What does she mean by that?’
We became friendly after that, but it was an intense way to start a roommate relationship.
Domestic Abuse in Relationship, But By Whom?
Blanck left OneTaste in 2015. In 2020, she participated in a ten-part BBC podcast, ‘The Orgasm Cult,‘ advertised under the genres of factual, crime, and true crime.
The BBC podcast refers to Blanck as “Cassidy,” and a voice actor called Max tells BBC reporter Nastaran Tavakoli-Far, “(Ravi) would be so abusive towards (Blanck), that the people working at OneTaste would discuss whether they should call the police.”
Lapovsky agreed their relationship was contentious.
I came home one day, and the two of them were screaming from downstairs. I was upstairs, and it was like ear-shattering screams. I went into a room and finally had to go out and yell, ‘You have to stop.’ They stopped and just went in their separate directions.
The fights continued.
Lapovsky recalled, “There were the screaming matches, and one day Ayries threw Ravi’s clothes out of the house.”
Jenny Slusher, a former employee who left the company in 2014, witnessed violence between the couple.
Ayries was abusive towards Ravi pretty regularly. Ravi is a skinny dude. He was little. He could not hurt or fight anyone. And his general demeanor was pretty passive. He was very feminine. He’s not the kind of guy that could force anything or do anything like that.
Louisa also recalled Blanck, not Ravi, was physically abusive.
At times it did get physical between them. Ravi is way less physically strong than her.
Janet, a former OneTaste student, recalled the same thing:
When I did see them fight or argue, I would see Ayries being physically violent toward him. I’ve seen her hit him a couple of different times.
I’ve seen her throw a punch. I’ve seen her hit him open hand. I’ve seen her try to punch Ravi in the head. I’ve watched her be violent on a number of occasions.
Blanck was a Martial Artist
According to several sources, Blanck practiced Muay Thai, a martial art of punches, kicks, elbows, and knee strikes. One person familiar with Blanck said she held a black belt.
Janet said Blanck was violent with her once.
Ayries was walking out of a room. I was sitting on the floor talking to someone, and she kicked me. And I said, ‘You just kicked me.’ And she said, ‘That was an accident.’ I said, ‘No, it wasn’t. You literally kicked me. You had to walk out of your way to do it.’ She was a violent person.”
Another former OneTaste employee told Frank Report:
Ayries used to kick Ravi a lot. She used to kick him hard.
When it came to fights with Ravi, probably eight and a half times out of 10, Ayries instigated it. She would instigate, and he would defend himself, and then she would blame it on him.”
Blanck Claimed He Abused Her
After leaving OneTaste, Blanck claimed Ravi was the domestic abuser.
My boyfriend would hit me, and nobody did anything about it. One time he gave me a black eye and a split lip.”
On the BBC podcast, reporter Nastaran said (Ravi) “would behave abusively towards Cassidy (Blanck), something that was common knowledge to the people working there.”
From evidence in the podcast, the BBC’s voice actor, “Max”, is Blanck. The BBC deceptively permits Blanck to tell her story in the third person, (through the male voice actor) a lie by omission, falsely conveying the impression that Max is another former employee of OneTaste other than Blanck, while omnisciently knowing what happened to her when she was alone with Ravi. The ham-handed producers slipped up when Max even knows what Blanck dreams.
In the BBC’s “true crime” podcast, Max says Blanck “would show up (at OneTaste gatherings) with very visible signs of bruises.”
The BBC offers no corroboration from anyone named other than Max (who .the reporter admits, is a voice actor, speaking for an anonymous source).
I spoke to more than a dozen witnesses – on the record, most of whom spoke with permission to use their full names.
No one remembers seeing Blanck bruised. None said it was common knowledge that Ravi abused Blanck. In fact, it was common knowledge that Blanck abused Ravi.
Evidence Points to Blanck as Domestic Abuser
OneTaste employee Rachael Hemsi said she tried to counsel Blanck about her volatile temper.
She said:
I would witness her yelling at people. If something upset her, she would lose her temper pretty easily. She was a hothead. Ayries amitted that she physically abused Ravi. She’d start screaming, and then lose control and turn to violence.
According to Ravi, they broke up in July 2013, five months after coming to NY. They got back together, then broke up again in April 2014 and got together again. Within two months, an incident sealed this relationship’s fate.
On June 1, 2014, Blanck locked Ravi in a room, forcibly preventing him from leaving, according to eyewitnesses. He called for help. Their roommates tried to talk Blanck into freeing Ravi. She refused.
They considered calling the police. Instead, Rachel Cherwitz, an executive for OneTaste, told them to remove the door and free Ravi.
Juan, whose bedroom was across the hallway from Blanck and Ravi, told Frank Report, “I took the door off the hinges.”
Once freed from the room, Ravi left.
Ravi said in a text to explain:
We broke up in June 2014. And we had sex a couple of times, but mostly I was working on (emotional) sobriety and told her I was learning how to not be in a romantic addiction and seemed like we were mostly in an addiction.
Money at the Heart
Without Ravi to pay her bills, Blanck had to work. She chose to become a sales associate for OneTaste. Her finances caused her to borrow $2,000 from her roommate, Courtenay Lapovsky, who told Frank Report:
When it was time to repay the loan, Ayries told me, ‘I can’t pay you back right now. I just keep worrying. What if one day I get cancer and I need $2,000 for the treatment, and I’ve given it back to you?’
It was a bizarre thing to say. What if you got cancer? What do you say to that? What if I got cancer, and I needed $2,000, and you kept my money?
So I said, ‘if you ever get cancer, and you need money, we can discuss it.’
Lapovsky said Blanck eventually paid her back.
Break Up Was Final
Despite breaking up, both Ravi and Blanck stayed in New York, but lived separately. Both remained associated with OneTaste, but Blanck started dating many other men, as her text to others show.
Hemsi said:
Ayries was clear she broke up with Ravi. She kept saying, ‘It is over.’ She had been having sex with other men even before they broke up. Now she began to see many men. Ravi did not have all that many women, but she had many other men. But still she tried to get him back. She missed Ravi’s money.
Ravi Finds a New Girlfriend, Blanck Goes Beserek
Five months had passed since they broke up.
In November, Ravi and Aubrey Fuller, a OneTaste coach, began a serious romantic relationship.
Hemsi said:
When Ayries learned Ravi and Aubrey got together, she hit the f—g ceiling. The reason she was so upset was that she thought she would lose access to all his money. That is the only thing she cared about.
Because Ravi and Fuller met at a OneTaste event, Blanck blamed OneTaste. Blanck texted her boss, Rachel Cherwitz:
I will kill you and me. And… I will kill Aubrey.
Blanck texted her friend Justine Dawson about Aubrey and Ravi:
I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to burn the city down.
Blanck also sent Fuller, the new girlfriend, a message on Facebook Messenger on November 23, 2014:
I wish I had human words to describe the depths to which I hate you and hope you suffer and hurt. So it’s a good thing you can feel, because you will feel this for a very long time. I hate you.
After a few days, Blanck seemed to calm down and descended into tears and depression, as domestic abusers often do when the partner they abused finds someone who treats them kindly.
Blanck Becomes Violent
In December, Blanck flew to California with her roommate, Maya Gilbert. Then, she flew back to New York, on January 6, 2015. She said she planned to get her possessions and return to California to work at OneTaste in Los Angeles.
Eyewitnesses describe what happened on January 7, 2015 at a OneTaste home in the Gramercy Park area.
Juan was at the Grammercy Park apartment with Fuller, Janet, and others.
Juan told FR:
Ayries rang the doorbell and wanted to come up. She says she’s got something she left here, and she’s here to pick it up.
I knew she had gotten really upset (about Ravi and Aubrey). I wanted to make sure no trouble happened. I said, ‘Okay, let her in, and I came over to the living room wheree Aubrey was.
Blanck spotted Fuller in the living room, Jaun said, and “came straight at her.”
Fuller explained:.
I was in the living room area with my friend Janet. Ayries ran upstairs through the front door. She came straight at me, and punched me in the side of the head.
Janet told FR:
Ayries punched Aubrey in the side of the head with a closed fist. She didn’t get punched square in the face, in the eye, or the nose because Aubrey turned her head, so she ended up getting punched in the side of her head instead.
Juan, who had once taken a door off its hinges to free Ravi, jumped into action.
I grabbed Ayries by the waist and picked her up, and dragged her back to the doorway to get her out. She kept yelling and screaming… I was just focused on making sure she didn’t swing at me, and grabbing her so she wouldn’t get out of my hold, because she was gonna go after her again.”
Janet added
She almost tore right through (Juan). She was very strong. A second woman had to help pull Ayries back. So now we’re talking about two people, both larger than Ayries, that it’s taking to hold back this woman who is just out for blood with Aubrey.
Fuller said
If there hadn’t been other people to pull her off me, she would have kept going. She hit hard. It shook me up for a good few hours on the left side of my head. She was screaming and yelling, cursing at me, calling me names, and yelling at the people pulling her off. As they were dragging her away, Janet grabbed me and took me out of the apartment, downstairs, and into a cab.
Fuller did not report the attack to the police.
I felt sorry for Ayries, kind of scared of her, and just frozen by the whole experience. I had never had an experience where somebody would actually do that. I wasn’t expecting it at all.
The day after attacking Fuller, Blanck quit her job on January 8, 2015, and left NY.
Blanck Quiet on Her Attack of Fuller
Blanck never mentioned this attack on Fuller in her journal, which her sister read on Netflix. Blanck never told the BBC, Bloomberg, Playboy, or Vice – about her attack on Fuller. Instead she became an accuser who claimed she was a victim of Ravi and OneTaste.
Blanck wrote in her Netflix journal:
I was dumped on the streets of New York like trash. How they turned their backs when it was no longer convenient for them to protect or care about.
In this journal made public in 2022 after selling rights to Netflix for $25,000, Blanck wrote under an entry for January 20, 2015 – a date less than two weeks after leaving OneTaste.
I woke up today filled with rage. Rage at what Ravi did to me… How could I have stayed with him after the first time he hit me?…
I do not remember what we fought about or why he hit me, but he did. He punched me in the face, split my lip, and bruised my eye. At first, I was shocked. We had fought many times before, but I had never thought he would go that far…
There is indisputable evidence that Blanck (or someone) wrote the journal years after its dating. Netflix never verified its authenticity and told viewers it was written in 2015.
In her falsely dated journal, Blanck claims she went to her boss, Rachel Cherwitz, in a hazy stupor (not unlike what Aubrey Fuller described after Blanck punched her) to tell her, in the presence of OneTaste staff and students, what happened.
I watched Rachel in a daze through half-shut eyes, my cheeks burning with shame. This, I was told, was my fault. I had forced (Ravi) to do it….
As (Cherwitz) finished, I looked around the room. All eyes were downcast. Nobody was willing to stand for me. I never spoke again about the other times he hit me or drugged me around. Looking back now, I can’t believe I stuck through it. I so wanted to believe he would change.
Shoddy Media
Ayries Blanck, AKA Ares Milligan, the originator of the abuse allegations against OneTaste, claims a roomful of OneTaste people heard about Ravi abusing her. They were silent, with eyes downcast, unwilling to stand up for her.
I contacted every person I could find who was around at the time, many of whom had long since left OneTaste and had no reason to lie. These are real people. Not only are most of them identified by first and last names, but the ones who are identified by first names only are people anyone associated with OneTaste, friend or foe, could easily identify. I did not use voice actors or pretend people like they did in Bloomberg, Netflix, and the BBC.
Every real person I contacted said Blanck’s story is fiction. No one ever saw any signs Ravi abused Blanck. Everyone knew Blanck had abused Ravi.
It is extraordinary that the BBC, Bloomberg, Vice, Playboy, and Netflix did not seek any corroboration of Blanck’s story.
They relied on Blanck as a single source to destroy a company and fuel a federal investigation that led to the indictment of two women based on stories so easy to debunk that it took me a matter of days to investigate and discover Blanck was lying.
Something is wrong here, not only with Blanck, but also with the media.
Ayries Blanck abused her boyfriend, beat up his new girlfriend, left OneTaste seeking vengeance, and, in classic projection, blamed her victims for the conduct she did herself.
In return for readers and viewers, the media gave Blanck the weapon of vengeance by reporting her lies as truth.
We will examine this in our coming analysis of the BBC, Bloomberg, Vice, Playboy, and Netflix reporting on OneTaste.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Where is the nearest porn shop in relationship to Ayries Blanck’s residence?
Sounds right but who knows what she cared about. Maybe she cared about more than Ravi’s money. Lots
of things were important to her. Onetaste advocated not demonizing the wrongdoer as the only factor in bad situations. None of the people you mention were perfect nor I nor you mothafucka.
I still think One taste is quilty
Happy 4th to Frank & all the OGs!!!
OG means original gangster.
What they teach about women having sex is dangeorus. Mastirbation ir even fingering a woman is bad. It makes them horny snnd it makes them crazy.
Then they cheat on their husbands.
The things OneTaste is teaching will disturb society and break up the family. Women are supposed to be monogamous. But if you let anyone finger your wives your sisters your mother they aren’t going to be monogamous. They will start with wanting other guys fingers then they will want other guys kisses and then they will want other guys cocks. It is easy to figure
This could be funded by Chinese probably not but it has the power to destroy society.
Stop Om-ing which is why this prosecution of the woman that started it is so necessary. Agree Blanck is a deplorable human. It Hof has a pal. God is using her to destroy One Taste and bring women back to virtue.
Blanck is like Mary Magdalene. She as a slut big time but she can redeem herself.
When she does God will forgive her. He is using her as a tool to make women act like women.
Stop it. I no it is extreme but I would vote for cutting of the finger of any srroker.
If some guy did that to my wife I would cut off his balls.
Women are fickle. It is just how it is. It’s up to men to protect society. Stop OneTaste. This is no joke. It’s real. You went your wife going to some class and having some guy finger hrt?
Bullshit. Don’t. Be fooled. Don’t think this isn’t real.
Do it Bow! Right Bow !!!?!
OneTaste mistake : not filing criminal charges against Ayries. Look what she did. If they had her arrested for locking Ravi in room. If they had her arrested for attacking Aubrey or for her death threat texts.
The only way to deal with a dirty savage vicious animal like Ares Milligan is to arrest her. She took kindness as weakness. Not look what has happened.
She is an animal and belongs in a. Cage.
Ayries was openly violent against other OneTaste members for years, but no one in the organization took steps to kick her out.
Only after the CEO and Head of Sales are indicted do they make a big deal of it.
Sounds 100% legit!
I can’t wait to sing up for lessons!
Astonishing tale. The movie they make based on this story will be rich.
Astonishing
She fucks other guys but wants his money. She sounds like a winner
Honestly she looks like a mean one
You’d boink her.
I think Blanck should be indicted
So this bitch was kicking and screaming at her coworkers and instead of firing her, she got promoted? Instead of kicking her out, they had her move in with the president of the company?
Sounds like a great place to work.