Inside Edition/November 20, 2003

Gray: “I don’t need to put Ph.D. by my name. I’m the most famous author in the world.”

In an exclusive interview with Inside Edition, airing Thursday, Nov. 20, famed author and lecturer John Gray fired back at a critic who has suggested that his credentials are questionable. “I don’t need to put Ph.D. by my name,” Gray told Inside Edition. “I’m the most famous author in the world, but I am a Ph.D., so that’s why I put it forth.”

“I’m not a fraud,” Gray told Inside Edition Senior Investigative Correspondent Matt Meagher. “I’m John Gray. I’m the author of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Judge my merit by my works, as well as what I say. What I say is the truth.”

Gray’s book is one of the best-selling self-help tomes of all time, selling fifteen million copies in 40 languages. There are also John Gray seminars around the world. He regularly appears on daytime talk shows, and even created his own show with host Cybill Shepherd. There are Mars/Venus counseling centers around the world.

“I’m a problem solver, and that’s what I do,” Gray told Inside Edition “I’ve spent 30 years of my life sitting and helping couples every day.”

But, the relationship guru now finds himself defending his credentials against allegations that his degrees were all obtained from unaccredited universities with questionable backgrounds.

Rick Ross runs the web site CultNews.com and looked into Gray’s background. “What fascinated me at first was just the fact that this man could have passed himself off to so many people for so long without anyone really questioning his credentials,” Ross told Inside Edition.

Ross recently wrote an article noting that Gray’s bachelors and masters degrees were received from the Maharishi Educational Research Center in Switzerland. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the counselor to the Beatles in the 70s, founded the now defunct school. Higher education associations in the United States do not recognize degrees from the school. Inside Edition has also confirmed that the best-selling author’s Ph.D. was obtained from the Columbia Pacific University in Northern California, which is a correspondence school that has since been shut down by the State of California for allegedly selling worthless diplomas.

But in the Inside Edition report, John Gray fires back saying, “The State of California acknowledged that, at the time I went there, it was a legitimate degree.”

At the time Gray received his Doctorate, the school was allowed to operate, and his degree is legal and valid. But the school was never accredited, which, according to the U.S. Department of Education, assures basic levels of quality and is required for membership in most medical associations.

“You can measure that school by the quality of the students they put out. Who are the students that CPU put out? Myself for example, who’s one of the biggest selling authors in the world,” says Gray.

Dr. John Bear, author and top expert on correspondence schools.

But, Dr. John Bear, an author and top expert on correspondence schools, tells Inside Edition that Gray’s doctorate degree is from an unaccredited school, which is problematic. “It holds a lot less weight.” He believes that the Ph.D. almost certainly helped Gray sell his books. “People look for respectability,” Bear explains. “Would he reach 18 billion in sales with the non-Ph.D.? I would guess not.”