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Which brings us to Arianna Huffington. According to several news reports, including The Times’ obituary of her partner during the ‘70s and early ‘80s, British columnist Bernard Levin, it was Huffington—then a Greek socialite who went by Arianna Stassianopoulos—who is alleged to have introduced Levin to the Rajneesh movement in the late-‘70s.
“Probably the greatest female influence during his lengthy period on The Times was that of the Greek heiress Arianna Stassianopoulos,” wrote The Times to mark Levin’s 2004 passing. “Levin liked tall elegant women as much off-stage as he did on, and needed them as companions at dinner or in the theatre. Arianna answered that requirement perfectly, and had an intelligence to match. Her interest in mystic cults also appealed, though it was to lead him into one of the more embarrassing episodes of his journalism—his hyperbolic praise through a number of columns of the self-promoting guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (whose main claim to fame became his fleet of more than 90 Rolls-Royces).”