With press attention increasing on Goyim TV, the antisemitic website co-founded by a Petaluma man linked to an ongoing nationwide flyer campaign, Hella Yoga, a hot yoga studio in Berkeley announced Saturday it has fired one of its most popular instructors because of her relationship with Goyim TV’s co-founder Jon Minadeo, Jr.
Kelly Johnson, Minadeo’s girlfriend, according to the yoga studio, “is no longer associated with Yoga Hell Petaluma or Hella Yoga Berkeley,” the company wrote in an email to thousands of customers sent at 2:45 p.m. “We are a firm believer in diversity and inclusion,” the email said, continuing to charge that “Kelly seems to share in Jon’s beliefs” and “had assisted him in his business of hate.”
“We were devastated to find out that someone so close to us could be so far from our values,” the statement read.
Yoga Hell and Hella Yoga were founded by Jeff Renfro, a Jewish businessman and fitness enthusiast whose father, Ed Renfro, was a famous cartoonist who gave the studios their distinctive look. The companies meld yoga and fitness in a nightclub atmosphere, offering hot pilates, a hybrid class called “Bikyasa” that combines Bikram (hot yoga) and Vinyasa, and “Bikram Beats,” a class that combines hot yoga and music.
Renfro also owns Funky Door Yoga in Berkeley, a popular studio that saw up to 500 customers per day before the pandemic, Jeff Renfro said.
In the roughly six years Johnson worked for Renfro, they developed a close relationship and she became one of his most trusted employees, he told J. He knew that her boyfriend Minadeo, who would often visit the studio, had “extreme” views. But when he learned what they were it came as a shock.
“I thought he was into QAnon,” or something of that nature, Renfro said.
In late 2021, Renfro said he noticed a change in Johnson, that “bigoted” comments were coming out of her mouth, about Black Lives Matter protests. He alleges she made a comment about sitting next to “smelly Jews” on a plane. He wasn’t sure what to make of her comments, but suspected Minadeo was influencing her, he said, and gave her the benefit of the doubt because of their longstanding business relationship and friendship.
About two months ago, Renfro decided to finally Google Jon Minadeo. He found a host of news coverage about him, including in J., and discovered the Goyim TV website.
“I can’t find the words to tell you how bad it is,” Renfro said. As a Jew, it’s as if “he’s calling me a dirty kike, an evil kike. And that I should be killed.”
Around the time he Googled Minadeo, Renfro said he found evidence that Johnson helped Minadeo with paperwork for her boyfriend’s LLC, Goyim TV LLC, on her work computer. Minadeo formed the business entity last year. Renfro also alleged Johnson helped Minadeo improve the technology on his livestream.
Johnson did not immediately respond to a phone call Saturday seeking comment.
Renfro said he contacted “every Jewish organization he could think of,” including the Anti-Defamation League, and this publication, when he learned of Goyim TV. He is continuing to work with ADL, which follows Goyim TV closely.
Renfro and his wife and business partner Lynn Whitlow said they would be making a donation to the Auschwitz Memorial Fund out of profits from the Berkeley studio.
Renfro stressed that firing Johnson represented an ugly end to a significant business and personal relationship. Johnson began as a receptionist, and worked her way up to becoming an instructor. Eventually she, Renfro and Whitlow became business partners.
“She’s a very valuable member of our team,” Renfro said, adding she’s “like a sister” to him.
“I told her I’m Jewish, I explained to her that my mother was Jewish,” he said. “This is something that is not okay, no matter how good of friends we are. This overrides our friendship.”
