In 2008, Oprah Winfrey filmed a glowing interview of Gurbaksh Chahal, a young ad tech entrepreneur who rose from bullied kid in the projects to an Internet mogul whose first company, ClickAgent, sold for $40 million when he was 18.
His second, BlueLithium, sold for $300 million when he was 25. Chahal is currently the CEO of RadiumOne.
"And he's single," Oprah gushed twice over the course of a 10-minute segment, met with excited cries from the studio audience. (See the video below.)
Last week, however, the 31-year-old was arrested for allegedly hitting and kicking his girlfriend 117 times in half an hour. Chahal pleaded not guilty to 47 criminal charges and posted $1 million bail Friday. One charge included assault with a deadly weapon — in this case a pillow that was allegedly used to smother the victim.
The attack allegedly occurred after Chahal found out his girlfriend went to Las Vegas with another man, and prosecutors say that the assault was captured on surveillance footage in his bedroom.
Chahal hired a PR agency to handle the press around his arrest. A statement was quickly released in which Chahal's lawyer announced that the charges were "simply wrong" and the allegations "overblown... Even before the arraignment today, the young woman voluntarily asked the charges be dropped, met with the prosecution, and provided photographic proof of an unblemished complexion to SFPD authorities."
Chahal, who's currently CEO of social retargeting firm RadiumOne, was known for his intentionally high profile lifestyle. He appeared not only on Oprah — where he discussed that a Lamborghini is "fun for the first day" but then gets kind of old — but also "Secret Millionaire" and "Extra," which named him one of "America's Most Eligible Bachelors."
"It is a challenge but I'm optimistic that I'll find the right person eventually," Chahal told Extra in 2009. "Someone that's fun; someone that's spontaneous." (Also brunette, with brains and beauty, and probably an American.)
But "just one warning girls," an Extra reporter noted, cutting to Chahal saying into the camera: "I'll probably be the most stubborn person you ever met."
Watch Chahal on Oprah:
Here's his eligible bachelor Extra segment:
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