| Birth Name: | Rasa Sofija Jakstas |
| Other Names: | Kellie Everts |
| Birth Date: | 16 July 1945 |
| Birth Place: | Calw, Germany |
| Occupation: | Bodybuilder, stripper, religious leader, guru, author |
Rasa von Werder (also known as Kellie Everts; born Rasa Sofija Jakstas, July 16, 1945) is a German author, former stripper, female bodybuilder, photographer, evangelist, mystic, contemplative, and founder of a church.
Kellie Everts, née Rasa Sofija Jakstas, was born on July 16, 1945, in Calw, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Her Lithuanian parents, Stasys and Regina Jakstas, had fled from Lithuania (then part of the Soviet Union) under Stalin. The family ended up in a displaced persons camp, and in 1949, boarded the naval ship USS Heintzelman bound for the US.
Kellie's parents were sponsored to stay in an ethnic community in Newark, New Jersey. Her father, Professor Jakstas, founded a Lithuanian school in a church auditorium, having previously founded the first State Teacher's College in Kaunas, Lithuania.
When her parents separated, she moved with her father to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A month after finishing high school, she ran away (reportedly with one of Marilyn Monroe's photographers) to Hollywood, CA, where she began a career in show business. She lived in Santa Monica next to the pier, where she married Stanley Everts in 1963 and had a daughter named Kellie. She later lived in the Pacific Palisades, then Beverly Hills, and finally Hollywood. Stanley Everts passed away in 1966.
After ten years of living in California, she returned to Williamsburg, where she spent 17 years. She started a successful business and managed to acquire $200,000 in savings, which she used to buy a house in Binghamton, in Upstate New York, where she has lived ever since.[1] [2] [3]
She married Richard Allan Von Werder in 2000 after being engaged since 1986, and they remained married until he died in 2002.
Everts was effectively the founder of female bodybuilding; before her involvement, it was extremely rare for women to participate in the sport. She began competing in various bodybuilding contests in the NYC area in 1972.[2] Due to her work, which included a 6-page layout in Esquire magazine in July 1975, television appearances on To Tell the Truth, The Mike Douglas Show and The Stanley Siegel Show, and inaugurating female bodybuilding in Playboy magazine in May 1977, serious female fitness and bodybuilding contests began to be held. The first was IFBB Miss Fitness 1979, and the next was IFBB Ms. Olympia 1980. After these first two, many more were held, and hundreds, later thousands, of women began to train and compete. She elaborates further in one of her many books, The Origin & Decline of Female Body Building (2011), and in a 2019 interview with David Robson.[2]
Despite having single-handedly laid the groundwork for female bodybuilding and having trained for the event, she was barred from entering the 1981 Caesar's Palace Boardwalk Regency IFBB in Atlantic City.[4] However, by then, she had accomplished her goal of legitimizing the sport.
Rasa won the titles of Miss Nude Universe in July 1967 by strutting and bouncing around totally nude in front of a naked audience, and Miss Americana 2nd place and Best Body in 1972 (on the same stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger), Miss Body Beautiful 2nd place in 1973, Miss Body Beautiful U.S.A. in 1974, and Miss Americana 2nd place & Best Body 1974 (the same stage as Arnold Schwarzenegger again).
She made nine appearances in Playboy. She was the first female bodybuilder to do so, in the "Humping Iron" edition, May 1977 (predating Lisa Lyon's appearance by three years).[5] Later, she appeared in a two-page spread titled "Stripping for God".
Her live dancing career spanned North America from March 1966 to August 1987. She quit to focus on producing dancing and female domination videos. She made enough money to purchase a large private property in Upstate New York.
On February 2, 2007, the World Bodybuilding Guild (WBBG) named her "Progenitor" of Female Bodybuilding and, in August 2007, inducted her into their Hall of Fame.[6]
In September 1973, Everts gave her first religious talk before dancing at the Melody Theater in Times Square. This combination act of stripping and preaching led the press to dub her the "Stripper for God".[7] [8] [1]
Everts traveled in the United States and Canada, giving over 1,000 sermons in burlesque theaters and nightclubs.[9] [10] [11] [12] "Stripping for God" created public debate about the coexistance of sexuality and spirituality, and conflicted with prevailing social norms and constructs at the time. The assertion of being an ordained minister while openly working in the adult entertainment industry was controversial.
In 1988, she made one trip to the United Kingdom[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] where she notably appeared on The Morton Downey Jr. Show. As a result of the egregious mistreatment of her on the show by the host Morton Downey Jr., Everts filed a libel lawsuit against both Downey and the television network WWOR-TV.[22]
Everts later changed the emphasis of her mission to the return of matriarchy and the feminine divine. On June 16, 1978, she preached a message about Our Lady of Fátima in front of the White House, intending to bring about the conversion of Russia and, by extension, preventing a potential nuclear World War III. The gist of the message was, "Pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia, or nations will be annihilated."[23]
After shifting her focus, she founded The University of Mother God Church, which became a distinct religion for women.
Everts has done much unrelated activism, humanitarian, and community work, primarily in Brooklyn, New York.[24]
On May 24, 2004, Everts, under her present name Rasa Von Werder or Guru Rasa of the Church of MotherGod, started the Woman Thou Art God Website.[25] She has since continued publishing online on her religious beliefs. She has thirty-eight (and counting) books published on female empowerment, her biography, matriarchy spirituality, and various other subjects. Since 2014, Rasa has also had another main website as well, Embodiment of God, that further builds upon the first one.[26]
She has also collaborated with other authors as well in writing books and online articles, most notably including William Bond, who is also featured on that site.[27]
In her later years, after 30 years of celibacy for spiritual purposes, beginning at age 63 in 2008 (according to her, God told her to stop suffering, quit celibacy and have fun – thus it was "the Will of God"), Rasa became a "cougar" and photographer of males, mainly in the college town of Binghamton, New York, to further the cause of female empowerment. At Binghamton University, she was popular overall and featured several times on the front page of their student newspaper.[3] She has written about this experience in several books (see Bibliography section).
Rasa has also expanded upon her new matriarchal religion for women, writing the book Woman, Thou Art God: The New Religion for Women in 2019–2020. She is currently working on several other books from 2021–2024. These include further volumes in her autobiographical I Strip For God book series and books containing all the guidelines, directions, doctrine, and suggestions for her Sisterhood and "New Religion for Women" that she founded.[26] [28]
As a result of her influence, Werder has made numerous appearances in numerous forms of magazine prints, including The New York Post (1974), D-Cup (1989),[32] The Examiner,[33] The Sun (1998)[34] and has frequently been portrayed on Playboy.[35]