The text of the article doesn’t support the headline.

“Married a student”, “the girls realized some of the students were hitting on them with pickup lines”, and “separated some of the more talented students for special lessons” are really not the strongest arguments for “he ran a cult”.

Even the “used hypnosis as a technique to teach acting” which has the article author wringing their hands is not really worrisome. From a cult you kinda expect “to compel members to transfer money” or “…to have sex with the guru” or “…to aggressively recruit from affinity groups” or, you know, something. There is no “something” in this.

Cults generally try to isolate and control people, regardless of the motive. Of course there are other criteria and opinions on them vary.