June 19, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode, we dive deep into the life of Miss Cleo, the charismatic face of the Psychic Readers Network. We explore her rise to fame, the controversies that surrounded her, and the eventual downfall that left her devastated.
We discuss the deceptive practices of the Psychic Readers Network, the legal battles that ensued, and how Miss Cleo was exploited by the very company that made her famous.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Where should we call this one? Call me now. Call me now. For a free reading.
Miss Cleo, voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Voodoo.
Voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Just don't.
Music.
(00:33):
We'll see you next time. really quick justin timberlake what an
idiot i know he's in it he like he has
to know that when he does that shit he's gonna get caught and it's gonna be
a big thing it's gonna be a huge thing but i'm like um sir for you to go straight
to jail for one dui is that normal i don't know i don't know what it's like
okay yeah i didn't know that i mean it's not i was like is this your third It's not like jail.
(00:57):
No, it's not like jail. It's like overnight holding. It's like drunk tank.
And they have to take a mugshot? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah.
I have not been, personally. Me neither. Clearly. I don't know what it's like.
I have not been, but I have picked up a friend. Stop!
On Halloween, our first Halloween in college. In the city?
(01:20):
She walked out of her front door. Didn't even get off of her street. wait, I didn't call her.
Drunk in public? Drunk in public. I was going to say, she was driving in a city?
She wasn't driving, but she was like, yeah, drunk in public, arrested.
And we were like in the Castro because this was like back when they had these
like big, crazy Halloween parties in the Castro.
(01:42):
And well, the gays love to dress up. Oh, my God. It's the best part.
Halloween in Hillcrest is a lot of fun, too, by the way. My favorite thing ever.
But yeah, we had to go. We had to leave the Castro to go pick her up.
Oh, my God. And we, like, waited there for a long-ass time. And she was like,
they took her mugshot. Okay, so let me just be very clear, though.
In what manner did you stumble out of the house to get spotted immediately on Halloween?
(02:09):
There's so much other shit going on.
You must have been real bad.
I do think she looked— She also looks really young.
Aww. So my thought is they might have thought that she was, like,
a high school student. it and let me take her off the streets because and honestly
safety i don't think anyone was doing her any favors i think that it was a dick
move but here we are dang shout out,
(02:33):
Shout out, girl. Right? Yeah. Okay. So this one, we should get into it since
we're both, like, so tired.
Although you just napped. I did just nap. It was glorious.
Could have kept napping. But then that would have been sleep.
Then I would have— I know. When you said at, like, 5 p.m., I'm going to take
a quick nap, I was like, are you?
(02:54):
I was literally driving home. You know when you're tired, but you're not physically
tired, you're mentally tired?
Yeah. So your brain is like your eyes are heavy. You're just like feeling like I got nothing left.
It was that. Yeah, I do that all the time. And I had the like my left.
So for lunch today, I had like half of a broke down busted ass salad because
(03:14):
I was like kind of rushing to finish something.
And then I had to go on the ride along and blah, blah, blah.
Not like ride along for a police officer, but ride along for an audit.
And I was just rushing to, you know, be done. And so I just half assed my salad.
It was very good. It was broke down, but it was good.
And so by the time I was like driving home, I was like, oh, my God,
I'm starving, tired, all these things.
(03:37):
So I ate like a second half of my wrap right when I got home. Yeah.
Immediate, like comatose. Yeah. So I went to sleep. I slept on a full stomach.
Barely full, though. It was half a wrap. Let's not get crazy. Yeah.
But so needed, though, because I feel so much better right now.
And if I half of me was like do I just charge through it no,
(04:01):
no the fuck I don't if it really if it was like really a hard like if you were
really like honestly I didn't even know you didn't have work tomorrow we could
have always recorded tomorrow morning and then still had it out by the end of
the day yeah but no honestly it's good because I have so we have tomorrow off
Aldridge's too so tomorrow's supposed to be fake Father's Day,
(04:22):
they recognize a lot of like the big holidays they recognize Juneteenth month
if i have tomorrow off i'm happy you mean today i mean today is what i meant to say,
because we keep we're like at the buzzer type people we're just recording the
day before this is gonna get on the edge i know living on the edge that's fine
(04:42):
it's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine we're fine we're fine everything's fine
everything's fine we're fine everything's fine,
but okay let's get into it i'm jess i'm jenna and let's get spiritually.
It sounds like you're like
we're like going into like a wrestling ring all
(05:03):
right you're gonna be really excited about this one though oh was that truthful
or i can't tell you're yeah oh okay all right well fuck around let's do this
we're talking about miss Miss Cleo.
Oh, that is exciting. I know.
(05:24):
This will be a palate cleanser. It is definitely a palate cleanser.
Oh, Miss Cleo. Because we've had some rough ones. You know that's right.
I mean, it's been really, really rough the last, like, one, two,
three, four. Fuck a Teal Swan.
Fuck a Nixxiom. Four episodes have been, like, all heavy.
So here is our palate cleanser. Okay, I haven't even heard the name Miss Cleo
(05:48):
in I don't know how long, but it brings me great joy. I know,
doesn't it? Like, it's exciting.
Yeah. Because she's just so over the top. Yeah.
I can't wait. Yeah. Because I only, like, know what I know. I feel like we're going to dive.
Yeah, and, like, yeah. Okay. Okay, let's do it.
So, Miss Cleo was actually born Yuri Del Harris on August 12, 1962 in L.A.
(06:16):
Wow did you just guess because you were thinking not
jamaica no oh okay
sorry you never you never even assumed she was no
i didn't you would be right okay i couldn't verify much about her upbringing
and a lot of what is known as very contradictory and a little bit murky but
(06:38):
we do know that her parents had money enough anyway to send her to an all-girl
catholic boarding school
yeah yeah that's many monies
and la i mean there's pockets but oh
i mean if you're living in la you probably okay and for
years for years like people were like peddling like really weird stories about
(06:59):
her parents specifically that they were drug traffickers i think just to make
her seem like she wasn't an educated woman that she was really kind of this
like voodoo kind of like Like, sassy.
Really? That she, like, rose from the... I don't know. I think also,
like, the 90s were, like, super racist, but in a way that they thought was,
(07:20):
like, totally normal. Yeah.
The 90s of it all. The 90s of it all.
Her roots, again, very murky. She claims her parents were from the Caribbean
and taught her at a young age to drop any sort of accent so that she could be successful.
She also claims that they were practitioners. But she was born here. So what accent?
Well, so they were immigrants. She picked up, she picked up like her parents.
(07:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
She also claims that they were practitioners of, and I don't know if this is
how you pronounce it, but obeah?
Obeah? Okay. Or basically voodoo. How do you spell that? I want to say it. O-B-E-A-H. H.
Oh, yeah. I would say Obeah. Yeah. Something like that. Okay. Or Voodoo.
And she said that she studied under a Haitian mambo for 30 years and eventually became a mambo herself.
(08:08):
This could be true. But she said it. She said it. It's hard to verify. Okay.
It's hard to verify any of this, especially in immigrant cultures.
A lot of stuff is orally passed down. There's not a lot of paper trails.
So even if this was taxidermy. It's a game of telephone over years and years
and years, so the narrative can change. Yes. Fair.
(08:32):
So in 1996—oh, oops, nope, back it up.
Zoop, zoop. So we also know in the early 80s, she got married,
had a daughter, and divorced all before she was 21.
Oh, my God. So she gets out of school, gets straight to it, and then is like, not for me.
Yeah. I have no idea what happens between like the 80s and like in 1996 because
(08:58):
in 1996 she shows up in Seattle using the name Ree Paris and writes,
directs, and produces a play called Four Women Only in which she plays a Jamaican woman named Cleo.
This is where she found herself. Somewhat. So she produced a few more plays,
but in 1997, she cuts and runs halfway through the production of her play, Supper Club.
(09:22):
She never pays the cast or crew and tells them that she can't pay them because she has bone cancer.
And all of that money needs to be used for her medical bills. Wait a minute.
I did not see this coming because when I thought we were doing Miss Cleo,
I thought she was a good human.
She's sounding sneaky. Well, we'll see. I just remember her on,
(09:43):
like, the infomercials, like, oh, call Miss Cleo. Call me now.
So good. I know. Yep. No, it's a palate cleanser.
I think that there's some shady stuff, not necessarily from her,
but I think that she was a hustler.
Okay. I think that she's a hustler, and it comes back to bite her in the ass
(10:04):
a little bit, but I don't think it was deserved.
Fair. Okay. OK, so she cuts and runs and she's like, I will pay you.
And supposedly she did write everyone like letters that was like,
I owe you this much money. I do know. I am recognizing.
She's like just handing out IOUs saying I will make good on this eventually.
Yes. And then that never does came to pass. Although it's not like she doesn't
(10:30):
really ever come into money.
So no, even when she's doing all the the psychic readings on the hotlines. We'll get there.
So at this time, the Psychic Friends Network was a hot ticket in the infomercial space.
It was launched in 1991, and it had this kind of like late-night talk show format
(10:52):
hosted by Dionne Warwick and psychic Linda Georgian.
Okay. I think that's how you say her name. And so in 1993, Cousins' Stephen
Fetter and Peter Stoltz launched the Psychic Readers Network to feed off the
success of the Psychic Friends Network.
They're like, we're just going to copy-paste that.
(11:14):
They hired Billy Dee Williams, who is Lando Calrissian in Star Wars. Yes.
I know you do not know this. You knew that. But he is played by his character,
Lando Calrissian, is played now, like his younger version, by Donald Glover.
Oh. Mm-hmm. Who I do love. Did that hook you a little bit? Yeah,
(11:38):
it did. Maybe get you a little bit more interested? Yeah. Okay.
So they do love me. I know. Love me some childish.
Okay. I'm burning up. So they hired Billy Dee Williams to star in the infomercial.
And it looks like he came in for like
maybe 10 minutes at a time and was like we're gonna
do it all in one take because it's just like every
(11:59):
infomercial he's like are you ready for a reading what are you doing are you
ready for this it's just like rapid fire throwing shit out there just like they
can edit it anyway he's like yeah he's like i'm gonna give you this i'm gonna
give I'm going to give you that and it's going to be ready.
Yeah. Give me my money. It's coming. Yeah. So he did very little work, it looked like.
(12:23):
This is a side note, but this is kind of a side quest, if you will.
But I think it illustrates psychic reader networks or PRN. We'll call it PRN
because that's just a mouthful.
Like kind of their ethics.
So billy d williams and prn got
(12:44):
in trouble in the mid-90s for airing an infomercial following the
1994 northridge earthquake claiming one
guy so like their infomercial shows no this
one building that had collapsed and they're showing the building of
this apartment and then on the line is someone
going i called the psych or psychic readers network
and they told me to get out of the building before get my daughter out of the
(13:06):
building right before it collapsed and the guy whose apartment they were showing
was like that's not me I didn't call that this is fucking traumatizing as hell
to see this used for you guys for somebody's benefit off of somebody else's like just like,
Their whole entire lives just coming to this. Yeah, for a Psychic Readers Network commercial.
(13:30):
So the guy was like, no, that never happened. It ended up being dismissed.
Another spokesperson was Catherine Oxenberg, who helped take down Nixxiom.
Okay, okay, okay.
With, oh my God, with Sarah and Mark Vicente and all of them.
(13:52):
Anyway i don't even remember the name katherine you
know she wasn't like a top big she's a big part of
the vow but i didn't include much of her because like her story is in there
a lot of it she's the one that she was like if i she didn't want to go to the
fbi right away because she didn't want her daughter to be implicated for being
(14:14):
in dos okay so in the 90s she was doing
psychic network calls.
So in 1997, Ree Harris, or Dee Perry, Dee? Ree. She goes by Ree.
Like Ree. Like Ree. Like R-E. Like Teresa.
Like you're Ree is her name. Oh, oh, oh, okay. So she goes by Ree.
(14:37):
So Ree Harris moves from Seattle, leaving her production in the lurch and settles
in Florida because Florida.
Okay, that's the only Taylor Swift song I super love, actually.
All right, so she takes a job at Psychic Readers Network as a hotline psychic as reader number 16153.
(15:03):
It was apparently really easy to get this job. And they advertised in a paper
for phone actors, which makes me feel like that's how she got involved. Yeah.
I don't think that, I think, like, that whole thing about, like,
growing up voodoo and all that stuff, I think that comes later.
After. As she, like, kind of shapes her narrative. And it's just to try to,
(15:24):
like, build on her narrative.
It's, like, to try to, like, give it some system. Yes.
Okay. So I think that she saw phone actors and she was like,
oh, well, I can do that shit.
And apparently it was, like, really easy. It was a work-from-home job,
so you would just, like, call and, like, you could do whatever the fuck you
want. She was working remote before working remote.
(15:44):
She was working remote before it was a thing. Yeah. So they had two requirements.
Keep callers on the phone as long as possible and tell them whatever they want to hear.
Scary scary they would charge 395 per
minute for the caller they would pay the reader 14
cents fuck off per minute of logged call time that is so crazy like yeah so
(16:12):
it works out to about 8 50 an hour if if you were on the phone for a full if
you were not on the phone you were making You were making zero.
You were making zero. Correct.
That is like the big, like, listen, they're getting $3.99.
Yeah. You're going to give this guy 14 cents? Yeah. That's fucked up. That is fucked up.
(16:34):
In 2000, Stoltz and Fetter see Harris doing a tarot reading with her accent,
and they're like, hey, you're really magnetic.
Can you come do these infomercials? With her accent.
I honestly do think that her accent is what, like, made her stand out,
made her memorable, made her you know well
do you also remember though like the infomercials
(16:56):
were like kind of salacious and they kind of like felt like
a jerry show or something because she would be like oh do you mean that guy
or that other guy like she'd like call people out for like cheating and for
like scams and she'd be like oh i see everything or like i know everything honestly
i I just remember the infomercials being.
(17:19):
Call Cleo, you know, whatever. And it was just like late at night.
And because I was watching, I don't know, fucking Nickelodeon.
Not Nickelodeon. Nick at night. Nick at night. Yeah, that's what it was.
And no, I don't remember too much. I can see it. Yeah. I feel like clouds were involved.
Yeah. Yeah. There were. Yeah. It was like purple and like clouds. Yeah.
(17:41):
But I don't remember too, too much. Yeah. Yeah, so...
And they create this. Oh, no, sorry. So they hire her. They're like,
let's get you in some infomercials.
She gets for two days of shooting. She gets one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars.
I mean, that fucking kills 14 cents an hour for sure.
(18:03):
Yes. She then gets a bump in pay to a lavish 24 cents an hour.
Talk dirty to me. uh-huh right which works out to about 14 an hour and again
that's if they're on the phone.
But by this point there she's on the phone because she's like the face of the
(18:25):
whole situation people are calling in to talk to her yes so she's still working the call yeah,
she's not just like a spokesperson no she's
like working there and basically like using
her as this like what is that like a
mascot yeah yeah so they create this narrative
that she's a shaman from jimbeka born and
(18:46):
raised in trelawney and they lean into this whole like miss cleo shit and she
blows up they made tarot cards a book which i am on the hunt for and i feel
like it is at a bookstore i don't want a new one i want to come across no i
want one And then that's like got highlights. Yeah.
Circles, maybe some. It's called Keeping It Real with Miss Cleo. Maybe fold it. Stop.
(19:09):
I swear to God. Stop. Keeping It Real with Miss Cleo. I think it's called.
Wait, let me double check. Hold on.
I think it's called Keeping It Real. With Miss Cleo.
Because honestly, I want. Oh, yeah. Keeping It Real, a practical guide for spiritual living.
Okay. I want it. I want one with like folded edges, like marks.
(19:30):
Yeah. The whole the whole nine.
So they have all the shit. They merchandise the shit out of it.
She's parodied on MADtv. Oh, yeah.
Most famously, That's So Raven. Stop.
Okay, Raven-Symoné. I feel like she would do her like. I never swear.
(19:51):
Never really watched That's So Raven. I think I was,
old no yeah we were too old yeah but my cousins used to uh i feel like it would
i feel like aaron when i yeah when i babysat them and every time i'd be like.
That's funny but yeah her her infomercials they
were like funny she had this like crazy big accent that
(20:12):
was always like call me now let me see what's in the deck and
she would like it had like this like maury
it kind of reminded me of like maury but like okay you
went from jerry to a mori i think it's more than a jerry because it wasn't like
trashy it was a little bit of like okay i've got a deep dark secret and let's
keep this classy because i'm a real journalist yeah and i can tell you i can
(20:37):
tell you this mustache all the thing all the thing yeah so,
yeah there's always someone cheating she was always gonna find
out all of it was obviously scripted well duh and
then she was just trying to like i'm sure she's playing in listen
i don't want to discredit true mediums and
true psychics yeah that
can read she ain't it no i
(20:59):
think this is where so i do think we'll get
there okay we'll get there do you think she might have had um i think that she
will because everyone has a little bit of like intuitiveness right so maybe
in doing this work she kind of gets more in touch with her intuitiveness because
later on she does It does become,
(21:20):
like, a little bit more involved with that while still making no money, which is usually...
I mean, if you're still doing it and making no money, then you're doing it for
the right reason, maybe.
Maybe. We don't know. I don't know.
So she got to voice a character in Grand Theft Auto Vice City but was unable
(21:41):
to use the name Miss Cleo because it was trademarked by a PR.
Huge, huge red flag. People would get unsolicited emails saying,
Miss Cleo has been authorized to issue you a special tarot reading.
Visit or what?
They would say, Miss Cleo has been authorized to issue you a special tarot reading.
(22:04):
It's vital that you call immediately.
Which if someone is like dire straits and a psychic, that's like one of the first.
Yeah, they're low hanging fruit. You'd be like low hanging fruit. Yeah.
They're like, oh, I'm at my max. Wait a minute. Somebody can give me answers?
Yeah. What do I have to lose?
(22:26):
Also, callers would be really so irritated when they would call the hotline
and not get Miss Cleo. And not get her?
She says that one time she was at a Best Buy and a customer is like, Shane, you be at work?
I just saw you say call me now. You're not there. And she was like,
I literally am just here to get, like, a cable or something.
(22:47):
Yeah. It was probably not even a cable.
It was probably, like, a TV cord or, I don't know.
A floppy disk. A floppy disk. A pack of these floppy disks.
She's getting a bunch of CDs that she can burn. CDRs. Yeah.
That's so good. But callers also were told that they could have free five minutes.
Free five minute reading or something like a free five minute reading and that
(23:11):
they would almost always charge full price and they would get like a bill.
That is so crazy. I know. I think I do remember them saying first five minutes are free.
Uh huh. That is so crazy.
OK. Just such a scam. Yeah. So Psychic Readers Network ends up making at least
(23:31):
one billion in call fees.
And this is a B with a B. B.
B with a B. This is like late 90s, early 2000s. So that translates now to like
a lot. A jillion, trillion.
Billion with a B. Oh my God. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission sued Psychic
Readers Network for deceptive advertising billing and collection practices.
(23:54):
Good. They tried to get Ms. Cleo, who they believed was a stakeholder in the
company, because there was no untangling like her image from PRN.
PRN, but they find out that she was not only not a stakeholder of any kind,
but she was getting ripped off.
She was severely underpaid and exploited. Yeah.
Oh, I know. She said that they were like, let's see your talent manager.
(24:19):
And she passed him over and they were like, this isn't a joke.
Yeah. This has got to be a joke. Ma'am, you're making 24 cents an hour. Yeah. Or a minute.
A minute. A minute. 24 cents a minute. Might as well. Well, I'm sure some people
did because they were on the phone call that time.
They're like, surely this isn't it. Your name, your everything.
Like, you are the face of this company, essentially.
(24:40):
That is making a billion dollars. And you're making scraps.
Scraps. So, PRN settles for paying a $5 million fine to the FTC and for giving
debt and sending refund checks to callers that totaled over $500 million.
Good. so but holy fucking shit
(25:01):
they're done they're like basically done yeah during the
lawsuit miss cleo is dragged by the press and it comes out that she was born
in la not in jamaica she's considered a fraud and a liar and it just devastates
her it sucks but where's the lie you know it it sucks but where's the lie in
(25:21):
that like she's just being outed for the
bullshit that she's... For playing a character. Exactly. Exactly.
And it just... That people believe to be true. So...
Sucks, but doesn't. It sucks, but it sucks.
Yeah. So she falls into this deep depression, doesn't leave her house,
and her friends have to basically drag her, like, kicking and screaming to a
(25:44):
barbecue to try to, like, pull her out of her funk. Aww.
And they surround her and support her, and she finds this, like, little chosen family.
In 2006, she comes out as gay, and it's through this journey of self-discovery
that she finds love a few times.
She's able to heal from like all the fuckery that
(26:04):
is the psychic readers network and despite trying
to make the best of a shitty situation those fuckball
cousins keep trying to kick her while she's down in 2005 she appears as miss
cleo in a car dealership ad they sue her and the car dealership claiming that
they own her like likeness and the whole like miss cleo shit why They also sued
(26:29):
Benefit Cosmetics for using her image in a commercial.
They sued General Mills for using her in a commercial for French Toast Crunch. Get out of here.
Yeah. They were like, we own this character. Successfully sued them?
I think that they all just pulled their ads.
Okay. I don't think that there was a successful, like, two-trial lawsuit. What a haters.
(26:50):
I know. It's like, so fucked up. Because at this point, she's not wronging people.
Like, she's not lying to people. Yeah.
Yeah, she's just advertising. She's just using her familiar face.
She's trying to make a buck because they've ripped her off and fucked her entire life up. Yeah.
So in 2014, she appeared in the documentary Hotline about the history of telephone
(27:14):
hotlines and laid low until her death in 2016. She died?
She died of colorectal cancer in Palm Beach on July 26 of that year.
I didn't know Ms. Cleo died. I know. Wait, how old was she?
She was pretty young. She was super young. 62, so in her 50s.
(27:34):
Damn. 52. I know. That is so young. I know.
So, so young. In 2022, HBO or Max or whatever.
Whatever it is. HBO Max or Max or whatever. Uh-huh. Aired a documentary called
Call Me Cleo, which is a great watch. Okay. It's really fun.
And I do think that she was a bit duplicitous and a hustler, but I don't.
(27:58):
I don't think that she deserved everything that came out of her.
Like, not, like, having, like... Fair.
I think at the time when I... Because I remember when everyone was like,
Ms. Cleo's a fraud. In my mind, I was like, well, obviously.
I don't understand why this is big news. I guess for me, I'm like...
The people that were calling in, though... Yes. Really believed they were talking
(28:19):
to somebody who, you know...
But, I mean, at the same time...
Do we think that mayhem from the Allstate commercials? The Allstate commercials is a real person?
No. No, yeah. I don't know. Do we think the Geico gecko is real?
Well, for me, I remember thinking, should I call her?
(28:43):
Did you ever call her? No. Did you think about it? Of course I thought about it.
I don't, like, you know, I'm like, how cool would it be to know the future?
To know things. I don't think this thought ever crossed my mind. Oh, for me, it did.
I saw so many of those, and I don't think I ever thought to call in.
But for me, it was like, oh, my God, if only I could.
(29:04):
Because I knew I couldn't. I knew I didn't, you know, whatever.
But I'm like, you know, I don't know. Maybe I was young and naive.
But I was, like, believing of Miss Cleo. And so.
No, it is unfortunate. Especially for, like, people. like i
there were some people that were saying like they
like people that were employed there were
(29:25):
like we were getting paid nothing obviously i don't have
a gift there were some people who like maybe did have gifts but they're that
whole like keep them on the line as long as possible tell them what they want
to hear they're like at a certain point like you breach your own ethic yeah
and where do you go from there right and i feel like for you to i mean i know
(29:45):
and it's like like, just to create this, like, persona.
But this persona that you created, you're trying to tell people to believe that it's true.
Yeah. She just certainly was not born in... Well, in people, obviously.
Like, her accent was made fun of, like, nonstop. Yeah. Because it wasn't,
like, it was, like, so weird and not very Jamaican.
To my seven-year-old self, though, I believe that she... You know what's funny?
(30:08):
Is that, like, later on in her life, she still, she continued to talk like that.
Which is wild. But if that's how her parents... She probably had done it for
so long. Yeah. Well, and if her parents talk like that...
But you know how many people that are born here and they're parents? Like, I don't... Yeah.
Yeah, you say weird shit all the time. But you don't have a full-blown accent. You know, I do say...
(30:33):
Not long ago, did I realize... Drawer? Drawer. That's a good one.
We had to phone a friend on that one. But not long ago, did I realize that persimmon is...
Persimmon? Persimmons. but I've called them perceived ones my whole life because
my mom so it's like not real or not right I don't think anyone No I'm just saying,
(31:02):
yeah well I'm just saying like certain things like if they're said a certain
way in the house you grew up I get like how you would just like continue to,
but yeah I know so that is Miss Cleo I'm sad for her I'm sad for her but I feel like,
no one was murdered nobody was murdered
no sexual assault i feel like she lived a few lifetimes though
(31:24):
with like everything like how's her child is it a
daughter is it a son like it's two daughters i'm like how are they i couldn't
find any information they probably don't want anything out there yeah my hands
are swollen from what probably living living life yeah but yeah no No, I'm like, I'm like,
(31:45):
I feel like she was married, child,
divorce, like all these things.
And then went through, like, obviously was like taken advantage of by this company.
And, you know, like, and then she went into depression. Like,
yeah, she lived quite a wild life. Yeah.
A few lifetimes, I feel like in one go. Yeah.
(32:08):
It's I really recommend you guys watch the documentary. It's.
Why it's like wild and you do
sense like oh fuck this lady she was
she was hustling and she was like maybe a little bit
like she needed a manager but at
the end like towards the end when you see like the whole
(32:29):
fallout of the whole like prn thing
because they it ended up being like miss cleo's
being taken to court miss like they wouldn't ever
refer it's never prn is being taking a court it
was miss leo so she was like
the face of the company the whole time whether she wanted
to be or not yeah well i think at that point she wasn't
even working for them anymore it's fucking crazy so i think that it gives you
(32:53):
like a little bit more insight and it's fun to watch the old infomercials infomercials
yeah i feel like we need to like i'm gonna post the billy you better because
it was like it literally looks like he walked in a studio and he's like Like,
I'll give you five minutes of my time.
And that is a very accurate impression. That was accurate.
I felt like I just was watching him here in this moment. Lando?
(33:20):
Speaking through you? Speaking through me? He's a force ghost?
That was too far. You don't know that. I know. I don't. You don't know.
I know. I know. I'm not a fan. I know. I'm passenger somewhere.
Oh, my God. Typically. What should we call this one? call me now call me now
for a free reading Miss Cleo voodoo don't voodoo don't.
(33:46):
Voodoo don't voodoo don't voodoo don't don't do it don't do it man oh my god
thanks for listening thanks voodoo don't call a um setting your call time,
PRN oh my god fuck those weird cousins alright All right. Bye. Bye.
(34:09):
Music.
Where should we call this one? Call me now. Call me now. For a free reading.
Miss Cleo, voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Voodoo.
Voodoo don't. Voodoo don't. Just don't.
Music.
(00:33):
We'll see you next time. really quick justin timberlake what an
idiot i know he's in it he like he has
to know that when he does that shit he's gonna get caught and it's gonna be
a big thing it's gonna be a huge thing but i'm like um sir for you to go straight
to jail for one dui is that normal i don't know i don't know what it's like
okay yeah i didn't know that i mean it's not i was like is this your third It's not like jail.
(00:57):
No, it's not like jail. It's like overnight holding. It's like drunk tank.
And they have to take a mugshot? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah.
I have not been, personally. Me neither. Clearly. I don't know what it's like.
I have not been, but I have picked up a friend. Stop!
On Halloween, our first Halloween in college. In the city?
(01:20):
She walked out of her front door. Didn't even get off of her street. wait, I didn't call her.
Drunk in public? Drunk in public. I was going to say, she was driving in a city?
She wasn't driving, but she was like, yeah, drunk in public, arrested.
And we were like in the Castro because this was like back when they had these
like big, crazy Halloween parties in the Castro.
(01:42):
And well, the gays love to dress up. Oh, my God. It's the best part.
Halloween in Hillcrest is a lot of fun, too, by the way. My favorite thing ever.
But yeah, we had to go. We had to leave the Castro to go pick her up.
Oh, my God. And we, like, waited there for a long-ass time. And she was like,
they took her mugshot. Okay, so let me just be very clear, though.
In what manner did you stumble out of the house to get spotted immediately on Halloween?
(02:09):
There's so much other shit going on.
You must have been real bad.
I do think she looked— She also looks really young.
Aww. So my thought is they might have thought that she was, like,
a high school student. it and let me take her off the streets because and honestly
safety i don't think anyone was doing her any favors i think that it was a dick
move but here we are dang shout out,
(02:33):
Shout out, girl. Right? Yeah. Okay. So this one, we should get into it since
we're both, like, so tired.
Although you just napped. I did just nap. It was glorious.
Could have kept napping. But then that would have been sleep.
Then I would have— I know. When you said at, like, 5 p.m., I'm going to take
a quick nap, I was like, are you?
(02:54):
I was literally driving home. You know when you're tired, but you're not physically
tired, you're mentally tired?
Yeah. So your brain is like your eyes are heavy. You're just like feeling like I got nothing left.
It was that. Yeah, I do that all the time. And I had the like my left.
So for lunch today, I had like half of a broke down busted ass salad because
(03:14):
I was like kind of rushing to finish something.
And then I had to go on the ride along and blah, blah, blah.
Not like ride along for a police officer, but ride along for an audit.
And I was just rushing to, you know, be done. And so I just half assed my salad.
It was very good. It was broke down, but it was good.
And so by the time I was like driving home, I was like, oh, my God,
I'm starving, tired, all these things.
(03:37):
So I ate like a second half of my wrap right when I got home. Yeah.
Immediate, like comatose. Yeah. So I went to sleep. I slept on a full stomach.
Barely full, though. It was half a wrap. Let's not get crazy. Yeah.
But so needed, though, because I feel so much better right now.
And if I half of me was like do I just charge through it no,
(04:01):
no the fuck I don't if it really if it was like really a hard like if you were
really like honestly I didn't even know you didn't have work tomorrow we could
have always recorded tomorrow morning and then still had it out by the end of
the day yeah but no honestly it's good because I have so we have tomorrow off
Aldridge's too so tomorrow's supposed to be fake Father's Day,
(04:22):
they recognize a lot of like the big holidays they recognize Juneteenth month
if i have tomorrow off i'm happy you mean today i mean today is what i meant to say,
because we keep we're like at the buzzer type people we're just recording the
day before this is gonna get on the edge i know living on the edge that's fine
(04:42):
it's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine we're fine we're fine everything's fine
everything's fine we're fine everything's fine,
but okay let's get into it i'm jess i'm jenna and let's get spiritually.
It sounds like you're like
we're like going into like a wrestling ring all
(05:03):
right you're gonna be really excited about this one though oh was that truthful
or i can't tell you're yeah oh okay all right well fuck around let's do this
we're talking about miss Miss Cleo.
Oh, that is exciting. I know.
(05:24):
This will be a palate cleanser. It is definitely a palate cleanser.
Oh, Miss Cleo. Because we've had some rough ones. You know that's right.
I mean, it's been really, really rough the last, like, one, two,
three, four. Fuck a Teal Swan.
Fuck a Nixxiom. Four episodes have been, like, all heavy.
So here is our palate cleanser. Okay, I haven't even heard the name Miss Cleo
(05:48):
in I don't know how long, but it brings me great joy. I know,
doesn't it? Like, it's exciting.
Yeah. Because she's just so over the top. Yeah.
I can't wait. Yeah. Because I only, like, know what I know. I feel like we're going to dive.
Yeah, and, like, yeah. Okay. Okay, let's do it.
So, Miss Cleo was actually born Yuri Del Harris on August 12, 1962 in L.A.
(06:16):
Wow did you just guess because you were thinking not
jamaica no oh okay
sorry you never you never even assumed she was no
i didn't you would be right okay i couldn't verify much about her upbringing
and a lot of what is known as very contradictory and a little bit murky but
(06:38):
we do know that her parents had money enough anyway to send her to an all-girl
catholic boarding school
yeah yeah that's many monies
and la i mean there's pockets but oh
i mean if you're living in la you probably okay and for
years for years like people were like peddling like really weird stories about
(06:59):
her parents specifically that they were drug traffickers i think just to make
her seem like she wasn't an educated woman that she was really kind of this
like voodoo kind of like Like, sassy.
Really? That she, like, rose from the... I don't know. I think also,
like, the 90s were, like, super racist, but in a way that they thought was,
(07:20):
like, totally normal. Yeah.
The 90s of it all. The 90s of it all.
Her roots, again, very murky. She claims her parents were from the Caribbean
and taught her at a young age to drop any sort of accent so that she could be successful.
She also claims that they were practitioners. But she was born here. So what accent?
Well, so they were immigrants. She picked up, she picked up like her parents.
(07:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
She also claims that they were practitioners of, and I don't know if this is
how you pronounce it, but obeah?
Obeah? Okay. Or basically voodoo. How do you spell that? I want to say it. O-B-E-A-H. H.
Oh, yeah. I would say Obeah. Yeah. Something like that. Okay. Or Voodoo.
And she said that she studied under a Haitian mambo for 30 years and eventually became a mambo herself.
(08:08):
This could be true. But she said it. She said it. It's hard to verify. Okay.
It's hard to verify any of this, especially in immigrant cultures.
A lot of stuff is orally passed down. There's not a lot of paper trails.
So even if this was taxidermy. It's a game of telephone over years and years
and years, so the narrative can change. Yes. Fair.
(08:32):
So in 1996—oh, oops, nope, back it up.
Zoop, zoop. So we also know in the early 80s, she got married,
had a daughter, and divorced all before she was 21.
Oh, my God. So she gets out of school, gets straight to it, and then is like, not for me.
Yeah. I have no idea what happens between like the 80s and like in 1996 because
(08:58):
in 1996 she shows up in Seattle using the name Ree Paris and writes,
directs, and produces a play called Four Women Only in which she plays a Jamaican woman named Cleo.
This is where she found herself. Somewhat. So she produced a few more plays,
but in 1997, she cuts and runs halfway through the production of her play, Supper Club.
(09:22):
She never pays the cast or crew and tells them that she can't pay them because she has bone cancer.
And all of that money needs to be used for her medical bills. Wait a minute.
I did not see this coming because when I thought we were doing Miss Cleo,
I thought she was a good human.
She's sounding sneaky. Well, we'll see. I just remember her on,
(09:43):
like, the infomercials, like, oh, call Miss Cleo. Call me now.
So good. I know. Yep. No, it's a palate cleanser.
I think that there's some shady stuff, not necessarily from her,
but I think that she was a hustler.
Okay. I think that she's a hustler, and it comes back to bite her in the ass
(10:04):
a little bit, but I don't think it was deserved.
Fair. Okay. OK, so she cuts and runs and she's like, I will pay you.
And supposedly she did write everyone like letters that was like,
I owe you this much money. I do know. I am recognizing.
She's like just handing out IOUs saying I will make good on this eventually.
Yes. And then that never does came to pass. Although it's not like she doesn't
(10:30):
really ever come into money.
So no, even when she's doing all the the psychic readings on the hotlines. We'll get there.
So at this time, the Psychic Friends Network was a hot ticket in the infomercial space.
It was launched in 1991, and it had this kind of like late-night talk show format
(10:52):
hosted by Dionne Warwick and psychic Linda Georgian.
Okay. I think that's how you say her name. And so in 1993, Cousins' Stephen
Fetter and Peter Stoltz launched the Psychic Readers Network to feed off the
success of the Psychic Friends Network.
They're like, we're just going to copy-paste that.
(11:14):
They hired Billy Dee Williams, who is Lando Calrissian in Star Wars. Yes.
I know you do not know this. You knew that. But he is played by his character,
Lando Calrissian, is played now, like his younger version, by Donald Glover.
Oh. Mm-hmm. Who I do love. Did that hook you a little bit? Yeah,
(11:38):
it did. Maybe get you a little bit more interested? Yeah. Okay.
So they do love me. I know. Love me some childish.
Okay. I'm burning up. So they hired Billy Dee Williams to star in the infomercial.
And it looks like he came in for like
maybe 10 minutes at a time and was like we're gonna
do it all in one take because it's just like every
(11:59):
infomercial he's like are you ready for a reading what are you doing are you
ready for this it's just like rapid fire throwing shit out there just like they
can edit it anyway he's like yeah he's like i'm gonna give you this i'm gonna
give I'm going to give you that and it's going to be ready.
Yeah. Give me my money. It's coming. Yeah. So he did very little work, it looked like.
(12:23):
This is a side note, but this is kind of a side quest, if you will.
But I think it illustrates psychic reader networks or PRN. We'll call it PRN
because that's just a mouthful.
Like kind of their ethics.
So billy d williams and prn got
(12:44):
in trouble in the mid-90s for airing an infomercial following the
1994 northridge earthquake claiming one
guy so like their infomercial shows no this
one building that had collapsed and they're showing the building of
this apartment and then on the line is someone
going i called the psych or psychic readers network
and they told me to get out of the building before get my daughter out of the
(13:06):
building right before it collapsed and the guy whose apartment they were showing
was like that's not me I didn't call that this is fucking traumatizing as hell
to see this used for you guys for somebody's benefit off of somebody else's like just like,
Their whole entire lives just coming to this. Yeah, for a Psychic Readers Network commercial.
(13:30):
So the guy was like, no, that never happened. It ended up being dismissed.
Another spokesperson was Catherine Oxenberg, who helped take down Nixxiom.
Okay, okay, okay.
With, oh my God, with Sarah and Mark Vicente and all of them.
(13:52):
Anyway i don't even remember the name katherine you
know she wasn't like a top big she's a big part of
the vow but i didn't include much of her because like her story is in there
a lot of it she's the one that she was like if i she didn't want to go to the
fbi right away because she didn't want her daughter to be implicated for being
(14:14):
in dos okay so in the 90s she was doing
psychic network calls.
So in 1997, Ree Harris, or Dee Perry, Dee? Ree. She goes by Ree.
Like Ree. Like Ree. Like R-E. Like Teresa.
Like you're Ree is her name. Oh, oh, oh, okay. So she goes by Ree.
(14:37):
So Ree Harris moves from Seattle, leaving her production in the lurch and settles
in Florida because Florida.
Okay, that's the only Taylor Swift song I super love, actually.
All right, so she takes a job at Psychic Readers Network as a hotline psychic as reader number 16153.
(15:03):
It was apparently really easy to get this job. And they advertised in a paper
for phone actors, which makes me feel like that's how she got involved. Yeah.
I don't think that, I think, like, that whole thing about, like,
growing up voodoo and all that stuff, I think that comes later.
After. As she, like, kind of shapes her narrative. And it's just to try to,
(15:24):
like, build on her narrative.
It's, like, to try to, like, give it some system. Yes.
Okay. So I think that she saw phone actors and she was like,
oh, well, I can do that shit.
And apparently it was, like, really easy. It was a work-from-home job,
so you would just, like, call and, like, you could do whatever the fuck you
want. She was working remote before working remote.
(15:44):
She was working remote before it was a thing. Yeah. So they had two requirements.
Keep callers on the phone as long as possible and tell them whatever they want to hear.
Scary scary they would charge 395 per
minute for the caller they would pay the reader 14
cents fuck off per minute of logged call time that is so crazy like yeah so
(16:12):
it works out to about 8 50 an hour if if you were on the phone for a full if
you were not on the phone you were making You were making zero.
You were making zero. Correct.
That is like the big, like, listen, they're getting $3.99.
Yeah. You're going to give this guy 14 cents? Yeah. That's fucked up. That is fucked up.
(16:34):
In 2000, Stoltz and Fetter see Harris doing a tarot reading with her accent,
and they're like, hey, you're really magnetic.
Can you come do these infomercials? With her accent.
I honestly do think that her accent is what, like, made her stand out,
made her memorable, made her you know well
do you also remember though like the infomercials
(16:56):
were like kind of salacious and they kind of like felt like
a jerry show or something because she would be like oh do you mean that guy
or that other guy like she'd like call people out for like cheating and for
like scams and she'd be like oh i see everything or like i know everything honestly
i I just remember the infomercials being.
(17:19):
Call Cleo, you know, whatever. And it was just like late at night.
And because I was watching, I don't know, fucking Nickelodeon.
Not Nickelodeon. Nick at night. Nick at night. Yeah, that's what it was.
And no, I don't remember too much. I can see it. Yeah. I feel like clouds were involved.
Yeah. Yeah. There were. Yeah. It was like purple and like clouds. Yeah.
(17:41):
But I don't remember too, too much. Yeah. Yeah, so...
And they create this. Oh, no, sorry. So they hire her. They're like,
let's get you in some infomercials.
She gets for two days of shooting. She gets one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars.
I mean, that fucking kills 14 cents an hour for sure.
(18:03):
Yes. She then gets a bump in pay to a lavish 24 cents an hour.
Talk dirty to me. uh-huh right which works out to about 14 an hour and again
that's if they're on the phone.
But by this point there she's on the phone because she's like the face of the
(18:25):
whole situation people are calling in to talk to her yes so she's still working the call yeah,
she's not just like a spokesperson no she's
like working there and basically like using
her as this like what is that like a
mascot yeah yeah so they create this narrative
that she's a shaman from jimbeka born and
(18:46):
raised in trelawney and they lean into this whole like miss cleo shit and she
blows up they made tarot cards a book which i am on the hunt for and i feel
like it is at a bookstore i don't want a new one i want to come across no i
want one And then that's like got highlights. Yeah.
Circles, maybe some. It's called Keeping It Real with Miss Cleo. Maybe fold it. Stop.
(19:09):
I swear to God. Stop. Keeping It Real with Miss Cleo. I think it's called.
Wait, let me double check. Hold on.
I think it's called Keeping It Real. With Miss Cleo.
Because honestly, I want. Oh, yeah. Keeping It Real, a practical guide for spiritual living.
Okay. I want it. I want one with like folded edges, like marks.
(19:30):
Yeah. The whole the whole nine.
So they have all the shit. They merchandise the shit out of it.
She's parodied on MADtv. Oh, yeah.
Most famously, That's So Raven. Stop.
Okay, Raven-Symoné. I feel like she would do her like. I never swear.
(19:51):
Never really watched That's So Raven. I think I was,
old no yeah we were too old yeah but my cousins used to uh i feel like it would
i feel like aaron when i yeah when i babysat them and every time i'd be like.
That's funny but yeah her her infomercials they
were like funny she had this like crazy big accent that
(20:12):
was always like call me now let me see what's in the deck and
she would like it had like this like maury
it kind of reminded me of like maury but like okay you
went from jerry to a mori i think it's more than a jerry because it wasn't like
trashy it was a little bit of like okay i've got a deep dark secret and let's
keep this classy because i'm a real journalist yeah and i can tell you i can
(20:37):
tell you this mustache all the thing all the thing yeah so,
yeah there's always someone cheating she was always gonna find
out all of it was obviously scripted well duh and
then she was just trying to like i'm sure she's playing in listen
i don't want to discredit true mediums and
true psychics yeah that
can read she ain't it no i
(20:59):
think this is where so i do think we'll get
there okay we'll get there do you think she might have had um i think that she
will because everyone has a little bit of like intuitiveness right so maybe
in doing this work she kind of gets more in touch with her intuitiveness because
later on she does It does become,
(21:20):
like, a little bit more involved with that while still making no money, which is usually...
I mean, if you're still doing it and making no money, then you're doing it for
the right reason, maybe.
Maybe. We don't know. I don't know.
So she got to voice a character in Grand Theft Auto Vice City but was unable
(21:41):
to use the name Miss Cleo because it was trademarked by a PR.
Huge, huge red flag. People would get unsolicited emails saying,
Miss Cleo has been authorized to issue you a special tarot reading.
Visit or what?
They would say, Miss Cleo has been authorized to issue you a special tarot reading.
(22:04):
It's vital that you call immediately.
Which if someone is like dire straits and a psychic, that's like one of the first.
Yeah, they're low hanging fruit. You'd be like low hanging fruit. Yeah.
They're like, oh, I'm at my max. Wait a minute. Somebody can give me answers?
Yeah. What do I have to lose?
(22:26):
Also, callers would be really so irritated when they would call the hotline
and not get Miss Cleo. And not get her?
She says that one time she was at a Best Buy and a customer is like, Shane, you be at work?
I just saw you say call me now. You're not there. And she was like,
I literally am just here to get, like, a cable or something.
(22:47):
Yeah. It was probably not even a cable.
It was probably, like, a TV cord or, I don't know.
A floppy disk. A floppy disk. A pack of these floppy disks.
She's getting a bunch of CDs that she can burn. CDRs. Yeah.
That's so good. But callers also were told that they could have free five minutes.
Free five minute reading or something like a free five minute reading and that
(23:11):
they would almost always charge full price and they would get like a bill.
That is so crazy. I know. I think I do remember them saying first five minutes are free.
Uh huh. That is so crazy.
OK. Just such a scam. Yeah. So Psychic Readers Network ends up making at least
(23:31):
one billion in call fees.
And this is a B with a B. B.
B with a B. This is like late 90s, early 2000s. So that translates now to like
a lot. A jillion, trillion.
Billion with a B. Oh my God. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission sued Psychic
Readers Network for deceptive advertising billing and collection practices.
(23:54):
Good. They tried to get Ms. Cleo, who they believed was a stakeholder in the
company, because there was no untangling like her image from PRN.
PRN, but they find out that she was not only not a stakeholder of any kind,
but she was getting ripped off.
She was severely underpaid and exploited. Yeah.
Oh, I know. She said that they were like, let's see your talent manager.
(24:19):
And she passed him over and they were like, this isn't a joke.
Yeah. This has got to be a joke. Ma'am, you're making 24 cents an hour. Yeah. Or a minute.
A minute. A minute. 24 cents a minute. Might as well. Well, I'm sure some people
did because they were on the phone call that time.
They're like, surely this isn't it. Your name, your everything.
Like, you are the face of this company, essentially.
(24:40):
That is making a billion dollars. And you're making scraps.
Scraps. So, PRN settles for paying a $5 million fine to the FTC and for giving
debt and sending refund checks to callers that totaled over $500 million.
Good. so but holy fucking shit
(25:01):
they're done they're like basically done yeah during the
lawsuit miss cleo is dragged by the press and it comes out that she was born
in la not in jamaica she's considered a fraud and a liar and it just devastates
her it sucks but where's the lie you know it it sucks but where's the lie in
(25:21):
that like she's just being outed for the
bullshit that she's... For playing a character. Exactly. Exactly.
And it just... That people believe to be true. So...
Sucks, but doesn't. It sucks, but it sucks.
Yeah. So she falls into this deep depression, doesn't leave her house,
and her friends have to basically drag her, like, kicking and screaming to a
(25:44):
barbecue to try to, like, pull her out of her funk. Aww.
And they surround her and support her, and she finds this, like, little chosen family.
In 2006, she comes out as gay, and it's through this journey of self-discovery
that she finds love a few times.
She's able to heal from like all the fuckery that
(26:04):
is the psychic readers network and despite trying
to make the best of a shitty situation those fuckball
cousins keep trying to kick her while she's down in 2005 she appears as miss
cleo in a car dealership ad they sue her and the car dealership claiming that
they own her like likeness and the whole like miss cleo shit why They also sued
(26:29):
Benefit Cosmetics for using her image in a commercial.
They sued General Mills for using her in a commercial for French Toast Crunch. Get out of here.
Yeah. They were like, we own this character. Successfully sued them?
I think that they all just pulled their ads.
Okay. I don't think that there was a successful, like, two-trial lawsuit. What a haters.
(26:50):
I know. It's like, so fucked up. Because at this point, she's not wronging people.
Like, she's not lying to people. Yeah.
Yeah, she's just advertising. She's just using her familiar face.
She's trying to make a buck because they've ripped her off and fucked her entire life up. Yeah.
So in 2014, she appeared in the documentary Hotline about the history of telephone
(27:14):
hotlines and laid low until her death in 2016. She died?
She died of colorectal cancer in Palm Beach on July 26 of that year.
I didn't know Ms. Cleo died. I know. Wait, how old was she?
She was pretty young. She was super young. 62, so in her 50s.
(27:34):
Damn. 52. I know. That is so young. I know.
So, so young. In 2022, HBO or Max or whatever.
Whatever it is. HBO Max or Max or whatever. Uh-huh. Aired a documentary called
Call Me Cleo, which is a great watch. Okay. It's really fun.
And I do think that she was a bit duplicitous and a hustler, but I don't.
(27:58):
I don't think that she deserved everything that came out of her.
Like, not, like, having, like... Fair.
I think at the time when I... Because I remember when everyone was like,
Ms. Cleo's a fraud. In my mind, I was like, well, obviously.
I don't understand why this is big news. I guess for me, I'm like...
The people that were calling in, though... Yes. Really believed they were talking
(28:19):
to somebody who, you know...
But, I mean, at the same time...
Do we think that mayhem from the Allstate commercials? The Allstate commercials is a real person?
No. No, yeah. I don't know. Do we think the Geico gecko is real?
Well, for me, I remember thinking, should I call her?
(28:43):
Did you ever call her? No. Did you think about it? Of course I thought about it.
I don't, like, you know, I'm like, how cool would it be to know the future?
To know things. I don't think this thought ever crossed my mind. Oh, for me, it did.
I saw so many of those, and I don't think I ever thought to call in.
But for me, it was like, oh, my God, if only I could.
(29:04):
Because I knew I couldn't. I knew I didn't, you know, whatever.
But I'm like, you know, I don't know. Maybe I was young and naive.
But I was, like, believing of Miss Cleo. And so.
No, it is unfortunate. Especially for, like, people. like i
there were some people that were saying like they
like people that were employed there were
(29:25):
like we were getting paid nothing obviously i don't have
a gift there were some people who like maybe did have gifts but they're that
whole like keep them on the line as long as possible tell them what they want
to hear they're like at a certain point like you breach your own ethic yeah
and where do you go from there right and i feel like for you to i mean i know
(29:45):
and it's like like, just to create this, like, persona.
But this persona that you created, you're trying to tell people to believe that it's true.
Yeah. She just certainly was not born in... Well, in people, obviously.
Like, her accent was made fun of, like, nonstop. Yeah. Because it wasn't,
like, it was, like, so weird and not very Jamaican.
To my seven-year-old self, though, I believe that she... You know what's funny?
(30:08):
Is that, like, later on in her life, she still, she continued to talk like that.
Which is wild. But if that's how her parents... She probably had done it for
so long. Yeah. Well, and if her parents talk like that...
But you know how many people that are born here and they're parents? Like, I don't... Yeah.
Yeah, you say weird shit all the time. But you don't have a full-blown accent. You know, I do say...
(30:33):
Not long ago, did I realize... Drawer? Drawer. That's a good one.
We had to phone a friend on that one. But not long ago, did I realize that persimmon is...
Persimmon? Persimmons. but I've called them perceived ones my whole life because
my mom so it's like not real or not right I don't think anyone No I'm just saying,
(31:02):
yeah well I'm just saying like certain things like if they're said a certain
way in the house you grew up I get like how you would just like continue to,
but yeah I know so that is Miss Cleo I'm sad for her I'm sad for her but I feel like,
no one was murdered nobody was murdered
no sexual assault i feel like she lived a few lifetimes though
(31:24):
with like everything like how's her child is it a
daughter is it a son like it's two daughters i'm like how are they i couldn't
find any information they probably don't want anything out there yeah my hands
are swollen from what probably living living life yeah but yeah no No, I'm like, I'm like,
(31:45):
I feel like she was married, child,
divorce, like all these things.
And then went through, like, obviously was like taken advantage of by this company.
And, you know, like, and then she went into depression. Like,
yeah, she lived quite a wild life. Yeah.
A few lifetimes, I feel like in one go. Yeah.
(32:08):
It's I really recommend you guys watch the documentary. It's.
Why it's like wild and you do
sense like oh fuck this lady she was
she was hustling and she was like maybe a little bit
like she needed a manager but at
the end like towards the end when you see like the whole
(32:29):
fallout of the whole like prn thing
because they it ended up being like miss cleo's
being taken to court miss like they wouldn't ever
refer it's never prn is being taking a court it
was miss leo so she was like
the face of the company the whole time whether she wanted
to be or not yeah well i think at that point she wasn't
even working for them anymore it's fucking crazy so i think that it gives you
(32:53):
like a little bit more insight and it's fun to watch the old infomercials infomercials
yeah i feel like we need to like i'm gonna post the billy you better because
it was like it literally looks like he walked in a studio and he's like Like,
I'll give you five minutes of my time.
And that is a very accurate impression. That was accurate.
I felt like I just was watching him here in this moment. Lando?
(33:20):
Speaking through you? Speaking through me? He's a force ghost?
That was too far. You don't know that. I know. I don't. You don't know.
I know. I know. I'm not a fan. I know. I'm passenger somewhere.
Oh, my God. Typically. What should we call this one? call me now call me now
for a free reading Miss Cleo voodoo don't voodoo don't.
(33:46):
Voodoo don't voodoo don't voodoo don't don't do it don't do it man oh my god
thanks for listening thanks voodoo don't call a um setting your call time,
PRN oh my god fuck those weird cousins alright All right. Bye. Bye.
(34:09):
Music.
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