Bonus: The Bastards of Oprah

Summary

Behind the Bastards - Bonus Episode: The Bastards of Oprah

Overview

In this compelling bonus episode of Behind the Bastards, hosted by Robert Evans along with Sophie and Jamie Loftus from Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts, the spotlight falls on one of the most notorious figures associated with Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Mehmet Oz: João Teixeira de Faria, better known as John of God. This detailed exploration delves into his rise as a celebrated psychic healer, his controversial methods, the influential endorsements that catapulted him to global fame, and the subsequent revelations of his heinous crimes.

Background of John of God

John of God emerged from humble beginnings in Brazil, where he initially gained recognition for his purported healing abilities. [01:22] Dr. Phil remarks, "He was the guy next door," emphasizing his facade of normalcy before revealing his darker practices. John's journey into healing began at a young age, claiming to channel spirits and perform miraculous cures through "psychic surgeries."

Rise to Fame

John of God’s reputation soared as he established healing centers, notably Casa de Dom Ignacio de Loyola, where thousands of visitors flocked seeking his healing touch. [07:45] Dr. Phil introduces John of God, stating, "This is the tale of John of God. Have you ever heard of John of God?" The foundations of his widespread acclaim were cemented by influential endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Oz, who lauded his healing prowess on their widely viewed platforms.

Methods and Operations

John of God’s healing sessions were theatrical and controversial. Utilizing rudimentary tools like kitchen knives, he demonstrated the removal of tumors in a manner that defied medical understanding. [17:00] Dr. Phil sarcastically comments, "He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking." These "psychic surgeries" were conducted in front of live audiences, blurring the lines between genuine healing and performative spectacle.

Endorsements by Oprah and Dr. Oz

Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement was pivotal in elevating John of God’s status. [11:04] Robert Evans explains, "Oprah gave him the platform to reach millions." Dr. Oz further amplified his fame by featuring him on The Dr. Oz Show, where he promoted various pseudoscientific treatments and products. [25:00] Dr. Phil criticizes, "Dr. Oz is a very intelligent grifter who's made millions of dollars causing untold harm."

Allegations and Exposures

Despite his ascending fame, allegations of sexual misconduct began to surface. [62:40] Robert Evans narrates, "In September of 2018, a very brave Brazilian activist, Sabrina Bittencourt, went public with allegations from dozens of women against John of God." These accusations revealed a pattern of abuse, including rape and possibly human trafficking, which starkly contrasted his public image as a benevolent healer.

Conviction and Aftermath

The mounting evidence and testimonies led to John of God’s arrest and conviction. [62:40] Dr. Phil summarizes, "By the time the 300th allegation hit, the chief lawman in Goyas was forced to issue a preventative incarceration request." In December 2019, he was sentenced to 19 years and four months in prison for the rape of 14 different women. [78:01] Robert Evans reflects, "So that's something resembling justice."

Conclusions and Insights

This episode underscores the profound impact of influential endorsements in amplifying the reach of charismatic yet malevolent individuals. [28:00] Jamie Loftus laments, "It's so frustrating because he's clearly not has no vested interest in the well-being of this kid." The narrative serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of uncritical fame and the ethical responsibilities of media figures like Oprah and Dr. Oz in vetting those they endorse.

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Phil [01:22]: "He was the guy next door."
• Robert Evans [07:45]: "This is the tale of John of God. Have you ever heard of John of God?"
• Dr. Phil [17:00]: "He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking."
• Robert Evans [25:00]: "Oprah gave him the platform to reach millions."
• Dr. Phil [62:40]: "Dr. Oz is a very intelligent grifter who's made millions of dollars causing untold harm."
• Robert Evans [78:01]: "So that's something resembling justice."

Final Thoughts

Behind the Bastards masterfully dissects the ascent and inevitable downfall of John of God, attributing his initial success to the powerful endorsements from Oprah and Dr. Oz. The episode serves as a profound examination of how media influence can both elevate and expose the true nature of individuals who, beneath charismatic exteriors, harbor dark and destructive behaviors.

For more insights into the lives of history’s worst individuals and to understand the mechanisms behind their rise and fall, subscribe to Behind the Bastards on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do.

[Jamie Loftus]

He then began entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught.

[Dr. Phil]

He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers. BTK through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sophie]

Coal Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Hey everybody. Robert here.

[Mint Mobile Ad]

And if you've been paying attention, we.

[Robert Evans]

Just finished six episodes on Oprah Winfrey.

[Dr. Phil]

And obviously that dealt with a lot of the most toxic things about her.

[Robert Evans]

Career in media and her show.

[Dr. Phil]

But as I noted a couple of.

[Robert Evans]

Times, we didn't go into much detail.

[Dr. Phil]

About three of the worst things she's been involved with.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and John of God. Because we had done two parters of those.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, given that all of those were had a year or more old, in some cases older than that, we made.

[Robert Evans]

The decision to run them as one big episode.

[Dr. Phil]

As a bonus, you're not getting less.

[Robert Evans]

Original content, obviously, but we clipped these.

[Dr. Phil]

Together as one big episode so that.

[Robert Evans]

There'S a lot less ads.

[Dr. Phil]

So you can kind of listen through.

[Robert Evans]

This story of all of the very worst people associated to Oprah with fewer.

[Dr. Phil]

Ads than you'd heard before. So take a listen, my friends, and yeah, I love you. Go to hell. Robert Evans, behind the Bastards Podcast this is introduction. Not very good.

[Sophie]

I liked it.

[Dr. Phil]

Thank you, Sophie. Thank you for lying about it being a good introduction. But you know what is good, certainly better than my introduction, is our guest for today, Mr. Andrew T. Fuck.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, what's up?

[Robert Evans]

I'm alive.

[Andrew T.]

Can't kill me yet.

[Robert Evans]

Nope, Nope.

[Dr. Phil]

Can't. So you have made it through the Rona so far, Andrew.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I have to say your hair looks as badly in need of a cut as mine does.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

I can't decide.

[Dr. Phil]

Are you.

[Andrew T.]

I'm like debating whether to just shoot the moon and grow it to like donatable lengths.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Fuck yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Shave my head. I don't know. It's. It's unpleasant.

[Dr. Phil]

It's.

[Andrew T.]

It's at the very unpleasant point of the growth. Like, it, like.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I hate it back of my neck.

[Andrew T.]

It's fucking disgusting.

[Dr. Phil]

It's terrible. But we could do what if we did like a locks of love thing, but instead of for people who need hair, it's for like weird, horny people on the Internet. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We raise money for some charity. I don't know what kind of charity. Like bombs, not food, maybe. That sounds like a charity.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, it could be like sort of an only fan situation. I imagine the recording of cutting it will be useful to somebody.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. That'll be asmr for some very weird person.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And. Yeah. So, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. As a general rule, when you and I get together, we talk about a horrific story of colonial genocide, which is what our friendship has been based on.

[Andrew T.]

Up until this point, even before the podcast. That's the fucked up part.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I would just call you randomly in the middle of the night and be like, have you heard about what they did to Haiti?

[Andrew T.]

And I'd be like, nope. Let's hear it.

[Dr. Phil]

Today, though. Today we have a story that's horrible. Really, really horrible. But it's actually a little bit of a reverso because it's like in part the story of this weird belief system from Europe being adopted, honestly, by people in a colonized nation and then used to justify horrific misbehavior on behalf of cult leaders. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Cool new shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I guess you could call it a type of. I don't know, I don't even know what to call this. It's a real motherfucker of a story, though. This is the tale of John of God. Have you ever heard of John of God?

[Andrew T.]

I've heard of neither John nor God. So no John of God.

[Dr. Phil]

Now people might be confused. There's an actual, like Jesus y guy, like a Catholic person called John of God. I think he's a saint or some shit. This is not that guy. This is a modern spiritual medical grifter repeatedly endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, who turned out to be a mass rapist and possibly a baby farmer. So that is. That's what we're getting into today.

[Sophie]

You're welcome, Andrew, for booking me.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, thanks for having me. Jesus Christ.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yep. It's gonna be an interesting tale today. But before we get into John of God's story, we have to go back in history to the mid-1800s, and to a man with what I would have to say is one of the most unreasonably cool names I've ever come across in my research. Are you ready for this name? You're not ready for this name. Nobody's ready for this fucking name. Hippolyte Leon Denizard Ravail. That is a fucking name. Hippolyte Leon Denizard Ravail. That is a fucking name.

[Andrew T.]

Like, Revail is like, so what a. I like. Like going, like, subtle on the. On the final landing. It's just like, yeah, we could do it normal. We can do it.

[Dr. Phil]

I like that. Fully 50% of his four names sound like Pokemon. I've got a Hippolyte. I've got a Denizard. It fucking rules. So Hippolyte Leon Denizard Ravail was a French educator, and he wrote under the markedly less cool pen name Alan Kardec, which I don't understand. If you're hippo, like Leon Denizard Revail, you lean into that shit. This guy did not know what was clickable. Very frustrating.

[Andrew T.]

That's wild.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's giving up. Speaking as a guy who's named after fucking the Godfather guy. Like, you don't give up the gift of a name that cool. Very frustrating. So anyway, under the boring name Alan Kardec, he wrote a series of books about spirits. And Kardec's core contention was that all living animals were inhabited by immortal spirits that bounced around from body to body over the ceaseless aeons. Kardec also believed that spirits could become disembodied through a variety of causes, and that these free spirits, spirits could impact the world in positive and negative ways. Kardec's theories became the religion of spiritism, which is still practiced around the world today. And it is particularly popular, for reasons I don't really understand, in Brazil. It has something like 3 million adherents there.

[Andrew T.]

Damn.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that is.

[Andrew T.]

I guess it's sort of like a French version of sort of like an animist type religion.

[Dr. Phil]

Right?

[Andrew T.]

There's.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I think. I think you're.

[Robert Evans]

You're.

[Dr. Phil]

You're very keen to recognize that because I suspect it has a lot to do with that. And usually spiritism winds up being kind of like a spiritist Christian hybrid. And it does. You're right, it kind of does, because a lot of these places had sort of animist traditions prior to Europeans coming in and fucking shit up. And so spiritism felt like this kind of genuine synthesis of these old traditions with, you know, the new Christianity. I think you're probably onto something there.

[Andrew T.]

I guess that's kind of the shit that happened with, like, Catholicism, you know, in South America, where it basically became saints, became a pantheon.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Or the polytheism. It's like, yeah, it's fine. Just a slight demotion and everyone's the same.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's whatever. So we don't hear a lot about spiritism today in the United States. And probably the reason why is that a sizable number of what were originally the religion's chief pillars have just become normal, fat facets of, like, fringe spirituality. Like a lot of stuff that was originally part of this spiritualism religion that Kardec cooked up just kind of became things that, like, people who like crystals all believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even Christianity, kind of like mainstream evangelical Christianity in the United States has even absorbed a number of spiritist beliefs, or at least different Christian cults around the world have done that. And in a number of places, including Brazil, this has led to spiritual healers becoming a very big deal. Spiritual healers are individuals who claim to be able to carry out magical healing sessions because their bodies act as conduits for dead medical doctors, saints, and sometimes just God himself. Now, in the United States, this is often seen in Pentecostal communities who I talk about a lot because people need to know more about them. Have you ever seen, like, spiritual surgery sessions?

[Andrew T.]

Oh, shit. I feel like I can imagine it, but I can't think of one. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like laying on of hands type shit and laying on of hands.

[Dr. Phil]

But then they'll like, pull their hands away. They'll be like, oh, there's a tumor inside you, the God. The devils put a tomb around your heart and they'll pull their hands away and they'll have like a bunch of bloody pieces of meat in their hands. And it's almost, it's. It's always like chicken or something. Like they get guts from, like an animal and they do sleight of hand, like magician shit to make it look like they're kind of like that guy in Temple of Doom pulling out, you know.

[Andrew T.]

Right, right, right.

[Dr. Phil]

Organs. Yeah, like that's, that's a big thing in the United States, and it's, It's. It's cool. Yeah, it's a big thing in the parts of the United States that I'm going to guess most people don't know anything about. Like, most Americans would be like, this isn't a big thing in the United States. But you're wrong. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is.

[Andrew T.]

It is, like, nice how the state of the art of, like, 16th century magic has kind of remained the same. If you can palm a chicken heart, you can get away with a lot.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. The most important thing to realize about just the world is that people have never been dumber than they are now, and they have never been smarter than they are now. Human intelligence, regardless of the actual amount of knowledge that exists, is a flat plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, spiritual surgery is a thing that happens here in the United States, and it's a thing that happens all over the world. The various kinds of spiritual healing traditions have existed since time immemorial. There's like a whole tradition of it over in India that has nothing to do with Christianity. It's like, shit like, this has been happening for thousands of years. Right. But over in Brazil, a combination of spiritism and Christianity has created a thoroughly unique tradition of what is generally called psychic surgery. Now, unlike most similar traditions around the world, in Brazil, this psychic surgery often includes real cutting, with surgeons using actual knives on the eyes and bodies of their patients. So that's a cool wrinkle.

[Andrew T.]

That's fucking crazy. Oh, God. I mean, I guess it's like, on some level, it's gotta be a little bit similar to like, you know, an alchemy thing where it's like, you know, sometimes the problem is just a little bloodletting is needed or, like, pressure's building up and, like, that will work occasionally.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And it's kind of like, you know, people who, for like, whatever reason, because of like a depressive disorder, cut themselves. Like, they feel. They, like, they tend to feel relief for one reason or another. And it's like, because it releases endorphins and stuff. So, like, you do that in the context of a powerful religious experience and it can feel really good to people. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, yeah. The Brazilian to first pioneer this technique was Jose Pedro de Ferritas, or Ze Arrigo. According to his autobiography, an obviously problematic source, he started working at a mine until age 14, in 1950, at age 29. Or he started working at a mine at age 14. And in 1950, when he was 29, he began to suffer a series of blinding headaches followed by hallucinatory trances. This all culminated in his body being taken over by the spirit of a bald German man in a white apron with a massive team of spectral doctors and nurses at his beck and Call. So he's got like a whole German surgery team in his head.

[Andrew T.]

Jesus Christ.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, this magical dead German was Dr. Adolf Fritz, a field medic in the German army who died in the trenches in 1918, which is cool. So it's bizarre that like this Brazilian mine worker would choose, like, it's gotta be a German field medic, but that's what he picks. And I guess we all consider Germans trustworthy. I can't think of anything in history that would make me not trust German doctors. So, yeah, that scans. So together, Dr. Fritz and Zee Arrigo had a wildly successful 20 year career performing surgery to adoring audiences of as many as 800 followers at one time. Z arrigo would go into trances and become so taken with the spirit of Dr. Fritz that he would grab random kitchen knives and use them to cut out tumors and the like from his patients. He became known as the surgeon of the rusty knife. And this was not like nobody was like talking shit at him by calling him this.

[Andrew T.]

That's. That's like, that's some shit. That's like a prison nickname. The Surgeon.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. That is like a prison nickname. Yeah. Like if you're, if you get like locked up and they're like, oh man, that's the knife. That's the rusty knife surgeon. Like, that's the dude you don't want to fuck with. That's like the butcher bill motherfucker. Right?

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible.

[Dr. Phil]

That's.

[Andrew T.]

That was a compliment.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes, that was a compliment. Yeah, because like, that's, that's part of the evidence to these people that he's like so clearly holy and sacred is that it doesn't even matter that he's using a rusty knife. Because. And again, you'll see this throughout the whole episode. And all these guys we talk about, like, part of the thing everybody focuses on is that like none of his patients feel any pain. None of them get infections, even though, you know, he's just cutting them with a dirty knife. Like that's how holy this is. Yeah. So that's cool. And yeah, you know what?

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, you know, Blood of Jesus. That works. It's fine. Antiseptic, largely.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, the blood of Jesus is profoundly antiseptic. Yeah. So he prescribed various medications, generally a mix of herbal remedies and complete nonsense. His patients could redeem their prescriptions at a local pharmacy run by his brother. The height of Z arrigo's career came when he removed a tumor from a popular senator. He was arrested in 1956. And convicted of practicing medicine without a license. But he was pardoned by the President of Brazil in 1962. He was arrested and jailed again for the same thing. But the police allowed him to continue healing from his cell. He died wealthy and beloved in 1971 due to an auto accident that his spirits failed to warn him about. So.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, this guy would be like an amazing character in like a Batman video game. I feel like he feels like real final boss energy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's. We're just getting started with Ze Arrigo. So Ze Arrigo dies and in 1990, this guy, Rubens Feria, who's a 44 year old engineer and software salesman, kind of looks back in history 19 years and is like, this guy made a fuckload of money. What if I start claiming to channel the spirit of the same dead German guy? Next up, Rubens ferrier is like Dr. Fritz is in my head. And he starts like, pretty soon he's attracting crowds of a thousand people every day to this giant hangar style building he buys in Rio de Janeiro. His patients were renowned to feel no pain even when he cut into them. And they reportedly never got infections from all of his eyeball scraping and body gouging. Christopher Reeves is reported to have visited Mr. Ferrier for healing. It didn't work. Boom.

[Andrew T.]

Too soon, but boom.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not making a joke, it just. It clearly didn't do the trick.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, seriously. Damn dog.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, that's a bummer. He seemed like a nice guy, but yeah, this was not the. Not the treatment. So. In 1995, Mr. Ferria married Rita Costa at age 34. He dumped her a few years later for a 19 year old friend of his daughters. Mrs. Costa reported her former husband to the police for non payment of taxes. The police confronted him during a surgery in Rio and arrested his bodyguard for possession of an illegal weapon. That bodyguard then testified that he'd been secretly helping his boss dispose of the corpses of a number of patients who died as a result of Mr. Ferry is hacking on their bodies. So it turned out like a bunch of people were dying and getting infected and his bodyguard was just throwing him in a hole.

[Andrew T.]

I guess I was gonna say, like, what does it take to have the confidence to just cut people with a fucking rusty knife? And I guess it is. You just have to. You have to break a few eggs to make a magic omelet.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, I've always said there's no. Nothing builds confidence like having a large, heavily armed man willing to dispose of corpses for you that really. That's all any of us really needs. Mm. Mm.

[Andrew T.]

That's. I guess that's you for most people that I know.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean. Yeah, I'll do a little bit of corpse disposal. You know, it's like a. Yeah. So. A raid on Rubens Ferris compound revealed more than a thousand boxes of conventional prescription medications, suggesting that the spiritual healer was actually practicing traditional medicine, but just without a license. He was arrested in jail, but while his district police chief agreed that Ferrius needed to be locked up, he still professed a strong belief in the myth of Dr. Fritz. Telling the Guardian, in my opinion, I think that Dr. Fritz does exist, but that Rubens Feria is doing things that he shouldn't. So I think he's really channeling this German guy, but that doesn't mean he's not committing crimes too.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

Really threaten the needle. Thanks, doc.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, my favorite is that reminds me a little bit of. I've known various people that have gotten out of Scientology, and the worst of them sometimes say shit that is basically akin to, like. Well, I don't agree with all the homophobia and all the cult stuff, but obviously Xenu is real and, you know, controls our lives through a ser. You know, shit like that, where I'm like, you know, it's just about the practice of it, not, like, the underlying, like, logic of it. It's amazing.

[Dr. Phil]

Hey, I mean, you know, I worship L. Ron Hubbard not for his spiritual teachings or any of the things he wrote about space aliens, but for his ability to get boats full of young people to sear for gold that his past life buried.

[Andrew T.]

That's exactly.

[Dr. Phil]

That's what I celebrate about lrh. Yeah. So, yeah, this all is the background, I think, that's necessary to understand John of God. So on November 17, 2010, Oprah Magazine writer Susan Casey published an article about her visit to Brazil, where she'd met with the country's new, hottest psychic surgeon. Oh, boy. Joo Teixeira de Faria, better known as John of God. This sparked a visit by Oprah herself and an avalanche of uncritical, positive stories about how cool this new John of God guy was. For the first time, a Brazilian psychic surgeon attracted mass interest outside of Brazil. But foreigners had been trickling into the country for years before that, and one of them, an American named Heather Cumming, wrote a book about John of God, the man who became her guru. It is a thoroughly uncritical work of puffery from a woman who clearly worships her subject, but it's also our best real source, our best source on the early life of John of God. So I'm going to start by reading from that and I'm going to give the caveat that this information, this is all information that a mass rapist cult leader wanted to convey about his early life. So, you know, noted a little bit of salt here, here and there. So. Joao Teixera de Faria was born on June 24, 1942 in the poor village of oh boy, Cachoeira di Fumacha in the state of Goias in central Brazil. His mother, Donna Luca, was a popular member of the community and a dedicated housewife. John of God would later speak highly of his mother. And I have no reason to suspect she wasn't a nice person other than perhaps the fact that her boy grew up to a mass raping cult leader. The biography of John of God continues. Quote in the 1940s and 50s, there were no paved roads or infrastructure in this part of Brazil. The roads connecting the towns were dirt studded with cattle grids and wound their way through farms and villages. When construction of paved roads began in the late 1950s, Joao's mother ran a small hotel and cooked for the road workers to augment the family's meager income. Joao often says that his mother became famous for her delicious cooking. His father was less successful. He was a tailor and known to laundry business. But money was not great and young Zhuo and his four brothers and one sister lived in constant economic anxiety. Young John had to work from an early age, starting as a cloth cutter in his father's shop. At age six, he only attended two years of primary school before economic necessity forced him to end his formal education and take up a series of increasingly brutal jobs. Now that's what his biography says. That's not the only version of that. We have a 2005 ABC News profile on him notes that based on interviews with people from his hometown, quote, he is said to have been so rebellious that he was thrown out of school after the second grade and could not keep a job. So that's a different version of his background.

[Andrew T.]

Sure, sure, yeah. But probably either way, yeah, shit, shit was. Yeah, he had to, he had to do some shit. He got up to some shit and did some shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, and he.

[Andrew T.]

Age of seven.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And he had basically no school. And he never learns to read or write. That's, that's, that's the important thing here. Yeah, never. Not a reader, this guy. So. His biographers though, claim that he worked many jobs as a well, digger as a bricklayer. And generally, they say that he spent his late childhood and early adolescence in hard manual labor. He never learned to read or write, but he did learn how to play pool. And this provided him with something of an escape from the dreary existence poverty had forced upon him. John's biographer claims that he was a brilliant, natural clairvoyant who earned pocket money by actively prophesizing events at the pool hall. Yeah, this is very funny because she notes that, quote, after being given money, he would return to the pool hall. He is an excellent pool player to this day, and I can't prove what I'm going to say next in any way, but my suspicion is that there is a germ of truth to this, but that he's not clairvoyant. John just discovered he had a knack for pool hustling and various forms of cheating that required quick hands and charm. This is a guy who would go up to spend his life doing sleight of hand stuff to giant crowds. The fact that he's. He's a pool hustler as a kid makes total sense. So I think that's what's actually going on here, is he's like, yeah, he learns how to hustle at a pool hall.

[Andrew T.]

Well, it's also like, you can. The range of predictable items of things that could happen in a pool hall is like, yeah, finite and, like, less than 30, I would say. I feel like you could just shoot. Shoot a lot of shots of the dark and that shit's gonna come true eventually pretty quickly.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he spends a lot of time as a kid in a pool hall. He learns sleight of hand, he learns how to. How to grift. And, yeah, so so far, the biographical information that we've got from his. His biography by his follower Heather Cummings has been broadly reasonable. This changes with this next paragraph. Quote. He also remembers walking into the fields with the villagers and pointing to roots and plants that would heal their ailments. The first recorded occasion of Joao's paranormal abilities took place when he was nine years old, while he was visiting family in the town of Nova Ponte with his mother. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, but Joao had a premonition that a huge storm was coming. He began pointing out houses, including the houses of his brother, and saying that they would be blown down or lose their roofs. He urged his mother to leave before the storm. Although she was not convinced, she humored her son and they sought refuge in a friend's home nearby. Exactly as he had Predicted the thunderstorm appeared seemingly out of nowhere and badly damaged or destroyed. About 40 houses in a small town. And depending on where you find this story, he always claims a different number of houses were destroyed. So I don't know. Yeah, so he predicts a storm. This is his first case of clairvoyance. But despite being clairvoyant and able to read storms in the sky, he found himself still forced to labor in order to get by. At age 16, he moved to a city, Campo Grande, to try and make a living. He was only successful in fits and starts, and before long he found himself unemployed and living under a bridge at the edge of town. One day he headed to the water to bathe. And John claims as he approached the water, a beautiful woman called to him and invited him closer. They talked for hours. The next day he returned to the water to speak with her again, but he found a brilliant shaft of light in her place. He heard her calling his name and so he approached. She told him to visit the Spiritist center in Campo Grande, which he did. So that's, that's, that's, that's his version of events. The spirit meets him and they talk for hours. And then she sends him to the Spiritist center in town. So like, yeah, he arrives and the director of the center, like, knows his name already and says they've been waiting for him. And then John immediately like collapses. He like, passes out. And when he returns to consciousness, there's this huge group of people standing around him and they tell him that he has incorporated, which is the term they use for when you're. You're taken over by a spirit, the entity King Solomon. And he cured 50 people while possessed by King Solomon, which I remember King Solomon as the guy who cuts up babies, but I don't know.

[Andrew T.]

And as far as like the luck of the draw goes. Hey, that's a good get. Good get.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh yeah. King Solomon Ks. That's a big one. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Hey, it could have happened to anyone. Could have happened to anyone. Amazing.

[Dr. Phil]

Could have happened to anyone. I mean, I would love to. I don't know. Not King Solomon. Which king would I want to. Henry viii. Henry viii. That's a good. That's a bad. I mean, that's a bad king, but that's a fun king to incorporate to be. Or King Leopold. I could ride a tricycle, take some Haynes.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, I guess, I guess the old dude, the old, old dude from the Bible. He probably got a. Of some shit. Nebuchadnezzar, Methuselah.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, Nebuchadnezzar you mean like the. The Babylonian emperor? Yeah. That's a good one. Right?

[Andrew T.]

Those guys. Those guys got up to some shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Oh, man. And it's so much more impressive to take on Nebuchadnezzar. That guy's got a way better name than Solomon. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, obviously this is all lies. The only truth here is probably that John, age 16, is about when John started fooling around with spiritism. Unfortunately, I'm unaware of any serious journalism that exists to actually document what went down with John's early years in the religion. But he claims that the director of the center had to take him aside and explain to him that he'd been chosen by an entity of light known as King Solomon. This director told him to leave and come back at 2pm the next day to keep healing people. Since John was homeless, this guy invited him to stay the night at his house. John claims that this man's humble home and food were unthinkable luxuries for him given the poverty he'd lived with his entire life. He was given his own room with an electric fan. So that's a big deal. Nice electric fan.

[Andrew T.]

It is, like, so weird to think about, like, the band of grifters welcoming in a new. I mean, this is in the retelling, welcoming in a new grifter. Like, what the fuck was actually happening.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And it's one of those things. Yeah. It's convenient that, you know, out in the. At this period of time, out in the middle of nowhere, Brazil, you know, lifespans aren't enormous, so you're really. If you make it old enough, you could just lie about what happened to you when you were a kid because. Right, yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Right, right, right. That makes sense.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. The earlier most people die, the easier it is to be a grifter.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Dr. Phil]

When everyone I went to high school with is dead. I'm gonna have some stories I start telling. I'll tell you that much. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

No corroborator.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, I was healing the shit out of people in 11th grade.

[Sophie]

You wanna take a ad, buddy?

[Dr. Phil]

Yep. You know who else was healing a lot of people when I was in the 11th grade. Okay. So now let's talk about products. Nope. We did that. Now we're back. Okay, so John of God, he meets this spiritist church and they tell him that King Solomon's taken over his brain. And he's like, that's good and normal. And. Yeah. So he winds up staying the night with the leader of the center. And he tries to explain to him that he's not a practicing medium and he doesn't know anything about medicine and he doesn't understand how he was healing all these people. He was actually terrified because he didn't know, like, how to. He was expected to come back the next day, and he didn't know how to do what was expected of him. But as soon as he gathered at the spirit of Cinter the next day, King Solomon took him over again, and he kept healing more sick people. John claims this went on for months while the more experienced spiritist practitioners educated him on the nature of the entities that increasingly took over his body. He became known as Medium John and his new teacher's son. It is kind of funny. Medium John. It's like the sequel to Big John. That's not as good a rhythm, Mick. Medium John, just. Just Medium John. Every morning at the mine, you could see him arrive. He stood 5 foot 8 and weighed 135. Kind of medium at the shoulders and medium at the hips. And everyone knew it was okay to give some lip to Medium John. It's so.

[Andrew T.]

It is like, so juvenile to find confusing medium with medium.

[Dr. Phil]

But that's so funny to me. It's very funny. So his. His new teachers told him he needed to devote his whole life to healing other people. And this is bio. His biographer's claim started a five or six year period of traveling throughout Brazil, healing the sick and the suffering. He became known as Joao Curador, or John the Healer. Through his biographers and in interviews, John always makes sure that people know that he is a healer. But he also, at the same time, always firmly rejects being called a healer. So he makes sure that people know that, like, everyone started calling me John the Healer, but I'm not a healer. The entities that channel through my body are the ones doing the healing. I'm just a conduit. So it's very important to him that you believe both things. Yeah. So this has a nice side benefit of allowing him to argue that he isn't practicing medicine without a license, which is handy when you're practicing medicine without a license. I don't know if you've ever practiced medicine without a license, but you got to be careful with it.

[Andrew T.]

That is. So he's shifting the blame to literal King Solomon, essentially.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, exactly. If somebody dies while he's performing psychic surgery, it's the dead king's fault.

[Andrew T.]

That's a hell of a loophole. That's genius.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, I am going to start blaming all of my many crimes on King Solomon. I'M not even gonna lie to you about that. That seems like a very good idea.

[Andrew T.]

Well, especially the baby chopping thing because that's.

[Dr. Phil]

He's got the baby chopping.

[Andrew T.]

He's got previous MO on that.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I mean, yes, officer, I was going 135 miles an hour in a 55, but if I didn't, this fucking king ghost in my head was gonna chop up some babies. Like, do you want me to go a little fast or you want some chopped up babies? That's all I gotta ask you. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew T.]

It's up to you.

[Dr. Phil]

Up to you cops. Up to you cop.

[Sophie]

Seems reasonable to me.

[Dr. Phil]

You want me to heal you? Let me pull out some chicken gizzards and pretend to rip them from your chest. So his biographer's next note that he did that. While he did his extraordinary work of healing, Medium John was persecuted by members of the medical and religious establishments. He claims that they were threatened by his presence and that he lost count of the number of times he was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. John traveled constantly, never more than a few steps ahead of the law. He finally got a break in 1962 when Brazil was thrown into turmoil via violent coup. His biography says the country suffered a revolution and a military government came into power. The reality is that Brazil's democratically elected socialist president, Joao Guler was overthrown by a military coup backed by the US government. A conservative military dictatorship would rule Brazil for the next 20ish years. John's biography glosses all over over all of that because the advent of a military dictatorship worked out really well for him. Medium John traveled to the capital, Brasil, offered his services as a tailor to the military. Quote from his biography. Because he was so young, he was not commissioned to create uniforms, but was given an opportunity to sew a consignment of work pants. His expertise impressed his new employers and he was soon promoted to full time tailor and assigned to make uniforms for the army. Medium Joao continued his healing work quietly on the side. But word of his gift soon spread throughout the barracks. One day he incorporated an entity who operated on the wounded leg of a doctor which healed immediately. The doctor was enthralled with Medium Joao's gift and from that day on he became became the spiritual healer for the military and civil authorities. He was promoted to Master Taylor and became their protege for nearly nine years. Consequently, he was protected from persecution during that time and traveled extensively throughout Brazil with the army. There's a lot that's interesting there. The most fascinating thing to me is that so the army comes to believe that this is a magical healer. And as a result, they promote him to Master Taylor, which is. This is an interesting choice.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, it's just like, keep him in the ranks, I guess.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, keep him in the ranks. Keep a paycheck going to the guy. Well, you dictatorship Brazil. Look, I'm not gonna backseat dictatorship government.

[Andrew T.]

There's a lot of bureaucracy. You can't just insert like witch doctor surgeon general.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's like a year 8 of the dictatorship thing at best. You know, you gotta. Oh, my God, I wanna be witch doctor surgeon general so bad. That sounds even better than Reverend Doctor, to be honest.

[Andrew T.]

You just have to. Yeah. You have to work within the available structures and until such time as you don't.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. I got really fucked up fighting those partisans the other night. I got a bullet in my arm. I got to go to the Master tailor to deal with this. Yeah. So John claims that the experience of working as a protege healer tailor with the dictatorship instilled in him a deep desire to become a successful businessman. His fawning biographers explain that he. He, quote, needed money making expertise to support his spiritual purpose. This is so he doesn't sound greedy. Wonderfully, they claim John just happened to have a great head for business and his financial success has allowed him to fund his healing mission, all without charging patients a dime. This is absolutely a lie. But incredulous white Americans bought it for years. So basically he like, he claims that he became a great businessman and that's how he's able to fund his free healing hospital. The reality is like literally the opposite. He makes a bunch of money healing people and he used it to buy like, ranches full of cattle and stuff. Stuff makes sense. Whatever. Yeah. Now, from this point on, the story of Medium John has a decent amount of documentation, so we're going to depart from his terrible, terrible biography. But before we do, I want to turn to his biographers for an explanation of exactly who these entities that take over John are. They describe the entities as transcendent spirits who are. Who are, quote, able to use Medium Joao's body to produce cures by performing visible and invisible spiritual surgeries. Medium Joao can incorporate approximately 37 entities, but only one entity can be incorporated at a time. This specific entity may change, however, depending on the needs of an individual patient. In addition to the entity incorporated at any given time, there is a highly evolved group of thousands of spirits who actually work on a person. While the incorporated entity oversees healing, this group is referred to as his phalange. One spirit might specialize in diabetes or heart problems, another in emotional afflictions. These entities serve humanity in the hopes of alleviating pain and suffering on the earthly plane. This service is part of their evolutionary process. So he's a whole hospital of ghosts.

[Andrew T.]

Jesus Christ. That having Having, like, support staff in this, like, fake, like, spiritual slavery, it's like. I mean, I guess it makes it sound more plausible on some level, like, oh, how could you possibly do this? No, we need, you know, the help of thousands to cure your fucking whatever.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, no, I got nurses. Yeah. Is it ever like, oh, I'm sorry.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

The guy who could help you, he's out on vacation. We just have, like, the dude who helps me cut people's eyes. Do you need an eye cut? Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, that's the other side of it is if you were, like, if I were designing my own version of some cockamamie bullshit, I feel like it would involve as little true body horror as possible.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, no, no, they. People love that shit. People love getting fucking cut into and blood and shit. Like, if you really want to. If you want to. Like, if you want to get some cult shit going on, you got to get gross with it, man.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, it's part of it. It's part of it, but.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, so physicality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why, you know, not everyone's made to be a cult leader. Andrew.

[Andrew T.]

I don't think I got what it takes anymore.

[Dr. Phil]

I believe you could be a cult leader, but, you know, it takes some sacrifice.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't. I don' I don't have the willingness to put in the reps to really get good.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot in common. Being a cult leader has a lot in common with having great abs. Right. They both take. You either have to be born with the right genes, or you have to put in a lot of time on the bench.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. And it's not happening for me.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, well, that's. Yeah, we all make choices.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, that's not happening yet. I'll see. We'll see. My life takes me.

[Dr. Phil]

It would be cool to be able to incorporate the spirit that could just give you incredible abs. Like, one of them has to know how to do abs, but. Okay. So John claims that after a few years of making money and getting in good with a brutal dictatorship, his entities told him it was crucial he expand his work and heal more people. He wound up being guided to the town of Abadianya in Goyas. He first arrived there in 1978 and began his practice by sitting in a chair outside in the middle of the main road and greeting travelers who showed signs of illnesses. Through him, the entities would heal these people. And over time, the numbers increased from dozens to hundreds to thousands per day. John's incredible healings eventually earned him the loyalty of a mysterious benefactor who purchased him a plot of land and paid to build a healing center, Casa de Dom Ignacio de Loyola. This spiritual hospital, as his followers would come to describe it, eventually received more than 10,000 visitors per month. Since Aberianha has only about 19,000 residents, the huge streams of sick and dying people represented a big infusion into the local economy. So like half the population of the city is coming in every week just to see this guy. Yeah, that's.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, I guess you need like desperation tourism sometimes, but Jesus Christ, that's, that is actually Jesus Christ's business model also. So you know what, Maybe, maybe it's just a good one.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. If Jesus Christ had benefited from like roadside billboards, I don't think they ever would have gotten to kill him. He would have made too much money, but tragic.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah. Render into Caesar about 38% and you're fine.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, honestly. Yeah. So this was often glossed over by the positive coverage of John of God, but the extent to which he became an industry for the people who lived around him can't be exaggerated. I'm going to quote now from an O magazine profile by Susan Casey. Just a terrible article from 2010 that nonetheless revealed some important details about the economic impact of this guru. On the small town of Aberdeen, several businesses had displays of white clothing. The Casa requests that only white be worn. This makes it easier, apparently for a person's aura to be seen. There were a number of visibly painted small hotels lined up side by side. Lilac purple, canary yellow, lime green. One of them, a coral colored one story building, opened up to the street and inside I could see a John of God video playing on a large screen. An audience of about 20 people sat in straight back chairs and watched him cut into a man's chest with what looked like a rusty paring knife. The man's eyes were closed and he was peaceful and still as rivulets of blood ran down his white shirt. Yeah, that's awesome. That sounds like the kind of charming small Brazilian town I want to vacation in. Just have a couple of fucking mojitos and watch some guy commit surgery on people. Hell yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. This is like some mid summer shit. This is like insanity nuts.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, imagine like you're just backpacking through Brazil and wind up here on accident. And it's like, oh, no, I have erred. I did not want to be here.

[Andrew T.]

Holy shit.

[Dr. Phil]

So John established a cattle ranch nearby, and by the early 2000s, he was known to spend most of his week there running his various businesses. He was able to do this because increasingly throughout the 90s and early 2000s, a string of foreigners, generally American women, moved in and dedicated themselves to helping his mission. This includes the Americans who wrote his biography. John of God's practice involved a series of mass meetings where sick folks would basically fill up rooms and wait to be seen by the media. Him, he'd consult with his entities and then diagnose their problem. I'm going to quote now from a write up in the Montreal Gazette. Once the diagnosis has been made, the healing procedure begins. It may be visible or invisible. Spiritual surgery. If the patient chooses invisible, they are directed to a room to meditate while the spirits do their work. Visible surgery can involve sticking a surgical clamp up the patient's nose. It looks very impressive, but it is nothing but an old carny trick usually performed with a long nail and a hammer. Any anatomical text will reveal that there is a roughly 4 inch long passage up the nasal cavity that is quite ready to accommodate a foreign object without any harm. John maintains that. Yeah, that's a good trick. Yeah, he's doing the nails up the nose thing, but he's calling it brain surgery.

[Andrew T.]

Classic.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, classic. John maintains that the success of his treatment hinges on the patient abstaining from drinking alcohol, eating pork, and having sex for 40 days after the treatment. This can provide for a convenient out in case no miracle occurs. Patients can be healed even if they are unable to travel to Brazil. All that is needed is a surrogate willing to undergo the spiritual surgery. So that's awesome. That's a good grift.

[Andrew T.]

God.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, well, I mean, I guess it's like if you're gonna be a main grifter, at least bring up your little grifty town around you.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's obviously the safest thing, right? Because then they'll have a vested financial interest in protecting you.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that is what a cult is.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's basically. Yeah, more. I mean, this is a little more complicated than just a cult because there's a cult, but then there's also the town who, like probably a of the townsfolk knew that this was bullshit, but they also know there's a fuckload of money in this shit.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Make everyone invested in you and. Yeah. One way or the other. Yeah, you got leverage.

[Dr. Phil]

It's essentially the same way that, like, the pot industry works in large amounts of the United States or. Yeah, like any drug, illegal drug business works where it's like, well, this is where the money is here, so nobody. Nobody's gonna start shit.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, don't. Don't snitch. This is the fucking Godfather.

[Dr. Phil]

Don't snitch. This is good for all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of what's going on here, except for instead of good, honest marijuana, it's a guy cutting people's faces and shoving things up their noses. And he actually hates marijuana. He was famous for saying that, like, if you smoked pot, you had to, like, detox for a whole year before he could heal you. You. The entities don't like weed.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, that's. Can't be true, but fair enough. Entities.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, if there are. If there are ghostly entities flying around, there's no way those ghostly entities don't like some fucking dank like, come on.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, they love. They love weed.

[Dr. Phil]

So that. That last write up I read you from the Montreal Gazette was obviously written by a credible journalist who was as critical of. Who was very critical of John F. Got. But I want to read another example. Another. Another person writing about what his healing sessions look like, who actually, like, believed in him and was a member of his cult. So here's his biographer, Heather Cummings, recalling one of his healing sessions. Quote, the entity Dr. Jose Valdivino called for his. And that's the. The guy he's channeling is this Dr. Jose Valdivino called for his instruments again. I opened the special drawer and carefully removed the tray and took the instrument tray to him. He chose a paring knife, a regular kitchen serrated edge knife. He passed his hand over the man's eye and told him to relax. He opened the eye wide and pressed down hard and scraped. See, here it is, he said as he wiped the knife on the man's shirt. I could see a minute dark sliver. I know beyond a doubt after seeing so many of these operations, that the sliver was not a topical foreign object being removed, but rather something from deep inside that only the entities can see. The eye looks. The entity looks into the eye as a representation of the whole body system, not limited to the physical eye. I understand this is a symbolic removal on the physical level, but originating from many levels involving many different organs. The son is healed. You can take him to the infirmary, he said. As he wrote the post op prescription. So that's cool. That's an awesome gig, man.

[Andrew T.]

That is. I mean, I don't. I like. I don't wear contacts because I can't touch my eye.

[Dr. Phil]

I think I'll heal you, man. Yeah. Come over to my house. I'll whip out a big old rusty machete and I'll carve the ghosts out of your eye, man. It's fine. This is. This is where I'm taking Macheteson next.

[Andrew T.]

Damn, that's.

[Dr. Phil]

That's an easy grist. Just start slashing people's fucking faces. It's fine.

[Andrew T.]

Holy shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, man. And then. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Can you imagine the first time you try this shit? Like, this will work.

[Dr. Phil]

There's a lot of blind people who are like. Before he learned how to scrape people's eyes without blinding them. Like, he. There's like a whole village full of his. His. His first draft healings.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. Jesus Christ. I guess some of those people are dead, huh?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, you know, the good thing is if you're actually like. If you're doing this kind of grift, I think you definitely want to start out only trying to heal people with serious terminal illnesses like cancer, because then once you fuck up, they're not around very long. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really key. Yeah. A lot of good advice on how to start a medical grift in this episode. So take notes. When society collapses, some of you are going to do very well remembering this stuff. So, yeah, like, as that story noted, John of God would write prescriptions to his patients. And all of these prescriptions were for a specific herbal pill mixture sold in John of God's own pharmacy. The pills were mostly passion flower, and by some accounts, they've netted John More than $10 million a year here. He also gets a cut of the sales of the white clothes, the hotel fees, the sales of blessed water, and the sales of healing crystals which he prescribes to his followers. So you can see why no one in Abediana had any interest in questioning whether or not John of God was legit. He did face occasional challenges from members of the Brazilian government, particularly folks in the medical establishment who were leery of his psychic surgery. But this sort of woo is extremely popular in Brazil, particularly among rural voters. And John of God was both rich and connected, so it is not surprising that very little was ever done. What's more surprising is the degree to which foreign journalists bought into his shtick. In 2005, ABC News sent a small team to Aberdeenya to meet John of God. They put together a documentary basically posing the question of whether or not he was a healer or a bullshit artist. And they kind of landed on healer like. ABC News did a pretty shitty job of journalism here. And I'm gonna quote from this write up in the Montreal Gazette quote. In an attempt to provide a critical review of John's antics, the producers invited two experts, cardiac surgeon Mehmet Oz and James Randi, the world's leading investigator of paranormal phenomena. Oz was probably chosen because he was a proponent of various alternative therapies such as therapeutic touch and reflexology, and would be likely to be somewhat sympathetic to faith healing. And perhaps at an air of legitimacy, Randy was invited as the token skeptic. Oz appeared repeatedly in the hour long show, basically echoing the refrain that science doesn't have all the answers and not all other forms of healing need consideration. Science of course doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it does look for evidence before jumping on a bandwagon. Randy, who could have provided evidence for methods of trickery and for psychological manipulation, was given a total of 19 seconds on the show after being interviewed for hours. Why? Because the possibility that cancer can be healed by penetrating the nose with surgical forceps by a healer chosen by God makes for better television than declaring him to be a self delusional simpleton or a calculating fraud artist.

[Andrew T.]

So oh, I mean this has to also be like something like the underlying like, you know, faith in Christianity. Like, you know, it's like, oh, you gotta, you know, can't question religion, can't question religion. Takes you all the way to, well this could be real. This clearly fake shit could be real.

[Dr. Phil]

It's gotta be real. What else could it be? It's wild man. And Dr. Oz is a big part of justifying this guy. Like you can't overstate how much Dr. Oz played a role in giving this guy legitimacy. Because his job for his whole career pretty much has been to be a real doctor who will get up and say that nonsense makes sense, that nonsense medical treatments are good for you.

[Andrew T.]

I mean I think it's like critical to point out that like physicians are not fucking scientists. Like you can be a doctor. Ben Carson believes in fucking, you know, doesn't believe in evolution. Like doctors are just like high stakes technicians.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And engineers are regularly engineers and doctors actually are not irregularly like part of like terrorist moves. Like Al Qaeda had a bunch of engineers and doctors in it. Because like, like if you've got that kind of intelligence, like Ben Carson is A great brain surgeon and is also able to convince himself that the world is 6,000 years old. The kind of brains that these people have don't. There's a lot of very smart doctors obviously too. But you can be a doctor and very dumb and you can be a doctor. But I don't think Dr. Oz is dumb. I actually don't think that's. I think Dr. Oz is a very intelligent grifter who's made millions of dollars causing untold harm to. To the world and to our shared understanding of science.

[Sophie]

God, I hope a Dr. Oz ad comes on during this episode.

[Dr. Phil]

He's a piece of shit and a monster.

[Sophie]

I think an ad for Dr. Oz comes on right now.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

I think it's just like worth pointing out that the tem in stem. None of those things are indicative of actual knowledge necessarily.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

And this is part of why people talk about. Conservatives in particular talk a lot of shit about the liberal arts and like philosophy and all this stuff. And it's like, no, no, no. The reason why engineers and doctors should have some grounding in all that education is to stop Dr. Oz's from coming about like. Like it's to give people like a broader understanding than just like if you get really good at one incredibly narrow technical thing.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

You can convince yourself to believe all sorts of of stupid bullshit because you're a very smart person who doesn't have a wide ranging education. And it's very easy for those sorts of people to convince themselves of the things in the world. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

And who have like, who are highly rewarded for it. So like, yeah. You watch like any Silicon Valley person make a pronunciation on anything outside of business and it's like, oh, you are less educated than the average person. You are bad at reasoning.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And when a bunch of these people who are really good at one incredibly narrow task wind up responsible for a wide range of things, you have stuff like a viral epidemic get wildly out of hand and kill tens of thousands of people. But yeah, yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Hypothetically.

[Dr. Phil]

Hypothetically, yeah. And Dr. Oz is of course a part of that and was like urging people to take bullshit medical treatments during the coronavirus epidemic. Cause he's history's greatest monster. He was also cited repeatedly in that 2010 O Magazine article. Cause of course Oprah gave me Oz life and nursed him at her metaphorical breast of publicity. And I'm going to quote from that next. So this is the write up in O magazine that really put John of God on the map. Quote. Five years ago, Oz had participated in a primetime Live segment focusing on John of God. He examined hours of film footage from the entities healings. He'd looked at scans and biopsy reports and there were results. He couldn't explain the shrinkage of an aggressive tumor. For instance, this guy has a glioblastoma, which is a very deadly brain tumor, Oz recalled. It was grade four. They biopsied it and proved as an added credential, the biopsy was done at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, a prominent hospital. I took those films down to my radiologist along with a new set of films the patient had taken after his visit to John of God, which showed the tumor had calcified and essentially died. Now, I don't know Dr. Oz's radiologist, but I do know that Dr. Oz himself is a famous charlatan and a liar. I can't speak to the specific case, but it's worth noting that no other doctors got to look at this information. I can however, speak about other cancers that John of God claimed falsely to have cured. In 2005, South African singer Leah Melman refused breast cancer surgery to be treated by John of God. She claimed to have been cured by him and showed up on Oprah Winfrey show to tell everyone the good news about how Brazil's miracle healer had had cured her untreatable cancer, which actually was treatable, that she just chose not to get treated. She died of her untreated cancer two years after her Oprah appearance in 2012. Oprah did not post a retraction based on any of this. Of course, some of this is probably due to the fact that there were many, many other grateful patients all too eager to come forward and share their own of miraculous healing. That 2010 article by Susan Casey included the stories of several charismatic foreigners who claimed to have been cured by John and now worked for him or made money taking groups to be healed by him. I'm going to read one example. This is a quote from that O magazine article, which you can only find it on the Wayback Machine because once this guy got accused of rape by literally hundreds of people, Oprah pulled the article. But I found it on the Wayback Machine. And if you want to be really angry at an unspeakably shitty journal journalist and Susan Casey is one of the very worst who's ever ever done the job, read that article because it will make you want to punch holes in your wall. So I'm going to read a quote from it now. So get your hole punch in hands ready over a good Chilean Red Ed Ween, an ordained Minister, motivational speaker, and author of the four spiritual laws of prosperity, recounted the story of her brain aneurysm deemed inoperable by five neurosurgeons. Get your affairs in order, she remembers being told. And try not to sneak sneeze. That's how fragile I was, she said. So I did it. I went out and got my living will, my durable power of attorney. But then I realized I'm not ready to go just yet. She laughed at the memory. That's all it is now. After her dire diagnosis, at the urging of her prayer group, all of whom say they received the same vision of John of God curing her, Edwin traveled to the casa. I was nervous and I was skeptical, she said. But what did I have to lose? Almost immediately, the entity performed invisible surgery on her, a 40 minute process that involves sitting in a group meditation with her right hand over her. Her heart. Nobody touched her, but Edwin remembers. I could feel things moving around in my head. It didn't hurt, but it was different. Afterwards. She collapsed in exhaustion for 24 hours. Days later, she was told by her guide the stitches would be. Could. Would be removed. That night, I could feel ping, ping, ping, like stitches being pulled out. Eventually, a CT scan revealed the truth. Her aneurysm was gone. I'm so grateful, she said, nodding toward the head. Heavens. Since then, she's been back to the casa once at Christmas, and now she was headed there for a third time, bringing a group of 20 people who also sought healing. So this is the level of journalistic rigor that we're getting in this article. Go magazine, everybody.

[Andrew T.]

The mention of the wine is particularly choice. Oh, it's gotta be revolting.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Oprah magazine was definitely like, yeah, it was entirely geared at getting wine moms to believe spiritual nonsense and not get they're cancer treated.

[Andrew T.]

Jesus Christ.

[Sophie]

Robert, you want to take an ad break real quick?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. You know what else doesn't care if wine moms get cancer treatment? The products and services that support this podcast, they don't. They don't give a good God damn. And that's the Garrett. That's the behind the bastards guarantee. We're back. Oh, my gosh, what a great.

[Andrew T.]

I don't know, whatever this is.

[Dr. Phil]

What a great. You know, John of God. John of God is a monster and a rapist, and we will only hear more about the horrible things that he's done. But I can't have the same kind of hatred for him that I can for these fucking O magazine grifters and Dr. Oz. And I don't know why. I think it's because on, like, a global level, the amount of harm that these people do is so much higher. And it's also so much like. This is gonna sound weird, but, like, the horrible physical crimes that John of God committed, like, he just went out there and committed with his own body, and there's a level of, like, commitment to evil that's necessary. Whereas Dr. Oz and Oprah just, like, sit in front of a camera and say, that harms so many more people, while at the same time, they're perfectly friendly and nice people and so, like, nobody hates them and they never go to prison. And, like, I'm not gonna say they're worse than a rapist, but, yeah, they do more damage on a. On a broad scale. Right? Like. Yeah, it's not good.

[Andrew T.]

Well, it's. It's like, sort of like. It's like. It's like whatever the. The PR version of money laundering is. They.

[Dr. Phil]

They clean.

[Andrew T.]

They clean it. They're the cleaners.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. They're. They're like money launderers for, like, dangerous bullshit that gets people killed and mo Stuff. And they. They. They are responsible, in this case, for sending thousands of potential victims to this guy who, again, turns out to rape hundreds of people. And, like, they're being sent there by Oprah, but all she gets is traffic for it and more money. And everybody loves Oprah, and if she ran for president, she would absolutely win. And it's fine. And it's just fine. Because she's a friendly, nice person. I'm sure. I'm sure if I got to hang out with Oprah, I would enjoy her kind company, and I would forget momentarily the horrors that her brand has brought into the world. And that's very frustrating to think about.

[Andrew T.]

Although, to be fair, actually, if she were to graduate to the level of American President. Yeah. She would once again be in company where, probably, relatively speaking, her hands are relatively clean.

[Dr. Phil]

I hate to say it, but I suspect she would not be the worst president of my life.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

She might be the best. Yeah. Yeah. It's entirely possible.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. Both things are true. You can be the friendly face of a lot of horror.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

And still be the best president.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I would still vote for her over the current guy or even Joe Biden, to be honest. Here we go. Like, it's fucking wild. This is so dumb. We shouldn't have president or billionaires like Oprah, but whatever. Anyway, that O Magazine article has been scrubbed from the Internet because of all the rapes and stuff. But yeah, it's. I almost recommend finding it and reading it just to get a crash course in how to write a really irresponsible article about a cult leader. Susan Casey should be in some sort of journalist prison, but instead she went from being Oprah's editor in chief to working as the creative director for Outside Magazine, the editor of Sports Illustrated Women, and the author of a ridiculous sounding book on dolphins. And I am sure that I have ruined any chance of publishing an Outside magazine now, which bums me out. I would much rather do that than write about Nazis. But I don't like Susan Casey and I think she's very irresponsible. Yeah, she's the journalistic equivalent of like, like taking your nine year old out shooting for the first time and just getting blackout drunk first.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, is it like, because it's like. So generally there's this like a vested interest in promoting like spirituality and Christianity on some level and like.

[Dr. Phil]

Cause it's like when you, when you.

[Andrew T.]

Encounter these people, are you not at any point like, hey, this seems fucked up. It's so wild to me that you don't, that they don't have that instinct.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, the key is that all of the people surrounding John of God, because you don't spend much time with him, you spend a lot of time around these like. And they're mostly like white American ladies who love his. And they're all the same kind of, they're all Gwyneth Paltrow kind of people and they're all like well heeled and friendly and charming and they know how to speak to a specific segment of the population and those people find them trustworthy. Yeah. So Susan felt the need to visit John of God, the author of that O magazine article, so she could write a terrible article. But, but the ailment that sent her there was the fact that her father had tragically died very young and the resultant grief had nearly broken her. She went to Brazil for healing and she basically claims that John of God put her into a trance during one of his mass healing sessions. And she was able to visualize her father in paradise. Knowing that he was happy and off living his eternal life allowed her to move on. And that's all fine. Like, seriously, grief is the worst thing ever and there are way worse ways of coping with it than paying a guru to help you to hallucinate heaven or whatever. Do what you got to do to get by. I'm not going to blame her for that. What I will blame her for is the utterly uncritical way that she wrote about John of God's bullshit. Like his claims of being able to perform surgery without even touching people. So here's another quote. When you consider the countless unseen things that have undeniable power. Sound waves, microwaves, radio waves, emotions like anger or envy, wind, and of course, the awesome universal power of love, it seems silly to rely on the naked eye for proof of envy. Anything. Yet that is what we do. Numbers on charts and graphs, X rays, those we believe in, but we leave without documentation. Something we perceive with one of our five senses is considered without. With one of our five senses is considered blind faith. Sweet, but we don't really trust it. So she's saying that like it's. It's silly to believe in radio waves, but not the power of ghosts to heal people's cancer.

[Andrew T.]

The hand waving of naked eye into evidence is fucking revolting.

[Dr. Phil]

She is hand waving so hard it could power a fucking windmill farm like Jesus. So she actually makes the argument in that article that it's unreasonable for us to reject the reality of John of God's powers just because there's no proof behind them. This is reinforced by some. Something she writes about her arrival in the hotel at Aberdeena. Quote. As I hoisted my luggage up to the second floor, a small sign of the wall caught my attention. Don't believe everything you think it advised. Which is gas. Like, that's kind of gaslighting, right? It's like gaslighting via decoration.

[Andrew T.]

That's. Yeah, that is exactly. That is what abusers say. That's fucking insane.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Holy shit.

[Dr. Phil]

In this same uncredulous way, she writes about the entities that John of God channels. Quote. If you spend time at Abadianya, you will hear the phrase the entities over and over again, sometimes plural and sometimes singular, and you will come to use it yourself as if it were a completely ordinary thing to say. What it actually means, however, is so extraordinary that it defies our sense of what is logical or even possible in this world. The healing entities who work through John of God are the spirits of deceased doctors, surgeons, masters and saints. Heather's website explains matter of factly. They use medium Joao's body, channeling their power through him. Sometimes the spirits show up anonymously, but there are several who make regular appearances. They include Dr. Augusto D'Almieda, a surgeon and army man with a serious and efficient manner. Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, whose specialties were infectious diseases and bacteriologists St Francis Xavier, Co founder of the Jesuit order, along with Casa's patron saint, Ignatius of Loyola, a priest and nobleman from the 16th century. Despite the presence of saints, medium Joao, born a Catholic, makes it clear that the casa is not a church, but rather a spiritual hospital. My mission has nothing to do with religion, he says. So, oh, have the guys.

[Andrew T.]

Have these guys ever been sued by the estates of these? This feels a little bit like Mormons, like, baptizing people in, like, post mortem.

[Dr. Phil]

Most of the poor people who come to John of God are too poor to sue if their serious diseases don't get cured. And most of the rich people aren't actually coming there for serious diseases. They're coming there for things like Susan has where they're sad. You know, that's a lot of these patients.

[Andrew T.]

Sorry, I meant the estates of these spirits of the.

[Dr. Phil]

Man. Yeah, that would be fun to try to sue someone for that. I don't know that there's any legal precedent. I think it's really funny that you're talking about, like, okay, we've got this infectious disease doctor, but actually he's calling it a second opinion from the 16th century nobleman.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, exactly. It's like, hey, my grandpa, you know, admittedly my Nazi grandpa probably wouldn't have supported this. I guess is not the best court case, but yeah, you know, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, boy. Susan goes on to write, quote, at the Casa, skeptics are as welcome as believers. I had already noticed that skeptics didn't tend to stay that way. Many harrumphing empirical scientists had become impassioned John of God advocates after visiting and witnessing him in action. She doesn't go on to quote any of these scientists or give any evidence of this. She just like says it because this is again, a perfect piece of journalism. At one point, Susan attends a healing and says that John of God called for doctors in the audience to come forward. In her recitation of events. These learned men were all bowled over by John's inexplicable healing abilities. As far as I can tell, Susan took no action to determine if any of these men were actual doctors. A real journalist, Michael Usher, did report critically on John of God in 2014 for 60 Minutes. And I want to compare how she and Michael both wrote about the medium's ice scraping search surgery. Quote, from my vantage point, only 10. And this is Susan from my vantage point, only 10ft away. The change in his body and demeanor was easily visible now. His eyes were more intense and they flashed noticeably darker. His gait became stiffer, his movements more deliberate. He turned to the three women standing against the wall, took the one closest to him by the hand and gently sat her in a wheelchair. Her eyes fluttered wide as she meditated. Reaching to the tray, he selected a short knife with a wooden handle, a cheap looking type that you might use to paran apple. And he held it up to the room, making sure that everyone saw its sharp blade. He tipped her head back, running his hand across her face. And he opened her left eye, holding the eyelid wide. Then he began to scrape the knife across her eyeball back and forth with visible pressure. Unbelievably, the woman sat absolutely still without flinching or recoiling. I had a hard time watching this, believing as I do that the words knife and eyeball should never appear in the same sentence. After what seemed like an eternity devoid of trauma, he put down the knife. The orderly took the wheelchair and steered it into the infirmary as she had the entire time. The woman appeared to be napping. How on earth could a knife crush your eyeball and not hurt? Later, I would interview another recipient of this treatment, Connie Price, 62, from Jackson, Michigan. There was no pain whatsoever, she said of the five minute scraping. I could feel the energy coming through him. I remember the heat pouring through that man's body. Price found the treatment beneficial. I can see a lot better now. So you'll notice the only evidence of efficacy of healing is they didn't look to be in pain when this guy was rubbing a knife on their eye. And they said, one of them said afterwards, I can see better now. There's. There's no. Again, that's not evidence. That's an anecdote. And that's not an anecdote based on like actually testing her eyesight.

[Andrew T.]

Is that. And also it's like, aren't there. Isn't the whole thing. There's like, there aren't. Are there nerves on your eyeball? Because that's how they do, like basic, right?

[Dr. Phil]

It's actually really easy to. It's the same thing with like, sh. It's actually very easy to rub a knife and even cut a little bit on an eyeball without somebody being in a horrible place. Pain. And you know, even when you actually are cutting into people's chest, like, it's easy for people to not feel pain. Like, again, people who like, there are people who like, do cutting and stuff or who will, like. I have friends who like, will suspend themselves from fucking things in the roof of a building with like, hooks in their back. And like, it feels good to them. Like there's like a release of endorphins like there's pain too, but like they're not like, screaming in agony the whole time, even though you would think they would. Would be. Yeah, exactly. The fact that these people don't report pain or anything isn't weird and is part of a long, documented history of people experiencing temporary relief from faith healing and stuff like that. There's nothing mysterious about it. For decades, Pentecostal revivalist preachers have done things like pray over people with injured legs and then have them discard their crutches and dance around. And the explanation for how this works is the same as the explanation for why, if you throw your back, you might find yourself forgetting the pain during a moment of extreme danger or extreme excitement. Like, it's just sometimes our brains override our experience of pain. It happens. It's a thing that people do. It's like those stories of women lifting cars off their babies. So, yeah, that's how Susan Casey uncritically reports on a healing session. Here's how. A real journalist, Michael Usher, reports on a pretty much identical healing session. John of God is not a surgeon. He is not a trained doctor. Yet he is presented with a tray of medical instruments, scalpels, and all sorts of scissors. He takes a scalpel and scrapes eyes. He sticks knives and scalpels of some sort down the back of people's throats. And he claims he is getting to tumors. He claims he is getting to the root of people's illnesses. He claims he is getting to what makes people ill or sick. None of it is done with an anesthetic. And you don't even know if what he's using is sterile.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that feels about right.

[Dr. Phil]

A large part of why John of God's magic seems to work is the fact that he performs it all at, in public, among and in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd of true believers, many of whom also happen to be desperately ill. John tells them that they can all help fuel his work and heal themselves by sitting in the current and basically meditating for hours while he does his thing. As Susan Casey writes, on any given day, maybe 400 people form the current, spelunking so deeply into their interior realms, they might well be asleep or anesthetized. While doing so, they refrain from opening their eyes or crossing their arms or legs. These things, they are told, cut off the flow of energy as surely as would kinking a hook. So this is cool.

[Andrew T.]

At least she said they were told in that one.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I'm. I. If I'm throwing a lot of shade On Susan Casey for her bad article here. It's because her choice to platform John of God with no critical thinking or even an attempted examination, brought his line of bullshit to the eyes and ears of millions of vulnerable people. Oprah Winfrey had her on her show in 2010, and one of the millions of women who watched that episode was a Dutch choreographer named Zahira Lineke Mouse. She suffered from sexual trauma, and Winfrey's episode do you believe in miracles? Convinced her that Medium John could heal her. She waited in line twice to receive his healing after traveling to Brazil on her first visit, he prescribed her some of his herb pills. When those didn't do the trick, she went back and he offered her a spiritual cleansing in a rare private session from the Washington Post. Quote, she waited until everyone in line had their turns, until finally she was alone, and John of God invited her into his office and then into his bathroom. That's where Mo says he raped her, all while leading her to believe it was part of her healing. Now, Mose was one of hundreds and perhaps thousands of rape victims of John of God. And I want to end on this note to get to the point of, like, what's really happened here, which is that an American industry based on uncritically looking at spiritual healers funneled victims into this guy's hands and allowed him to achieve a level of influence and basically built a spider web for this fucking spider of a man. So we're gonna continue the story of John of God in part two, but right now, we're gonna continue the story of Andrew T. Of God's pluggables.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, shit. You know, just go to the Yozus racist podcast. I met Andrew T. His last name is spelled T I Everywhere. Yeah, that's it.

[Dr. Phil]

That is it. Well, I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on the Internet Behindthebastards.com youm can find me on Twitter at iwriteok. And if you want, I will just sort of rub a machete all over your eyes. It's gonna cost you. I don't know. Let's say I don't take any money, but we do ask for $3,000. Don't. Donations to our medical center. So give me 3,000 bucks and I'll fucking. I'll rub a machete on whatever part of your body you want.

[Andrew T.]

That's a guarantee.

[Dr. Phil]

That is a guarantee. Absolute guarantee. I also have a podcast called the Women's War. It's upbeat. It tells you about how to. How to make things that don't suck out of your society when it sucks. So maybe listen to that too and I don't know, go in Christ and cut up people's eyes.

[Sophie]

Yep, that's the podcast.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it is dope. Part part one of the podcast.

[Andrew T.]

Okay.

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[Robert Evans]

And your number with you.

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[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught.

[Dr. Phil]

He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Some Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers. BTK through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a child trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Phil]

Welcome back to behind the Bastards, the podcast where we talk about terrible people. And this is part two of our series on John of God. But the real bastard is Also Oprah and Dr. Oz and Susan Casey, the author of that terrible. So pull up a fine Chilean red and get ready to hear some more. I have to. This is off topic, but I want to tell something I just ran across to my guest, Andrew T. Before we roll into the episode. Andrew, how are you doing today?

[Andrew T.]

What's up? The jog? Ready to hear about the rest of this motherfucker?

[Dr. Phil]

Well, before we do that, I just came across something on Twitter. It's a book that's being sold. It's like part of the Joe Biden grift because, like, every politician has a grift now. And this is a coloring book called A Hot cup of Joe and it has a cartoon of sexy Joe Biden on it.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, A piping hot coloring book with America's sexiest moderate, Joe Biden.

[Andrew T.]

Jesus Christ.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's awful. It is abuse. It is abuse.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, That's. Well, that's fucking horrific. Horrendous. It's almost worth buying so you can have it for whatever happens with the election. Just to have this fucking horrible thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I. I don't want to Give this person money. But I do want to see inside this terrible, terrible criminal coloring book. The sexy 70 something politicians thing is one of the weirdest aspects of modern politics that, like, you have these two old. Old and clearly not in the best of health men, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, both of whose supporters have to depict them as, like, muscle bound. Like, like, like, like hunks and guys. They're elderly, dying men. Stop it. Like, you don't. Like. Even if you think they're the right.

[Robert Evans]

Person to be president, you don't have.

[Dr. Phil]

To pretend that they're like. You don't have to get thirsty about them. What is wrong with you people?

[Sophie]

They both wear diapers. Like, let's talk about that situation. They're not like, bench pressing.

[Dr. Phil]

Come on. Yeah, yeah. They're not doing wind sprints. Like, Joe's abs don't exist because he's an old, sick man. And that's okay. I mean, and that's fine. Ideal. But, like, whatever. Like, stop it. Stop it, all of you.

[Sophie]

The flesh on his face is melting day by day.

[Dr. Phil]

It's what happens as you die.

[Sophie]

Like, he's not.

[Andrew T.]

Which is fine. They're dying.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Like, yeah. This is not on them. Because they're like pretty normally aged men for them. What are you doing? You don't have to make them sexy. What is wrong with you?

[Andrew T.]

If I could just do a tiny poll and just point out that Sophie's idea of a sexy man is Popeye and we can just live in that for a second.

[Dr. Phil]

I dare you to find a better example of uncut eroticism than Robin Williams as Popeye in that 1980s Popeye movie. That absolutely exists. Look it up. It's fucking something else.

[Andrew T.]

Insanity.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. People made that. People made that and no one stopped them.

[Andrew T.]

Isn't that Robert Altman?

[Dr. Phil]

I think so. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

I think it's Robert Altman. You keep talking. I'm gonna look it up. No, I'm not.

[Sophie]

Don't do it to yourself.

[Andrew T.]

Never mind.

[Dr. Phil]

It's great. So we're all back from.

[Sophie]

It is Robert Altman.

[Dr. Phil]

I looked it up.

[Sophie]

I couldn't help it.

[Dr. Phil]

All right, let's. Let's. It's time to get back into this episode. Talk about John of God some more. I just had to. That hit my world like a fucking carpet bomb, and I had to. I just had to talk about it.

[Andrew T.]

So back to hit your world like a. Like a cruise missile at your wedding?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, like. Like one of Raytheon's fine products hitting a wedding, which, you know, if you've ever thought not enough weddings have missiles. Hit them. Then you're the kind of customer Raytheon's looking for. All right, we really should start the episode now. So.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

No human being has ever embodied the phrase, the road to hell is paved with good intentions better than Oprah Winfrey. Like many of you, she was a regular background figure in my childhood. My mom would have her on when she was working from home while we did chores, et cetera. Like she was just on in the background the time. And compared to the other background figures of my childhood, guys like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, she was pretty benign. At least she seemed that way. I don't know if I would describe her as a monster, but her career has been a masterclass in how to enable monsters. Winfrey was a longtime friend of Harvey Weinstein. She regularly hosted Tony Robbins, another sex pest and self help guru. She is largely responsible for making Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz into house household names. And both of those men have gone on to do incalculable harm to. And of course, she is the reason John of God at his clinic were put in front of the faces of millions upon millions of gullible, desperate Westerners. After that O magazine article was published in 2010, she dedicated a special episode to John of God, inviting the author of that article and a doctor onto her show. They were both total converts. But how they and Oprah presented John to their audience is really interesting to me. And I want you to click that first link and play it to about 38 minutes.

[Narrator]

Andrew, because you went expecting to find what?

[Andrew T.]

Well, I went to just gather evidence to see what's true.

[Narrator]

Susan, when you were there, did he. I heard that he actually invites medical doctors from around the world to come up and witness him do these things. Is that correct?

[Dr. Phil]

Yes. And they always are sort of very careful not to ever pit themselves against the medical, the mainstream medical profession. They, you know, they're very much like, they're not. He's never going to do a heart transplant up there. It's like he's going to do whatever he can do with his ability to heal. And then you might have to go to your doctor for the rest. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Okay, I'm back.

[Dr. Phil]

That's good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

What'd you think of that, Andrew? What do you think of that framing?

[Andrew T.]

Incredible. Incredible. I mean, the one thing watching the clip is that what is. Sorry, what is. What is the journalists, the quote, unquote, journalist.

[Dr. Phil]

Susan Casey. Journalist, a strong word for Susan.

[Andrew T.]

The one thing watching that is that Susan looks Almost exactly as I thought she would. Yes. She's like exactly the type of white woman that would promote this shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes. Yeah. And whatever picture you. I guarantee you 100% of you, whatever picture you have in your head of Susan Casey is accurate because there's only one wild. Yeah, it's awesome, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it's.

[Andrew T.]

And then also, like, this. This thing where he's like, he's not going to do a heart transplant, but he's like, you might have to go to your regular doctor for that is like just like key, like sweeping shit under the rug. It's like, well, of course you will need real medical care. Also.

[Dr. Phil]

What's really cool about that is that it is very clearly and obviously an answer of Susan and this other doctor who talk about, in a minute, whitewashing John of God. So, like, they know that if they're going to be on Oprah's show and talk to, like a mainstream audience, they have to put in a. They can't just be all like. Especially because of this is 2010 and we aren't where we are now. Now you could just say, doctors are bullshit. This guy's the only real healer in the world. You could get away with that. Back then you had to be like, oh, no, you still. Regular doctors are still good, great for things. He's just helping with other stuff. And like, that was necessary to get people on board. But John of God's Cult produced propaganda, too. This is why I say that Susan Casey and this doctor are like, intentionally whitewashing him. Because for this episode of Oprah's show, they use clips from a documentary that John of God's Cult produced. And in the actual documentary, there is no time wasted telling people that they need to consult their doctors. So I'm going to play next. Have you play next a clip from that actual. The documentary produced by the cult that shows kind of of how internally they talked about his healing powers. And it's very different from how Oprah did physical healings that cannot be explained away. He said to me in reply to.

[Jamie Loftus]

My question, can you help me to become healthy again? And he replied, you are already healed.

[Andrew T.]

Holy shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, so, yeah, you see, like, in that there's no talk about like, oh, yeah, you gotta fucking right.

[Andrew T.]

Consult a physician.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, no, he just heals your shit. Yeah. So the doctor guy that Oprah has on there is a fellow named Jeffrey Rediger. And he's really interesting to me because he is a very real medical professional and was actually or is actually a Member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, He researches spontaneous healing, which is like, when people go into remission or whatever, and there's no clear explanation why, which is a thing that happens. People get better from things. We don't understand why that's a thing that happens. And he is clearly there to inject both credibility and skepticism into the discussions about John of God, kind of like Dr. Oz was earlier. For example, Oprah at one point plays a video of one of John of God's brain surgeries where he's like, shoving stuff up people's nose. And Dr. Reddick, Gregor is really upfront and clear about the fact that this brain surgery through the nose stuff is sleight of hand, that he's not actually performing surgery, that he's. That there's. There's a ton of space in the navel cavity and nothing inexplicable is going on. So he does make, he does state that to the audience, but he does that while he buys into the fact that scientifically inexplicable healing occurs at John of God's center. So I'm going to play another clip from that Oprah episode so you can kind of see how this skeptic talks about this healing.

[Narrator]

Dr. Jeffrey Rediger traveled to Brazil also to see John of God's work firsthand. Explain, if you can, the medical risks of surgery without anesthesia or proper sterilization. It doesn't look like he's like, sterilizing.

[Dr. Phil]

The knife or holy the probe or.

[Andrew T.]

Well, yeah, as a physician, I have to say you. You don't try these kinds of things at home and, or with your loved ones. And, you know, this guy has a second grade education. And I do have to say that these are things that I don't understand. So I can't fully endorse things that are beyond my understanding. But I've seen them happen. Generally without anesthesia, you see enormous pain. I take care of people every day in pain from surgery and other events. The risk of infection is typically great and something that we have to take seriously.

[Narrator]

So have followed up with these people who've gone through these procedures. Maybe infections came later.

[Andrew T.]

Well, I think every situation of spiritual healing is different.

[Dr. Phil]

So did you catch what went on there? This is really interesting to me. So Dr. Rediger notes that the psychic surgeries, which, like, use real knives and actually cut people, he notes that that's dangero. Like, he tells people not to do it at home, but he also says he's not aware of anyone getting infections. And then when Oprah Points out that they could have gotten infected later. He doesn't respond to that. You'll notice he doesn't say that that's possible even. He just sort of says that like a bunch of things get. Like, that's really. Yeah, that's amazing. But it's the kind of thing. Because it's been acknowledged, even though he doesn't then go on to state that, like, actually, yes. We have no data that these people to suggest these people aren't getting infected. We're not performing any follow ups. I didn't take any attempts to actually determine whether or not people got infected. Infected letter. He doesn't say that. He gives a non response so that the. The show can move on and the audience can move forward content that John of God. That these are real serious, skeptical people and that that makes John of God even more real. Because this vet, this medical professional has vetted him with the requisite amount of skepticism, even though none of that was actually done. It's amazing. Like, this is a master class in how to white and like it's laundering. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew T.]

It's even like the way that that like they can claim they've addressed the infection risk by saying, oh, because they brought it up. It's fucking revolting. That's crazy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's awesome. I want to play one more clip from this episode because we just gotta believe.

[Andrew T.]

And this is what medicine and psychiatry need to examine is I believe the powers of belief, the powers of the mind are far more powerful than we have even begun to explore. I believe that's an unexplored wilderness in terms of research.

[Narrator]

So you said that since you made that trip as the skeptic and then you were there in the presence and then had the whole bleeding experience yourself, that it turned your life upside down. How so?

[Andrew T.]

Well, if you can say something to the effect that I believe this in my head, but I don't believe it in my heart. I don't get it. It's too much. And. And then a little incision manifests on the skin over the area of your heart. That means none of this is what we think it is.

[Dr. Phil]

Something.

[Andrew T.]

I don't know what that means. And I'm sure religions can layer on many different interpretations. Do you consider yourself a religious person because of this? I'm actually more interested in the development and cultivation of the spiritual life. All right.

[Dr. Phil]

Yep. So that's interesting. One of Rediger's claims is that while he's watching John of God perform these surgeries, he spontaneously started bleeding from a Hole inside, which is kind of like a stigmata thing. He's introduced as a skeptic who traveled to John of God center in order to take samples and medically vet whether or not this man was a serious healer. And he says later in that interview, quote, some people I spoke with were able to remember the events going around them completely. And some people seem to enter a sort of altered state during these surgeries. When I was assisting in one of these surgeries, John of God cut this woman's cornea. She didn't flinch. She didn't try to pull away from him. I can't explain that. I heard some people use the term spiritual anesthesia. I have no way to understand that. It's interesting that he says that because there's actually a lot of reasons why someone wouldn't feel their eye getting scraped.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like perfectly explicable and like lending essentially the name of your institution. And by claiming to be baffled to give it, like, credence is like God truly pathetic. It's also like, even accepting his words at face value until the end, it's like, okay, yes, the brain can do a lot. Yes, psychology is more powerful probably in terms of physiological stuff than we give it credit for. And then pivoting to I want to have a spiritual life is like, like just an abdication of curiosity.

[Dr. Phil]

Yep.

[Andrew T.]

It's just like, what do you. Yeah, this. I mean, it's. It is remarkable that some of these people don't feel pain probably. It's documented in other media, you know, other types of formats of this kind of shit and sure worth exploring. But being like, yeah, I want to see, I want to learn more about these spirits is like, incredible.

[Dr. Phil]

He's. He's such a piece of shit. Yeah, Obviously, like, I've scraped my cornea before when I was out hashing in the woods, and it didn't hurt. It hurt afterwards. Like, because just like it fucked up my ability. Like, my eye was taking in too much light or something. Like it was like, kind of blinded me. It was very much debilitating afterwards. But the actual getting scraped by a branch in the eye, it didn't cause pain, which is part of why it took me a while to realize what had happened. Yeah, I don't know. It's like. There's also a lot of data on how altered mind altering states like people have in these religious moments can impact perception of pain. Worship is definitively a mind altering state. John of God requires his patients to go through an elaborate series of meditations before and after treatment. And I actually found a scholarly study of his surgeries conducted by doctors from a Brazilian medical school. They note the surgeries were always performed by John of God and occurred in a large, non sterilized and open room with dozens of spectators, most of whom were other patients and their relatives or friends. During each of these surgical sessions, approximately five patients usually remained standing while side by side in front of one of the room's wall. Rarely, patients were submitted to the surgeries while they were seated in a chair. Visible surgeries were performed in a few minutes in a very grandiose and theatrical way, invoking strong emotional involvement and even perplexity among the audience. Incisions were performed with either sterilized scalpels or kitchen knives, and surgeries were performed in rapid succession. The cleanliness of the instruments contrasted to reports of other mediumistic surgeries performed by dirty or even rusty implements. So you notice the stories about this guy that uncredible sources state always say that he's just using, like, random kitchen knives, sometimes even that they're dirty when actual scientists studied it. Like, they know his knives are always sterilized. And he's not cutting open people deeply and removing organs. He is scraping their skin and their eyes. The fact that that they don't get, a lot of them don't get infections isn't weird. Have you ever gotten a scrape that didn't get infected? You've probably gotten a lot because your body is reasonably good at not dying from random scrapes. Otherwise there wouldn't be people. It's very frustrating. Another frustrating thing is that this study goes on to note that they don't know. They couldn't find any evidence of infections among John's patients. But they also note that they didn't actually get to follow up with any of these people further than a day or two on, because, like, a lot of them, like, we're traveling in from elsewhere. So, like, the paper is a proper scientific paper, and it concludes that, like, we need to do more research and track these patients for longer term to determine whether or not anyone's getting infected. Which is what you say if you're an actual scientist. Dr. Rediger, on the other hand, just gets on Oprah and announces that this is all inexplicable. Like, science can't explain this. It's like, yes, it can. You just didn't try. Like, you didn't even try. And I hate him.

[Andrew T.]

Science doesn't work when you don't do it. That's a remarkable conclusion.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Thank you, Doctor. I found a good critical write up of Dr. Rediger's performance on the blog Science Based Medicine. I'm going to quote from that now. Unfortunately, the camera angles used made it impossible for me to judge whether John was doing what he claimed. In the only close up shot that was presented, it was clear to me that the knife never touched the woman's eye. And when John actually appeared to be doing something, the camera never focused on the woman. Woman's eye. How convenient. It was almost as though Oprah producers were making a conscious effort not to show a camera angle that would allow viewers to judge whether the procedure actually being done was what John of God claimed. Personally, I'd have loved to see an ophthalmologist or even just a surgeon rather than a psychiatrist, because Dr. Rediger is a psychiatrist allowed to have a close up view of John's activities. Rediger is also shown in a video clip, apparently bleeding from the chest. Apparently, after having viewed John do his cornea scraping bit, he expresses fear and is concerned that the bleeding doesn't stop as soon as he thinks it should, pointing out that he doesn't have a bleeding disorder. So again, Dr. Reddinger is a psychiatrist, which makes him a legitimate medical professional, but does not make him particularly competent to rule on whether or not someone's reaction to a light surgical cut is inexplicable, because that is not what psychiatrists specialize in. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, but it's also just being like the arrogance of being able to say, I can't explain it, so it is therefore I won't explain it. I won't find out how to explain it, so it's therefore inexplicable.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's super great. Yeah. And it's also noted in that article that Dr. Rediger isn't just a psychiatrist, he's a psychiatrist who's built an entire brand off of embracing spontaneous healing. At the time this came out, he headed up the Initiative for Psychological and Spiritual Development. And on his old website, he wrote this explaining what the institute did. Quote, we live in a culture that has advanced enough that we can send the person with a medical problem to the medical doctor, a person with an emotional problem to the psychologist, a person with a spiritual problem to the priest, minister, or rabbi. Yet the Initiative for Psychological and Spiritual Development is founded upon the belief that beneath all and behind all the masks and appearances that we present to the world, there is something more. And whatever healing potential exists comes from this place, which is great nonsense. Beautiful, beautiful nonsense. So Dr. Rediger's initiative appears to be defunct now. I don't think it exists anymore. I can't find evidence of that, but I didn't look super hard, so maybe I'm wrong. He does have a book out, however, called Cured with an exclamation point. And it's about people going into spontaneous remission. I don't know enough about Rediker to declare him an absolute grifter, but I do know that he was once a ghost on coast to coast am, which is like Alex Jones for people who are a little bit less racist than Alex Jones.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, God.

[Dr. Phil]

So I'm gonna say it's probably fair to call him a grifter. You don't go on coast to Coast FM if you're like am, if you're like a credible person.

[Andrew T.]

Well, it's also like the not acknowledging that spontaneous remission is a severe outlier of event. And like, yeah, it's possible, but like putting your treatment faith in that is insane.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes, yeah. And yeah, but it's a great grift. It's a thing. People want to read about it. People love reading books about magical healing and shit.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

So yeah. Dr. Rediger is part of the grand tradition in the medical field of credentialed medical professionals who provide cover for miracle slinging con men. And of course, Dr. Oz would be another example example of this type of person. Another example is provided in Susan Casey's O magazine article about John of God. And this is her again attempting to do some real journalistic research to talk about how it's not weird to believe that this guy could be curing cancer. Quote, the belief in the effectiveness of prayer is as old as civilization. The results are tough to pin down. Bernard Grad, PhD, a Canadian biologist from McGill University, worked with a spiritual healer named Oscar Estebani, conducting controlled studies in the late 1950s and 60s. Using mice that had been uniformly wounded, Estebani would place his hands upon the wire covers of certain cages, willing those animals to heal. The results were dramatic. In one experiment, the wounds on Estebani's treated mice were very significantly smaller after two weeks than those of mice that had been left to heal on their own. The team also discovered that plant seeds exposed to energy healing grew at a faster rate. There was a force here, they agreed, and it appeared to be doing something beneficial. What that force was, however, no one could say for sure. Now these studies happened. They're a real thing that happened. You can read them. Bernard Grad did carry out those studies. And if you look them up, you'll find conclusions that are pretty similar to what Susan Casey writes in her bad article. What you won't find is any clear follow up to this study. In fact, basically the only writing about this research you will find comes from either woo woo bullshit practitioners or other medical griftsmen trying to convince people that energy healing is real. This makes it difficult to refute because there really aren't direct refutations of Dr. Grad's work. What we do have, however, is almost a century of additional research into quote unquote energy healing. Because again, stuff was done in the 50s and 60s. Like it wasn't a big study, it was conducted a long time ago. You can't say that it was conduct like we can't prove to a point of certainty that these people were actually conducting it well or abiding by all the rules they said they were. And there's another 70 years of other studies into this that show very different results. So again, she picks out this one study from 70 years ago that says what she wants it to say. She ignores, for example, the fact that in 1999, three psychiatrists with a Lancet evaluated multiple several hundred of them that showed links between religious faith, faith healing and energy healing and health benefits. Here's how Science magazine reported on their findings. Typically, they say, these studies ignore other factors that may improve health, such as abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. And even the scientifically sound practices they contend were inconsistent and don't justify bringing religion into medical practice. Richard Sloan of Columbia University and his colleagues reviewed every article containing religion and physical health they could find in Medline, an online service that indexes medical studies. Many of them, he says, focused on such groups as Roman Catholic priests or Benedictine monks, which forbid certain risky behaviors. Others looked at more general populations of churchgoers and found lower disease rates, but failed to take into account that only people who are in fairly good health can go to church. When these confounding factors were taken into account, either by the original researchers in a follow up study or by Sloan's group, the alleged benefits usually disappeared. Overall, Sloan says, the evidence is very unconvincing and weak, much weaker, for example, than the link between marital sexual status and health. So again, you can point out there's a couple of individual studies that like, haven't been refuted that suggests a benefit between energy healing and health. And then there's hundreds of studies that show no connection at all. And if you only pay attention to the studies that say what you want, it sounds great. If you look at the mass body of research, it doesn't look so good, but Susan Casey doesn't do that. Yeah, so that's cool. Um, following that 2010 episode of the Oprah Show, Oprah herself visited John of God in 2012. She described the encounter as blissful. And in her wake, thousands upon thousands of other seekers made the call to travel down Brazil way for some psychic healing. By 2014, John's humble center had transformed into a straight up commercial empire. Those passion flower pills alone grew into a $10 million a year business. Celebrities visited, including Paul Simon, the Princess of Japan, and Bill Clinton. Maybe, probably. We don't exactly know. There's a bunch of celebrities who are rumored to have gone. I'm gonna guess probably Bill Clinton seems like the kind of guy who'd try this.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, but something else, especially like all the other shit, it's like, who the fuck knows what's happening there?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. But something else also cropped up over the years. Allegations of sexual misconduct by John of God. Objective observers noted that he seemed to have a strange non medical fixation with women's breasts. Performing surgery aimed treating heart conditions and other ailments by groping them and cutting around their nipples. So that's good.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, God, it's always like the most obvious shit. And yet there's still gonna be years of like, of where they're like, oh, I don't know, he just, you know, he was just interested in heart surgery. Like, yeah, it's, it's always so transparent when the shit finally, like when the mask starts to slip.

[Dr. Phil]

I feel like, Yep, yep, it is. But you know what? Mask never slips. The mask of capitalism. And that means it's time for us to take our mask off and put some products and services on. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Hell yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

We're back. Okay. So yeah, we left off, you know, John of God has gotten this huge boost from Oprah and her grift community. People are flooding in from all around the world. But also some stories start to come out. Allegations all vague at this point, no individual names attached, but that he's, he's sexually harassing and assaulting people. The allegations were enough that in 2014, a real newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, sent a real journalist, Tim Elliott, to look into the matter. Tim's article provided the first comprehensive look at John of God's operation by someone who wasn't clearly two steps away joining his cult, like Susan Casey. The center provided him with a white expat handler to introduce him to John of God's world. Since Tim was a man, his Handler was a man, Diego Coppola. Here's Tim's article. Quote. Coppola was born in Peru, but spent most of his life in California, where he worked as a computer engineer. After visiting the CASA in 2001 just to check it out, he married a Brazilian and moved to Abadiana. These days, he manages the Casa's 50 strong staff, a multinational team of volunteers who take care of logistics, channeling the constant flow of visitors and moving, most importantly, forming an impenetrable buffer around Medium Joo, sheltering him from the ceaseless demands of a ravening public. Everybody wants a piece of Medium Joo, says Coppola. Before I arrived, Coppola had promised me an interview with Joao, although he now lets me know that this is far from guaranteed. He is not like you and me, Coppola tells him. He lives in another realm. Timetables don't mean much to him. What matters to him is doing the work, taking care of the healing. So that's good.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, I mean, like that. The handler for this sort of situation is always like, it's so fucking sinister. It's so crazy to me that people get sucked into this shit. It just seems like on the face, like, get the fuck out of there.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. Now the reality is that John of God spent most of his time living in luxury on a ranch compound nearby. He only worked about half the week. And later revelations which suggest that he spent much of his downtime sexually abusing women, although he also spent a lot of his work hours sexually abusing women, too. So who knows? Tim Elliott spoke to an Australian seeker, a woman named Sarah Layton from Melbourne. She's very emblematic of the success cases for John of God, and I'm going to quote from him again. This is your fourth trip to the CASA since 2011, during which time she has sought treatment for her liver, kidney and heart, as well as female problems. She also had lots of psychic surgeries, which is when the entities operate on patients remotely. You wake up after one of these surgeries and you can actually feel the stitches in your stomach, she tells me. Real stitches, no psychic stitches. She says what has helped her most, though, is the emotional healing. She's had a hard life after being sexually abused as a child. She was tortured before coming here. She had attempted suicide four times. She estimated she has spent $50,000 all up in airfare donations. I always donate to the Casa because John of God doesn't charge anything. And medications such as healing herbs, which are sold at the Casa's pharmacy. I used my inheritance $20,000 from my grandmother to pay for a lot of it, but it's worth it. My heart is healed, which western medicine wasn't able to do, and my gynecological problems have stopped. So there's a lot going on there.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

First off, you see, like, everyone claims he doesn't take money. And then this woman's like, but I spent $50,000 here, which is like. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, I guess to that end, that's not that different than any religion, but.

[Dr. Phil]

No. Yeah. Or than actually getting medical treatment in the legal way if you don't have health insurance or if you do have health insurance in a lot of cases.

[Andrew T.]

Fuck, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. But, like, you'll notice that, like, and this is true with a lot of the most dedicated case studies who will come out and talk about this guy's healing is their actual medical complaints are really vague. And there's. So there's nothing in that that you can track pathologically. She vaguely says gynecological problems, but also says, like, it's really my heart and, like, my emotional problem that he healed. And Susan Casey, the O magazine author, was in the same boat. She was grieving, not physically ill. And I've read a lot of stories about women who received healing from John of God, and an overwhelming number of them came in with emotional pain. And these people do seem to have gotten real relief at the center, but there's nothing magic about what provided them with the relief. I'm going to quote now from a woman who wrote a story about, like, her own treatment by John of God. This is what she described it as, quote. Meeting the medium was a solemn process. Hundreds of people in white flocked to the casa every morning, some in wheelchairs, other frail from chemo and orderly line. We waited to go before him so he could prescribe our cures. Mine was as five trips to the local sacred waterfall. Four months without sex, alcohol, or black pepper, Four months of blessed herbal capsules. A translator quickly scribbled these directions on a small piece of paper. For three hours a day, I sat in meditation in the current room, helping to conduct energy for healings. It felt special, purposeful. I napped, hiked, and stood under that freezing holy waterfall. I prayed in front of the casus triangle, a big wooden wall hanging whose three sides represented faithful love and charity. And then I went home and like, yeah, if you're fucked up and grieving and, like, in a lot of pain and you go to a distant location that's, like, set up to be solemn and relaxing and chill and you detach from the Internet and you stop getting wasted all the time, and you spend a bunch of time hiking in nature and hanging out at waterfalls. That will help with your grief. Yeah, of course it will.

[Andrew T.]

And having someone confidently say, this is helpful, helping with your grief.

[Dr. Phil]

This is helping you will get better. Like, that's a lot of what people need in those moments is like, someone to. To really confidently tell them, like, this will pass and you will feel better. All of that stuff helps. There's nothing magical about it. It just is. Is. It's good to go. Like, when you're really fucked up in the head, it's good to stop getting wasted and to spend a lot of time hiking. Like, there's nothing controversial or inexplicable about that. Yeah. So in other words, a lot of the miraculous powers attributed to John of God are really just examples of the fact that life in his center is, on balance, healthier than the lives a lot of people left behind. That Sarah woman Tim Elliott interviewed even told him she expected the same thing. She said, quote, you're in the fifth dimension here, whereas in Australia, it's the third dimension. In Australia, people don't understand spirituality. It's either worker going out and getting drunk. I find I have to escape that. And like, yeah, if your life. If you were. If you were, like, depressed and getting wasted every night and like, that makes your body feel worse, it's bad for your health. And you go to a place and a guy's like, stop doing that for four months. Hike, meditate. Yeah, that's gonna help. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, honestly, just like, I. I could prescribe. Just don't be in Australia. Come on.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, get out of Australia. As a general rule. Get out of Australia.

[Andrew T.]

We all know. We all know, know what you people get up to.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. But of course, John of God and his adherents couldn't just claim that the man had provided people with a relaxing retreat, because. Claiming that this is magical and it also can treat cancer and stuff, that's where the real money's at. So when Tim did his interviews, his patients referred to John of God as a spiritual X ray machine. And in the very dumb biography John of God, Heather Cummings claimed that John was able to see each of his patients as a hologram, which is why all staff, patients, and visiting journalists were asked to wear white. He says it made them easier to read. It also, coincidentally, opened up a huge market in town for white clothing, of which John of God got a cut. Awesome. Smart.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And the uniform, like, starts to take away your identity and makes you more easy to manipulate and all that shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Yep. As business expanded in the wake of Oprah's show, John and his followers created new treatments. They opened up a series of crystal beds. Patients paid $60 an hour for the right to lie around a bunch of rocks. They also opened up a gift shop. Tim Elliott writes that it sold, quote, books, CDs, DVDs, tote bags, t shirts, coffee mugs, and crystals. All crystals have been blessed by the entity, reads a sign on the wall. There are John of God pendants, postcards, and travel pillows. Even glow in the dark John of God wall stickers.

[Andrew T.]

I really like imagining, like the fucking, like, entity sweatshop where the guy just has to like, or the spirit just has to flesh like a. Just a, you know, 40 gross of crystals or else they can't go home.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. The entities are like, yeah, they're working long hours to make sure all those fucking crystals are holy enough. Yeah. Both the gift shop and cafe also do a brisk trade in water that has been blessed by the entity. People at the Casa treat the blessed water like nitroglycerin. Don't drink it all at once. Jana Sue Jones says one afternoon when she sees me swigging from a bottle, you'll be up all night. Sarah Layton tells me she regularly buys 10 liter jugs of the stuff to take home in her luggage. It's just water.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of religions have fancy water. Now. The heart of the whole grift is the pharmacy. Though when I first started reading about it, I assumed it just stocked a variety of herbal remedies that he was giving people. But it turns out that the reality was even dumber than that and more brilliant at the same time. Here's Tim. Quote, I had assumed that the pharmacy would stock a range of different herbs to treat a variety of different conditions. But note, there is only one herb for sale here. Passiflora, the flower of the passion fruit plant. When I asked Coppola about this, he explains that it's not what's in the capsules that counts, but rather the spiritual prescription that John of God writes for each patient. The intentionality of that prescription is transferred to the capsules at the time of purchase. He says, that's fucking brilliant. That's a great grift right there.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. I mean, that's like the homeopathy grift, you know, it's the. It's that you can put magic in whatever.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

And if you have a line on passion fruit flowers, which does sound good.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And again, all of the people who see John actually just being seen by him and showing up and being in that line is free. But they all get prescriptions for these herbs and, you know, some buy $50, some buy 10. $10 worth. But the average, Tim notes the average purchase is about $20, which would account for $40,000 a day in herb sales alone. Jesus Christ. Great grift. A fucking plus grift. John of God, like, very smart. So Aberdeen is a small town. It is not located in a nice part of Brazil. Before John of God, its biggest industry was a series of brick factories. By the mid aughts, John was by far the largest business in the area. And this gave him power. The way Tim describes it, John of God's financial leverage turned Abadianya into his own personal. The biggest industry by far is Medium Zhao. There are no less than 72 posadas or hotels here, all catering to casa pilgrims, most of whom come on two week tours and arranged for booking agents. These tours cost many thousands of dollars and must be approved by Joao, or rather the entity. There are rumors that he also demands a percentage from the tour operators, but Coppola denies this. Medium Joao owns farms and some mines. He doesn't need more money. Not if he's making 40 grand a day from herb sales, he doesn't.

[Andrew T.]

He also is definitely getting that kickback.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, my. My friends in the pot industry got into the wrong business. Just convince people that any random plant cures every. Yeah, and start selling that shit like that's the fucking money. You don't even need real plants. They could just be putting grass in those bills and people wouldn't notice.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, or nothing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, or nothing. Just sawdust. It's brilliant. So it soon becomes apparent just how much the town has been molded in the Joao. The entity's image. Photos of him are everywhere. On street poles, in the posadas and cafes. A whole industry has sprung up around the sale of white clothes for visitors who forget to bring their own. He is the brand here, one visitor told me. The locals are now worried about how long he's going to live. The entity oversees everything here from new businesses which must be entity approved to new construction. One Australian CASA staff member told me that before building a house here, she ran the plans past the entity. Now, Tim did eventually get to conduct an interview with John of God, but only after he made it through a gauntlet of fawning former patients. The center made him interview all of John's Regulars, men and women who claim he healed them. The goal of this was obviously to instill a sense of awe in him so that by the time he got to talk to John of God, he was in a mentally receptive place. But Tim is a good journalist and this did not work on him. In fact, he says that by the end of the whole routine, he suffered from miracle fatigue. Quote, if one more person tells me about their amazing recovery, I'll kill them. I like, I'm a fan of Tim.

[Andrew T.]

Very good.

[Dr. Phil]

When they sat down to talk, Tim became probably the first reporter to directly ask John of God about the sexual abuse allegations against him. John's response, I thought you came to talk about me, not other people. That's fucking awesome.

[Andrew T.]

I mean, I guess if you're gonna pass the buck, why not? Jesus Christ.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. At this point, John tried to break off the interview to go nap, but Tim asked him about another allegation. Local reporters had alleged that he diverted donations meant to build a soup kitchen and use them to renovate his house. John responded with a rant that he wasn't a thief. The person making the allegations was a thief. So, like, very credible guy here. Then the interview ended, and for a while, that was about all anyone had on the allegations against John of God. The Montreal Gazette had a big laugh in 2015 when John of God had an endoscopy which revealed a tumor and he had to undergo major surgery and chemotherapy to have it removed. When asked if this was hypocritical, John of God responded, what barber cuts his own hair and went right back to fleecing thousands of people per year, which is just great. Like, I'll cure your cancer, but if I get cancer, I'm going to get some fucking cancer chemo.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, that's. I mean, look, he had an answer and the right answer ready to go, I guess.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that is the right answer. You know what will cure your cancer?

[Sophie]

Oh, God, please.

[Dr. Phil]

We are FDA backed to say that all, all cancers are cured by whatever product and or service comes up next. So again, the FDA completely backs and supports this. And if they have a problem with what I'm saying, they can come after me. Come on, you FDA cowards. Bring it on. Bring it on. Anyway, here's healing. We're back. And I am just waiting for the FDA to try and take me on. Let's do it. Come on.

[Andrew T.]

They'll take this cancer from your cold, dead hands.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Fucking I don't know. I don't know.

[Andrew T.]

Who knows what's happening anymore?

[Dr. Phil]

Doesn't Matter. Doesn't matter. In September of 2018, a very brave Brazilian activist, Sabrina Bittencourt, went public with allegations from dozens of women against John of God. The blowback against her was immediately immediate and severe. John was well connected in the Brazilian government, as well as extremely popular. An avalanche of death threats forced Sabrina to flee her home country for Spain. One of John's victims was hounded into suicide by her own family, who are all adherents of the medium and members of the cult. The story did not disappear, though, because as the weeks went by, dozens and then hundreds of new women came forward with their own stories of sexual abuse and rape at the hands of John of God. By the time the 300th Alex hit, the chief lawman in Goyes was forced to issue a preventative incarceration request against John of God. Initially, John expressed a desire to work with law enforcement and comply with the investigation. From a local news story, quote, I am grateful to God for still being here. I'm still a brother in God. I want to comply with Brazilian law. I am in its hands. Joel de Deos is still alive, he told his followers when he left. Only 10 minutes later, he told reporters that he was innocent of all accusations. The psychic's appearance caused a visible uproar in the center. Some followers greeted him with applause, while others complained about the presence of reporters. Respect my father, One of the volunteers asked. Now, I included that quote about that John of God cult member saying respect my father, which is really. Because I think it's really interesting. And it's interesting because John's actual daughter accused him of sexual assault. In January of 2019, after 300 other allegations go public, John of God's own daughter goes to the Brazilian magazine Veja to announce, quote, under the pretense of mystical treatments, he abused and raped me between the ages of 10 and 14.

[Andrew T.]

Oh God.

[Dr. Phil]

She claims the abuse from John of God only stopped after one of his employees impregnated her. In response to this, John of God beat his own daughter so badly that she suffered a miscarriage. She told ve, my father is a monster.

[Andrew T.]

True.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, eventually, more than 600 women came forward to level accusations against John of God. Like it is hard to overst and that I. I'm sure, sure it's thousands. Like if 600 women came forward in a climate so dangerous where like at least one of his victims was hounded to suicide. I suspect he's. He is guilty of thousands of acts of sexual assault. But we know 600 women leveled accusations rather than report to the police, as he said. He would. John of God went on the run, withdrawing $9 million in cash in an attempt to flee the country. But he was unsuccessful in this and eventually had to turn himself in. Raids on his compound found millions of dollars in cash as well as a large number of illegal firearms. Police who interrogated him started to report bizarre incidents, including their computer spontaneously typing the letters oh oh oh oh oh a bunch of times, the printer printing spontaneously and a mini fridge exploding. These reports are almost certainly untrue. They come from tabloid sources. But there is a lot of evidence that sympathetic Brazilian police certainly wanted citizens to believe this was all going on. You know, we started this episode talking about like the police tend to be on these guys sides because they believe the bull. Yeah. Less than a month after making initial allegations, Sabrina Bittencourt released a bizarre six minute long video accusing John of God of having run a 20 year long human trafficking operation. She alleged that the cult leader's spiritual hospital was nothing but a cover for a baby smuggling empire that sold infants to parents in the US, Australia and Europe for up to $50,000 a piece. Bittencourt alleged that John had established a network of isolated farms and mines and that he would bribe poor girls aged 14 to 18 to move there and spend the next decade continuing continuously pregnant. Once born, the babies were sold on the black market. After 10 years, the birth mothers were executed to prevent any witnesses. Sabrina wrote, quote or stated, quote, hundreds of girls were enslaved over the years, lived on farms in Goya, served as wombs to get pregnant for their babies to be sold. These girls were murdered after 10 years of giving birth. We've got a number of testimonies. We have received reports from the adopted mothers of their children that were sold for between 20,000 and 50,000 in Europe, USA and Australia, as well as testimony from ex workers and local people who are tired of being complicit with John God's gang. Now those are some wild ass allegations.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And unfortunately, I don't know if any of this really happened. Sabrina was absolutely right about John of God's career of sexual abuse. Hundreds of women came forward, including his own daughter, like, and there's so much testimony, it's very clear what happened. But the baby smuggling stuff, there's not hard evidence of this. An investigation is ongoing into it. And Sabrina Bittencourt, like she got hounded out of her home and deluged in death threats and suffered a mental breakdown. She came out with these allegations days before committing suicide. She was a sexual abuse survivor herself, clearly traumatized by that as well as the ocean of death rates. This doesn't mean that her allegations weren't accurate, because there's actually a long history in Brazil that includes to the present day of, like, religion, like, particularly Christian cults that have, like, farming communes, abducting people basically, and forcing them into slavery. Slavery to, like, grow plants and shit. Like, stuff happens in Brazil. It's a big country, and there's a lot of areas that are beyond the rule of law. This is not impossible, but it's really hard to know exactly what's going on. And you won't find any credible publications that have gone into the matter in detail, because really all we have are the allegations and the fact that they're being investigated. And unfortunately, it is unlikely we will ever know the truth. Because if Bittencourt's allegations are accurate, it is highly unlikely that the Bolsonaro administration would allow the truth to get out. Because Jair Bolsonaro has connections to John of God, and a lot of members of his political party were backers of John of God. And if John of God was operating a massive multimillion dollar baby smuggling empire, he absolutely did it with the consent and help of powerful men in Brazil. And the truth just not gonna fucking get out. So this is not a satisfying ending in that case, because I can't tell you what happened with his whole baby smuggling business. Pretty clearly he raped a whole, whole lot of people and it was a monster. But there's just a lot that's unclear about this story that will be up in the air for years. Hopefully good investigations will kind of come to a more concrete conclusion about some of this stuff in the future. I will say, though, while our story doesn't end in the most satisfying way possible, it does end with something that kind of resembles justice. In December 2019, a judge in Goya sentenced John of God to 19 years and four months in prison for the rapes of 14 different women. His lawyers are appealing, but John is incarcerated today, and at age 77, he is very likely to die in prison. So that's something.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, some thing, I guess, resembling justice.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, if you like squint. Yeah.

[Andrew T.]

Oh, it's okay. So, Robert, as someone who spends a lot of time looking at men like this, is there ever a case where it's like, it's. It just feels like these. Like the patterns of this shit is always the same. And I guess it's maybe self selecting because it's the shit we hear about is, is, but it. Why it always feels like it follows like such a similar blueprint. It's like, you know, like every cult feels the same.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I mean, because they. Because they. They all operate on the same principle. Like every cult feels the same in the way that every oil and gas company works, broadly the same way. Because the same sort of tactics, the same sort of promises attract and work on the same sort of people. And the same kinds of folks are able to successfully carry out these grifts. Because being able to do the work that these kind of people do, like John of God isn't all that different from a guy like L. Ron Hubbard. Like they all have more alike than different or all that different. Different from Sarah, Paula White Cain, Donald Trump's spiritual advisor. They're all. They just pick different kind of ways to do the same thing and some of them are more successful than others and they're all differently successful. But it is. It's always the same grift and it just leaves a huge amount of human shrapnel in its wake, which sucks.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. Jesus Christ. This is fucking dark as shit, man.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, man, this one's a rough story.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And I wish we knew more about the baby farming stuff. There just doesn't seem to be solid information. And also, just like Sabrina Bittencourt, by the time she came out with those allegations, was pretty broken. Broken in the sense that an ocean of hate from other people had shattered her psyche. Yeah. Which is also tragic. And what she did was very brave and she brought down this guy, but it cost her her own life. Life, which is really fucked up. God.

[Andrew T.]

God, it's fucking horrible.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's not great.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah. Another successful episode of behind the Back Shirts.

[Dr. Phil]

We really nailed it today.

[Andrew T.]

Just grim shit. How often does it end in anything resembling justice? Can't be that often.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, not all that often. You know, most of them don't wind up in prison.

[Andrew T.]

Yeah, I guess everyone does, guys, but still.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, about 15% of the time something that like resembles justice happens to these guys. Yeah, about 15% of the time. I'll say.

[Sophie]

I feel like that's high, Robert. I feel like it's probably.

[Dr. Phil]

Maybe. Maybe. Look, if you. If you, the fan, want to go through and run the numbers, please do. I hate. I hate numbers and don't trust them.

[Sophie]

Yeah, I don't do math.

[Andrew T.]

Someone do. Run the stats. Run the stats on the bastards.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, let us know.

[Robert Evans]

Run the stats or just listen to Run the jewels.

[Dr. Phil]

It's better.

[Andrew T.]

But only one. Only one. You can't do both.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, no, absolutely.

[Andrew T.]

That's the key.

[Sophie]

Andrew, do you have anything you want to plug after that really just uplifting conversation.

[Andrew T.]

God. I guess. I mean, look, this is probably the only podcast that I can comfortably say that. Yo, is this racist? Will we take some of the worst, you know, just situations and shit in the news? People's like questions on racism is horrible. Often not horrible horrible. But I can definitively say we're less depressing than this. So word. Check it out.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil]

We. You can find us on behind the bastards.com where we will have the sources for for this article or this episode. You can find me on Twitter at I writeokay and I have a podcast called the Women's War. Check it out.

[Sophie]

The women's world is uplifting and not. It's hopeful.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yeah. More hopeful than this. So. Yep.

[Andrew T.]

Damn. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean I can't.

[Andrew T.]

I can't say it was fun, but it was certainly something.

[Dr. Phil]

Something. Yep. It was certainly something. So. Yep, we're done.

[Sophie]

I'm going to stop recording now.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

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[Robert Evans]

And your number with you.

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[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do.

[Jamie Loftus]

He then began entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught.

[Dr. Phil]

He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, btk through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Phil]

What's lighting my dumpster fire?

[Robert Evans]

I'm Robert Evans.

[Dr. Phil]

Hosted behind the Bastards.

[Robert Evans]

That little introduction was in honor of my hometown, Portland, which just had a.

[Dr. Phil]

Police officer murder a man who was having a mental health crisis.

[Robert Evans]

And we'll probably be lighting some dumpsters.

[Dr. Phil]

On fire tonight, although you won't hear it the day that this happens.

[Robert Evans]

But anyway, that's all beside the point.

[Dr. Phil]

Right now because the point right now is that I'm introducing our guest today.

[Robert Evans]

The inimitable Matt Lieb.

[Matt Lieb]

Hey, what's going on, Matt?

[Dr. Phil]

How are you doing I'm doing well.

[Matt Lieb]

I'm excited to be here. Big fan of the pod. Love me some bastards.

[Robert Evans]

And you are? You do a Sopranos podcast and the name is, I believe, pod yourself a gun.

[Matt Lieb]

That's right. Pod yourself a gun. Yep, that's right. That's one of the world's only Sopranos podcast. Don't go looking for any other ones because they do not exist.

[Dr. Phil]

Little known TV show, the Sopranos, you might have heard of it.

[Robert Evans]

Very obscure.

[Matt Lieb]

A niche. A niche TV show that only people who really like art understand. And that's why we talk about it. We talk about the art.

[Dr. Phil]

It's fun thinking about that because I.

[Robert Evans]

Believe the song that introduced that show.

[Dr. Phil]

Was something about waking up in the.

[Robert Evans]

Morning and getting yourself a gun, which is what I did this morning.

[Matt Lieb]

You bought a gun.

[Robert Evans]

I did.

[Dr. Phil]

I did. I did buy a gun this morning. Not for Sopranos like uses.

[Robert Evans]

Although I am Italian, so you can't really know for sure. You can't really know for sure.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. You woke up with a blue moon in your eye and you decided, I'm going to go get myself a gun.

[Robert Evans]

And then I'm going to commit crimes in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, they do that a lot in the show, right?

[Robert Evans]

A lot of Pine Barren crimes.

[Matt Lieb]

They do it at least once. And. And it's great.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. That they're chasing that guy through the. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

The Russian.

[Sophie]

Yeah. And they leave their DNA everywhere.

[Matt Lieb]

Well, they pee everywhere. And, you know, they also.

[Dr. Phil]

Look, we Italians are not a.

[Matt Lieb]

No. They spend that whole episode literally, like, dying of, like, cold and they're lost in the woods, but they spend all the time talking about how they're starving because they haven't eaten in 12 hours. It's the most Italian thing in the world. But I want to hear about this gun.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, it's just a gun. But today we have something much more.

[Robert Evans]

Exciting than a gun. We have a bastard and our bastard.

[Dr. Phil]

Are you ready for this?

[Matt Lieb]

I'm so excited.

[Dr. Phil]

Are you settling in?

[Matt Lieb]

Yes.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz. I never introduced them like that. We're talking about Dr. Fucking Oz today. Yes, that's right.

[Matt Lieb]

Who thought he'd be a bastard? A TV doctor.

[Dr. Phil]

Who would have thought a TV doctor.

[Robert Evans]

Could be a bad man?

[Matt Lieb]

No, they.

[Dr. Phil]

They.

[Matt Lieb]

They take an oath. TV doctors, they say, do no harm and get good ratings. That's the. The Hippocratic oath.

[Sophie]

Do they. Do they also oath to be bad guest hosts on Jeopardy. Because he sucked and I didn't enjoy it.

[Robert Evans]

Honestly, if you are going up against Levar Burton, for any job, your first.

[Dr. Phil]

Action should be like, you know what? I'm bowing out.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Immediately.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not going to compete with LeVar Burton, respectively.

[Sophie]

Fuck off, sir.

[Robert Evans]

Fighting Jordy.

[Dr. Phil]

Fighting Kunta Kinte. Fighting. Whatever the Reading Rainbow guy's name was. No, sir, I think it was just lavar. Lavar.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah. No, I did not watch him on Jeopardy, but I have seen the show and had no idea he was a bastard.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes, he's a piece of shit. He's a different piece of shit.

[Robert Evans]

We're also gonna be talking in the very near future about Dr. Phil, who's a much worse person.

[Sophie]

Fuck Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz is bad for some reasons that you'll suspect, you know, the pseudoscience stuff. But also for some, I think, more.

[Robert Evans]

Complicated reasons, which we'll have us a.

[Dr. Phil]

Nice talk about at the end of this episode. So I've always said that one of.

[Robert Evans]

The great tragedies of American public life.

[Dr. Phil]

Is that our very best doctors are usually like, kind. Kind of schlubby dudes and ladies who.

[Robert Evans]

Maybe aren't the best at social graces and certainly don't have enough time because they're wildly overworked to do TV appearances.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. They're not hot. I've always said doctors. The problem, they're not hot. I look at them and I'm like, ew.

[Robert Evans]

Like, we need to put a couple of billion dollars into a national program for more fuckable doctors. Come on.

[Matt Lieb]

Yes, yes. Doctors who fuck. That's the next level of health care in America. It won't be universal health care, but at least doctors will look fuckable now.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, I think the problem is not their fuckability because it's inherently hot to be a doctor.

[Dr. Phil]

It's more the fact that they're not necessarily. Even the ones who are have a.

[Robert Evans]

Good bedside manner, are good at explaining.

[Dr. Phil]

Things, just don't have the time to.

[Robert Evans]

Spend a lot of it on television because they're busy saving lives. This has led to a thriving industry, well documented in the show of grifter health influencers and scam artists selling people poison with honeyed words and practice smiles. Today, though, we're talking about a different kind of medical grifter, kind of a grifter who helps to launder those more shady grifters, the guy. People who aren't doctors, people who have no medical training who are just trying to sell you nonsense cures. The guy we're talking about today exists to give them credibility and launder them into the public consciousness. And his name is Mehmet Oz. Mehmet Oz is maybe the most influential public physician in the country, possibly the world. He is, in every professional sense of the word, an excellent doctor. Exceptional even within the bounds of what it is he is trained to do. He may be one of the best in the world at what he does.

[Dr. Phil]

And he uses his, you know, the.

[Robert Evans]

Thing that makes him a bastard is that he uses these exceptional qualifications along.

[Dr. Phil]

With his charisma, his handsome face to.

[Robert Evans]

Sell millions of people on nonsense cures every single year.

[Dr. Phil]

And that's, that's a bad thing to do.

[Robert Evans]

It's kind of made worse.

[Dr. Phil]

We'll talk about this a lot by the fact that he is, he's a. He's a.

[Robert Evans]

He's a heart surgeon. And he's an exceptional heart surgeon.

[Matt Lieb]

That's so sad. It's always sad when like an amazing doctor is a piece of shit. This is like how I felt when Ben, Ben Carson turned out to be Trump guy. I was like, but you're so good.

[Dr. Phil]

At the brain surgeons, which you talk to doctors. They'll be like, yeah, of course.

[Robert Evans]

It's always surgeons. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

They're the ones who think they're gods. Right. They essentially have a God complex and they'll be really good at one thing. And then they'll also think that they're good at like, yes, politics and shit like that.

[Dr. Phil]

I think good surgeons are so prone to being also like, like nonsense, like so many of our nonsense public doctors.

[Robert Evans]

Or surgeons for the same reason that so many of our terrorists are engineers. They're people who get really good at.

[Dr. Phil]

A specific thing and it lets them.

[Robert Evans]

Convince themselves that they know what they're.

[Dr. Phil]

Talking about in a wider variety of things than they really do.

[Matt Lieb]

That's crazy. It's. It just makes me glad that I never, you know, got really proficient in.

[Robert Evans]

Any one skill, never gain skills.

[Dr. Phil]

I never ever learned how to do things.

[Matt Lieb]

You'll become too smart for yourself and think that you are God.

[Robert Evans]

If no one learned to do anything, we would still be living in the mud and eating grubs. And you know what we wouldn't have?

[Matt Lieb]

Tank oil salesman. Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Or that we would have very little at all.

[Robert Evans]

Mimit Sengiz Oz was born on June 11, 1960 to parents Suna and Mustafa Oz, who must have fucked at some point in October of 1959.

[Dr. Phil]

In order to conceive him, we have.

[Robert Evans]

Have to assume his parents fucked in the.

[Dr. Phil]

In October.

[Sophie]

You don't know that.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, he could be Immaculate conception.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. You know, Robert Possible, I would say.

[Robert Evans]

Right now, the most likely theory is.

[Dr. Phil]

That they fucked sometime in October.

[Andrew T.]

All right.

[Robert Evans]

His father, Mustafa, had been born in Bozkir, a village in southern Turkey. He had grown up poor in the countryside during the Great Depression and obviously, you know, Great Depression.

[Dr. Phil]

Bad time everywhere.

[Robert Evans]

Real bad time. If you're like in rural Turkey.

[Dr. Phil]

Turkey, you know, you're dealing with a different kind of poverty than even like our grandparents dealt with here.

[Robert Evans]

So he had to work himself to the bone in order to make something of himself in order to get into medical school and distinguish himself enough that he was able to earn scholarships, which allowed him to immigrate to the United States as a medical resident in 1955. So this is a, this is a.

[Dr. Phil]

Hard working man and a man whose has to struggle, I'm going to guess, in ways that, that are kind of.

[Robert Evans]

Difficult to imagine for most of us, even as difficult as our present times are.

[Matt Lieb]

He's like a true lift yourself up by your bootstraps kind of guy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. Came from the middle of like nowhere.

[Robert Evans]

Rural Turkey and worked himself into becoming.

[Dr. Phil]

A good enough doctor that he got, you know, he was able to get.

[Robert Evans]

Over the racism of the fucking 1950s immigration system, you know.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, that's, that's an achievement.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, no, good for him. Started from the bottom and now he's on TV selling cures.

[Dr. Phil]

That's his dad.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, that's his dad.

[Robert Evans]

That's not Nemet.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Mustafa.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

So we're talking about his dad and his mom right now. His mom, Suna, came from a much wealthier background.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know if this is what.

[Dr. Phil]

Helped his dad get into the country or not.

[Robert Evans]

It may have been. Her father was a successful pharmacist and both sides of her family came, came from Istanbul. She grew up with a lot of money as befits his more modest upbringing. Mustafa was an observant, traditional Muslim. Suna's family was more moderate and secular. Mehmet and his two sisters grew up split between both approaches to religion. The Oz kids spent their childhood speaking Turkish and English fluently at home. So they grew up in a bilingual house. Mehmet was from a young age ambitious, starving for success and his father's approval. He is want to note that he was born in the year of the Rat according to the Chinese zodiac. In one interview he noted of this quote, you run the maze. If you put cheese in that maze, I swear to God I'll get to it and I'll get to it really fast. But should I be running after that cheese? Am I in the right maze? All of these questions, which people much greater than I am, think through, I put on the back burner as I'm running after that cheese.

[Matt Lieb]

What the fuck? Like, that's way too much stock. Into the year of what Animal born. At least he wasn't born into the year of the pig. And he's like, well, you. What you got to do is you got to take your snout and put it into the trough of life and just.

[Dr. Phil]

You really got to just shove your face into food.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

As hard as you can.

[Matt Lieb]

You roll around in the. And then you hope that someday you find another piggy to fuck. And then you have little piglets. It's like, look, I was born in.

[Robert Evans]

The year of the pig, and that's why I dispose of bodies for the mob.

[Dr. Phil]

It's just what you do.

[Matt Lieb]

Well, that's. It's a nice take on Year of the Rat for him.

[Robert Evans]

It is telling, because what he's saying.

[Dr. Phil]

There is like, I don't think about.

[Robert Evans]

Why I'm doing what I'm doing.

[Dr. Phil]

I just strive to achieve things, and I don't think about whether or not.

[Robert Evans]

They'Re good or bad. I just. I have to achieve.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, he just wants that cheese.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he wants that cheese.

[Dr. Phil]

It's ambition without analysis, I think is what you'd call it. And he's pretty open about that.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Mustafa, his dad repeatedly told the growing Dr. Oz, who's not yet a doctor, obviously, that when he'd grown up, when Mustafa had grown up, he hadn't been able to relax for even a second on his road to escaping poverty and establishing himself as a cardiothoracic surgeon.

[Dr. Phil]

So he's, like, telling his kid as he grows up, like, you know, like.

[Robert Evans]

If you want to succeed, you can't relax for even a second. You can't take a moment off. You always got to be hustling.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And that's how Mehmet grows up. He's an excellent student, but no amount of success is ever enough for his dad, he later recalled. I'd say I got a 93 on a test. He'd say, did anyone get better? That was always the question he asked.

[Sophie]

Cool dad sounds like a fun guy. Would hang.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I mean, the school I grew up.

[Robert Evans]

In, because of just where we were.

[Dr. Phil]

In North Texas, like, about half of the kids in my school were either.

[Robert Evans]

From India or from China or Japan.

[Dr. Phil]

And so you had a lot of.

[Robert Evans]

Kids who would talk that way about their parents.

[Dr. Phil]

Right. And some of Them had.

[Robert Evans]

Especially around our senior year, there were a couple of kids who had to.

[Dr. Phil]

Get taken in by an ambulance because.

[Robert Evans]

They would just, like, in one case, seizing as a result of stress. It's not good to put this kind.

[Dr. Phil]

Of pressure on a kid.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Like straight having, like, nervous breakdowns just from, like, trying to get good grades.

[Dr. Phil]

Right.

[Matt Lieb]

Once again, don't get good at anything. It's not worth it.

[Robert Evans]

Don't develop skills.

[Matt Lieb]

Don't develop skills. You'll get seizures. You're at risk of seizures. You're at risk of your dad not loving you. You know, you just gotta.

[Dr. Phil]

I love you no matter what.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, exactly. Stop caring about your dad. You know, just coast, coast, get some.

[Dr. Phil]

Dirt, eat some grubs, you'll be fine.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, start a Sopranos podcast. That's all you gotta do.

[Sophie]

Dude, really bringing it back there.

[Dr. Phil]

So Mehmet decided to become a doctor.

[Robert Evans]

When he was just 6, 7 years old. He recalls standing in line at an ice cream parlor. Quote, I remember it like yesterday, there was a kid in front of me who was 10. My dad, just to pass the time.

[Dr. Phil]

Said, what do you want to be.

[Robert Evans]

When you grow up?

[Dr. Phil]

The kid said, I don't know, I'm 10.

[Robert Evans]

My father waited until he was out.

[Dr. Phil]

Of earshot and said, I never want.

[Robert Evans]

You to tell me that if I ask you that question. I never want you to tell me you don't know. It's okay if you change your mind, but I never want you to not have a vision of what you want to be.

[Matt Lieb]

Mamet, go kill that kid.

[Dr. Phil]

Kill that kid. Cut him.

[Matt Lieb]

Murder that loser kid and tell me what you want to do with your life. God damn. That is way too much pressure. Way, way too much pressure.

[Robert Evans]

So much pressure to put on a kid.

[Matt Lieb]

And it seems like the kids like that always end up becoming the, like, going into the career that their father wanted them to do. And then eventually their dad dies and then they're like, oh, fuck, I didn't get to do what I wanted to do with my life and now I'm miserable.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's a real bummer.

[Dr. Phil]

It's not.

[Robert Evans]

Just don't put pressure on people. There's plenty of grubs.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

By the time Mehmet was ready to start school, his father was wealthy enough to pay to send his son to Tower Hill School, A K through 12th grade, private college preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware.

[Sophie]

Jesus, that sounds horrible.

[Dr. Phil]

I know.

[Robert Evans]

It sounds like a fucking nightmare.

[Dr. Phil]

Sounds the fancy boy.

[Nancy Grace]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Preps, uniforms, ties.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Probably like weird shorts during the Summer.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The fancy boy. Prep school worked well enough that Memmott was accepted to Harvard, where he played football and water polo. His grades were, as always, exceptional. One of his roommates later recalled, he was very competitive. There was never any question that he wasn't going to be a doctor. He wanted to be a fantastic surgeon.

[Dr. Phil]

So people around him, like, everyone kind of recognizes this kid is brilliant.

[Robert Evans]

Everyone recognizes he's got the drive, he's going to achieve, you know, so good for him.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, it's just like I just look back now at my own childhood and I'm like, God damn it. If I can think of one friend where I, where I knew what they wanted to do for a career, I don't think we ever talked about like, what's your career gonna be? No one was like, I'm a doctor. You know, it was, it was mostly just like, you know, how's, how's your hip hop album working out? And they're like, good and they're like, cool. And that was the whole thing.

[Robert Evans]

That's interesting.

[Dr. Phil]

I think it was different for me because there was definitely a lot of pressure to have something. You know, I went to a public school.

[Robert Evans]

I didn't go to a private school, but I went to a public school.

[Dr. Phil]

In my early schooling years was in.

[Robert Evans]

A dirt poor farming town called Idabel, Oklahoma. And the school was as good as it could be in a place like that. Like they paddled us and stuff.

[Dr. Phil]

Like it was not, not a high end.

[Matt Lieb]

Wait until you in a, in a public school.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, damn.

[Robert Evans]

They still did that in Oklahoma back in them days.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Damn, you got to sign the paddle afterwards too.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, that's nice.

[Robert Evans]

But when I was in, I dunno, third grade or so, I moved to Plano, which is a fairly wealthy suburb of Dallas. And the schools, the public schools are very good and there is a lot of drive to achieve, like I said.

[Dr. Phil]

A lot of like, kids who were really motivated by their parents to achieve. And so you either were kind of planning to be a doctor or, you know, something on that level or you.

[Robert Evans]

Were planning to join the military because.

[Dr. Phil]

It was Texas and I was in.

[Robert Evans]

Rotc, so me and all my friends, I think we all kind of assumed.

[Dr. Phil]

We'Re all going to join the army, you know.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah, I went to, yeah, public school, you know, my entire life. And I think most of my friends either wanted to. They were either going to go into the army or they were, or they wanted to be famous musicians and, or athletes. So.

[Sophie]

See, my brother is a Doctor and knew he was going to be a doctor from the. He's my older brother too, from the time that he was like seven. So like. And I, and I'm like, la, la, la. No idea.

[Matt Lieb]

I'm just saying like a level of ambition at a very, very young age has always been a turn off for me when it comes to like friends because it just, they always have that like sense where they're trying to get. You're some sort of stepping stone into their. Whatever their career path is. And I don't like it.

[Dr. Phil]

So.

[Robert Evans]

Oz took only one break during his relentless progress through medical school. And that break was to do a compulsory, I think it was a one year term of service in the Turkish army in order to maintain his dual citizenship. Other than that, straight on to like becoming a doctor. That's the only kind of break he. So I guess that's his gap year.

[Dr. Phil]

Is being in the Turkish army.

[Matt Lieb]

I'm just going to take a break, have a gap year and join the military of a foreign country.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Help suppress, you know, Kurdish liberatory movements and stuff. Whatever.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. They got to stop trying to have their own thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He got a four year degree in biology and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he doubled up working on both an MD and an mba. He succeeded in earning both. So that's interesting to me. He gets both. He gets at the same time as he's getting. Getting his md. He also gets a business degree.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. This is very. There's a lot of foreshadowing going on.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, there's some foreshadowing.

[Robert Evans]

He earned both, obviously with flying colors. He's an incredibly intelligent man. Right.

[Dr. Phil]

This isn't just a guy like.

[Robert Evans]

We'll talk about Dr. Phil later. Dr. Phil I don't think is very smart. He's incredibly good at reading and manipulating people. He's not particularly a genius. Mehmet Oz is a genius. Like I think he almost certainly is an actual.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In 1985, at age 25, he married Lisa Lamohl, who was the daughter of a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked with his father.

[Dr. Phil]

They met at like a party or something.

[Robert Evans]

This relationship gradually opened him up to alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism because Lisa's mom was hardcore into homeopathy, meditation and other New age stuff.

[Dr. Phil]

We'll talk about that more in a little bit.

[Robert Evans]

For the next decade and change, Dr. Oz's career zoomed forward. He became triple board certified, which I don't know what that means, but it sounds impressive.

[Matt Lieb]

It's at Least three boards.

[Robert Evans]

It's at least three boards.

[Dr. Phil]

That's three more than I've been certified.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, I got zero boards under my.

[Robert Evans]

Not a one, not a single board between the three of us.

[Matt Lieb]

So we really should find a board just to get us some certifications, guys.

[Robert Evans]

Just to get certified. If you're a board, if you're a.

[Matt Lieb]

Medical board, if you're a board out there.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, actually, you know what?

[Robert Evans]

The state of New Jersey has certified me as a reverend doctor. So I'm one board certified. You got a board out there?

[Matt Lieb]

Is there a board in the Universal Life Church? Because I am a minister.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm going to say that counts.

[Matt Lieb]

All right, I'm board certified.

[Robert Evans]

Can you get me painkillers?

[Matt Lieb]

You know, I know a guy sounds.

[Dr. Phil]

Legal enough, so he starts working as a heart surgeon.

[Robert Evans]

And he's very good at being a heart surgeon. And he's not just good at the heart surgery part, he's good at the science part. Over time, he authors hundreds of peer reviewed articles and he's awarded 11 patents. One of them is for a solution to preserve transplanted organs. Another is for an aortic valve that can be implanted without open heart surgery.

[Dr. Phil]

Like he's, he's not just really good.

[Robert Evans]

At the mechanics of surgery, he's an excellent scientist.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

11 patents is pretty good.

[Matt Lieb]

Seriously, one might say he's the wizard of Oz there.

[Robert Evans]

I think I read like six articles with variations of that title on the guys.

[Matt Lieb]

All right, well, I gotta go then.

[Dr. Phil]

Bye guys. It's just a thing. Journalists can't fucking help themselves.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, you can't help yourself. If you're anybody, you see Oz and you're like, I gotta call him a wizard.

[Dr. Phil]

Gotta call him a wizard.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Oz was hired by Columbia Medical School as a teacher.

[Dr. Phil]

And as you know, he's also working.

[Robert Evans]

They've got a hospital, he's working there, but he's also teaching. He very quickly rises to the level of full professor and becomes the vice chair of the cardio of the heart surgery department, basically.

[Matt Lieb]

How old is he at this point?

[Robert Evans]

He's in his 30s.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, man.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, like everything I've read right now.

[Robert Evans]

On its own would be a career trajectory any doctor in medicine would envy. Like you could die happy with that being your fucking resume. Like, that's a hell of an achievement.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

My God.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. In 1995, a New York Times profile referred to Dr. Oz as, quote, probably the most accomplished 35 year old cardiothoracic surgeon in the country. He might be the best at what.

[Dr. Phil]

He does in the entire United States at this point.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, I don't know how to measure that, but he's, he's very good.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, I don't know any other heart surgeons by name, so. Fuck, I mean, he's the guy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Now the article that I found that quote in, however, gives some hints about.

[Dr. Phil]

What was to come, because that article.

[Robert Evans]

Was about Dr. Oz's increasing experimentation with alternative alternative medicine. It opens with the story of one of his patients, a 49 year old diabetic smoker who suffered a critical heart attack. She went under Mehmet's knife for a dangerous surgery. Quote. At the invitation of Oz and his patient, there were two other people on hand in surgical gowns and masks. A second year medical student named Sally Smith, stationed at the patient's feet, and a 52 year old healer named Julie Motz, who was standing at the patient's head. As volunteers in Oz's cardiac complementary care center, they worked for free through the operation, seldom moving except to reposition their hands. As Oz requested sutures and clamps and units of lidocaine. Motts called softly to Smith to move her hands from the small toe of the patient's right foot to a point on the sole known as the bubbling spring. What they were doing, no one else in the operating room knew how to do or had ever seen done during a coronary bypass or had ever thought worth doing. Even as an experiment in this ultimate theater of scientific medicine. The women were using their hands as kings once did to street subjects with scropula. And as Jesus is said to have done, and as shamans and mothers and Chinese qui gong practitioners still do, they were using their hands to run a kind of energy which science cannot prove exists into the patient's kidney meridian, which.

[Dr. Phil]

Also may or may not exist.

[Matt Lieb]

The kidney meridian.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, you gotta get that meridian. That's the best part of the kidneys, the meridian.

[Matt Lieb]

That's the most delicious part of the kidney is the meridian.

[Dr. Phil]

Man with fucking on a rich cracker sliced thin.

[Matt Lieb]

I love me some little bit of.

[Robert Evans]

You just want to get. You want to get like some duck fat or some butter. You want to get it sizzling in.

[Dr. Phil]

The pan and you just slap that meridian on for like a half a.

[Robert Evans]

Second and it's good to go. That's all you fucking with.

[Dr. Phil]

Just a little bit of, little bit.

[Matt Lieb]

Of char, you know, I mean, this all feels like he's going to start turning his patience into foie gras. And I'm very excited for what's to come this heel turns that he's going to take.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

So, yeah, that's, that's, that's silly. I, I, I think that's silly. But at the other hand, like, it's in a hospital.

[Robert Evans]

These people are clearly following sanitation guidelines. They're not getting paid, the patient's not getting charged extra.

[Dr. Phil]

So I don't have a problem with that.

[Matt Lieb]

And he's the smartest doctor in the world. It's like one of those things where you're like, I feel like this is wrong, but I don't know enough to dispute it. So I'm gonna let him fuck with my kids, kidney, meridian.

[Robert Evans]

I'm not willing to morally condemn him for that, even though I think it's silly.

[Dr. Phil]

Just because, like, yeah, yeah, what's the fucking harm in seeing, you know?

[Robert Evans]

And in that case, if you're actually doing it in a medical context, you're guaranteeing everybody's taking proper sanitation procedures, fucking whatever.

[Matt Lieb]

And it seems like from what I can tell, that sounded non invasive. It sounded like, yeah, yeah, they were.

[Robert Evans]

Just doing energy work or whatever.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, they were throwing, you know, crystals and doing fucking pendulums over it.

[Robert Evans]

Falls into the category of it couldn't.

[Dr. Phil]

Possibly hurt, so why not give it a shot, right? Which is. We'll talk about this more later.

[Robert Evans]

But that's kind of what they were going for. You know what else can't hurt?

[Matt Lieb]

I don't.

[Dr. Phil]

The products and services that support this.

[Robert Evans]

Podcast, guaranteed to not harm you.

[Dr. Phil]

In fact, every one of the products of ours that you buy extends your Life by exactly 45 minutes. So, you know, spend all your money and gain immortality. Foreign. We're back. We're talking about Dr. Oz, who in the mid-90s has started some weird alternative medicine stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Now, he's not the person who starts the alternative medicine program at Columbia Presbyterian.

[Dr. Phil]

Hospital, which is also like a teaching hospital, whatever. It's one of those hospitals that they.

[Robert Evans]

Have a medical school with, you know.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, the thing, if television has taught me accurately, all of the doctors are fucking constantly.

[Matt Lieb]

Doctors fuck and teach. That's what they.

[Robert Evans]

Doctors fucking. They teach.

[Dr. Phil]

That's all they do. You know, when you're not teaching, you're fucking.

[Robert Evans]

And Columbia Presbyterian was among the most reputable medical establishments on planet Earth.

[Dr. Phil]

Still is, as far as as I'm aware.

[Robert Evans]

So this alternate medicine program there is kind of an odd thing. It was not started at the behest of anyone at the top of the school. The whole thing came about because in 1993, a retired utility executive named Richard Rosenthal gave them three quarters of a million dollars as a private grant in order to establish a center to study alternative medicine.

[Matt Lieb]

Just gifted money and just said, do this. Start a magic doctoring school.

[Dr. Phil]

They're like, to be like Hogwarts, okay?

[Robert Evans]

Now, Richard had been motivated by having several close friends of his get terribly sick in such a way that doctors told them there was nothing that could.

[Dr. Phil]

Be done to help them. And his response was to basically throw.

[Robert Evans]

A bunch of money into a hole to see if alternative medicine could come up with solutions.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's one of those things I.

[Robert Evans]

Could make fun of.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, this is almost exactly a week.

[Robert Evans]

After my mom just died of a type of cancer that when you get.

[Dr. Phil]

Diagnosed with it, pancreatic, there's basically nothing they can do. You know, it's even like.

[Robert Evans]

Like she went through chemo and it did nothing.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, I get it. You go through something like, okay, well, let's try other shit, you know? So I can't. I can't even blame Richard for, like.

[Robert Evans]

It seems like he was motivated out of grief to do this, you know?

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. You can't blame people for trying to try any other alternative to. I mean, you know, something in which there is no cure in modern medicine.

[Dr. Phil]

I will blame the snake oil salesman. I'm never gonna blame someone who's like.

[Robert Evans]

Well, doctor said they can't cure me.

[Dr. Phil]

So I'm gonna eat this root. You know, fuck it. Why not go for it? Who gives a shit? Like, it can't hurt if you're definitely gonna die.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it is, to be honest, like, it is kind of within even you could argue within kind of medical best practices. Because one of the things if, like, I took EMT training years ago. One of the things they tell you is that you're not supposed to use.

[Dr. Phil]

An aed, you know, like paddles to restart a heart.

[Robert Evans]

You're not supposed to use them on an infant.

[Dr. Phil]

But if an infant is in, you know, the state where, like, you use them on them because they're dead.

[Matt Lieb]

Shock the shit out of them.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, they're dead.

[Robert Evans]

You can't make dead worse.

[Dr. Phil]

So, like, why not? So I guess, like, yeah, you can't, I don't know, can't make it worse. Why not?

[Robert Evans]

See if it. If, if something happens.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not against the basic idea of.

[Robert Evans]

Testing some of this shit is what I'm.

[Matt Lieb]

The worst thing you're going to get out of that is a really cool TikTok video of electrocuting a dead body.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Phil]

And then you get a fuckload of.

[Robert Evans]

Followers, and then you start selling brain pills.

[Matt Lieb]

It's a perfect plan.

[Dr. Phil]

So, yeah, so I can't blame the college for this.

[Robert Evans]

I can't blame the guy for funding it. It's a reasonable thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Why not? You know what? That's kind of my attitude is, why the fuck not?

[Robert Evans]

And that's more or less what the dean of faculty of medicine at the college said. Like, all right, well, we're not paying for it. Why not give it a shot? That said, a lot of medical professionals were really angry about the idea. Dr. Victor Herbert, a Columbia Medical School graduate and a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai and a board member of the National Council against Against Health Fraud, publicly lambasted the lecturers brought in by the program as con artists and sociopathic liars. And knowing the kind of people who.

[Dr. Phil]

Get into the selling this shit business, I don't know if he's wrong about that.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of these people are fucking sociopaths.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, he says, quote, I am nasty.

[Robert Evans]

I call practitioners of fraud practitioners of fraud. It's my feeling that the Rosenthal center has been promoting fraudulent alternatives as genuine. And I get his critiques.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, know, that is one of the.

[Robert Evans]

Like, I can say on one hand, what's the harm? But also maybe the harm is that people hear this stuff is being done.

[Dr. Phil]

In a hospital, so it must help when it doesn't.

[Robert Evans]

And maybe some of those people do.

[Dr. Phil]

That not the way Dr. Oz is doing it.

[Robert Evans]

Where we're going to do the normal medical procedure, we'll have this done. Maybe some people decide, I just want to have the energy work done, and.

[Dr. Phil]

Then they drop dead of a heart attack because it doesn't.

[Matt Lieb]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Replace a valve.

[Matt Lieb]

You know, I'd like to think that even at a hospital or a research facility with Western medicine that they still peer review and try out different, you know, like, alternative medicines. Right.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, like, some of them.

[Robert Evans]

Some of them work.

[Matt Lieb]

Some of them work. Like, there was a time when, you know, acupuncture was seen as kind of like a crock. And now it's like kind of just a standard part of Western medicine. It's just, you know, so.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, and there's. There's a lot to be said about even acupuncture.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, I went through a lot.

[Robert Evans]

Of it as a kid, and it did nothing for me. But my grandpa swore by it for his Parkinson's.

[Dr. Phil]

And even if it was, I don't know, you could say it's like fucking whatever, placebo.

[Robert Evans]

But he experienced relief.

[Dr. Phil]

So I don't Care, like, yeah, I don't know. I'm not going to get into like a. Because I don't know. I don't know all of that. I know it's one of those things.

[Robert Evans]

Where there's a number of divergent opinions on accurate. But a number of things that were initially considered alternative medicines have been found.

[Dr. Phil]

To have medical, you know, benefits.

[Robert Evans]

Not that that's the norm, but, but it has happened in history, you know, different kind of traditional or whatever treatments. So this is very controversial though is the point I'm making. And a number of people even picketed the college when the Rosenthal center opened. None of this dissuaded Dr. Oz from participating in it. His explanation as to why he embraced alternative medicine was, to be quite honest, kind of brilliant. He said that his by this point vast experience as a real doctor had really informed him of the limits of medical science. Specifically, he said that while he could sew bypass grafts and even implant a new heart into someone's chest, he couldn't change the habits that had made them sick in the first place, nor could he cure the emotional issues that they were dealing with. Depression, he pointed out, was a major risk factor in heart patient recovery post surgery and things like meditation. Right. That's kind of considered woo New Age.

[Matt Lieb]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

That can help with depression and that can help with healing. And he's right about that.

[Dr. Phil]

Bad point to make.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So he seemed to insinuate when he.

[Dr. Phil]

Was talking to the New York Times.

[Robert Evans]

Why wouldn't a caring physician want to try everything possible to improve his patients odds? He could point out that meditation had shown some benefit for heart disease patients. Who was to say that other stuff wouldn't work? Dr. Oz told the New York Times that he felt ethically obliged to experiment in new directions in medicine. The article makes it clear that Dr. Oz had not let up one bit in the workaholic tendencies that he inherited from his his father as well.

[Dr. Phil]

And I'm going to quote from the Times again here.

[Robert Evans]

Mehmet Oz is one of those rare beings who seem incapable of sloth. He's doing a heart transplant right now, his secretary says on the phone, and he's got a double lung transplant waiting. And those are in addition to his two regularly scheduled open hearts. And then at three he's supposed to fly to Boston to deliver a lecture. So exceptional is Oz's energy that some of his colleagues use him as a benchmark, correlating their own vitality as a fraction of a full memet unit. He runs down lobs, sizes, tennis Partner, mentor, and department chairman, Dr. Eric A. Rose, who at 44 is one of the top heart transplant surgeons in the world.

[Matt Lieb]

So I can't tell you how nervous I would be going into a lung transplant procedure and then hearing like, this doctor's got to do a heart after you and then got to fly to Boston. I'd be like, you think you could maybe take your time with this? But bro, like, I get that.

[Robert Evans]

I do. It is a matter. We'll talk about the ZN2. We don't have enough of these guys.

[Dr. Phil]

It's actually a major health problem.

[Robert Evans]

How few people there are that can do this.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. But it is exhausting.

[Robert Evans]

Everything you read about this guy's date, like, you're just one of those people who, I think I kind of get the feeling I don't want to psychoanalyze someone, but you get the feeling he.

[Dr. Phil]

Can'T be alone and still like he.

[Robert Evans]

He has to always be moving towards something.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. He's got his dad in the back of his head telling him to murder kid in the ice cream show.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. To kill that.

[Robert Evans]

Kill that kid.

[Matt Lieb]

He doesn't know what he wants to be.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Just like.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, I imagine that would create a bit of a problem later in life with stillness.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I. I feel for him a little bit in that. Sure. Now the article also goes into more.

[Dr. Phil]

Detail about how Dr. Oz's wife's fam.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Oz's wife's family piqued his interest in ultimate alternative medicine. His father in law was one of the surgeons on the first heart transplant team in Texas. He'd also been nicknamed the Rock Doc by Rolling Stone for playing music in the OR to relax patients.

[Dr. Phil]

His mother in law had developed a.

[Robert Evans]

Special low fat diet for her husband's cardiac patients. And this was really before it was accepted that low fat diets would be good for heart patients.

[Dr. Phil]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

She once refused surgery for her own inflamed gallbladder and handled it instead by ultra altering her diet. She taught her son in law, Dr. Oz, about using arnica for sore muscles and herbal tea for stomach aches.

[Dr. Phil]

So he gets brought in, in part.

[Robert Evans]

To alternative medicine by these people who have a real medical background and are doing things that aren't widely accepted, but.

[Dr. Phil]

Also may help, you know, music.

[Robert Evans]

I think there's some data now on how music can help with certain aspects of the healing process.

[Dr. Phil]

Low fat mother in law seem to be on the cutting edge of that.

[Matt Lieb]

When you said the rock doc, I got concerned. I thought he was gonna like, replace people's hearts with crystals and shit. And I was like, oh no. Oh no, they all die.

[Dr. Phil]

But my God, their hearts are pretty.

[Robert Evans]

So this is how Mehmet gets introduced to the wide world of quack cures. And it makes sense. He enters it through largely reasonable ways, alternative treatments that have some positive impact on people.

[Dr. Phil]

That's in.

[Robert Evans]

There's extremely reasonable stuff in the article.

[Dr. Phil]

In general, like, Dr. Oz points out.

[Robert Evans]

That in 1995, American hospitals had only recently allowed family to stay in the hospital hospital with a patient. While in Turkey it was common for.

[Dr. Phil]

Families to do this.

[Robert Evans]

And of course, having loved ones nearby can help a patient's morale, which can influence how well they heal. No one I think today would even.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, think to disagree with that. It didn't used to be common.

[Robert Evans]

It changed. So he's, he's in medicine during a.

[Dr. Phil]

Time when a lot of stuff that like, just wasn't.

[Robert Evans]

That is kind of now common sense medicine wasn't. And I think that kind of opens his eye to like, well, maybe all this other shit works.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, maybe everything in my head is correct. Yeah, slowly getting to him. Turning into a complete narcissist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And the article kind of veers right from, yeah, having loved ones in the.

[Dr. Phil]

Room can, can influence how well you heal. To Dr. Oz's love of energy work.

[Robert Evans]

Particularly his work with a lady named Motz who believed she could sense the energy of heart transplant patients. The Times article certainly does not portray.

[Dr. Phil]

This woman in a particular positive light.

[Robert Evans]

Quote, she now has her surgical sea legs under her. But the first time Motts observed open heart surgery, she had a shaky debut. She had been standing at the patient's head outside the sterile field, periodically telling Oz what changes she was able to sense in the patient's energy. The patient was obviously not awake, but probably had some awareness, most likely smell and perhaps hearing. Open heart patients are often fitted with headphones and provided with tapes to listen to, including, if they want, Oz's own specially recorded super soupy trance music. For the bypass team, it was quite a novelty to hear Motts report that she was registering the patient's moods in her body. Various states of fear, anger or satisfaction perceived as roughness in her chest or turbulence in her stomach. At one point, seeing that Mots was not looking so good herself, Oz asked a burly assistant to take her outside for some air.

[Dr. Phil]

When he returned, he said, I sense.

[Robert Evans]

A change in my stomach. It's a tenseness. No, it's a growling. No, wait a minute, I'm just hungry.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, my God, I swear, she's like. She seemed like she is just describing her own feelings and then just ascribing them to an open heart.

[Dr. Phil]

But, yeah, it's one of those things. I'm not sure exactly what type of.

[Robert Evans]

Energy work this person is doing, because.

[Dr. Phil]

There'S a few different kind of categories of it.

[Matt Lieb]

She's checking the vibes, dude. She's checking the vibes. Just making sure, you know, the vibe dipstick is filled with oil.

[Robert Evans]

I should note, if I'm going to be totally fair, that Reiki, which has its origins in Japan, has been shown in some early scientific studies to help diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and to significantly alter people's experience of physical and emotional pain.

[Dr. Phil]

And I have some friends who swear by it for kind of physical and.

[Robert Evans]

Emotional pain in particular.

[Matt Lieb]

I don't know what Reiki is. I've heard of it. Is it like when Mr. Miyagi rubs his hands together and then he puts energy work?

[Dr. Phil]

I guess.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know.

[Dr. Phil]

It's not a kind of thing that I particularly believe in, and I kind of think in a lot of cases.

[Robert Evans]

It'S that you have a good relationship with the practitioner and you trust them.

[Dr. Phil]

And it can be, you know, an emotionally soothing thing, which I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

There were early studies, scientific studies, that showed that it could diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and reduce people's experience of pain. Now, further studies were commissioned after these early studies, which, starting in the early 2000s, were more negative. A number of hospitals did, however, add Reiki practitioners to their stable of available providers, in part as a result of.

[Dr. Phil]

Like the work that Dr. Oz and.

[Robert Evans]

The center at Columbia was doing. You can find these people in hospitals now. And it's worth noting that a number of the positive studies about Reiki and other similar things were conducted by the national center for Complementary and Alternative of Medicine. Their work is problematic to say the least. And I'm going to quote now from an analysis of several studies conducted by this organization by Professor Dr. Edzard Ernst. Quote, Three studies suggested that energy medicine had an effect, but their authors either applied statistics inappropriately confounded the effects of energy healing by adding unrelated interventions to the experimental condition, or failed to design or blind equivalent placebo controls. Their results are therefore untrustworthy. The two studies that were well designed failed to demonstrate effects from energy and healing. The odds of generating a useful result of a clinical trial of energy medicine are small. Moreover, what impact would negative studies have? Scientists will simply say, we could have told you so. And proponents are Unlikely to change their mind. Proponents may then claim that the negative study must have been flawed or that energy medicine cannot be investigated by the tools of science. Or they might rely on the nccam.

[Dr. Phil]

That organization I talked about funded studies.

[Robert Evans]

That generated biased but apparently positive results. The NCCA approach encourages a self perpetuating cycle of misinterpreting research and conducting flawed research, which inevitably generates some studies that erroneously claim positive effects and give the false impression that the efficacy of energy medicine is still scientifically unresolved.

[Matt Lieb]

Man, we are just veering into anti vax territory and like anti mass territory. People who just, they google stuff and then they go, this article right here.

[Dr. Phil]

Says that mass actually cause Covid they can't analyze.

[Robert Evans]

And it's from a government science organization. You know, these guys like, and here's.

[Dr. Phil]

A study that said, and it's like, well, okay, but you actually look at scientists who don't have a vested and.

[Robert Evans]

Often financial interest in this and they.

[Dr. Phil]

Point out all these very obvious flaws in the study.

[Robert Evans]

It's worth noting that the NCCAM was founded in 1998, three years after the New York Times article about Dr. Oz and the Alternative Medicine center at Columbia was published. Now, Dr. Oz at this point was.

[Dr. Phil]

Not yet on Oprah's show, but he.

[Robert Evans]

Had been featured on TV several times for his pioneering work with mechanical hearts as well as his embrace of alternative medicine. You can draw a direct line. I don't know if we would have an NCC without Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know. You can't say that for certain.

[Robert Evans]

But he is someone who before his embrace of alternative medicine, starts to be well known as an exceptional doctor and scientists.

[Dr. Phil]

He embraces this stuff, Colombia starts studying this stuff and even though everything they find is pretty inconclusive, the fact that.

[Robert Evans]

It'S in an actual hospital lends it legitimacy. This organization is started in order to test this stuff. The organization is filled with people who already believe in it, carrying out tests that are flawed. And it helps prepare this culture.

[Dr. Phil]

Believing too much in this stuff, my.

[Matt Lieb]

God, it's just like it's a real life Facebook group, you know, it's just like everyone already believes in all the stuff and they just keep just co signing each other's bullshit.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's one of those things like.

[Robert Evans]

Again, I know people who swear by.

[Dr. Phil]

Ricky, who gain emotional benefits from it, who think it helps with a number of things including like physical, including emotional pain.

[Robert Evans]

And like if you find something that.

[Dr. Phil]

Helps you alleviate your emotional pain, more.

[Robert Evans]

Power to, you know, you're never gonna.

[Dr. Phil]

Hear Me say a damn word against.

[Matt Lieb]

It, you know, go with God. That's. That, that's all great, but I mean, you want to relieve pain.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Try some morphine though, dog. Cause that shit. Oh my God. Morphine.

[Robert Evans]

And there's no downsides to morphine.

[Dr. Phil]

That's the best part.

[Matt Lieb]

No, I can't think of one downside to morphine.

[Dr. Phil]

It's not a single one.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, it just feels good the whole time and you just need to take more.

[Robert Evans]

My issue is not so much with any particular treatment.

[Dr. Phil]

Not that, not. Not even an issue that people would like. It's number one. A lot of people will issue actual.

[Robert Evans]

Medical treatment in favor of some of this stuff.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's not going to. I, I'm trying to be as fair as I can.

[Robert Evans]

Is not going to solve your blood.

[Dr. Phil]

Blocked cardiac pathways, you know? Yeah. Like it's not going to fix it.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. I mean, energy is great, but Plavix works wonders.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, Plavix is a lot better. And it's, it's, it's more to the point.

[Robert Evans]

Even more than that, is it, it.

[Dr. Phil]

Gets us on this, this road of.

[Robert Evans]

Increasingly accepting and legitimizing things that there's.

[Dr. Phil]

No, there's not a scientific basis for.

[Robert Evans]

And that leads us to shit like let's drink bleach to cure the coronavirus.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, you know, it's where the road ends. Have more of a problem with than Dr. Oz experimenting with an energy worker during a surgery. Like it's where that leads to.

[Robert Evans]

And he plays a major role in legitimizing that.

[Dr. Phil]

He's, he, he helps put, he helps.

[Robert Evans]

Put our national foot on the, the.

[Dr. Phil]

Gas pedal into the, the post science age.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. It's a slippery slope to that, you know, downing that brain octane oil, you know.

[Dr. Phil]

Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, at this point, though, we're.

[Robert Evans]

Talking still in the mid-90s. Everything Dr. Oz is saying is reasonable from a certain point of view. He's not claiming that Ricky's going to cure cancer. He's not even claiming it's going to cure your heart disease. He's saying it could help with recovery. And a lot of recovery is mental.

[Dr. Phil]

And he's not, you know, it's possible. He's right.

[Matt Lieb]

He's not yet a bastard.

[Dr. Phil]

It's certainly not impossible for this kind.

[Robert Evans]

Of stuff to have a mental impact which can positively affect recovery.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, he's not a bastard at this point.

[Robert Evans]

Nearly all of his alternative medical claims were things that you could argue were at least to some extent reasonable based on the way he framed them. And he was, most importantly, regardless of whatever kind of woo woo stuff he got into, an exceptionally gifted medical professional who was performing something like 250 heart surgeries a year.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, that's 250 lives a year. Yeah, extended. That's, that's great.

[Robert Evans]

He's not a bastard yet.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, he's doing great work so far. You know, despite the little weird stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Fine.

[Matt Lieb]

A little bit of energy, a little bit of heart surgery, it works out.

[Dr. Phil]

And the thing though, that is, I.

[Robert Evans]

Think is happening during this period and.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know how conscious a choice this is by Dr. Oz.

[Robert Evans]

I think it is because of the fact that he gets an MBA as well, and the fact that he's very good at getting press, very good at.

[Dr. Phil]

Getting on tv, at getting in the news.

[Robert Evans]

I think he is at this point crafting his career to make himself into.

[Dr. Phil]

An ideal candidate for famous TV doctor.

[Robert Evans]

I think he is building a background that will allow him to establish his celebrity career later. It is not hard to see how a handsome doctor with TV experience, a New York Times profile talking about alternative medicine and a seriously impressive resume was going to wind up eventually on Oprah Winfrey's radar. He almost, almost built himself perfectly for that to happen. And he tried in the early 2000s, he tried with his wife to start a TV show.

[Dr. Phil]

They like filmed a pilot episode. It didn't really take off.

[Robert Evans]

But he succeeds. And I think he's pushing and his wife is pushing him to get in. She's very much his business partner. To develop himself into a media personality. And he eventually succeeds in 2004 in getting invited to open Winfrey Show. Now Mehmet immediately endeared himself to Winfrey's audience with his willingness to discuss frank health details in a way that was demystifying and humorous. He most famously explained that healthy poops tended to be shaped like an S and should hit the water like an Olympic diver with very little splash. Oprah herself later recalled when he made it okay to talk about the shape of a good poop. I knew he could talk about anything. He always found ways to make the human body enlisted.

[Dr. Phil]

Fascinating.

[Matt Lieb]

Man, that is. I mean, I'm, I'm low key impressed that he impressed Oprah with doo doo shapes.

[Dr. Phil]

It's where it's mom stuff. You know, moms love poop.

[Matt Lieb]

They love talking about doo doo. That's the thing.

[Dr. Phil]

And that's what, like, Oz does exactly.

[Robert Evans]

The right things to endear himself to.

[Dr. Phil]

Like millions of middle class moms.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Which is the best market in the country.

[Matt Lieb]

It's an incredible market.

[Robert Evans]

You can make all of the money if you can get a few million.

[Dr. Phil]

Middle class moms to love you.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. I worked at this, this digital, what do you call it, like a digital production company. And the most famous person that we dealt with was a famous Facebook mom who had millions of followers. And I would watch her stuff and I was like, this is, you know, maybe the most awful shit I've ever seen. It was just a, you know, lady in a car yelling at people about kids.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

And. But the, she was a famous mom. I mean, if you can become a famous mom, you will be one of the most famous people in the country.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the power of, of particularly middle class moms can't be exaggerated. Like in Portland, the cops and the.

[Robert Evans]

Feds were able to fuck over as many people as they wanted until they started gassing moms.

[Matt Lieb]

Right?

[Dr. Phil]

The whole country's pissed.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, they're like, like, hey, listen, you can do that to people of color, but those are moms.

[Dr. Phil]

Those are white moms.

[Matt Lieb]

Those are white moms. That could be my mother.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

You know what else?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, where you going with that?

[Sophie]

Where you going with that? I, I thought you were gonna say, you know, what else is your mom. That's where I thought you were going.

[Dr. Phil]

With, you know what else is your mother?

[Robert Evans]

The products and services that support this pod.

[Dr. Phil]

Foreign. We're back.

[Sophie]

So we've, so we've all just agreed that Matt is very funny. That was the discussion over the break.

[Robert Evans]

You made this one into a two parter, Matt.

[Dr. Phil]

So you audience can thank you for.

[Robert Evans]

Two episodes about Dr. Oz this week.

[Matt Lieb]

All right.

[Dr. Phil]

Or they can blame you.

[Robert Evans]

And if they blame to blame him. Matt's home address is.

[Dr. Phil]

We love to dox our guests. Don't you dox me, baby.

[Robert Evans]

So Oprah had Dr. Oz on her show 55 times over the course of five years. She gave him the nickname America's Doctor, which stuck. And although I'm not saying this in.

[Dr. Phil]

A positive sense is unfortunately accurate, he's.

[Matt Lieb]

Definitely America's Doctor, just appealing to the lowest common denominator, the stupidest human being, America's Doctor.

[Robert Evans]

And if you look at the health of the average American, you can tell the quality of job he's done.

[Matt Lieb]

Eat more bread. Everybody eat bread.

[Robert Evans]

Well, actually that's the one thing he is.

[Dr. Phil]

He's actually pretty good about, like weight loss. Well, I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

That's still debatable.

[Matt Lieb]

Stop defending Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not going to defend. I just love to be fair, you know?

[Matt Lieb]

I know you do. You're very fair.

[Robert Evans]

Look, say what you will about Hitler.

[Matt Lieb]

No, you will. He was a vegetarian, and that's good for the environment.

[Dr. Phil]

The man cared about animal rights.

[Robert Evans]

By 2009, it was clear that Dr. Oz had more than enough star power to justify a shot at his own show. Oprah's production company had little trouble finding a buyer for what was sure to be a blockbuster new series. Her show celebrated the launch of Dr. Oz's show with an entire episode dedicated to Dr. Oz, which acted as something of a coming out party for his brand. From a press Release on Oprah, oprah.com.

[Dr. Phil]

This is talking about the special Dr. Oz episode.

[Robert Evans]

Moving personal stories and extraordinary surprises are featured throughout the hour as Dr. Oz meets viewers who share how his advice saved their lives. From those who noticed life threatening diseases their doctors missed. To those who lost weight. Thanks to his diet tips from Dr. Oz, real people step forward to offer their thanks to America's Doctor. Plus, it's the reunion that Dr. Oz never imagined would happen. As Oprah show producers tracked down a young boy he cared for in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the two.

[Dr. Phil]

Reunite for the first time. He's like the fucking perfect, perfect guy for this.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, I love that. It's literally sounds like an hour long special of people just thanking him, which might be the most narcissistic thing I think I've ever heard. Yeah, I mean, like, it's one thing for Oprah to do that because I think America does look legitimately owe her thanks for just years of content, you.

[Dr. Phil]

Know, but years of mostly dangerous health based content.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, yeah, No, I mean, it's awful content. But the fact is it's, it's quantity over quality in America and, you know, but an hour of just thanking Dr. Oz and having people come up to him like, you saved me is fucking wild.

[Robert Evans]

It's worth noting in terms of his bastard degree.

[Dr. Phil]

That and kind of the acceleration from.

[Robert Evans]

Hey, maybe energy healing works to becoming a monster. The early 2000s is the period in which Oprah becomes aware of a Brazilian healer named John of God who believes he can do psychic surgery and like remove tumors.

[Sophie]

John of God?

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, of, of the, of the Brazilian of Gods.

[Dr. Phil]

Cool.

[Robert Evans]

And on the episode in which she.

[Dr. Phil]

Introduces John of God to America, Dr.

[Robert Evans]

Oz comes on and gives his professional.

[Dr. Phil]

Opinion that like, he seems like he's.

[Robert Evans]

Really having an effect on people. And I can't explain it. I don't think medical Science can explain.

[Dr. Phil]

What this man is doing. Basically giving a real doctor's opinion that.

[Robert Evans]

This guy's gotta be legit.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

John of God later turned out to be a mass rapist. On these.

[Dr. Phil]

On a scale, hundreds of victims on.

[Robert Evans]

A scale, almost incomprehensible. We did a two parter on John of God. You can listen to it.

[Dr. Phil]

It's a fucking nightmare.

[Robert Evans]

This guy never gets half the following that he has. If it's not for Oprah and Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Phil]

So. Wow.

[Matt Lieb]

Holy shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, it's good shit. Good shit.

[Robert Evans]

I found a fascinating New York Times article written a few months into Dr. Oz's new show. It notes that in transitioning to his own series, Dr. Oz had to spice.

[Dr. Phil]

Up his act for a daily.

[Robert Evans]

For a daily daytime audience, quote, potentially distracted by the tantrums of a toddler or the yelping of a labradoodle. They go on to summarize his early episodes. His show tackles topics as diverse and diversely weighty as skin cancer, kitchen burns, sleep eating and pubic hair loss. Returning constantly to the same television motherlode Winfrey profitably mined, weepy, overweight guests who vow and often fail to get in shape. And it has taken its star far away from any sort of traditional medical practice. He explains that transition as the product of frustration. Too often, he told me he would sit in an office and be telling you stuff too little, too late. That if you'd been able to lose a little weight or if your diabetes had been managed more aggressively, then it would have dramatically altered your destiny, which is now to go downstairs and have open heart surgery. With his TV show, he can exhort Americans to end all aspect, to tend all aspects of their health head to toe before they reach a point of no return, lose weight, go to Brazil and get sexually assaulted by a con man.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, wow. You know, there's always that point. You know, I've listened to your show and there's always that point in the episode where the comedian or the guest has no other option but to just say, fuck, that sucks, dude. Like, there's no other comment. But what? Oh, that's crazy. Crazy. But, you know, hey, John of God, Dr. Oz, they all sound like great people.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And it's going to get worse.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, he.

[Robert Evans]

This is kind of the period. One of the things he starts to do in this period is he starts cutting back on his surgical practice and performing fewer surgeries.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Because he's got to keep up all those TV dates.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In order to tell people about John of God.

[Dr. Phil]

The mass rapist. And in order to tell people about, I don't know, some stuff that's good. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Telling people to eat healthiers. A good America's diet sucks.

[Dr. Phil]

His diet advice I think is. Well, we'll talk about that later. It's also problematic. Anyway, he's trading objectively useful medical work for being a nonsense doctor.

[Robert Evans]

But he's making millions of dollars.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. And in America, that is the ultimate marker of doing the right thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That's the only thing that tells you whether or not you're doing the right thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

If you make a lot of money, then whatever you're doing is the right thing to do.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

It's morally correct to make a lot of money.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Morally righteous.

[Dr. Phil]

Righteous wealth, yes. You know what else is righteous, Matt?

[Matt Lieb]

Is it the products and services?

[Dr. Phil]

No, my man, it's you. Because the episode's over.

[Robert Evans]

Part one is over.

[Dr. Phil]

And we're going to.

[Robert Evans]

We're going to.

[Dr. Phil]

We're going to sail out.

[Robert Evans]

But first you've got to plug your pluggables.

[Dr. Phil]

And I just decided to compliment you before we.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, that's very nice. Here, here. I thought you were just trying to get me to talk about products and services. Well, I thank you for having me on. I have a product and or service called Pod Yourself a Gun. It's a Sopranos podcast. And yeah, if you like the Sopranos, or even if you don't, check it out on the, you know, wherever the podcast store is podcast.

[Dr. Phil]

All right, well, this is the show that it is, and we're done doing.

[Robert Evans]

The things that we do.

[Dr. Phil]

So go out into the world and.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know, find Dr. Oz and scream at him.

[Dr. Phil]

Give him a good. Give him a good screaming.

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[Robert Evans]

And your number with you.

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[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through the windows, looking at people fancy, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught.

[Dr. Phil]

He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers. Btk through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together, we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historic true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching. To see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom Made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Phil]

This is behind the Bastards.

[Robert Evans]

The podcast where we neg our audience in order to make them more closely drawn to us.

[Dr. Phil]

It's a tactic I learned from pickup artists.

[Robert Evans]

From pickup artists?

[Dr. Phil]

Yes. Really?

[Robert Evans]

This whole show is based on the.

[Dr. Phil]

Lessons I learned as a pickup artist.

[Robert Evans]

You can't see it, but I'm wearing an enormous hat with ostrich plumes coming.

[Dr. Phil]

Off, made out of purple felt.

[Robert Evans]

It's an incredible hat.

[Matt Lieb]

The most fuckable hat.

[Robert Evans]

The most fuckable hat, yes. That was actually the first name I.

[Dr. Phil]

Pitched for this podcast, but Sophie said that means nothing and no one will listen to it, so we won't.

[Sophie]

He always puts lies on my name and saying that I turned down his ideas. That's just not the case, Sovie.

[Robert Evans]

I think we can all agree that one of the best things to do.

[Dr. Phil]

Is to lie about things your colleagues didn't do. Because it's funny.

[Matt Lieb]

I agree with it.

[Dr. Phil]

Thank you. On to. Welcome to the show. We're talking about Dr. Oz, and as we left the last episode off, he had just, you know, gotten Oprah'd, right? Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Started his TV career.

[Dr. Phil]

Got an Oprah'd hard.

[Robert Evans]

So he started his TV career. And he also starts right around the same time he gets on TV for the first time. He starts a daily morning radio show on Oprah Winfrey's Sirius XM channel.

[Sophie]

Never a good idea.

[Dr. Phil]

SiriusXM?

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

Terrible idea.

[Matt Lieb]

What is it about giving people three hours of uninterrupted airtime? You know, there's just something about it I.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, and this is an opinion that's pretty controversial within iHeartradio. I think radio should be illegal, and I think it should be a felony. Punished by prison time for being on the radio or having a radio or.

[Robert Evans]

Thinking about the radio.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

I think the only form of entertainment.

[Robert Evans]

That should be legal is specifically my podcast.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

One podcast and ash.

[Matt Lieb]

Yes. Yeah. And there should legally only be one Sopranos podcast allowed, which, as it turns out, is the case.

[Robert Evans]

I think if we could get Chuck.

[Dr. Phil]

Schumer's ear, we can make this happen. We'll tack this onto the pot bill.

[Robert Evans]

No one will notice.

[Dr. Phil]

So Dr. Oz has the Dr. Oz Show.

[Robert Evans]

He's got a radio show on Winfrey's XM channel where he covers very scientific.

[Dr. Phil]

Topics like how God changes your brain.

[Robert Evans]

And the happiest people in the world.

[Dr. Phil]

Now I found a New York Times article that was written just a few.

[Robert Evans]

Months into his tenure with his TV show, kind of at the start of his burst into stardom. And the interviewer who talked to Oz for this article seems as impressed as everyone always is by the manic, somewhat inhuman pace at which Mehmet Oz works. By this point, he'd also written six books with titles like you, the smart patient, you on a Diet, and you having a baby. It's like the series is the.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, the famous you series, Colon, whatever.

[Robert Evans]

And he co writes these books with another doctor.

[Dr. Phil]

I can't tell you how much of the writing was. A lot of times, I'm not saying.

[Robert Evans]

This is the case with Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Phil]

Because he's a wild workaholic, but a lot of times when you have a guy that's his kind of famous and.

[Robert Evans]

They write a bunch of books, they.

[Dr. Phil]

Write like 10% of the book and they have someone else, a co author or a ghostwriter do the rest. I don't know. That's the case here.

[Matt Lieb]

There's always one Matt Damon who's writing most of Good Will Hunting, and then there's a Ben Affleck who gets top booking.

[Dr. Phil]

And I, I do believe Matt Damon.

[Robert Evans]

Writes most of his books.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, 100%.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So 9 million copies of his various.

[Dr. Phil]

Titles are in print by this point.

[Robert Evans]

Like the first year of his show. So he is, he is a very wealthy and successful man. Pretty much out the gate, like money machine. Getting the start on Oprah kind of guarantees it.

[Dr. Phil]

Basically, if Oprah, Oprah likes you enough.

[Robert Evans]

To put you on her show more than once, you're going to get rich.

[Matt Lieb]

Damn. Yeah, I just should have spent my youth trying to get on Oprah.

[Robert Evans]

We all should have.

[Dr. Phil]

We all should have. So Dr. Oz gets a semi regular column for Time magazine because again, they see this guy get famous, they're like, we gotta get some of that Oprah money too. We get this guy on time, people will start reading time again. And yeah, it's interesting. They give him a column and in.

[Robert Evans]

2008, they included him on their list of the world's most 100 most influential people. So before they hire him to a.

[Dr. Phil]

Column, they call him one of the.

[Robert Evans]

World'S most influential people. And as soon as he gets listed as one of the hundred most influential.

[Dr. Phil]

People on the planet, Dr. Oz calls his dad. Right? Like finally, this has got him now. Yeah, this has got to be the thing. How can he not be a impressed by this?

[Matt Lieb]

Am I enough for you?

[Dr. Phil]

Papa.

[Robert Evans]

So when he tells his dad, his.

[Dr. Phil]

Dad'S first question is, what number? As in how high are you on the list? And this is not a ranked thing. Like, it's not the top hundred, like going to one. It's just these hundred people are all very influential.

[Matt Lieb]

It's not a listicle, bro.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's not a listicle. Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

But Dr. Oz, in this interview, seemed to acknowledge that the fact that his dad reacted that way said a lot.

[Dr. Phil]

About both, you know, his dad and about their relationship.

[Robert Evans]

He told an interviewer, quote, he wants to know what number.

[Dr. Phil]

Are you kidding me?

[Robert Evans]

There are 6 billion people on the planet.

[Dr. Phil]

It's a rounding error.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, God. But, but like, but like, what number though? Because you do wonder.

[Dr. Phil]

Seriously, what? How high are you, motherfucker?

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, come on. How influential are you?

[Dr. Phil]

You're basically me. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That interviewer, along with the New York Times wrote, quote, it's also the kind of thing that goads a son to climb mountain after mountain, seldom pausing to enjoy the view. The good doctor did admit to engaging in a number of time saving measures over the years. He did numerous columns which were often just recycled from other columns or chunks of his books. He'd provide the same list of skin moisturizing or metabolism boosting tips in different magazines or online articles. Even so, his workload was enormous. The Dr. Oz show was instantly one of the most popular shows on the planet. And Mehmet was contracted to record 175 hour long episodes per year, which is a fucking brutal work schedule on its own. And the man continued to practice as a surgeon, albeit at a reduced rate. The New York Times interviewer who visited him in 2010 seemed to find his behavior and kind of his compulsive workaholism somewhat unsettling. I never saw him without a portable larder of baggies, plastic containers and thermoses of food and drink. And all of it, every crumb, every drop was healthful. Low fat Greek yogurt mixed with brightly colored berries. Spinach slaw, raw almonds, raw walnuts soaked in water to amplify their nutritional benefit. A dark green concoction of juices from vegetables, including cucumber and Parsley. Roughly every 45 to 60 minutes, as if on cue, he would ingest something from his movable buffet. But only a little bit. His portions assiduously, continuously regulated like an intravenous, like an intravenous drip of nutrition. It was the most efficient, joyless eating I have ever seen.

[Dr. Phil]

That is so weird. I'm sorry.

[Robert Evans]

That's so weird.

[Sophie]

That made me so uncomfortable to just listen to.

[Matt Lieb]

He's cool dude. Like, that's, you know, he's living life in the. In the most drab way possible. Just trying to. Just trying to make TV shows and do heart surgeries, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Who has time to enjoy anything when your daddy.

[Dr. Phil]

Joyless affairs, efficient eating.

[Sophie]

He's like, I don't eat or drink anything that I would enjoy.

[Dr. Phil]

You're welcome. That's just so unsettling. I mean, you know what?

[Robert Evans]

I have known a couple of people in my lives, all very skinny, who.

[Dr. Phil]

Have told me, like, I just don't really like eating. Like, yeah, there's some foods that I prefer to others, but I just don't.

[Robert Evans]

Really enjoy it one way or the other.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, I've not.

[Robert Evans]

Like some of those people wound up.

[Dr. Phil]

On the soylent thing. And I guess, like, I mean, yeah, fine, it's like, it's whatever, you know, it's your life.

[Matt Lieb]

If you want to eat monkey food, eat monkey food. But don't be surprised when I judge you, you know?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Like, it's. That's weird.

[Robert Evans]

At the start, the Dr. Oz show was broadly inoffensive from a medical perspective. He gave a lot of fairly good common sense health advice. Health advice. And provided a lot of people with a friendly medical face, willing to explain things their doctors might not have the time or the bedside manner to properly lay out. But Oz's fascination with alternative medicine was present from the beginning, and as time went on, he veered more and more, more in that direction, following both the topics that consistently drew the most viewers and the topics that were easiest to put together.

[Dr. Phil]

Because 175 hours of content a year is a lot.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, really, though, like, at some point you run out of shit to talk about and you have to just be like, oh, pendulums over the heart. Do they work?

[Dr. Phil]

You know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Punching people in the dick.

[Dr. Phil]

Could it improve your bowels? Yeah, try it. I mean, you know, we. We have to do. I don't know how much content we have to do per year. 52 weeks, two hours a week?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we do, like 110, maybe, like, with some of the episodes that go.

[Dr. Phil]

Over 120 hours of content a year for this show. And That's a lot. 175 hours of video content is huge.

[Robert Evans]

You can't. There's not that much good. And also entertaining medical advice that you could give in a year, let alone every single year.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, just like, there's only so many organs to talk about, you know, after a while, you just got to invent shit.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's this thing. It's this kind of. This inevitable churn of capitalism leading us all into this.

[Robert Evans]

This specific kind of nonsense because you.

[Dr. Phil]

Can'T not have content legally you're contracted.

[Robert Evans]

To, but also you have this whole team of people whose ability to pay their rent, whose ability to. To afford their homes, to keep their kids in school is dependent upon you doing this show.

[Dr. Phil]

Outside of just the fact fact that he's rich, like. Like he's fine, but he. Like, it's this thing. You have to keep putting out the.

[Robert Evans]

Thing, and you will never have enough meaningful to put out to do it.

[Matt Lieb]

Right.

[Dr. Phil]

So you start in his case doing.

[Robert Evans]

Nonsense about mediums and.

[Dr. Phil]

And in our case, doing episodes about Dr. Oz.

[Matt Lieb]

When you run out of bastards, eventually you just gotta find one on tv.

[Dr. Phil]

We're not out of bastards, but like. Like last week I spent 30 hours reading about the protocols of the Elders of Zion. I needed an off week, you know? God, we all need off weeks.

[Matt Lieb]

That is one of my favorite absolutely real documents to read.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's why we brought you on, actually.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. I'm actually one of the Elders of Zion and I got some protocols for you.

[Dr. Phil]

Good times. So for an example of the kind.

[Robert Evans]

Of nonsense creep, I guess you'd call.

[Dr. Phil]

It that, like, advanced upon his show.

[Robert Evans]

In March of 2012, Dr. Oz did a show titled Medium vs Medicine. Oz's guest was a psychic who claimed she could communicate with the dead. This was one of several, and by this point, probably dozens of episodes dedicated to people who claim to talk to the dead. Energy healing was, you know, on the fringe, certainly, but at least it was something that. When he started doing it, there were scientific studies saying there might be something to it.

[Dr. Phil]

Those studies have since been, to a large extent, discredited.

[Robert Evans]

But when he started doing that, there was some evidence it was a thing to try, you know, he wasn't completely.

[Dr. Phil]

Out of left field.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. People were at least testing it out.

[Dr. Phil]

Doing episodes on mediums.

[Robert Evans]

Talking to the dead is well outside.

[Dr. Phil]

Of plausible deniability territory. Right. Like, you're just doing nonsense at this point.

[Matt Lieb]

You know, it depends how they're. If you go up to a dead body and start talking to it, you are technically talking to the dead.

[Robert Evans]

Now that would be a fun show.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz breaks into morgues and talks to corpses. Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Hey, how'd you die?

[Robert Evans]

Just, just. Just having his bodyguards mace police officers rolling into a crime scene.

[Dr. Phil]

Be like, who did this? Have this go down Are you okay? Hey, I am a doctor.

[Robert Evans]

Do you want some almonds?

[Matt Lieb]

They're soaked in water for more nutrition. All right, someone get me a crystal.

[Dr. Phil]

So, yeah, he had, yeah, Dr. Oz had among his psychic guests famous grifter.

[Robert Evans]

King John Edwards on his show. Not the politician.

[Dr. Phil]

No, no, no, the talks to dead TV show guy. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And he praised the reading that he received from John Edwards saying, quote, let me tell you, it changed my life. I've learned in my career that there are times when science just hasn't caught up with things. And I think this may be one.

[Dr. Phil]

Of them, which is almost exactly what he said about John of God, the.

[Robert Evans]

Guy who raped hundreds of people.

[Matt Lieb]

That's how, you know, like to stay far away from anything when he's just like, man, this is, this is a brand new groundbreaking territory. And you can go, all right, guys, it's a rapist run.

[Dr. Phil]

It's one of those things. Part of how he's like, the intelligent.

[Robert Evans]

Way to frame this is you start with the true thing, which is there are things science can't explain. One of those things is the nature of consciousness and what happens to it.

[Dr. Phil]

After, you know, vital signs.

[Robert Evans]

We don't know.

[Dr. Phil]

There's not an objective answer to that. But it going this way is kind of like being like, yeah, you know, we can't explain like the slit box experiment. Like there's a bunch of shit in physics. I don't know, I'm not a science guy. But like, you know, particle and wave shit, you can't explain that.

[Matt Lieb]

There's a bunch of shit you can't explain. Magnets.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

How do they work?

[Matt Lieb]

How do they work?

[Dr. Phil]

It's this.

[Robert Evans]

Is this jump from. Yes. There are things we can't explain to. So let's listen to this man talk to the dead.

[Matt Lieb]

Millions of people.

[Dr. Phil]

Gather round, gather round. He's going to channel your dead aunt. Yes. Maybe not.

[Robert Evans]

Not a reasonable way to take a reasonable starting point.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Especially when you're a doctor on tv.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. And I want to quote from a.

[Robert Evans]

Write up I found in the journal of the Missouri State Medical association, quote. During another show, Oz interviewed Dr. Mosara Fali, a miracle healer to Sylvester Stallone, Prince Charles of England and others regarding his use of iridology. According to the widely debunked, bizarre belief, each part of the iris corresponds to.

[Dr. Phil]

A specific area of the body and.

[Robert Evans]

A person's state of health could be diagnosed by examining particular regions of the iris. After expressing his amazement at Dr. Ali's diagnostic abilities, Oz stated. I want to applaud Dr. Mosaraf Ali, because these are ancient traditions and they have been around for centuries. So who am I to dismiss them.

[Matt Lieb]

Other than a very well educated man, A doctor.

[Dr. Phil]

You're a doctor, Mehmet.

[Sophie]

You had me at French, Charles.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. It's like, you know, there's a lot.

[Robert Evans]

Of cultures who say that you should.

[Dr. Phil]

Remove the clitoris surgically because it's healthier.

[Robert Evans]

And it stops dangerous masturbation. It's ancient. Who are we to say this is a bad idea?

[Matt Lieb]

Who are any of us to say anything's wrong? Oh, my God. I love it too. Just like I was amazed by his ability to look into my eyes and diagnose that my dad will never love me. How did he know? How did he know?

[Sophie]

It does bring me joy that Prince Charles got fucked with. Because Prince Charles.

[Robert Evans]

I wonder what his eyes said.

[Dr. Phil]

It's funny.

[Matt Lieb]

Said the same thing. It said, your dad will never love you. That's all he does. He goes to famous people and he goes, your dad will never love you.

[Sophie]

Your dad will never love you so much.

[Dr. Phil]

There's this.

[Robert Evans]

One of the big aspects of this.

[Dr. Phil]

Guy'S success and of the success of.

[Robert Evans]

The things he pushes is oriented.

[Dr. Phil]

Right, Right.

[Robert Evans]

Like this idea of, like, the forbidden and strange and wondrous and magical east.

[Dr. Phil]

And all of the.

[Robert Evans]

We don't understand all of these, like.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, India is so mysterious, yada, yada, yada. What if you were to say, like.

[Robert Evans]

Well, for centuries tobacco companies have said.

[Dr. Phil]

That tobacco can cure, like, different lung ailments.

[Robert Evans]

Who are we to dismiss these ancient traditions?

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

The Q Zone curse could be real.

[Matt Lieb]

Exactly. Like, it stops people from stuttering. Do more cocaine. I mean. Yeah, just the idea. And I've always found this in general to be the biggest load of horseshit, is when people have. Have said, you know, this is like an ancient healing technique. And it's like. You mean like bleeding people with leeches? You know, you mean like cutting off someone's leg because he got a fucking. A small infection on his toe?

[Robert Evans]

Ancient. It's this fucking thing with Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, it's one thing if you're just like, traveling to another part of the world, you see some sort of medical.

[Robert Evans]

Or treatment you've never seen before, and.

[Dr. Phil]

You'Re like, well, who am I to say anything about. Right? Like, I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Oz is a doctor on TV talking to millions. You're literally the person who should be.

[Dr. Phil]

Saying something about the legitimacy of this.

[Matt Lieb]

Right? Yeah, yeah. You're the guy. You're the Person.

[Dr. Phil]

You are, in fact, the person who should say something about this.

[Matt Lieb]

Who am I? You're you. He's the most famous doctor in America.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And that's what that write up in the Journal of Missouri State Medical association notes, quote, who. Dr. Oz is a trained clinician and.

[Dr. Phil]

Scientist, someone who can read a scientific article with a critical eye.

[Robert Evans]

He is someone who can filter out the noise of the placebo effect or discern the simple carnival tricks of a charlatan. The problem is that most people in his audience cannot.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's lit. He has a literal respect, responsibility to tell people that these guys are full of shit. But he also has a responsibility to his show sponsors and to. To the network for ratings, you know?

[Robert Evans]

You know who else has a responsibility.

[Dr. Phil]

To the show sponsors?

[Narrator]

Wow.

[Dr. Phil]

I know.

[Matt Lieb]

That was. I think that's got to be the first time. That's got to be the first time it's ever actually been a relevant segue.

[Dr. Phil]

So good.

[Matt Lieb]

So good.

[Dr. Phil]

Anyway, here's products. Ah, we're back talking about Dr. Oz having just a great time. So obviously the fact that Dr. Oz. I mean, probably the fact that most.

[Robert Evans]

Of his audience couldn't discern whether or.

[Dr. Phil]

Not any of these nonsense treatments were real is a big part of why the Dr. Oz show became an overnight success.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Before very long, was being watched by 4 million viewers every single day.

[Dr. Phil]

Over the next half decade or so.

[Robert Evans]

He won two Emmys. His guest list included First Lady Michelle Obama, who loved Dr. Oz for his focus on healthy diets for children and in general, his crusade to get Americans to lose weight.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz claimed, through medicine, through math.

[Robert Evans]

That I cannot verify, that his show inspired Americans to lose 3 million cumulative pounds per year.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know, Maybe.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. They base that on what? Like, did people call in to say how many pounds they've lost to the show?

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, I'm sure he found some way to, like, make the claim or whatever, but it's.

[Robert Evans]

It's very.

[Dr. Phil]

It's. I don't know, maybe it is one.

[Robert Evans]

Of the things that he does that is. We'll talk about. There's problems with some of the diet.

[Dr. Phil]

Tips he gives people, actually significant ones. But telling, like, inspiring people to lose weight is not usually bad for their.

[Robert Evans]

Health, although it can be. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Sometimes people take it too far, and it depends on significant health problems. You know, it's a mixed bag, I guess we'd say. But the other stuff isn't a mixed bag. So I guess we'll call that his.

[Robert Evans]

His great success.

[Dr. Phil]

So, yeah, it is good.

[Robert Evans]

I will say it is unequivocally good that Dr. Oz continually pressed his audience of millions of people to eat more fruits and vegetable. Fruits and vegetables. To get better sleep, to exercise regularly, and to get their flu vaccinations.

[Dr. Phil]

That's all rad, right?

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, but shit, I could have told you that.

[Dr. Phil]

Give me a T. You don't have to, you don't have to be a.

[Matt Lieb]

Doctor to say that shit. Yeah, eat better piggies.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, but he's charismatic.

[Robert Evans]

People like him. It's good that he, he trust at least.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, they don't trust me, so they won't give me the show, but they should because.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, the unfortunate part is that this.

[Robert Evans]

Guy gained because he's, he's handsome.

[Dr. Phil]

A lot of, lot of, lot of ladies out there think Dr. Oz is hot. He's a doctor, he's very charismatic, he's very charming.

[Robert Evans]

And he gains this enormous influence with middle America and he uses that influence to do some really fucking questionable shit. And I'm going to quote now from a write up in the AMA's Journal of Ethics, he has told mothers that there were dangerous levels of arsenic in their child's apple juice. There weren't. And suggested that green coffee is a miracle cure for obesity. Federal regulators discovered altered data in hyped coffee bean evidence. The Food and Drug Administration tested for arsenic in apple juice and found the vast majority of apple juice tested to contain low levels of arsenic and given these levels was confident in the overall safety of apple juice consumed in this country. Dr. Oz also featured two guests on his show who claimed that genetically modified foods were, were cancer causing despite repeated safety reports that found no adverse effects.

[Matt Lieb]

Man. Yeah, I mean, he's like, he's veering. He's getting there. Like, I, I'm, I'm watching him slowly go from Mehmet to Mangala, you know?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Come on, let him be Mangala.

[Dr. Phil]

It is too good a pun to.

[Matt Lieb]

I get that you want to be fair, Robert, but let's go for it.

[Dr. Phil]

All right, we're doing it.

[Matt Lieb]

But no, we're watching him like, turn into a snake oil salesman. And it's, it's very exciting.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So Dr. Oz's enthusiasm for alternative medicine has had the effect of creating instant fads over any health product he even vaguely suggests on his show when he mentions the purported health benefits of white mulberry, red palm oil or brown seaweed, all of which he's claimed can do things like cut weight, reduce aging, or beat the flu. Those products Fly off the shelf. Oz often doesn't endorse specific brands, but he doesn't need to. Online retailers watch closely and immediately slap as seen on Dr. Oz on their pseudoscientific products.

[Matt Lieb]

Yes, I've seen this.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I've seen this.

[Robert Evans]

This is where we get to the big harm. He did one episode that focused on so called relaxation drinks and included a close up shot of five cans of beverages he said might help calm you down.

[Matt Lieb]

Just a Miller High life.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. He just puts a can of Colt 45 on the table.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Billy D. Williams walks out.

[Matt Lieb]

It's a steel reserve. Trust me. You'll be relaxed.

[Dr. Phil]

You'll be calm as exactly.

[Matt Lieb]

You might yell at your mom, but it'll be fun afterwards.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You will very calmly put your hand through a taxi cab window. As soon as the episode aired, a quote liquid sleep aid called Ichill bragged on their website. Dr. Oz is talking about a new way to wind down with relaxation drinks. They are the newest trend in helping you relax and calm down. And the best news is they contain natural ingredients already known to promote relaxation.

[Matt Lieb]

Mulberry laudanum.

[Sophie]

I remember the eye chill that turned into like an entire thing. There's so many things now.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, we're about to talk talk about it. Yeah. And also if there was a laudanum drink, I would be buying it.

[Robert Evans]

So the problem with this is that all of these different relaxation drinks are filled with a variety of chemicals like melatonin and theanine and taurine. These drinks are unregulated as they are not medicines or dietary supplements. But the chemicals they include all have actual impacts on the central nervous system. Pregnant women and children are often advised to avoid products with some of these chemicals. But the beverages in question rarely note this. No data exists on how these chemicals might impact people in the quantities they are added to in these beverages or when combined with other chemicals or when combined with medications people drinking them might be taking. Responsible doctors writing for the journal for the journal Nature Neuroscience wrote a warning about these beverages that specifically called out Ichill by name. Quote, existing research on the potential benefits and harms of some components of relaxation drinks suggests that they may not, not always be safe. Indeed, the FDA issued a warning last year to the manufacturers of melatonin laced brownies, citing safety concerns from the literature, including effects on the autonomic nervous system and visual system and increased expression of symptoms in a sleep disorder. Other components of relaxation drinks such as L theanine or amino acids such as taurine may be considered safe for consumption Only at some doses by the fda. But relaxation drinks are not subject to such regulations, nor are they required to disclose the amounts of their ingredients.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh my God. I mean, first of all, did you say melatonin brownies?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, buddy, what the fuck?

[Matt Lieb]

Like I want to eat and just get tired immediately. Like that is very strange. It like, here's the thing about brownies. I've never eaten one and been like, I just want to relax. Like, nah, I'm trying to get a little sugar rush.

[Sophie]

To be honest. To be honest, a sleep sleepy time brownie. Delightful. I would be very down.

[Matt Lieb]

Listen, pot brownies are very different. It's not the same as relaxation. Like one is like an Ambien brownie and the other one is like a brownie that makes you hungry for more brownies. Pot brownies. Make sense.

[Sophie]

Ambien brownies exist. I would love one. Thank you very much.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, I guess I'd rather do that than just swallow an Ambien, but man, that is.

[Sophie]

I'm like, I'm like, gets to sleep and also got a brown brownie.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm.

[Sophie]

Sounds awesome.

[Matt Lieb]

It's bad for your health, I'll tell you that.

[Sophie]

Apparently. Am I remembering this correctly, Robert? But wasn't the I chill like, like the bottle and the marketing like similar style to like an energy drink similar to like a five hour Energy? That was like the aesthetic.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, I think those were, those were. They had like a weird different shaped plastic bottle.

[Dr. Phil]

But like the, the problem is that.

[Robert Evans]

Again, number one, you've got a lot of people with like who are on medications that this shit interacts with.

[Matt Lieb]

Which is crazy that like literally a relaxation drink could be contraindicated for your prescription medication.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay, so everything Dr. Oz recommends I guess outside of like death psychics comes with this caveat.

[Robert Evans]

Some of the herbs and natural medicines that he recommends do have health impacts, but they also have consequences medications they might not interact well with. Dr. Oz does not bring this up when he shotguns half assed advice out to an audience. Audience of millions. That article in Nature Neuroscience that I referenced warning about the relaxation drinks Oz recommended, It's been read 10,000 times. So the article warning people that these.

[Dr. Phil]

Things can be contraindicated and might have impacts on your health and your central nervous system.

[Robert Evans]

Read 10,000 times. Dr. Oz's episode suggesting these drinks. Listen, watched 4 million times.

[Matt Lieb]

God damn.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, People started to notice that this.

[Robert Evans]

Was a problem by the mid aughts. Doctors had been complaining for a while. But in 2013, Forbes wrote a listicle laying out the silliest things Dr. Oz has suggested on his show, including the fact that having 200 orgasms a year would extend your life by six years. Here's how he explained that bit of.

[Dr. Phil]

Math on his website.

[Matt Lieb]

Dude, I'm about to live to 200 years old.

[Dr. Phil]

I ain't never dying.

[Matt Lieb]

Motherfucker, I never died. I get one out at least once a day. 365.

[Robert Evans]

Here's his website. If you have more than 200 orgasms a year, you can reduce your physiologic age by six years. Dr. Oz says he bases the number on a study done at Duke University that surveyed people on the amount and quality of sex they had. They looked at what happened to folks that are receiving a lot of intercourse over time. And the fact is it correlated.

[Matt Lieb]

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is it sex? Because he didn't say nothing about sex. He said orgasms and I do that on my own.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, no, he talked, he talked to.

[Robert Evans]

Them about the amount and quality of sex they had.

[Dr. Phil]

But like, it's correlated.

[Robert Evans]

So again, he's basically lying here.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You.

[Dr. Phil]

Number one, what is the possibility that.

[Robert Evans]

People who are having a lot of good sex are in better health?

[Dr. Phil]

Why? They're able to have a lot more good sex because they're like, they're physically.

[Robert Evans]

Healthy and so it's easier.

[Dr. Phil]

Easier for them to like, what if, what are the odds that, like, if.

[Robert Evans]

You'Re having more sex, you're more social.

[Dr. Phil]

You'Re more likely to have a long.

[Robert Evans]

Term romantic partner that increases your lifespan?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Again, I'm of all people, never going to be the guy to say there's.

[Robert Evans]

Not health benefits to sex. There sure is.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh yeah, Dr. Oz is, is, is exaggerating this.

[Robert Evans]

He's, he's taking an actual study that showed some interesting stuff and he's turning it into a lie.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, he's turning it into like pretending he has quantifiable data and that like correlation. And correlation is causation. Like that. Yeah, that's, that's what he's trying to do.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. There is data that suggests that regular intercourse reduces men's mortality risks by 50%. Which doesn't mean that fucking stops men from dying, particularly because it's men who.

[Dr. Phil]

Benefit in this way.

[Robert Evans]

It means that men are less healthy than women tend to die faster. And when men have partners that they live with, they are more likely to have a medical problem noticed. If they have a heart attack, someone's going to be there to call the, like.

[Dr. Phil]

There's a lot of reasons why this is the case.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. They're not dying alone, you know.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's not the fact that just fucking magically adds like, reduces Your age by 6 years if you do it enough. Like that's nonsense.

[Matt Lieb]

It's nice to think it, though.

[Robert Evans]

It makes it nice to think it.

[Matt Lieb]

I'm going to print out that article, show it to my girlfriend and say, hey, you gotta help me live longer, you know.

[Dr. Phil]

Not coming enough.

[Robert Evans]

I'm gonna die.

[Matt Lieb]

We gotta do this more.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Just start fucking in public and when the cops come, be like, this is medicine.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Do you want me to die six years earlier than I should?

[Dr. Phil]

I have a right to this.

[Matt Lieb]

Dr. Oz said I should fuck more.

[Robert Evans]

Now, on its own, recommending that people get more sexes is, you know, fine.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm, I'm very pro sex, but I am anti.

[Robert Evans]

Encouraging people to misunderstand. Understand health science. The nature of Dr. Oz's audience and the sheer breadth of things he suggests makes it difficult to analyze the total health impact of his show. But there are some dire case studies. As Vox notes in their write up quote, there's the case of a man who followed Oz's suggestion of curing insomnia by pouring uncooked rice into socks, heating them in a microwave and wearing them to bed. The man got second and third degree.

[Dr. Phil]

Burns on his feet and he, the.

[Robert Evans]

Reason he got burned is because he was diabetic. He didn't have the same level of feeling in his feet.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

If he had gone to a doctor and said, hey, I heard about this.

[Dr. Phil]

Thing that might help with insomnia, the.

[Robert Evans]

Doctor would say, well, you're diabetic, you don't have as much feeling in your feet. I'm worried you might burn yourself. Dr. Oz is just saying, hey, this.

[Dr. Phil]

Will help you sleep.

[Robert Evans]

Do it, whoever you are.

[Dr. Phil]

Again, it's this problem.

[Robert Evans]

You're talking to 4 million people.

[Dr. Phil]

It will be bad advice for some of them.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, it's like this all feels very much like when Trump was telling everyone about the wonders of hydrochloroquine.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, yeah, we're gonna talk about that later.

[Matt Lieb]

And then people are eating fucking fish food or like fish tank cleaner and dying and people like, how could, how could people be so stupid? And it's like, people are stupid. You, you can't tell them to eat the fucking food. Fishbowl cleaner.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, they'll do it. They'll fucking do it.

[Robert Evans]

So this guy sued, but the case was thrown out because the judge determined that Oz cannot establish a physician patient relationship through tv. I agree with the judge. That's my problem with his show, is that he is a physician purporting to be giving medical advice, but is also not taking anyone's individual circumstances into account and more to the fucking point, not liable if he does any of the irresponsible things that would lend a physician doing their job traditionally in trouble.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, it is medical malpractice whether or not he's legally liable for it or not.

[Dr. Phil]

I would agree, and I'm going to.

[Robert Evans]

Continue that quote from Vox. Not everyone agrees with the judge's reasoning. Rochester, N.Y. medical student and blogger Benjamin Mazur has been publishing anonymous stories sent to him from health professionals about the impact Oz has had on patient care. One reported that her dad had a heart attack and five stents placed in his heart, which required him to take aspirin and Plavix to prevent blood clots. He was watching Dr. Oz, who said Plavix was not necessary, so he stopped taking it. About a month later, he had another massive heart attack and coated and had to be shocked back to life. She continued, My dad admitted to following Dr. Oz's advice and not asking his own cardiologist.

[Matt Lieb]

Man.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's really bad.

[Matt Lieb]

Did he have a, did he have like an alternative or was he just like decided one day that Plavix was gonna be the food?

[Dr. Phil]

I'm sure it was. If I know my Dr. Oz, I'm sure it was. You don't need to take Plavix.

[Robert Evans]

Eat these different heart healthy foods and.

[Dr. Phil]

Avoid these foods and that'll do.

[Robert Evans]

All that Plavix will do.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Eat some beans and put your face in some boiled water and you should be fine.

[Robert Evans]

I, I suspect it was dietary advice that if you're someone who doesn't really need Plavix is fine or might even help you to not need it later.

[Dr. Phil]

In life if you adopt healthier habits.

[Robert Evans]

But the problem is, again, the way he's framing it, there's going to be.

[Dr. Phil]

A lot of people who are like just had stints placed in their heart. I don't need Plavix. It, you know.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Dr. Oz, the, the, the TV doctor said I don't need this medicine. I just need more acai in my belly.

[Dr. Phil]

The TV doctor also said he can talk to ghosts. So I'm gonna go talk. I mean, you will be talking to ghosts faster if you follow all of Dr. Yeah, exactly.

[Matt Lieb]

I want to talk to ghosts. I'm gonna stop taking my plavics and.

[Dr. Phil]

Die of a str.

[Robert Evans]

Now on his show. Dr. Oz claims that the trust of his audience is the entire reason for his relevance. Quote, the currency that I deal in is trust, and it is trust that has been given to me by an audience that has watched over 600 shows. He repeatedly references the fact that he is responding to the very real and very understandable unfilled needs of Americans who feel alienated from modern healthcare, which is an expensive and often inhumane labyrinthine bureaucracy.

[Dr. Phil]

True.

[Robert Evans]

This is true. Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Lieb]

100% true. Yeah. How you exploit it is a very different thing.

[Robert Evans]

But the thing he is replacing it with is, by and large, nonsense. And I'm going to quote from that.

[Dr. Phil]

Write up in the Journal of Ethics again.

[Robert Evans]

When it comes to epistemic boundaries, Dr. Oz admits he applies different standards of evidence compared to those accepted in the medical establishment. When challenged by a reporter for the New Yorker about his questionable evidence standards, he replied that all data could be differentially interpreted. You find the arguments that support your data, he said, and it's my fact versus your fact. It's not that he doesn't offer data.

[Dr. Phil]

It's common for Dr. Oz to offer.

[Robert Evans]

Some plausible mechanism from test tube experiments conducted by manufacturers combined with personal anecdotes from his own or consumer's experience to support the products he's promoting. A study of 80 recommendations made on the Dr. Oz show in early 2013 foundation found that published evidence supported 46% of recommendations, contradicted 15%, and did not support 39%.

[Matt Lieb]

Gotta love a good, like, coin flip on whether or not he's fucking lying to you and having an adverse effect on your health.

[Dr. Phil]

If your doctor said, hey, you know.

[Robert Evans]

46% of the time, I give pretty good advice.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, you would be like, I think I might get another doctor.

[Matt Lieb]

But he would reframe it to be like, I'm betting 500 here, and be like, oh, 500. That's a good betting.

[Robert Evans]

If you assume medicine is like baseball.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm a great doctor.

[Matt Lieb]

No, he's crushing it. Yeah, doing a great job.

[Robert Evans]

Now, to his credit, the Journal does note that a decent chunk of the blame for Dr. Oz's success lies in the very, very flawed state of mainstream medical science. Quote, we settle for incomplete, selectively published data in journals heavily subsidized by pharmaceutical companies and for outcomes that don't give firm answers. While not on par with offering anecdotes as evidence, the fact that debates persist about what constitutes sufficiently high, unbiased quality evidence to support decisions in the profession as a whole creates a wedge that Dr. Oz seems to Exploit.

[Dr. Phil]

So again this is the journal of ethics being like the fact that you.

[Robert Evans]

Can pay to get a study done.

[Dr. Phil]

The fact that we pharmaceutical companies lobby.

[Robert Evans]

To allow them to market things in dishonest ways.

[Dr. Phil]

The fact that doctors are bribed by.

[Robert Evans]

Companies like Purdue Pharmaceutical with vacations to recommend people take medication that is not.

[Dr. Phil]

In their best interest to take.

[Robert Evans]

That's why this motherfucker has a job.

[Dr. Phil]

And the fact that healthcare is expensive, right? The fact that we don't have single payer healthcare. It all combines to the fact that a lot of people who are not idiots, I'm not saying you can be. I'm sure there's people who are brilliant.

[Robert Evans]

Electricians who fucking are brilliant at what, who are great at whatever it is they do, but they're not fucking doctors because most of us aren't. And it's hard to get. I am very fortunate in that I have a couple of good friends who.

[Dr. Phil]

Are doctors and I am luckier that I can. One of them is a guy who.

[Robert Evans]

Was on the show recently, Cava Hoda.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm luckier than I can that I can say to be able to like.

[Robert Evans]

Every now and then send them a message being like hey, what should I do here?

[Dr. Phil]

It's a question of like I'm having this problem.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know what kind of doctor to see to like get this dealt with with.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know whose job this is and I don't want to. Like my, my ex a while ago.

[Robert Evans]

Had a non cancerous brain tumor and it was a fucking nightmare figuring out. It took a series of different doctors and tests to figure out what kind of doctor she needed to go to to get the medication that would help.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's of course people are like.

[Robert Evans]

Well this guy is explaining things and he's nice and he's saying that I have the power to deal with this.

[Dr. Phil]

I changed my diet. If, if I do this, if I do that.

[Matt Lieb]

He's giving us alternatives to dealing with the bureaucracy of medical institutions in this country. I have Kaiser and I had to go to a rheumatologist and I tried to get a hold of him on the phone and they sent me through six different call centers to finally get to his specific office. And then I asked the lady can I get the extension so that I don't have to deal with that. And she's like oh, sorry, we're not allowed, allowed to do that. And so now, now I'm just recording every phone call and just you know, freestyling to the hold music because it's the only thing I can do. I'm like, you know what? I might as well turn this into content because this is fucking ridiculous. You know, there's like, the amount of bullshit you have to go through makes people like Dr. Oz feel like a good alternative, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's, it fucking sucks. It just really fucking sucks. And it fucking sucks because there's a lot of wonderful people who are part.

[Robert Evans]

Of the medical system, like the fucking.

[Dr. Phil]

Doctors in the, in the ER who.

[Robert Evans]

Were with my mom in her last days.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, incredibly competent and compassionate and like.

[Robert Evans]

Amazing people who in their entire careers will never be able to do as much good as Dr. Oz does harm.

[Dr. Phil]

Because he has 4 million people watching him every day. It's a bummer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

It's.

[Dr. Phil]

You know what's not a bummer? Oh wow. Capitalism is actually a bummer, but it's.

[Robert Evans]

The water we swim in. So here's some fucking ads.

[Dr. Phil]

We're back.

[Robert Evans]

So in 2014, Mehmet Oz was called before a Senate subcommittee to answer questions about his unfounded claims about diapers, dietary supplements. Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill went off on.

[Dr. Phil]

Him saying, I don't know why you.

[Robert Evans]

Need to say this stuff because you know it's not true. Why, when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing ability to communicate, would you cheapen your show by saying things like this?

[Matt Lieb]

Then he just pulled out a wad of money and he just started making it rain all over Congress.

[Dr. Phil]

Do you know how many houses I have?

[Robert Evans]

She pointed out several examples of the things he cheapens his show by saying he had called green coffee extract a, quote, magical weight loss cure. Recent research has suggested that long term use of green coffee extract causes bone.

[Dr. Phil]

Density loss in animals. But you are, in fairness, you're losing weight, your bones are lighter. That's weight.

[Robert Evans]

Bones are heavy as hell.

[Sophie]

It was everywhere when that came out. It was at literally not just like bed bath and beyond.

[Dr. Phil]

Everywhere, everywhere.

[Matt Lieb]

It was, get light bones, you can fly like a bird.

[Dr. Phil]

Horrible. And again, those are studies in animals, but it's the kind of thing where.

[Robert Evans]

A responsible doctor would say, well, some studies in animals have shown that this might cause bone density loss.

[Dr. Phil]

So unless you know your weight is.

[Robert Evans]

A really disastrous health situation and your bone density is fine, I wouldn't recommend this.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz is just saying it's a.

[Robert Evans]

Magical weight loss cure.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, he's not wrong. He's not wrong.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Oz called raspberry ketone, quote, the number one miracle in a bottle to burn Your fat.

[Dr. Phil]

This is a fun one.

[Matt Lieb]

First of all, it's all gasoline.

[Dr. Phil]

Part of why people. Well, actually part of why people are attracted to stuff like this is that, like raspberry ketone.

[Robert Evans]

That's natural.

[Dr. Phil]

It sounds like, oh, if I just.

[Robert Evans]

Like getting raspberries, that's going to help me lose weight. This chemical in a natural, healthy fruit. Of course, it makes sense that like some wonderful plant based medicine would be able to help me lose weight.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Raspberry ketones don't come from raspberries. They can, but it takes 90 pounds of fresh raspberries to produce a single dose.

[Robert Evans]

As a result, they are manufactured synthetically.

[Dr. Phil]

A fact Dr. Oz did not feel.

[Robert Evans]

The need to explain because again, he's really critical of GMOs.

[Dr. Phil]

And it might seem hypocritical to note.

[Robert Evans]

That raspberry ketones are actually synthetic.

[Dr. Phil]

Lab nonsense.

[Matt Lieb]

I love when people say things like, it's natural.

[Dr. Phil]

I think science.

[Matt Lieb]

Cyanide is natural. There's like a. There's a lot of like natural poisons out there. Fucking snake venom is natural.

[Robert Evans]

The fucking arsenic in the apple juice.

[Dr. Phil]

That he's worried about is natural.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It is possible, based on animal studies, that these ketones may have some ability to reduce or slow weight gain. But no studies have ever been conducted on how raspberry ketones impact human beings. There have been reports that they increase blood pressure and heart rate in humans. Dr. Oz does not warn about this. Likewise, when Dr. Oz told his viewers that garcina cambogia may be the simple solution you've been looking for to bust your body fat for good, he did not also warn them that it can interact negatively with diabetes medications, painkillers and psychiatric medications.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

Why would you need to warn people that.

[Robert Evans]

Look, what are the odds someone looking to lose weight has diabetes medications? Zero.

[Matt Lieb]

What are the odds that someone who has diabetes is sitting around watching Dr. Oz's show? Zero.

[Robert Evans]

What are the odds that a middle class American is addicted to painkillers? 0. 0. During the Senate inquiry, Senator McCaskill pointed some of this out and she told Dr. Oz, quote, when you feature a.

[Dr. Phil]

Product on your show, it creates what.

[Robert Evans]

Has become known as the Dr. Dr. Oz effect, dramatically boosting sales and driving scam artists to pop up overnight using false and deceptive ads to sell questionable products.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In the wake of this, which was a fairly bad day on Capitol hill for him, Dr. Oz released a somewhat contrite statement where he noted, I took part in today's hearing because I am accountable for my role in the proliferation of these scams. And I recognize that my enthusiastic language has made the problem, problem worse at times.

[Dr. Phil]

We're good so far.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, pretty good so far.

[Robert Evans]

Oz added in his statement. To not have the conversation about supplements at all, however, would be a disservice to the viewer. In addition to exercising an abundance of caution in discussing promising research and products in the future, I look forward to working with all those present today and finding a way to deal with the problems of weight loss scams.

[Matt Lieb]

God, I. Yeah, I'm just talking about. I'm just asking the question.

[Dr. Phil]

We have to have conversations about this.

[Robert Evans]

You know, a conversation.

[Dr. Phil]

Conversation would be noting, for example, green coffee extract causes bone density loss in animals and perhaps be worried.

[Robert Evans]

That's a conversation. Well, you and I have had about.

[Dr. Phil]

These things as a conversation.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, I love. People are like, I'm just asking the question.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, I'm not a doctor.

[Robert Evans]

I'm a guy who's addicted to an unregulated plant.

[Matt Lieb]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Which I just took more of while standing next to my unregulated gun.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, dude, you're living the unregulated dream right now.

[Dr. Phil]

So.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Oz, also making this statement, pointed out that he believed the greatest disservice he'd done to his audience was to not recommend specific products which had provided room for a wide industry of shysters to stick his name on their website.

[Dr. Phil]

So, like, oh, I was just saying.

[Robert Evans]

Green coffee extract and a bunch of companies I couldn't verify started selling it.

[Dr. Phil]

With my name on it.

[Robert Evans]

I should have recommended a specific brand.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. What I need to do is cut deals with specific companies so that you can only be taking their bone density loss drugs.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I mean, exactly.

[Robert Evans]

Good call. Fucking amazing.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So in the wake of this day.

[Dr. Phil]

On Capitol Hill and this amazing response.

[Robert Evans]

Physicians across the country asked Columbia University.

[Dr. Phil]

In a letter, basically, what the fuck?

[Robert Evans]

Why is this guy still on your faculty? Columbia claimed it was because of their commitment to, quote the principle of academic freedom into upholding faculty members freedom of expression for statements they make in public discussion.

[Matt Lieb]

Hell yeah, dude, that's like, yeah, they're like, anti cancel culture letter. You know, they're just like, stop trying to cancel Dr. Oz. It's freedom of speech.

[Robert Evans]

You have freedom of speech.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, doctors also are held to.

[Robert Evans]

Different standards than the rest of us.

[Matt Lieb]

They take an oath. Come on.

[Dr. Phil]

If, like your uncle Jimbo says, hey, you know, take some green coffee extract.

[Robert Evans]

It'Ll help you lose weight.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

[Robert Evans]

It might not be good advice, but, yeah, that's just a guy saying a thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Doctors are held to a different standard.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, it's on you. If you listen to your crazy Uncle Jimbo. It is definitely on the doctor if he recommends you lose some bone density so that you look better in that dress.

[Dr. Phil]

It's fucked up.

[Matt Lieb]

It's fucked up.

[Robert Evans]

So on April 15, 2015, 10 prominent physicians sent a letter to Columbia University calling Oz's faculty position there unacceptable and.

[Dr. Phil]

Citing his, quote, egregious lack of integrity.

[Robert Evans]

The only change wrought by the congressional inquiry and the flood of condemnation from the medical community seems to be that Dr. Oz started endorsing specific supplements. Supplements and pseudo medicines.

[Matt Lieb]

God, he's Alex jonesing it.

[Dr. Phil]

He's jonesing it hard. He's so much smarter than Alex, though. Yeah, you focus it just on the health.

[Robert Evans]

None of this nonsense like political shit.

[Dr. Phil]

Everybody is gonna love you and you'll make way more money. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

A 2018 analysis of his show by the Health News Review found, quote, in the Dr. Oz show, 13 out of 19 68.4% shows had ads relating to general show content. 57.9% had specific products mentioned by the host using their commercial name. And 36.3% of shows mentioning products by name named more than one product. And also found that 78% of the medical statements made on the Dr. Oz show did not align with, quote, evidence based medical guidelines.

[Matt Lieb]

So if those guidelines mattered, they'd make more money. Dog.

[Dr. Phil]

Half a decade earlier, 46% of his statements are more or less fine. Now it's down to what, Jesus, 22%.

[Matt Lieb]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

So we're seeing again, he mat the quality of the. Because again, you're running out of good content. You only have so much good medical advice.

[Dr. Phil]

You, when you're doing an hour a day, 175 times a year for fucking 15, 16 years.

[Matt Lieb]

Eat fruit.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly. The actual amount of things that an average person can reasonably do to improve.

[Dr. Phil]

Their own physical health.

[Robert Evans]

Doesn't really take that long to explain to you.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, it's pretty simple stuff and.

[Robert Evans]

Most of us know a lot of it already. We know when we're. I know that pounding Kratom and Coke.

[Dr. Phil]

Zero isn't a wise health care decision.

[Matt Lieb]

No, no, but you know it. And you can, you know, fucking. You don't need a Dr. Oz to tell you that.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, you just know. You know, I know that the fact that I bought the $100 entire smoked leg of, of.

[Robert Evans]

Of pig from Costco, the giant prosciutto. I know buying that and not also.

[Dr. Phil]

Purchasing I don't know. Salad. In order to have sufficient fiber by kale.

[Robert Evans]

I recognize that was a poor health decision.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

No one tricked me about this. And at no point did I think.

[Robert Evans]

This hundred dollars worth of smoked ham.

[Dr. Phil]

Is a solid healthcare move.

[Robert Evans]

You know, Smoked.

[Matt Lieb]

What could be so bad with smoked?

[Robert Evans]

It's smoked.

[Dr. Phil]

It's good for my Q Zone trip. Additional medicine.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, this is really good for all of my kidney meridians. I need all the smoked hams I can.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, my meridians are fucking rocking right now.

[Matt Lieb]

I am peeking in meridians, bro.

[Robert Evans]

Let me tell you, my meridians are.

[Dr. Phil]

As hard as a goddamn rock.

[Matt Lieb]

Feel my kidneys. Feel my kidneys. It's just like, why is your kidney swollen?

[Robert Evans]

The Dr. Oz show is still on the air. In 2018, President Trump appointed Dr. Oz to a council on sports, Fitness and nutrition as part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

[Dr. Phil]

Still on that council under Joe Biden. Bipartisan, baby. Two years later.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, no politician is dumb enough to.

[Dr. Phil]

Want to piss off Dr. Oz. You're never going to hear Joe Biden throw it. Well, except for. Except for Claire McCaskill. God bless. Yeah, like, she was the only one.

[Matt Lieb]

Who had the guts to stand up to Dr. Oz.

[Robert Evans]

I think other people did.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not an expert on what went.

[Robert Evans]

Down in that congressional thing, but she was. Seems to be the main one who.

[Dr. Phil]

Was really angry at him, which.

[Robert Evans]

Good on you, Claire.

[Matt Lieb]

I love that a bipartisan decision is just like, let's share this grifter, you know, between administrations. Like, good. You know what? Gotta lie.

[Robert Evans]

We all agree that you should be.

[Dr. Phil]

Able to lie about healthcare as an MD. That's.

[Robert Evans]

So 2018 is when he gets appointed to this council. Two years later, during the COVID 19 pandemic, he. And he endorsed hydroxychloroquine. Later that year, he endorsed reopening schools.

[Dr. Phil]

Saying, I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in.

[Robert Evans]

The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3% in terms of total mortality.

[Matt Lieb]

What the fuck?

[Dr. Phil]

2 to 3% of the. That's barely anybody dying. That's barely hundreds of thousands of deaths.

[Matt Lieb]

He said 2 to 3%. As if that's not a huge number of people. He's losing his goddamn mind.

[Robert Evans]

And it's one of those things.

[Dr. Phil]

Not making a point.

[Robert Evans]

Pro or against gun control, either way. But if somebody against gun control said, what? Keeping these things legal is only going to cost us 1% of the country.

[Dr. Phil]

You'D be like, you're a fucking maniac.

[Robert Evans]

You are a dangerous person.

[Dr. Phil]

But he's like, we got to. And he didn't. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

This outraged a lot of people.

[Dr. Phil]

And Oz apologized as he apologized for vaccine hydroxychloroquine. Yeah, he, he, Oopsie daisy. Did he claimed regret that his comments.

[Robert Evans]

Had confused and upset people and basically.

[Dr. Phil]

Pointed out the Lancet wasn't saying 2.

[Robert Evans]

To 3% of the country was going to die.

[Dr. Phil]

It was, I think more like 2, 3% of like old children or something like would get sick. And like it was he.

[Robert Evans]

But the way he phrased it was it's only Gonna cost us 2 to 3% of the country. I don't care what the actual study.

[Dr. Phil]

Again, I don't care what the study is.

[Robert Evans]

I care what you said to your own audience of millions.

[Dr. Phil]

And also I care about the fact that in any case, that's fucking evil. Yeah, like that's an evil thing to say.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty wild to just look at 2 to 3% of the country as like expendable if it means that my fucking dirt bag ass 5th grader can be stuck inside in a school all day. And listen, I get it. People with kids, they want their kids to go back to school. But you, that's, you don't say the quiet part out loud. You know.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's one thing to say, hey, look, living in a society, there's all, all kinds of cost benefit sort of analysis.

[Matt Lieb]

Sure.

[Dr. Phil]

We have to do like, right. Cars improve a lot of efficiencies in certain ways and people like have them.

[Robert Evans]

They're also going to cost x many lives.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, we could change these sorts.

[Robert Evans]

Of laws, but it would, it would lead to this sort of problem.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, we have certain freedoms that may cost lives. And like to be like, that's just.

[Robert Evans]

Living in a society.

[Dr. Phil]

Right. There's no, our society is not angled around absolutely.

[Robert Evans]

Reducing mortality in every way.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And there's a cost to not having.

[Robert Evans]

These schools open and it's a very real cost.

[Dr. Phil]

And like, we have to like that's a way to say that.

[Robert Evans]

I'm not saying that's the argument I'm making because I'm not, I'm thinking, no.

[Dr. Phil]

No, I don't think we should open schools out until we actually have, I.

[Robert Evans]

Don'T know, like 80% of the fucking country vaccinated or whatever.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

But like, but that's a way you.

[Robert Evans]

Could, that's a way you could make.

[Dr. Phil]

That argument and not Sound like a gibbering sociopath.

[Matt Lieb]

And it's weird to, like, you know, be like, all right, it was a poor choice of words. And it's like, bro, at this point, saying words out loud to millions of people is your job.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You're choosing to do the job. You could never work another day in your life, and you would never. You. You. You're rich. You don't need to do this. You're choosing to.

[Dr. Phil]

So go yourself with that explanation.

[Matt Lieb]

Fix some hearts already. Stop talking.

[Robert Evans]

We're getting to that.

[Dr. Phil]

So today, Dr. Oz works to continue.

[Robert Evans]

To monetize his brand with his wife and business partner, who he also writes books with. His daughter seems to be getting in on the grift, too, with books like the Dorm Room Diet, which she wrote when she was in college.

[Matt Lieb]

I think the Dorm Room Diet, it's just free pizza and dick.

[Dr. Phil]

The Dorm Room Diet. Hey, you know, if you pour coffee into instant ramen.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[Robert Evans]

Two birds, one stone.

[Dr. Phil]

I've done that, by the way. Kind of proud of it.

[Robert Evans]

It's real good.

[Dr. Phil]

If you add in vodka, he is.

[Robert Evans]

Worth tens of millions of dollars and is not in any danger of being worth less anytime soon. We've talked a lot about the harms of his specific recommendations and the disinformation he spreads. But at the end of this all, I keep coming back to that 2010 New York Times article, specifically its end. When I think about what may be his worst crime against medicine. Quote on the stairs at Columbia Presbyterian, apropos of nothing, he began talking about certain Japanese, Sardinian, and Costa Rican populations that live unusually long and said that their shared trait was activity, activity, activity. His first column for Time magazine, Living Long and Living well, ran in a section called how to live 100 years. At another point in his Rockefeller center office, he said that so many people thrill on being. To being on television. Television, because, quote, there's an element of eternity to it. You are storing. You. You are taking your life force for that brief moment when you're on camera and you're storing that for all eternity, which makes you someone who will never truly die.

[Dr. Phil]

That is a bonkers way of looking at being on tv. Holy. That is out of its goddamn mind.

[Matt Lieb]

He's literally one year away from wanting to be buried with his cats. You know, like, this dude wants some pyramids and some live cats in a casket with him. This is. He's a pharaoh.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to continue the quote. And he described his own investment in.

[Dr. Phil]

Television by saying, I've always felt that.

[Robert Evans]

When I looked at my tombstone it shouldn't say Mehmet oz banged out 10,000 Open Heart operations. I've probably done 5,000. Am I any better at it than 10,000? He shook his head. It's just a different number on a tombstone.

[Dr. Phil]

No it's not. It's 5,000 other people whose lives you extended. Actual human beings. Those are human beings. It's not about like you're how better it.

[Robert Evans]

You're already great at it. It's about saving additional lives.

[Matt Lieb]

My God. That it's. That's wild.

[Robert Evans]

One of the. He has dramatically. He still does perform surgery I think sometimes.

[Dr. Phil]

He certainly was in the late aughts because he's a doctor.

[Robert Evans]

He just doesn't do nearly as much.

[Dr. Phil]

He used to do a lot more and he's. He's cut it by more than half.

[Robert Evans]

The amount of actual heart.

[Matt Lieb]

And it's the one thing he's good at. I mean I almost.

[Robert Evans]

And he's amazing at.

[Dr. Phil]

So one of the things that I should note here is that right now.

[Robert Evans]

Even with the assumption that every available training position for cardiothoracic surgeons is filled, we are looking at a projected shortage of 1500 cardiothoracic surgeons or 25% of the workforce by 2025 four years. There is a desperate need for the thing that he's definitely one of the best in the world at a tremendous and terrible need for it. And he has stopped doing that in order to give people bad medical advice that will hurt some of them on tv.

[Dr. Phil]

And I want to be really clear here. I am not saying that just because.

[Robert Evans]

You become a cardiothoracic surgeon you have to do that until the day you drop. You don't. You can quit. And that's not immoral. It's not evil to be like I've done enough. A good friend of mine was a cardiologist for 30 something years and quit to travel around the world as a photojournalist. And I don't think there's anything immoral you do not owe the world doing.

[Dr. Phil]

Just because it's valuable and there aren't.

[Robert Evans]

Enough people doing it forever.

[Dr. Phil]

I am not.

[Robert Evans]

And you don't have to quit to do some other valuable job. You can just quit to enjoy your.

[Dr. Phil]

Life, be with your family. I'm not saying that. Yeah, but he didn't quit to be with his family. He quit to give people bad health advice. That he quit to do crimes. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He is doing something that should be illegal. Instead of performing an additional 5,000 life saving surgeries right yeah, that's evil.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. No, that is bad. That is definitely immoral. To have the ability. It's like being Superman and having the ability to save someone from a burning building but being like, fuck, dude, I'm kind of on my way to do this TV interview that's going to get me more.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. But I'm going to sell people pills instead. Lex Luthor can suck it. You know, I got pills to move.

[Robert Evans]

The way that he phrases that is incredibly telling. Right.

[Dr. Phil]

Like it shouldn't say, mehmet oz banged.

[Robert Evans]

Out 10,000 open heart operations. Am I any better at it than 10,000?

[Dr. Phil]

It's like, that's not. I care that you get better at.

[Robert Evans]

It to the extent that it improves patient outcome.

[Dr. Phil]

But like, I don't care. Like, the, the thing that's good about performing 10,000 Open Heart operations is presumably.

[Robert Evans]

Somewhere near 10,000 people have had their lives extended because of you. And that's amazing. That's tens of thousands of cumulative, cumulative years you've added to the lives of people who are loved and who do things themselves, who, who do incred, like, who have their own ways of contributing to society, who have children.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, it's such a sick way of.

[Matt Lieb]

Looking at it too, because it's like, I'm already really good at it. So I decided I want to go.

[Dr. Phil]

Get into TV now. If he'd been like, I, you know, I did my car, I performed 5,000.

[Robert Evans]

Surgeries, now I want to become an actor.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, fine, you have that right.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. I'm never going to say that's.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, it depends on the movie, but. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

If you're in Michael Bay movies, we might have another talk.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, but that's again, what.

[Robert Evans]

It's not that he's decided he wanted to go into tv. It's not that he decided to go into entertainment. It's that he decided to do a job. To go from doing a job where he was unequivocally saving lives to doing a job where he often gives people advice that could shorten or at least reduce the quality of their life.

[Matt Lieb]

I mean, I guess he got tired of helping people and was like, you.

[Dr. Phil]

Know, time to make some fucking bank.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, it's time. I mean, it's not just make some bank. But he's like, man, I saved 10,000 lives. I'm gonna have to kill 10,000 just to fucking net neutral this shit, you know?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

You know, he's just trying to. He's trying to back balance the scales.

[Dr. Phil]

Of his good and evil it's so fucking frustrating. I really dislike this man.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, he's so handsome though, dude. I mean, he's very handsome. He made a lot of money. So that's good.

[Dr. Phil]

That is good.

[Matt Lieb]

And you know, he's out there every day giving hope to people who are currently dying of a very, very treatable ailment and saying, nah, dog, put your feet in some hot rice.

[Dr. Phil]

Put your feet in some hot rice.

[Matt Lieb]

And see what happens, dude. Just see what happens. You know, like someone's got to be doing that job.

[Dr. Phil]

It's this fucking thing. Part of the Dr. Oz problem and the part of it that, that he, he is, he is leaning into, but it's not his fault is this thing.

[Robert Evans]

That's a broader problem that I've gotten trapped in that a lot that everyone.

[Dr. Phil]

Who'S a public figure is at risk of getting trapped in did, which is.

[Robert Evans]

The fact that if you're good at.

[Dr. Phil]

Something and also have some measure of fame or popularity, you start to think.

[Robert Evans]

You can extend your skills to everything. I was in the gym the other day since I'm in Texas with my.

[Dr. Phil]

Family and since I'm vaccinated and everyone.

[Robert Evans]

Wears a mask, but I've been going.

[Dr. Phil]

To a gym and my family's vaccinated. It's the thing we get to do now. Okay.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, you're allowed.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I've been going to a gym.

[Robert Evans]

And the gyms have newspapers programs on, right.

[Dr. Phil]

And I saw Dr. Oz on and.

[Robert Evans]

It was Dr. Oz, true crime. Because I guess Dr. Oz has added a true crime thing where he's like talking about this woman who murdered her.

[Dr. Phil]

Kids and interviewing like the ex wife of the husband of the woman who murdered her kids and like doing this thing. He's like, you don't have any.

[Robert Evans]

Why are you doing this?

[Dr. Phil]

Like, oh, because.

[Robert Evans]

Because it's popular with the same people.

[Dr. Phil]

Who like your show. And why, why? Like, why not? Why not stick your hand into this.

[Robert Evans]

Thing that is deeply painful for a.

[Dr. Phil]

Lot of people and make money off of it? Why not do it?

[Robert Evans]

Because if you're famous and good at one thing, there's no reason not to do absolutely everything.

[Dr. Phil]

I just hate it.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah. Especially since it's again, he has the God given skills to actually do good and help people and he chooses, you know, this shit. And I gotta say, I blame his dad. I blame his dad.

[Dr. Phil]

I blame his dad too.

[Robert Evans]

Is fuck you, Mustafa.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Son of a bitch.

[Matt Lieb]

You fucked up, dude. I mean, you did a great job by pulling yourself up by her bootstraps and yada. Yada. But, you know, maybe you should have. Maybe you should have maybe been more encouraging for him to just maybe, you know, pick one thing and stay with it rather than, you know, venture off into, I will say, at least with the true crime stuff that, like, I know he's like, he's a little bit kind of like getting into kind of our territory here with the podcast business. And I don't like that. But I'm glad I don't have a true crime podcast that he's currently cannibalizing if he starts a Sopranos one. I will lose my fucking mind. If Dr. Oz decides one day, like, I want to do a prestige TV rewatch show for cnn. That'll be it, dude. Oz, you'll be on my goddamn list.

[Sophie]

I don't think his podcast publishes anymore. The one that he was doing. I don't see any new episodes past 2019.

[Matt Lieb]

Well, I mean, he's. He's doing a true crime show. That's. That's as close as you get to. That's to the podcast business.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Matt Lieb]

You know what I'm saying? Those are the number one pods out there, dude.

[Dr. Phil]

Pisses me off, my pods. All right, guys, that's the episode.

[Sophie]

Do you have any plugs? Yeah, plug the plugs.

[Matt Lieb]

My name is Matt Lieb, and you know, I'm on Instagram. Matt Lieb jokes.

[Dr. Phil]

The Gram.

[Matt Lieb]

Yeah, I'm on the Gram. I'm also on Twitter at Lieb, but go follow me on Instagram and. Yeah, and if you like the Sopranos, pod yourself a gun.

[Dr. Phil]

It's pod yourself a gun, baby. Well, get out there and again, find.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Oz in the street.

[Dr. Phil]

And Sophie, what.

[Robert Evans]

What is the legal definition of incitement?

[Sophie]

I'm not. For legal reasons, I'm not going to answer that question.

[Dr. Phil]

All right, well, just. Just go. Go out and wander the streets angry and, and, and agitated. Yeah. So without any clear goal. Yeah.

[Sophie]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Angrily wander the streets agitated with an unclear goal.

[Dr. Phil]

That's what I want.

[Robert Evans]

All of my listeners.

[Dr. Phil]

Foreign.

[Robert Evans]

Is here.

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[Robert Evans]

And your number with you.

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[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began to entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take.

[Dr. Phil]

Something and get out and not be caught. He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, btk, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical, historical, true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme. Everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching. To see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Fuck you.

[Dr. Phil]

That's the introduction. Just fuck you people who listen and give us an income. Allow us to.

[Jamie Loftus]

Nice to see you too.

[Dr. Phil]

Live a comfortable life. Not you, Jamie, just the audience.

[Robert Evans]

Just the people who support us with their ears.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm insulting. Just out the gate. Fuck em. That's right. What are you gonna do about it? You know, listen to another podcast? Like there are other podcasts. Like you have other options. Like there's a flooded marketplace of things.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Dr. Phil]

Like what I do that you could just turn to. Ha.

[Jamie Loftus]

I don't think so. And don't investigate otherwise.

[Dr. Phil]

No, please don't search podcasts on Spotify.

[Jamie Loftus]

I feel like what you just said all could have come out of Dr. Phil's mouth at one point. The second the cameras turn off for his show.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, Jamie, the orca is out of the tank because that is the subject of today's episode.

[Robert Evans]

And also you're Jamie Loftus, my guest on the show that this is.

[Dr. Phil]

Which is behind the bastards.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yes, it is behind the Bastards. And I'm here, I'm mainly here to bring the Dr. Phil ASMR videos this week.

[Dr. Phil]

Excited is the wrong word. Dreading.

[Robert Evans]

Dreading is the right word.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm dreading that.

[Jamie Loftus]

Jamie, you're gonna either really love them or really hate them. And I can't figure out which it's gonna be.

[Robert Evans]

I can't imagine loving them because they.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil and I think he's gonna love them. You know, it's one of those things.

[Sophie]

Hot take.

[Dr. Phil]

We just did the Dr. Oz episodes and Dr. Oz, also bad. Obviously he was on this show, but.

[Robert Evans]

You have to respect him because he.

[Dr. Phil]

Is a brilliant doctor.

[Robert Evans]

Like, he's a man who, for all.

[Dr. Phil]

Of the harm he's done by spreading pseudoscience, has performed like 5000 successful open heart surgeries, which is an achievement, you know, and has patented a bunch of useful medical devices and stuff. He's a person who's made like, bafflingly.

[Robert Evans]

Selfish decisions that I don't respect. But as a person, I have to.

[Dr. Phil]

Have some level of respect.

[Robert Evans]

For the things that he has achieved because he's impressive.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil is just a piece of shit. Dr. Phil is just straight up trash.

[Jamie Loftus]

We were talking about this off mic. There was some Dr. Drew drama in Los Angeles this week that actually. Actually, like, for once, ended well. And online bullying persevered. And Dr. Drew was, like, nominated to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, like, board.

[Robert Evans]

And what is.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay, I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Drew. What is. What does Dr. Drew do? I'm assuming he's a nonsense doctor like.

[Dr. Phil]

All of the other doctors we talk about.

[Jamie Loftus]

He may be technically a doctor. I'm not totally sure, but he was. I think he's radio doctor.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, that's the best kind of doctor.

[Sophie]

He also mediates the reunions of Teen mom and teen mom 2 and 16 and pregnant and causes damage to lots and lots of young minds all the time.

[Jamie Loftus]

He technically does have. He is a doctor. I don't know if he's currently licensed, but I know him from VH1 in, like, middle school, where he had Dr. Drew sex rehab with Dr. Drew, celebrity rehab presents Sober House and.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, that sounds like my nightmare. Like, that sounds. That sounds like the hell that I.

[Robert Evans]

Would go to is Sober House.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, no, I could have.

[Jamie Loftus]

I could have shortened my description and said he's Adam Carolla's best friend, which is also true. Which is like.

[Dr. Phil]

Wait, really? Oh, yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

He hosted, like, a famous radio show called Loveline Forever, and Adam Carolla was also on the show. And they're close. And so, yeah, he was nominated to serve on the Homeless Authority Board. And it only took about a day where, like, activists just bullied him into. Bullied people into withdrawing the nomination pretty quickly. And he. He had a few spicy little comments about it. He was like, I can't. Like, he basically was like, these online bullies are trying to cancel me for not being a good doctor and irrelevant for this job. So, you know, sometimes bad doctors fall. I love to see it.

[Robert Evans]

Well, that's fascinating.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm so happy to have learned about Dr. Drew.

[Robert Evans]

But today we're talking.

[Dr. Phil]

Talking about Dr. Phil. And it's. It's time to get in. Get into the. It's time to have us a philgasm.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

A McGraw gasm. Yeah. So Philip Calvin McGraw was born on.

[Robert Evans]

September 1, 1950, in Veneta, Oklahoma, about.

[Dr. Phil]

Four hours from where I grew up.

[Robert Evans]

His father was Joseph, and his mother was Ann Geraldine, or Jerry is what.

[Dr. Phil]

She preferred to go by.

[Robert Evans]

He had two older sisters and one younger sister. When he was a kid, his father.

[Dr. Phil]

Moved the family down to the oil.

[Robert Evans]

Fields of North Texas, which are about.

[Dr. Phil]

As unpleasant a place as I've ever encountered on this earth. Not a.

[Robert Evans]

Not a good place to just exist.

[Dr. Phil]

You don't want to, as a general rule, stay away from oil fields. Not nice places. So his kind of, like Southern desolation is Phil McGraw early childhood, which, you.

[Robert Evans]

Know, I can tell you from experience.

[Dr. Phil]

What that does to a kid. And it makes you either a washout or ambitious and angry. One of the two.

[Robert Evans]

Wind up an alcoholic working on an.

[Dr. Phil]

Oil derrick, or you do everything possible to escape the desolate South. Anyway, Phil's going to take that second one I like. Yeah, I have strong feelings about that part of Texas and that part of Oklahoma.

[Robert Evans]

Phil was a precocious child, and his parents seemed to agree that he basically raised himself. He expressed a hunger for money from a young age, and he was coddled. His mother thought he could do no wrong. Young Phil was the center of attention for everyone but his father, who was himself obsessed with work. The elder McGraw would end up moving.

[Dr. Phil]

The family half a dozen times for the sake of his career.

[Robert Evans]

By age 11, Phil was spending summers.

[Dr. Phil]

Driving a freight truck owned by his.

[Robert Evans]

Grandfather in Monday, Texas.

[Dr. Phil]

By age 12, he was flying planes.

[Robert Evans]

Illegally without a license as he traveled with.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, my God. Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, the driving. Driving at age 11, not as uncommon.

[Robert Evans]

As you might think in certain rural.

[Dr. Phil]

Parts of the world. Still a bit young.

[Robert Evans]

Driving a freight truck is a bit. Is a bit odd.

[Dr. Phil]

At age 11, that is a shark jump.

[Jamie Loftus]

And then driving a plane, unlicensed pilot at age 12. Honestly, I looked up Dr. Phil Young because sometimes it's shocking. And you're like, Whoa, Dr. Phil used to be hot. Not the case here. But there's a picture of him as a kid, and now I'm like, that does look like a kid that would steal a plane.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it just does. He's not even stealing a plane.

[Robert Evans]

His dad needs to fly to these desolate airstrips in the middle of nowhere to deliver oil field equipment.

[Dr. Phil]

And Phil goes with him and flies the plane sometime.

[Robert Evans]

My guess is that his dad is.

[Dr. Phil]

Just like, I'm taking a nap. You're flying this oil field equipment across Texas. I trust you land the bastard. Okay, dad. Kyle.

[Sophie]

Dr. Phil looks like adult Chris Cuomo.

[Robert Evans]

Whoa.

[Jamie Loftus]

I see it. I see it. Okay. It's honestly shocking that he was not a bald baby.

[Dr. Phil]

No. If someone wants to make a comic book, Dr. Phil Child Pilot, Pretty decent premise. There's. I've heard worse.

[Robert Evans]

So, yeah. This is how Phil spends his childhood up until the point when his dad, Joe, turned 40 and decided, apropos of.

[Dr. Phil]

Nothing, that he was going to abandon his family and become a psychologist.

[Jamie Loftus]

We truly don't have more info than that.

[Dr. Phil]

I have not found more info than that. His dad's like, I'm going to become a psychologist. You guys can keep doing your thing. You know, like, that's basically how it's set.

[Robert Evans]

And so Joe leaves his wife and three daughters behind. I think they stay in Texas, and he brings Phil with him to Kansas, where the two started a new life together.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't like this.

[Jamie Loftus]

The closeness of father and son here. It sounds like. Why is it? Oh, I hate. Because every time we go over stories like this, you're like, it can't be Daddy issues. Everything can't be just daddy ish. But then it always is.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that's just interesting, interesting to me is, like, the ways in which Dr. Phil and I's early.

[Robert Evans]

Background are similar and then diverge.

[Dr. Phil]

And this is a big divergence point because when I was a kid, my dad left for, like, a couple of years to work somewhere else, but it was because we had no money. We were at, like, the edge of.

[Robert Evans]

Bankruptcy, and the only job he could.

[Dr. Phil]

Get was in New York living on a friend's couch and, like, working at a radio station so he could send back money to us. So it wasn't like.

[Robert Evans]

And, like, I didn't go with him. He, like, had to go alone to.

[Dr. Phil]

New York to support the family and stuff. But if it is this weird, grew up in the same area, moved around a bunch when we were little. Our dad leaves, you know, but in Phil's case, he goes with his dad, and they just abandoned all the women. Right, right.

[Jamie Loftus]

Like, Dr. Phil's dad is like, you're my wife now.

[Dr. Phil]

You're my wife now, boy. My wife pilot.

[Jamie Loftus]

Fly the blame, Phil. You're my wife now.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil, child wife pilot.

[Jamie Loftus]

The pitch is getting better and better and better. It's going to be sold by the end of the episode.

[Dr. Phil]

I just got an email from Netflix.

[Robert Evans]

And it's a check for $112 million. So we are now contractually obligated to make this show.

[Dr. Phil]

Jamie, I would honestly rather do that.

[Jamie Loftus]

More than anything else.

[Dr. Phil]

I know that would be a dream. Let's leave this life behind.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, so we're abandoning podcast to do.

[Dr. Phil]

That, to do Dr. Phil Child wife pilot.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Jamie Loftus]

I think that would put a lot of positivity back into the world. So they just, they just bail. And it's not for financial reasons.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, it is, they're.

[Robert Evans]

They're poor as shit. His dad wants to go to school.

[Dr. Phil]

And is like, I can't take care of this family anymore.

[Robert Evans]

By is what it.

[Dr. Phil]

The way it's been described in the articles I've read. Now maybe Dr. Phil could, could give us a more detailed story, but I have not run across it yet.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Most of the info I have on his childhood comes from a Dallas observer article.

[Dr. Phil]

And they explained the whole abandoning of.

[Robert Evans]

Phil's mom and sisters.

[Dr. Phil]

And as a financial move, Phil apparently.

[Robert Evans]

Told the Dallas observer, quote, there just.

[Dr. Phil]

Wasn'T enough money to do otherwise. So we can only feed two members of this family.

[Robert Evans]

So, girls, you're on your own.

[Dr. Phil]

Phil and I are going to Kansas.

[Jamie Loftus]

Phil. Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Extreme. Very, very. Sounds like a really healthy family dynamic so far.

[Dr. Phil]

You get the feeling he grew up in a healthy environment. That's true. Healthy families are all alike. They allow 12 year olds to fly planes.

[Jamie Loftus]

That is how the famous quote goes.

[Dr. Phil]

That's how Anna Karenina starts.

[Jamie Loftus]

I love that book so much. And it turns out that's the thesis statement of the whole thing.

[Sophie]

How did you just pronounce that, Robert?

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Anna Karenina.

[Dr. Phil]

What is it? I was gonna let it fly.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

I wasn't.

[Jamie Loftus]

Honestly, I think that if had Anna Karenina been a child pilot, maybe she wouldn't have gotten crushed by that train.

[Dr. Phil]

No.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

And she could have been Dr. Phil's dad's child wife.

[Jamie Loftus]

I actually don't know what happens in that book. I pretended to read it when I was like 11. I just stared at every page really hard over a course of months.

[Dr. Phil]

Per the results of a 2006 court case, I am not allowed to read Russian literature. So in more recent post fame interviews.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil claims those early days with his father were a humbling exception.

[Dr. Phil]

Experience. Quote, we were so poor we couldn't even pay attention. Which is, I don't. I think is less a true statement. Not that I'm saying they weren't poor. I think he just said that because he knows it was a pithy thing. And he makes his whole living off of like saying stupid Dr. Phil Witticisms.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And I've heard that a thousand times.

[Dr. Phil]

Like I have heard a thousand different people say explain their, their origins that way. So I, I don't know. Fuck you, Dr. Phil. Be original.

[Jamie Loftus]

Does it make the moms absolutely lose it?

[Dr. Phil]

I bet it does.

[Robert Evans]

I absolutely bet it Makes the moms.

[Jamie Loftus]

Lose it when Dr. Phil quips they love it.

[Robert Evans]

Someone on Reddit during the Dr. Oz episode, you know, I noted a couple.

[Dr. Phil]

Of times that his, his audience and the people that he makes money off of is like middle aged moms and that that's a great business because they have all the money or at least control all the money. Like, middle aged moms are one of the most profitable demographics to get into your corner in the entire world. Right. And someone was like, you're being like unfairly negative towards middle aged moms. It's just a statement of fact.

[Robert Evans]

Like, look, in the audience of a.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Oz show, like, it's not 16 to 30 year old like men, it's.

[Robert Evans]

A bunch of moms.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, my mom loved Dr. Oz. That's who his audience is.

[Robert Evans]

It's not like a negative statement.

[Jamie Loftus]

My mom loves Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

I don't think that that's a negative. So if anyone's hearing that and that, it's not like what they're intending to say.

[Robert Evans]

It's just who the audience is.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's the target audience. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

It's like saying like men 18 to.

[Robert Evans]

35, listen to Joe Rogan.

[Dr. Phil]

That's not like, I'm not even. It is negative to listen to Joe Rogan, but I'm not being negative when I say that. I'm just accurately describing his audience. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Right, Right.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Fuck you, Joe Rogan.

[Jamie Loftus]

Doctor. As someone who was raised by Dr. Phil Mums, I am fully. And it's like not. I mean, it is the primary demographic.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

At least at the peak. I don't know who's watching Dr. Phil now.

[Robert Evans]

No matter your demographic, there's a grifter for you.

[Dr. Phil]

Look, I've been honest about the fact that there was a period of time.

[Robert Evans]

In my life when I liked John.

[Dr. Phil]

McAfee before I knew about, you know, the murder and the rape and stuff. Right. Like, we all, we all have a.

[Robert Evans]

Grifter we're vulnerable to. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

[Dr. Phil]

You just need to acknowledge it. And in the case of middle aged.

[Robert Evans]

Suburban Moms, it's Dr. Phil and Dr. Ross.

[Jamie Loftus]

Mine was, I think the grifter that really, that got me was Lou Perlman, who made all the boy bands that made me want to guess.

[Robert Evans]

Oh my God.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, one of my favorite, not my favorite, but one of the most legendary bastards.

[Dr. Phil]

Absolutely amazing person like Mr. Blimp himself, without any sort of joking, I. A genius just, just has a genius.

[Robert Evans]

In terms of knowing exactly what a.

[Dr. Phil]

Specific age Group of people want.

[Jamie Loftus]

Right. It doesn't mean that we were like, not smart, but we were clearly targeted by.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes, yeah, yeah. We all have a thing we're vulnerable to. Anyway, we're getting off topic, which is.

[Robert Evans]

Fine because it pads the runtime. And that's what I do as a grifter is I pan the runtime in.

[Dr. Phil]

Order to make more money off of you. Fucking sorry. Robert Evans exposed. Shameful. So, yeah, the details that Dr. Phil.

[Robert Evans]

Gives about his childhood, like, he gives.

[Dr. Phil]

That kind of pithy, we were so poor we couldn't even pay attention quote.

[Robert Evans]

But in the interview with Dallas observer, the details he actually gives make it.

[Dr. Phil]

Seem like the issue for Phil was.

[Robert Evans]

Less a matter of crushing poverty.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, I think they were kind of poor, but I think they were like my kind of poor.

[Robert Evans]

Like, which was not crushing poverty. It was not your malnourished.

[Dr. Phil]

It's just there's no money for anything but the basics, you know?

[Robert Evans]

But the basics are covered.

[Jamie Loftus]

Breaking even.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're not like, you're not like in absolute destitution, you know, like, not to exaggerate it, but like, you're poor. Like, that's kind of what I think is really happening. And part of why I think that is because his real complaint about that time in his life is that he couldn't buy any cool shit. Quote from the Dallas Observer.

[Robert Evans]

It didn't help that he was fiercely competitive, he says, and he lacked the clothes and the car to compete for girls.

[Dr. Phil]

So I think that's more the big thing for him. Right? Like, okay, you're not that poor.

[Robert Evans]

You just don't have enough money to.

[Dr. Phil]

Impress girls with possessions.

[Jamie Loftus]

Right, okay, yeah, I get that level of poverty.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Yeah. I think most of us had more.

[Dr. Phil]

Or less that level of poverty where, like, especially like, I was like one of, of the poorer kids in a school that was not poor.

[Robert Evans]

So there were kids in my school.

[Dr. Phil]

Who drove BMWs and like, I had a beat to shit Ford Taurus. I'm not complaining. Like, I had a Ford Taurus. Like, I'm not complaining. I had a car. But like, you see the, you see the kids who's like, parents are rich and you're like, ah, shit, I feel so poor because they have like a brand new Jaguar that that's, I think the kind of poor he is.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah. Our school is like, the kid with the Ford Taurus was like, oh, my God, he has a car. What a cool boy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was just for my.

[Dr. Phil]

Senior year, but yes, I Did eventually get a car.

[Robert Evans]

So thankfully the young Dr. Phil was huge. Quickly crossing six feet. He's a massive man if you've ever.

[Dr. Phil]

Seen him next to normal sized people. He's a very large person.

[Jamie Loftus]

I forget that, but yes. Yeah. Is he like six, four?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, he's like an inch or two.

[Robert Evans]

Taller than me and I think quite a bit broader. Like he's a big motherfucker.

[Sophie]

But, but most of that's mustache, Robert.

[Robert Evans]

Most of that, a lot of it's mustache now. But when he was younger, he was in good shape and he was, he.

[Dr. Phil]

Was very like muscular.

[Robert Evans]

And as a result of how big and strong he was, he was a shoo in for the high school's football team.

[Dr. Phil]

He later recalled, quote, I was Phil.

[Robert Evans]

The jock and that was my currency. And by currency he means that's how he got girls.

[Dr. Phil]

Right?

[Robert Evans]

He didn't have the car, he didn't have.

[Dr. Phil]

But he was able to like get girls because he had, you know, he was, he was on the football team.

[Jamie Loftus]

He was tall.

[Dr. Phil]

He was tall and he was apparently.

[Robert Evans]

Quite good at football. In Phil's senior year, his father moved to Wichita Falls to start his psychology practice. Not yet a doctor, Phil spent his entire senior year living alone. He didn't go with his dad this time. He supported himself and he played football.

[Dr. Phil]

Because he was like, there was a.

[Robert Evans]

Period of time where he might have.

[Dr. Phil]

Made it into the NFL. So he didn't want to leave his high school and disrupt that.

[Robert Evans]

He said, quote, it wasn't what you were supposed to do, but I was pretty independent.

[Jamie Loftus]

Interesting.

[Robert Evans]

College scouts had started eyeing him pretty early on and he had, it seems like he had a real chance of getting at least picked to play college ball.

[Dr. Phil]

He did get picked to play college ball. His dad had gone to the University of Tulsa on a football scholarship.

[Robert Evans]

And in short order, Phil was picked.

[Dr. Phil]

By scouts for the same college. So he gets a college scholarship to the University of Tulsa, he becomes the.

[Robert Evans]

Captain of the freshman football team team.

[Dr. Phil]

And he says he was very good.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of articles you'll say were very good.

[Dr. Phil]

We're going to talk about this in a little bit because his team at least was shit. Like, like not just, not just a bad, not just like, not good in the year, but like one of the.

[Robert Evans]

All time least successful college football teams.

[Dr. Phil]

In the history of college football.

[Jamie Loftus]

No.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Trying to think of other. There's. That is like such a, like celebrity that grows to be evil. I feel like that is a pattern of like, I could have been a big sport that Was his.

[Dr. Phil]

Hitler's art school.

[Jamie Loftus]

Right, right, right. Like, and you just know that parties. He doesn't let people forget it. Like. Yeah. I'm looking up celebrities who played high school sports. Matthew McConaughey. It just seems like not making it big in college sports can potentially a villainous origin story.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, I never had any.

[Robert Evans]

I was on the high school.

[Dr. Phil]

I did like. Sorry, I did one year of football in junior high. I never had any chance of, of, of going pro and I didn't like football.

[Robert Evans]

There was a period of time where.

[Dr. Phil]

I might have been able to like do, do, do well at fencing. I did. I was in like a special pro. Was pretty. I was pretty good at fencing at fay. But no, I, I got bored eventually.

[Sophie]

I love that for you. I could see that for you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, take it back up.

[Dr. Phil]

If you're really tall, it helps. Yeah. But never like never, never at the college level or anything.

[Jamie Loftus]

So I ran track in junior high, but then I threw up one time and I quit permanently. And to this day I do not run.

[Sophie]

I was captain of the varsity basketball team and I'm really, really short.

[Robert Evans]

Holy shit.

[Sophie]

I had no. So I'm the most athletic of our bunch.

[Dr. Phil]

Sophie is the most successful athlete in. In, in this call. Amazing.

[Robert Evans]

Amazing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Send pics.

[Sophie]

Oh, oh, there are.

[Dr. Phil]

That's great.

[Sophie]

There are pics, Jamie. I will personally send them to you.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, I will say having watched the video of that guy shot putting a bobcat, I. I think that should.

[Sophie]

Be the most amazing thing I've seen in such a long time.

[Dr. Phil]

That was, that was.

[Robert Evans]

That.

[Dr. Phil]

You know what that was, is the greatest example of like quality husbanding that I think I've seen on Twitter.

[Sophie]

Like, oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

That's.

[Robert Evans]

That's a.

[Dr. Phil]

That's a.

[Robert Evans]

You did. You did good, man. That's exactly what you're supposed to do.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, that's, that's. That's wholesome masculinity right there. Is shot putting a wild cat away from your wife.

[Jamie Loftus]

Wait, that's so what a hero.

[Robert Evans]

Well, and it's also, you know, it's not going to do any damage to the cat.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, he did get out his gun.

[Robert Evans]

To shoot the cat, but it charged.

[Dr. Phil]

Back at the family. And I feel at that point the.

[Robert Evans]

Cat had chosen violence.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, he gave, he gave the animal a chance to end the interaction.

[Jamie Loftus]

Thank you for that, that fine forensic analysis.

[Dr. Phil]

That's my, that's my opinion on the bit now.

[Robert Evans]

Weeks old video of a guy hugging.

[Dr. Phil]

A bobcat across the yard to Be fair.

[Jamie Loftus]

He chose violence.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the cat chose violence.

[Dr. Phil]

That's my. That's my end statement here. So, yeah, anyway, Dr. Phil, a lot of interviews, you'll see he was very, very good. Could have maybe could have gone pro. I don't know how accurate that is. I'm not great at football, but I.

[Robert Evans]

Found an incredible analysis on the sports.

[Dr. Phil]

Website Grantland about a game that he.

[Robert Evans]

Played in, that his freshman football team played in.

[Dr. Phil]

That is, like, one of the most most famous games in college ball history.

[Robert Evans]

Because of how badly his team did.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, Grantland calls it one of the.

[Robert Evans]

Craziest games in NCAA history. For starters, the bulk of Phil's team.

[Dr. Phil]

Were, like, actively dying of the flu while they played, quote.

[Robert Evans]

And especially virulent strain of flu had.

[Dr. Phil]

Been cavorting through the Tulsa athletic dorm.

[Robert Evans]

Somehow overcoming the formidable sanity standard those three words imply. And 15 of Tulsa's 22 starters were shivering, feverish wrecks. They tried to act energetic, but they were so weak.

[Dr. Phil]

Tulsa coach Glenn DOBBS Remembered, in 1985, my sons, Glenn III and John, were on the team. Their eyes were glazed with fever. The team, the team doctor pleaded with.

[Robert Evans]

The coach to call off the game.

[Dr. Phil]

But Dobbs, a former Tulsa star who, because the world just does whatever it wants, had been an icon for the.

[Robert Evans]

Society Saskatchewan Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League, refused to surrender.

[Dr. Phil]

I just never liked backing out, he said afterward.

[Robert Evans]

Tulsa had two defensive linemen who were.

[Dr. Phil]

Well enough, enough to travel. One of them passed out before the coin flip. So this game is a fucking disaster from the beginning.

[Jamie Loftus]

I love this shit so much.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, it's so good.

[Jamie Loftus]

Finally a sports movie for me.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, everyone's just puking and getting to death. Also, someone named Glenn the Third is involved, like, just the funniest fucking thing.

[Jamie Loftus]

Passing out before the game starts. Oh, that is just.

[Dr. Phil]

And kudos to the Grantland writer. It's a very entertaining article, Grantland.

[Jamie Loftus]

I miss Grantland.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

By the end of the first quarter, Phil's team was down 14 to 0, which is a significant.

[Dr. Phil]

Like they're getting. It's not a great start to a game, but it's not insurmountable.

[Robert Evans]

However, by the end, end of the game, they were down by a record.

[Dr. Phil]

Breaking 100 points to six.

[Jamie Loftus]

Did Phil get any of the points?

[Robert Evans]

No, I don't believe so.

[Dr. Phil]

Not at all. I think it's one of the greatest ass kickings in college ball history, like.

[Robert Evans]

In the entire history of the sport.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, Dr. Phil's team got their asses.

[Robert Evans]

Beat almost the worst way to lose Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's like a. Famously a famous.

[Jamie Loftus]

Ass kicking that does like several rounds of like, going back to being sad and then going back to being funny and then going back to being sad and then going. And finally landing on being the funniest shit I've ever heard.

[Dr. Phil]

It's incredibly funny.

[Robert Evans]

So Dr. Phil brags about this game today, saying that it, and that football in general helped awaken in him an interest in psychology by teaching him that people with advantages don't always win. That said, the author of that Grantland article takes pains to point out that there is actually no evidence whatsoever that Phil played in this game. And the facts that do exist from this time make it seem kind of unlikely. I don't know how to.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, it was far enough back that.

[Robert Evans]

There'S not any comprehensive way to know for sure, really.

[Dr. Phil]

But the doubt thrown onto it by.

[Robert Evans]

This investigation might mean that as a grown ass, multi millionaire Dr. Phil lied.

[Dr. Phil]

To David Letterman about playing in one.

[Robert Evans]

Of the worst ass kickings in sports history.

[Dr. Phil]

And I have no idea what this says about him. Like, I don't even know how to analyze that.

[Jamie Loftus]

There's so many levels there. Because if he did play in it.

[Dr. Phil]

You'Re like, oh, what a. Yeah, okay, that's fun. Yeah, I can see, like, if I was.

[Robert Evans]

If I. If I played in.

[Dr. Phil]

If I partook in a famous ass kicking in a sports history, I would brag about that as an adult.

[Robert Evans]

It would be funny.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, you get enough distance from it.

[Robert Evans]

Sure.

[Jamie Loftus]

Lying about it, though.

[Robert Evans]

Lying about it is baffling.

[Jamie Loftus]

What is? That's like a game of 4D chess I can barely conceive of.

[Robert Evans]

I have no idea what's going on with.

[Dr. Phil]

With Dr. Phil, but.

[Robert Evans]

And for the most part, I do.

[Dr. Phil]

Know what's going on with him. This is just baffling to me because he's clearly a narcissist.

[Robert Evans]

It's very strange as a narcissist to lie about this.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, to lie about one of the greatest failure.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. To just.

[Dr. Phil]

To lie about just getting just like fame, historically wrecked.

[Jamie Loftus]

Anything for clout, baby. Anything for by any means.

[Dr. Phil]

Speaking of clout, you know who has.

[Robert Evans]

All of my clout?

[Dr. Phil]

Jamie?

[Jamie Loftus]

Does it happen to be a product or maybe even a service?

[Dr. Phil]

It is the products and services that support this podcast.

[Robert Evans]

I sacrifice all of my clout to them.

[Dr. Phil]

Like members of the ancient cult of the old ones sacrifice virgin babies to Nyarlathep the crawling chaos. Much like that. Here's some ads for dick pills. All right, we're back, we're back, we're back. We're back. Worshiping the old gods. I don't know. Might deliver up some of my bodily.

[Robert Evans]

Fluids to a shoggoth later. Who knows? Who knows?

[Dr. Phil]

We're talking about Dr. Phil. Anything can happen. So anyways, after this, at some point, I don't know the exact year, but.

[Robert Evans]

At some point, pretty soon after this disastrous game, because Phil was definitely on the team.

[Dr. Phil]

At some point after this, Phil had another sports disaster.

[Robert Evans]

He went in to tackle a running back and he got hit really hard.

[Dr. Phil]

And I don't mean just like, you know, sprained something.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, he woke up blind.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

The kind of head injury where when you come to your eyes don't work.

[Dr. Phil]

Which is medically speaking, bad.

[Robert Evans]

No, it's.

[Dr. Phil]

Shouldn't be allowed it. Absolutely. Like, I don't know, I think adults should. I think if you're like 22 and older, you should be allowed to play football.

[Robert Evans]

But certainly 18 year olds should not be, nor should they be allowed to.

[Dr. Phil]

Join the military, by the way.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Dr. Phil]

So he still. Yeah, it was. The head injury was bad enough. His eyesight came back obviously, but it.

[Robert Evans]

Was a serious head injury and it ended in this.

[Dr. Phil]

There was no chance of him confused continuing his career after that. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Like it's one of those things where like you don't get to ever play.

[Dr. Phil]

Football again because you get hit in the head one more time, that might be it for you, you know. Right. Once his eyesight.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And he still suffers like he's. There's after effects of this today, like.

[Dr. Phil]

It'S, it's a lifelong injury. He got really messed up. It's a bad thing to do. Yeah, yeah, it's bad.

[Robert Evans]

Once his sight came back, Phil returned to Wichita Falls to heal and to plot his next move. He decided to put his college education on hold now that he couldn't do a football scholarship.

[Dr. Phil]

And he decided, you know, the thing to do now. I'm not going to. I'm going to. I'm going to think about college later.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to make some money now.

[Dr. Phil]

Right. Which is not an unreasonable call to make in the situation. And I'm going to quote from a write up in the Dallas observer, he.

[Robert Evans]

Worked at a health club selling memberships and wound up owning a partnership interest in that club and a half dozen others. That was typical of the way he did things, says Scott Madsen, who went into the building business with his future brother in law. He is the smartest guy I ever met. A born leader. Even at a young age, he had.

[Dr. Phil]

The insight to figure out how things work.

[Robert Evans]

Others took a more damnable view of his business practices. I didn't know of anyone who had a business deal with Phil at the time who felt they came out on top, says David Dickinson, a former friend.

[Dr. Phil]

Of McGraw's from Wichita Falls.

[Robert Evans]

It's like playing golf from someone who moves the ball around all the time.

[Jamie Loftus]

So how young is he when he gets into business?

[Dr. Phil]

He's, like, right now, maybe 20 at.

[Robert Evans]

The most, like 19 or 20. And very quickly, he's a part ear, becomes a part owner in the sports.

[Dr. Phil]

Club he's working at, becomes part owner in, like, a half dozen other clubs. Like, he's.

[Sophie]

So he doesn't have. He doesn't have a degree yet of any kind.

[Robert Evans]

No, but he's clearly very good at. It's the. Specifically, the thing that Phil is objectively one of the best people in the world at is negotiating.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, he is a terrifying negotiator. I. I haven't run into any disagreement about that.

[Sophie]

He's got all the grift. He's got all the, like, the strong rates grifters have. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And he's. He's very good at negotiating in a.

[Robert Evans]

Legal manner, which is a separate skill just from grifting, you know, and is.

[Dr. Phil]

Honestly, like, the best kind of grifting.

[Robert Evans]

Because you can't get in trouble for that shit.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, yeah. If he's willing to go into this game that young, that's so his brain, he's just.

[Dr. Phil]

He's wired for it, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Or at least maybe the football injury scrambled his wires and made him wired for it.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know.

[Jamie Loftus]

His reality is stressing me out. Okay. He's triggering my. My fight or flight response. This is good, feeling good.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. That's how Dr. Phil works. He really triggers a lot of. A lot of responses.

[Robert Evans]

Now, the article notes that when you interview. That Dallas observer article notes that when you interview a bunch of people who have known Dr. Phil over the course of decades, you tend to get two very different pictures of the man. One from the people who, like him, is of an incredibly gifted expert in practical psychology who has a passion for helping people. And the other picture you get of Dr. Phil is a, quote, charismatic opportunist who achieved great things by betraying the people closest to him in order to.

[Dr. Phil]

Make a quick buck.

[Robert Evans]

One of these spurned former friends is Elden Buck, who claimed to the Observer, I put Phil in a couple of oil field deals, and everyone pays me but him. Phil is a smart, smart, smart son of a bitch, but he's only out.

[Dr. Phil]

For one thing, and that's Phil. Now, Phil denies all of this, but.

[Robert Evans]

It is worth noting, as we've just heard, that Buck is not the only person with allegations like this against him. He's not even just one of two.

[Dr. Phil]

But we're going to get to that story in due time.

[Jamie Loftus]

So he's also involved in oil fields.

[Dr. Phil]

Down the line, in anything that'll make him money. Like this is like kind of all happening over a period of a couple of years.

[Robert Evans]

He's just, he starts making money and he immediately reinvests.

[Dr. Phil]

That's money. He's in a bunch of businesses.

[Robert Evans]

You know, I have a, I have.

[Dr. Phil]

A good, A very, very close friend who has that kind of brain who's just always spinning off their money into one business or another. And I don't know how they do.

[Robert Evans]

It, but they just are able to.

[Dr. Phil]

Keep track of, like, the fact that, like, I've. I've got an investment in this business and through that business, I have an investment in this business and an interest.

[Robert Evans]

In these other three businesses, and those give me an interest in this.

[Dr. Phil]

And like, this is how all of that. Like, I don't, I don't understand it, but like, it's kind of like being an engineer. You know, Some people have the kind of brain where you can open up like a fucking H vac system or, or like the flight control system on an airplane and know what all of the little cords and all of the lights go and do and how to, how to, how to work all of that. Some people have a brain that allows them to just business, you know, I.

[Jamie Loftus]

Respect people who use it for good, but holy shit, what an exhausting. Yeah sounding.

[Dr. Phil]

It sounds like a nightmare. I keep all of my money in a pile and I will never have investments.

[Robert Evans]

Like I will never.

[Dr. Phil]

Like I keep it in a bank, but like, I have no, I have no investment investments and never will because the idea of investing money is terrifying to me and makes me want to huddle around a fire with a spear and stab outsiders.

[Jamie Loftus]

I spent my, all my Savings on Dilbert NFTs.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, that's gonna, that's gonna appreciate.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, Jamie, I got a good feeling.

[Dr. Phil]

It's the only thing they're not making any more of.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's a real thing. The Sashy Dilbert guy made Dilbert NFTs. And the only difference from a regular Dilbert is that he says fuck in this one.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, shit.

[Jamie Loftus]

Too much money anyways.

[Dr. Phil]

I would pay good money for a Dilbert NFT where he admits responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombing.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

I think that would be a good nft.

[Dr. Phil]

If you're listening, Scott Adams, I'll invest in that one. Dilbert. Dilbert admits to making a 6,000 pound.

[Robert Evans]

Fertilizer bomb and parking it out in front of the Murrah Building.

[Dr. Phil]

That's. That's the NFT I want.

[Jamie Loftus]

I can guarantee that Kathy guys like creator of Kathy comics, does not know nor care what an NFT is. And that's why she is. She is really.

[Robert Evans]

She.

[Jamie Loftus]

She's my strength in this world.

[Dr. Phil]

Stan.

[Sophie]

Kathy.

[Jamie Loftus]

Stan. Kathy.

[Robert Evans]

Stan.

[Dr. Phil]

Kathy. You know who else I Stan, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

Who?

[Robert Evans]

No one.

[Dr. Phil]

That was like, it's not time for an ad pivot.

[Sophie]

He loves, he loves to do the like fake ad thing and then he thinks about it and then he's like.

[Dr. Phil]

I can't stop myself.

[Sophie]

He's just so good at it.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, you know who I actually.

[Dr. Phil]

Stan, who I have an unreasonable affection for and can't be convinced otherwise?

[Robert Evans]

No, no, I think, I think I.

[Dr. Phil]

Have a reasonable love of LeVar Burton, as everyone does. Right? It's like a capybara, you know, it's like loving a capybara. Like it's LeVar Burton, of course. No, Werner Herzog. Herzog is my unreasonable love.

[Jamie Loftus]

Robert, I would love. You should start making Werner Herzogen fan cams.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know what that means.

[Jamie Loftus]

Jamie, I'm gonna make one of you and you're gonna be horrified if they're. I wonder if Robert fan cams exist.

[Robert Evans]

Listen, what the fuck is a fan cam?

[Jamie Loftus]

It's. How do I describe a fan cam? It's usually like, it's, it's a short video made on an app. I don't know what the app is, but it's just a series of clips of you and they have. They put a glittery filter over it and there's like a cute song on in the background.

[Robert Evans]

I don't think there's a lot of.

[Dr. Phil]

Video of me where like you can actually see me. So that might be hard to do. Robert.

[Sophie]

You would absolutely hate it, my friend.

[Robert Evans]

I know I would.

[Jamie Loftus]

There's enough video footage of you for a fan cam. You need like three clips.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, all, all I'm interested of is a fan cam of Werner Herzog diving into a bunch of cactuses because he.

[Robert Evans]

Promised a group of little people that.

[Dr. Phil]

If they made it through the filming of. Of a movie without injury, he would horribly hurt himself by diving into a bed of saguaros from 12ft up.

[Jamie Loftus]

Is that true?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, he absolutely did it. And they begged him not to. They were like, please don't do this, like, we don't want you to hurt yourself.

[Robert Evans]

And he said, I made a promise.

[Dr. Phil]

And if I don't fulfill my promise, there's no reason for me to be alive.

[Robert Evans]

And then he dove into a pile.

[Dr. Phil]

Of cactuses because he's a fucking lunatic and I love him so much. Wow.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, Vernon.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, Werner Herzog.

[Robert Evans]

Watch Aguirre the Wrath of God.

[Sophie]

So, Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Robert Dr. Phil. Yeah, sorry, we're off the topic a little bit.

[Robert Evans]

So after three years as a business con man, Phil McGraw decided to return to the education system to study psychology. He started off at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, where his father had gone, and then transferred to the University of North Texas, which is where the people who gave me he huge amounts of drugs went to school.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't think. Phil spent his time half a mile.

[Robert Evans]

Outside of campus downing 100mg of 2ci.

[Dr. Phil]

And 15-20mg of 5meo 5meo MIPT and.

[Robert Evans]

Vaporizing DMT, which is probably why he graduated UNT with a PhD while my.

[Dr. Phil]

Friends and I all dropped out of college to go, you know, do stupid shit anyway.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, Dr. Phil's not fucking punk enough.

[Dr. Phil]

No, he, he's not.

[Robert Evans]

In his recollection, Phil both hated and excelled at college.

[Dr. Phil]

He later recalled, I almost quit every day.

[Robert Evans]

The faculty just jacked with you all the time. I remember telling one professor, either kick me out or get off my ass. He did succeed in impressing other professors though. His mentor at UNT was Dr. G. Frank Lawless, who still considers Dr. Phil, quote, by far the most brilliant psychologist I ever worked with. Which is meaningful praise.

[Dr. Phil]

But also we are talking UNT here, you know, we're not talking like one of the famous psychology schools in the country. So not, not, not a nothing compliment, but not like a doctor. Not like people saying Dr. Oz is the best heart surgeon ever. You know, because that motherfucker's working at Columbia, right? They know from heart surgery, right? Okay, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not throwing shade at Frank Lawless. I'm just saying I don't think Dr. Phil is the most brilliant psychologist ever to exist.

[Jamie Loftus]

I haven't, I haven't gotten past the fact that Frank Lawless sounds like a made up person, that sounds like a cartoon character.

[Dr. Phil]

I am assuming he's Xena's father.

[Robert Evans]

So McGraw got his doctorate in 1979 and returned to Wichita Falls.

[Dr. Phil]

For reasons that are impossible to explain any. Any person who returns to Kansas.

[Robert Evans]

I just don't.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't understand.

[Robert Evans]

He started a business partnership with his dad, and together the two veered their practice towards treating the mental ailments of the rich and socially prominent. Circulating among country clubs to cater to doctors, lawyers, bankers, and their wives.

[Dr. Phil]

One of Dr. Film's Phil's friends later.

[Robert Evans]

Claimed, quote, phil moved right into the money circles. If there wasn't a buck in it, he wasn't much interested.

[Dr. Phil]

So, you know, that's. That's the. That's the. The field he gets into is. Is dealing with, like, rich people who are neurotic or whatever.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, so he comes to being a charlatan early.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I mean, you know, at this point.

[Robert Evans]

Again, if you're grifting rich people, I don't care.

[Dr. Phil]

Who cares?

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Sometimes I might find it interesting for.

[Dr. Phil]

An off week, but I don't consider that evil behavior.

[Robert Evans]

Right. They have too much money.

[Dr. Phil]

Whatever.

[Robert Evans]

He specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy, which Phil at least claimed was a cause and effect therapy that treated thoughts and behavior the same.

[Dr. Phil]

Quote, people would come in and say, I had a hard childhood, therefore I.

[Robert Evans]

Am not doing well. As an attempt adult, a Freudian would.

[Dr. Phil]

Say, let's work through your childhood.

[Robert Evans]

I would say, that's fine, but right now, you are an adult. You have a choice to stop yelling at your kids.

[Jamie Loftus]

I've done. I've done cbt.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's not.

[Robert Evans]

That doesn't sound bad. Right? Like, that is a reasonable take, which.

[Dr. Phil]

Is like, okay, it's fine to, like, you know, work through a difficult childhood, but you can't be shitty to your kids just because you had a bad childhood.

[Robert Evans]

Reasonable statement.

[Jamie Loftus]

Past trauma doesn't excuse current bad behavior.

[Dr. Phil]

Perfectly valid statement.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. And this kind of no nonsense approach was very popular with some of his clients. I can see how it would have.

[Dr. Phil]

Been useful in a number of cases.

[Robert Evans]

But Dr. Phil himself admits that he was, quote, probably the worst marital therapist in the history of the world. I was teaching what they taught me, but I was real impatient. Everybody was getting divorced. The way he relates it. Realizing the shortcomings of his education convinced Phil to seek out less traditional ways.

[Dr. Phil]

To practice his profession and to market it.

[Robert Evans]

And I should note here, as an aside, that during this period, Dr. Phil got married and was briefly with a woman before cheating on her repeatedly and then leaving her. Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

So anyway, maybe he should have been a little more patient. Maybe he should have taken some of his own medicine.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I mean, he, he does. I mean, to be fair, he admits.

[Robert Evans]

He was a bad marriage therapist, so I can't call him, like, a hypocrite.

[Dr. Phil]

If you're saying I was a. I.

[Robert Evans]

Was a shitty husband and a shitty marriage therapist.

[Dr. Phil]

That all scans know, like, that's. Yeah, he's being honest here, so we won't belabor the point.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He started holding pain clinics, weight loss clinics, and executive giving executive recruiting advice and even expert legal testimony for court cases.

[Dr. Phil]

He was like an expert witness. Yeah. And this is like, for court cases, right? Like, you need someone to come in.

[Robert Evans]

You know, you have like, somebody who's.

[Dr. Phil]

Claiming, like, oh, yeah, know I can't be held responsible for this because I'm. I, you know, like, mentally ill or whatever. Like, you know, not guilty by reason of insanity. He comes in and he's like, yes, that's valid. Or no, that's not valid, depending on who pays him, you know.

[Jamie Loftus]

So just a general mental health professional.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's the kind of. We just, we just finished the Chauvin trial.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, we had all these kind of use of force experts.

[Robert Evans]

There's a bunch of people in different.

[Dr. Phil]

Fields whose main job is to take that. That expertise in another field and testify.

[Robert Evans]

About it in court.

[Dr. Phil]

Because it's relevant. Right. You have like, engineering specialists who are like, I'm going to go testify about this bridge that collapsed to either defend the people who made it or explain how irresponsible they were, whatever. Like, that's a whole. Yeah, there's a whole industry. Dr. Phil gets into the.

[Jamie Loftus]

Providing extra money in that industry.

[Dr. Phil]

There's a fuckload of. You can get real goddamn rich doing that. Yeah, well, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Especially if you're willing to lie about. Of expertise. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

And by the way, lawyers listening.

[Robert Evans]

I will testify as an expert witness on literally anything.

[Dr. Phil]

As a certified reverend doctor in the state of New Jersey.

[Robert Evans]

My purview is wide.

[Dr. Phil]

So, you know, what, 12 grand an hour?

[Jamie Loftus]

The podcast is just going to disappear one day and it's, oh, the instant.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm fucking done, you know, like, fuck this podcast. I'm going to go lie under oath about, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, Dr. Phil started. Yeah. Holding, you know, so he start.

[Robert Evans]

He gets into like the whole.

[Dr. Phil]

The business of if I really want to make money at scale as a psychologist, having individual.

[Robert Evans]

Even if they're rich, individual clients isn't.

[Dr. Phil]

The thing to do.

[Robert Evans]

I'm going to do a bunch of.

[Dr. Phil]

Clinics on like, dealing with pain, dealing with weight loss. You know, recruiting people. I'll do like.

[Robert Evans]

So he gets very quickly into the.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm less about helping people and more about making money as a psychologist.

[Robert Evans]

And in 1984 he meets Thelma Box, an insurance and real estate agent from Graham, Texas, who asked him to go into business with her to create a brand new motivational seminar.

[Dr. Phil]

Now we're talking again like the 70s.

[Robert Evans]

80S, which is the golden age of motivational seminars.

[Dr. Phil]

That's when this whole thing really explodes.

[Robert Evans]

Motivational seminars are basically short term cults.

[Dr. Phil]

For two to five days, several dozen.

[Robert Evans]

To several hundred to sometimes even a.

[Dr. Phil]

Couple of thousand people will pack into.

[Robert Evans]

An auditorium where a charismatic frontman and a handful of his buddies will coach them, usually by hyping the room up, using simple crowd work tactics to make people feel temporarily elated and tricking them.

[Dr. Phil]

Into having like cathartic experiences and thinking they've learned something, you know? Yeah, that's the whole idea. Have people get like people.

[Robert Evans]

The mania of a crowd kind of.

[Dr. Phil]

Going make people cry or laugh and think like some.

[Robert Evans]

Something significant has happened as probing personal questions.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In public, in front of a bunch of people.

[Dr. Phil]

It's a whole big grift.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Thelma Box was a, well, I don't know, grift.

[Dr. Phil]

I think a lot of people just like them.

[Robert Evans]

I've known people who like, admit that.

[Dr. Phil]

They never got anything long term out of it, but just enjoy the experience and I guess if that's your thing.

[Jamie Loftus]

It kind of depends.

[Dr. Phil]

Whatever.

[Jamie Loftus]

Some people are just like, they're like, yeah, I know Tony. Well, Tony Robbins is maybe not the best example. But like, I know this person's like, like basically full of shit, but you know, I had a couple hundred dollars to burn and a weekend to burn.

[Dr. Phil]

And it made me feel good, you know, I don't care. I guess if that's your thing.

[Robert Evans]

We all have.

[Jamie Loftus]

Take joy where you can get it.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Every.

[Robert Evans]

There's a lot of people who like to.

[Dr. Phil]

There's people who like to climb the.

[Robert Evans]

Ice filled sides of mountains with crampons.

[Dr. Phil]

And fucking like pythons and stuff. And a lot of them die. There's people who like to do cave diving, which is the deadliest thing you could possibly do to relax. So like, I don't know people who do shit. I don't care.

[Robert Evans]

But most of the people doing these.

[Dr. Phil]

Seminars are actually like people at some.

[Robert Evans]

Kind of like crisis point in their.

[Dr. Phil]

Life having a difficulty. And that, that's, that's the problem with it.

[Jamie Loftus]

And it's like it depends on how you sell it too. Like, if you're like, promising, oh, if you come this weekend, you're going to leave and make a million dollars in the next. You know, there's varying degrees.

[Robert Evans]

There's varying degrees. Some of them are just like, I'm.

[Dr. Phil]

Going to make you feel good about yourself so you can go out and attack the world. And I guess that's kind of left problematic where it's like, okay, like, whatever. You know, it's basically expensive church. Okay, yeah, like, you will not make me not hate myself, friend. Better men than you have tried. So Thelma Box, who you know is.

[Robert Evans]

Phil's friend, is a huge fan of.

[Dr. Phil]

These kind of motivational seminars.

[Robert Evans]

She'd done all the big ones.

[Dr. Phil]

Zig Ziglar, actual guy out there. You can find his books at any given estate sale. Dale Carnegie.

[Robert Evans]

You can also find his books at.

[Dr. Phil]

Any given estate sale. Tony Robbins. You can also find his books at any given estate sale.

[Robert Evans]

All the estate sale greats, she does.

[Dr. Phil]

Their seminars with, like, boogers on the.

[Jamie Loftus]

Side of the books.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Most of her classes had been focused on her career. Like, they'd been, like, focused on helping salesmen, Right.

[Dr. Phil]

Because that's a big subset of this industry.

[Robert Evans]

She sold insurance and real estate.

[Dr. Phil]

So there'd been conferences to help real estate and insurance salesmen sell better. Box felt that there was a market.

[Robert Evans]

For a seminar focused instead of financial.

[Dr. Phil]

Stuff, on personal growth, on how to.

[Robert Evans]

Actually be a better person. Now, Box had gotten to know Dr. Phil because her son had hired him to renegotiate a bunch of bank loans. She decided Phil was the best negotiator she'd ever seen. Quote, he has a God given gift, a combination of charm and charisma that can mesmerize a room full of people.

[Dr. Phil]

And again, people disagree about a lot of stuff about Dr. Phil.

[Robert Evans]

Nobody disagrees about this part.

[Dr. Phil]

He's apparently just an incredible negotiator.

[Robert Evans]

So she. She decides he's going to be a great frontman for this life improvement seminar.

[Dr. Phil]

She wants to host.

[Robert Evans]

Now, her initial plan had been to lead a success seminar for single women. But McGraw pushed back against this. He didn't want to limit himself to just female customers.

[Dr. Phil]

Instead, the plan that he made was for Bot. Or instead, he was like, we should do like a general, like, life improvement for everybody. Like, come here and I'll. I'll help you deal with whatever things are holding you back in your life.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, that's kind of how Phil innovates the pitch. Now, initially, the plan that Box had.

[Robert Evans]

Fronted was for Box and Phil to be 5050 partners in this venture.

[Dr. Phil]

But right before they started going. Yeah, exactly.

[Robert Evans]

Right before they started going, Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Demanded that he was going to walk.

[Robert Evans]

If she didn't bring his dad in as an equal shareholder.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, bringing daddy into it.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And this, this was an example negotiation tactic from Box. Quote, getting his dad involved would give Phil control. I didn't want to be a minority owner, but he threatened to do the seminars without me.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, since Box was not a doctor.

[Robert Evans]

And she'd already given Phil all of her ideas, she didn't feel like she could do the seminar without him, but he could do it without her.

[Dr. Phil]

So she was kind of in a tight spot here.

[Robert Evans]

So she agreed. She claims that she basically.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, he's the guy. He is.

[Robert Evans]

She claims she built the.

[Dr. Phil]

The.

[Robert Evans]

The curriculum of the program. Program from the ground up, designing most of the games and all of, like, the different, like, worksheets and you had to do.

[Dr. Phil]

And basically, in fairness, like, I don't think Box is a great person.

[Robert Evans]

She's taking all of the information for this from other seminars she attended and.

[Dr. Phil]

Is just modifying them enough to avoiding the grifter.

[Jamie Loftus]

And the grifter never likes that.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, she gets over by Phil, but, like, I don't particularly like her either.

[Jamie Loftus]

So I want to take that negotiation tactic and apply it to the stand up comedy world and apply, like. All right, I know that you're supposed to be featuring for me, but actually my dad is going to be opening now, and so you're actually. So it's going to be my dad. Then you. You'll be doing a shorter set. I will then be doing five hours.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, that's.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, that would be so fun.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I'm excited for that. For you, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

Thank you.

[Dr. Phil]

But you know what isn't exciting?

[Jamie Loftus]

What isn't exciting?

[Robert Evans]

Life without the products and services that support this podcast. Absolutely not even really worth living.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, if we're being frank, what are you even doing without these products and services? What are you. Nothing.

[Jamie Loftus]

Nothing.

[Dr. Phil]

All right, here's ads. We're back. I hope you all spent money, because.

[Robert Evans]

This whole fucking wheel of blood doesn't keep turning if you don't put money into it, people.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, boy.

[Dr. Phil]

You know? Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, that's how it works.

[Jamie Loftus]

Fine.

[Dr. Phil]

Would you want this to fall apart?

[Narrator]

No.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Dr. Phil]

Anyway, so, yeah, the basic idea of these seminars that Box mostly cooks up and Phil is supposed to present is.

[Robert Evans]

To teach people how to find out what they want from life by making them more accountable, by expressing Vulnerability, stripping away self deception. Which all just means, like, making people.

[Dr. Phil]

Cry in a big room surrounded by other people, you know, like, that's the goal.

[Robert Evans]

That's the goal.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah. With no connection to the outside world and gaslight them into believing something that they don't.

[Robert Evans]

Short term cults, which is the kind of cult I'd like to do because.

[Dr. Phil]

It does sound exhausting having to, like, every time I watch my favorite TV show, which is the Waco TV show where they made David Koresh have incredible cum gutters.

[Sophie]

50 minutes, 40 seconds before editing.

[Jamie Loftus]

Good timing.

[Robert Evans]

Before Waco, I just.

[Dr. Phil]

It.

[Robert Evans]

It seems like it's exhausting. Like, we all, all love David Koresh, but my God, the man had to.

[Dr. Phil]

Put in a lot of work just to.

[Robert Evans]

Just to keep a cult going.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, it just doesn't seem worth it.

[Jamie Loftus]

Where to begin with that sentence?

[Dr. Phil]

Short term cults, like, if I could just do like a Ltd. Waco five.

[Robert Evans]

Or six times a year over the.

[Dr. Phil]

Course of like four days, that seems much better.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's like a juicing. Yeah, It's a juicing of the spirit. You're just left, like, you feel like you're better off. You're probably not. It doesn't matter because you can sleep for three days.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Sophie, take out. Take down a podcast idea.

[Robert Evans]

The 40 minute Waco.

[Dr. Phil]

I think we could make a lot of money with it. This. Anyway, back to Dr. Phil. So what made the. This, this seminar thing that he launches.

[Robert Evans]

With Box special is the.

[Dr. Phil]

The group dynamic. Getting 100 or so people together in.

[Robert Evans]

A room crying and sharing stories and.

[Dr. Phil]

Having the kind of addictive, cathartic experiences.

[Robert Evans]

That make seminar hosts rich people. Phil and Box were good at it. And Dr. Phil instantly gained a reputation as a magnetic host. One attendee recalled, quote, his voice was miked and he sounded godlike. I watched powerful men crumble as he questioned them. He knew just the right buttons to push.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, it's not that he's a great psychologist, is that he is an.

[Robert Evans]

Incredibly intuitive man who understands people, which is why he's a good negotiator. He does have a great voice.

[Dr. Phil]

I'll give that to him.

[Jamie Loftus]

He does. Oh, yes.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He knows how to manipulate people. Right. He's a great manipulator in that you.

[Dr. Phil]

Could make a lot of money doing that.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's the most, like, dangerous trait in the world, is understanding people but just not caring what happens to them.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I understand people, but care about.

[Robert Evans]

What happens to them, which is why I tell them to buy machetes. And bolt cutters.

[Dr. Phil]

And you're anti personnel mines. Yes, definitely saving lives. By the way, when you're ordering your.

[Robert Evans]

Claymore anti personnel line, use promo code bastards for 15% off if you buy.

[Dr. Phil]

Four or more Claymore.

[Robert Evans]

Fuck anyone in front of you.

[Dr. Phil]

What?

[Robert Evans]

No. Sophie?

[Sophie]

Robert?

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil. Okay, yeah. So this seminar series was called Pathways, and it became hugely popular for a while.

[Robert Evans]

They were making fucking bank. And the whole process of doing this awoke in Phil, or at least accelerated, a deep desire to get on tv. He started pushing for his own talk talk show. Schmoozing with a Hollywood producer who made the mistake of attending one of his seminars. Phil succeeded in talking said producer into filming a pilot episode of a show where three people went through Dr. Phil's training and told their stories of, like.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, how it had helped them. The show sounds incredibly boring, and clearly it was not picked up now.

[Robert Evans]

Over his years with pathways, McGraw developed into a talented showman. One of his co workers, David Dickinson, later recalled, once he got in front of the room, it didn't take long to feel the power. He loved being godlike and worshiped. The only reason it didn't become a.

[Dr. Phil]

Cult is because Thelma wouldn't let it. Yeah. Wow.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay. He really does sound like Chaos Frasier.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, Chaos Frasier. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Dr. Phil was on Frasier. For all you Frasier heads, Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, God, you're right. He was the show.

[Jamie Loftus]

The episode the Devil and Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, the thing is, if you.

[Robert Evans]

Actually, Frasier was a big show for.

[Dr. Phil]

My family girl growing up. And so, like, while my mom was. Was dying, we watched a lot of episodes because, you know, there wasn't a.

[Robert Evans]

Lot that she could do.

[Dr. Phil]

And it was kind of a thing that was nostalgic for all of us.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. But one of the through lines of the series is that Frasier's not a good psychologist.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, not a good psychiatrist. Like, he's bad. Like, that's why he's on the radio.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, He's a bit of a grifter, too.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Niles is supposed to be good. Yeah, yeah. Niles is competent, although problematic. Definitely some stalking behavior from Niles.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, yes. Niles is also canceled. But.

[Dr. Phil]

But nobody on that show is a good person. But John Mahoney, the only good cop. Frazier's dad.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's absolutely true. And not even. Not even Eddie is safe from.

[Robert Evans]

No, no. From cancellation.

[Dr. Phil]

And honestly, not a good. A cop. John Mahoney admits to lying on the stand in order to get a man incarcerated during an episode of Frasier. It's just like an offside comment.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, he absolutely does.

[Dr. Phil]

He's just such a damn charismatic actor. I can't stay mad at the man. So by the late 1980s, Pathways had.

[Robert Evans]

Moved to Dallas, where each year more than a thousand people would pay $1,000 each to attend a single weekend event with McGraw. That's a million bucks in a weekend.

[Dr. Phil]

So she.

[Robert Evans]

Again, great money in this.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. So Dr. Phil is. I don't know if he's a millionaire.

[Robert Evans]

At this point, but he is well.

[Dr. Phil]

Off at this point. Now he unfortunately, like, his dad is involved in the whole thing.

[Robert Evans]

And Dr. Phil never had a great relationship with his father. I think he was just kind of using him to get control of the thing. But, like, he and his dad don't get along. They're both egomaniacs. And to make matters worse, the older Dr. McGraw was basically just kind of.

[Dr. Phil]

Like their to cash a check. Like, when he would show up on stage, you'd be like, erratic and kind of say nonsense and not really help the business at all.

[Jamie Loftus]

Worse than nothing.

[Dr. Phil]

Worse than nothing.

[Robert Evans]

The two men started to hate each other, which a number, number of employees noted as somewhat hypocritical.

[Dr. Phil]

Quote, come on.

[Robert Evans]

Here is a guy who was running a relationship seminar and he doesn't speak to his own father in the training room.

[Dr. Phil]

For years, he didn't walk his own talk.

[Robert Evans]

That is a fair hypocritical criticism.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's hilarious, though.

[Robert Evans]

And while Dr. Phil's relationship with his.

[Dr. Phil]

Dad kind of went to shit, his.

[Robert Evans]

Relationship with Thelma Box, who had founded the program that made him rich and.

[Dr. Phil]

Developed its curriculum, got even worse.

[Robert Evans]

The Dallas observer writes, quote, though McGraw and Box were partners for more than seven years and friends for more than a dozen, his treatment of her didn't seem much better. On November 16, 1992, Box received a faxed memo from McGraw informing her that he had made a tentative deal to sell his interest in Pathways to Midland philanthropist Steve Davidson. McGraw was ready to move on, his father ready to retire. That's why his father had sold his one third interest, the memo informed her, to a Wichita Falls businessman. Of course, the new partners, quote, understand yours and my relationship and know that I am committed to you as a friend and associate and expect fair treatment. Basically, he sold me down the river, says Box, who recalls having heated discussions with McGraw about either selling. Selling her own Pathways interest or buying him out. In the two weeks prior to the memo, Phil and I hadn't been getting along. He stopped talking to me, and I.

[Dr. Phil]

Knew we couldn't Go on that way.

[Robert Evans]

What he had neglected to tell her, she says, is that he had engineered this corporate takeover scheme by actually selling his interest. More than a year earlier, on October 15, 1991, he signed an agreement for.

[Dr. Phil]

His sale of Path for the sale.

[Robert Evans]

Of his pathway stock for $325,000. I absolutely told her I was selling, McGraw says. What she didn't like was who I was selling to. Now you can take whoever's word you want on this, but the author of that article was giving a memo, was given a memo that McGraw sent to the buyer of his stock in which he agreed, the buyer agreed that the sale would be kept confident, confidential from everyone, including Box.

[Dr. Phil]

So I'm going to go ahead and.

[Robert Evans]

Say that Phil is the liar here.

[Dr. Phil]

He basically knew, like he wanted to.

[Robert Evans]

Sell out early when his stuff was worth more than hers would be.

[Dr. Phil]

Like with, with only a third of it left her. Like she's not going to get as much money for it. And he lies.

[Robert Evans]

She keeps. She's trying to buy it from him for a year after he's already sold it and he's just stonewalling her.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, yeah, it's a shitty way to treat a business partner.

[Jamie Loftus]

It absolutely is. Yeah, it's like it's hard to care about anyone involved in this, this whole situation. But he does sound like the party who wronged her.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And he acknowledges that the material from his first best selling book was basically lifted entirely from the Pathways curriculum. But he has never acknowledged that Thelma.

[Dr. Phil]

Box actually wrote the curriculum he based.

[Robert Evans]

His best selling book on.

[Dr. Phil]

So.

[Jamie Loftus]

And they definitely didn't mention whoever Thelma Box stole it from. So.

[Dr. Phil]

No, no. And that again, that's the thing, like, right. The point is that he is a con man. Not that she is particularly a victim here, you know, like, I don't care about thelma box. In 1989, Dr. Phil was living and working in Wichita. He keeps keeps going back to fucking.

[Robert Evans]

Kansas, enjoying his Pathways money and working as a psychologist. One of his patients was a young woman who he started and maintained a quote, inappropriate dual relationship with.

[Dr. Phil]

Again, that means, yeah, he is her. He is her doctor and he is fucking her.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, don't fuck your doctor. Come on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, shouldn't be doing that with the patient you're providing psychiatric care to.

[Jamie Loftus]

Definitely don't kind of a.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, but also don't fuck your doctor. He then made the relationship even more inappropriate when he hired her part time while she was still his patient and.

[Dr. Phil]

Lover, which is so many conflicts of interest.

[Robert Evans]

No, that Is you gotta give the.

[Dr. Phil]

Man credit for really going out of his way to do the most unethical version of that thing he could.

[Jamie Loftus]

Like you're right, Robert, I do. Gotta hand it to me.

[Dr. Phil]

Critical support to Dr. Phil for managing the fucking.

[Robert Evans]

The fucking.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know, what do you. The trifecta? I guess I will.

[Jamie Loftus]

My spirit is worn down. I'll hand it to him.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil considers this transgression to just have been a misdemeanor.

[Dr. Phil]

But the journalist from the doubt behind the.

[Robert Evans]

The journalist who wrote that Dallas observer article looked into the situation. He found the woman Dr. Phil had the relationship with. And he found out a lot more besides.

[Dr. Phil]

And it's pretty fucking sketchy.

[Robert Evans]

Quote. In 1984, she was a college student returning home after her sophomore year, depressed, lonely and suicidal. I was emotionally abused as a child, she says, and suffered from low self esteem. When McGraw began treating her, she says he became fully involved in her life, demanding to know with whom she spoke when she went to bed at night, what she did that day, if I was depressed or anxious. His first question was, why didn't you call me? Every time I felt bad, he insisted only he could fix me.

[Dr. Phil]

When she wanted to spend the following.

[Robert Evans]

Summer working for a professor at the Houston University she was attending, he persuaded her to work in his biofeedback lab in Wichita Falls. He kept me totally dependent on him, she says.

[Dr. Phil]

So that's textbook abuse. Like, that's just like literally textbook abuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It couldn't be clearer.

[Sophie]

Hate it. Hate it so much.

[Jamie Loftus]

On so many levels, too. Like on multiple levels. God, that's fucking terrible.

[Dr. Phil]

It's really bad. It's really. He's a bad person, Jamie. He's just a real bad person.

[Jamie Loftus]

He's your employer. Like hell.

[Dr. Phil]

Not to be like, complimenting Dr. Oz.

[Robert Evans]

But by this point in the Dr.

[Dr. Phil]

Oz story, he's performed thousands of open heart surgeries.

[Robert Evans]

Again, Dr. Phil, they're both grifters. Dr. Phil never does a single good.

[Dr. Phil]

Thing, like, to even the scales at all. He's just a monster, right? And you get the feeling, Dr. Oz, I have never heard a complaint that.

[Robert Evans]

He'S abusive in his personal relationships.

[Dr. Phil]

People mostly.

[Robert Evans]

I've heard reports that he's kind of a narcissist, but I've never heard that.

[Dr. Phil]

He's like a monster. Dr. Phil's a monster, you know?

[Jamie Loftus]

Make a fan cam of him already.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know, I'm just. He's a useful.

[Robert Evans]

He's a useful comparison.

[Dr. Phil]

I just really hate Dr. Phil.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

So the formal complaint this woman filed led to a decision from the psychology.

[Dr. Phil]

Board that Dr. Phil's practice would have.

[Robert Evans]

To be supervised for a year.

[Dr. Phil]

Before that time came up, he quit.

[Robert Evans]

His practice and moved to Dallas to.

[Dr. Phil]

Start a new company, Courtroom Sciences Incorporated.

[Robert Evans]

Or csi, with his neighbor from Wichita. His job was basically to use his psychology knowledge to help lawyers pick jurors. He loved the work, particularly the adrenaline that came from the high stakes of a court case. Dr. Phil's company was a hit, and his clients soon included every major airline on Earth, three TV networks, and dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Before long, it came to include Oprah Winfrey.

[Sophie]

God damn it, Oprah.

[Dr. Phil]

No. Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, like, you know, it's coming, but, you know it's coming longer. Why? Oprah and airlines?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, the two.

[Robert Evans]

The two sacred things in our society.

[Dr. Phil]

Oprah and the airlines.

[Jamie Loftus]

I want to know. Every single time Oprah comes into the discussion, I. I am like, where was Steadman on all of this? Where does he.

[Robert Evans]

Because, Steadman, what were you doing?

[Jamie Loftus]

Stedman were. Because Steadman writes books that are alleging to be about something, but are actually about nothing. But he's. But he's nice, so I don't care. Yeah, I hope that Stedman was like, something's not right, Oprah. And she was like, I'm not listening to you, Stedman. I'm assuming that's how their relationship works.

[Dr. Phil]

She was like, I'm going to make so much money.

[Robert Evans]

An outrageous amount of money. Stedman, quiet. We're getting a. I will be able to clone you when you die, Steadman. That's how much money I'm gonna make off this.

[Jamie Loftus]

Maybe that's what sold him. I used to do little fan drawings of Stedman Graham and the Barefoot Contessa's husband hanging out.

[Dr. Phil]

That's very unsettling, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

They would just be like sharing an umbrella.

[Robert Evans]

Anyways, so Oprah had made the questionable.

[Dr. Phil]

Decision to do an episode of her.

[Robert Evans]

Show on the dangers of disease in the American beef supply. A bunch of Texas cattlemen sued her.

[Dr. Phil]

For fraud, defamation, and, you know, just hurting their businesses. Now, I have no idea who's in the right here, and I really don't care.

[Robert Evans]

The case looked like to be going badly for Oprah until she brought in Dr. Phil to be a part of her trial team. He instantly recognized her as someone he could make money off of, and he set to work charming her. Phil did his job. He coached her and the defense team and how to respond under questioning, and he won Oprah's adoration.

[Dr. Phil]

And to his credit, it seems like.

[Robert Evans]

He did a good job, because she was exonerated.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, wow.

[Robert Evans]

And after the case ended in her favor, she did a verdict episode of her show from Amarillo, Texas, where for the first time, she introduced Dr. Phil McGraw to a national audience. She called him one of the smartest men in the world. She was so impressed that she added.

[Dr. Phil]

That he was this, like, literally the.

[Robert Evans]

Most intelligent man she'd met in her 12th years of talking to medical experts. She said she wanted to share his.

[Dr. Phil]

Brilliance with the world.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, this hyperbole is gonna get you.

[Dr. Phil]

And we are.

[Robert Evans]

We are going to talk about where.

[Dr. Phil]

This hyperbole gets all of us in part two of our epic series, Dr. Phil. What a. What a dick.

[Jamie Loftus]

What? Is that the subtitle of this?

[Dr. Phil]

Yep. Perfect. Fucking A Dr. Phil.

[Andrew T.]

Come on.

[Dr. Phil]

You're a dick.

[Jamie Loftus]

Could you not?

[Dr. Phil]

Could you not? Could you just go back to football? I feel like one more head injury.

[Robert Evans]

Could really solve a lot of our.

[Dr. Phil]

Problems as a country.

[Jamie Loftus]

Thing is like that every single time. You're like, well, God damn. I bet that if this whole football thing had gone different, the world would be a lot less Dr. Phil.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I don't even necessarily want his.

[Robert Evans]

Football career to have gone well.

[Dr. Phil]

If he just gotten hit 20% harder, you know, that would. Would have been enough for me.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay. Okay. You know what? I see your point of view.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Anyway, Jamie, you got any pluggables you want to drop?

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, just the usuals. You can listen to Beckville Cast Lolita podcast and My Urine Mensah on iheartradio. And then I have a new podcast coming up about Kathy Comics in June that Sophie is producing. I'm excited.

[Robert Evans]

Check out Jamie's Erotic Kathy podcast.

[Dr. Phil]

I assume it's erotic, is that correct?

[Jamie Loftus]

No, I mean, it's very. You know what? I wish that Kathy was having a lot of sex, but you can't do that in the newspapers. Not then.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, it doesn't.

[Robert Evans]

She doesn't need to be having sex for the podcast about Kathy to just be like.

[Dr. Phil]

The fundamental.

[Robert Evans]

The fundamental eros of Kathy is so overwhelming, you know? Yeah, you just.

[Dr. Phil]

You just hear that last name, Gus White, and there's still time. There's still time. I'll let her know, but fix it in post.

[Jamie Loftus]

Going to be an erotic podcast.

[Dr. Phil]

Can you make it hornier, Kathy? Just like 12%. Anyway, I hope the rest of you have a day that's 12% hornier. We'll be back Thursday. Foreign.

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[Robert Evans]

And your number with you.

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So ditch overpriced wire wireless with Mint Mobile. It's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. Switch to Mint and new customers can get half off an unlimited plan until February 2nd. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com behind that's mintmobile.com behind $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabits on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Narrator]

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father.

[Dr. Phil]

He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door.

[Narrator]

But he was leading a double life.

[Robert Evans]

He was certainly a peeping Tom looking.

[Dr. Phil]

Through looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses.

[Sophie]

He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught.

[Dr. Phil]

He felt very powerful.

[Narrator]

He was a monster hiding in plain sight.

[Dr. Phil]

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen Here.

[Narrator]

Journey inside the mind of one of his most notorious killers. Btk through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jamie Loftus]

Welcome.

[Maria Tremarke]

To the Criminalia podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke and.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme. Everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.

[Narrator]

We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.

[Maria Tremarke]

We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.

[Narrator]

And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.

[Maria Tremarke]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Phil]

Hello, this is behind the Bastards. A podcast that, remember, you just sounded.

[Jamie Loftus]

Like a haunted house.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I, I don't know. I never come into this show with a plan. Like, I write 10,000 words a week to do this show and then I, I, I consistently just completely, completely the introductions.

[Jamie Loftus]

I think it's nice. I think it's, I think it's fun. Brand, consistency. That's, that's our Robert.

[Dr. Phil]

People are thinking, that's our Robert. It's, you know, it's easy to be.

[Robert Evans]

Have a consistent brand when your brand.

[Dr. Phil]

Is being like, like brain damaged drug addict who is incapable of doing anything but writing long essays about bad people.

[Robert Evans]

Simple brand.

[Jamie Loftus]

I think that's, you're being reductive. But also when people hear you say things like that about theirselves or about yourself, they go, that's our Robert.

[Sophie]

I go, oh, my son. So, so pure, so humble.

[Dr. Phil]

Mm.

[Robert Evans]

So probably shouldn't be trusted with large machinery anyway.

[Jamie Loftus]

Definitely not.

[Robert Evans]

You know who else shouldn't be trusted.

[Dr. Phil]

With large machinery because, because of the horrible head injury. Dr. Phil.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, okay. I thought that was you introducing me. I was like, this is really mean.

[Dr. Phil]

No, you're Jamie.

[Robert Evans]

I would trust you with heavy machinery.

[Dr. Phil]

Although you don't have a driver's license, do you?

[Jamie Loftus]

I don't have a driver's license, but it hasn't stopped me from driving.

[Sophie]

Hell.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, good for you, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

I could probably get a, I get like, I'm like, I could probably get a driver's license if I really wanted to. I just don't want To. That's not true. I've failed the test several times.

[Robert Evans]

The key thing about Cops, Jamie, and this is some free advice for all.

[Dr. Phil]

Of you out there, they're never ready.

[Robert Evans]

For you to just tuck and roll.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, like if they.

[Robert Evans]

As long as you're driving a cheap car, if they start to pull you.

[Dr. Phil]

Over, just tuck and roll and then fucking book it.

[Robert Evans]

Like, I guarantee you they will not be ready.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, I like it.

[Robert Evans]

They're just not going to be ready.

[Dr. Phil]

And, and anyway, we should probably talk about Dr. Phil some, huh? Sure, yeah, let's do it. Probably chill out with our fill out.

[Jamie Loftus]

I need to go, actually.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay, that's fair.

[Jamie Loftus]

What if I just logged out of the zoo?

[Robert Evans]

This has been the final episode of behind the Bastards.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm so sorry.

[Jamie Loftus]

All right, yeah, let's chill out with our fill out.

[Dr. Phil]

Just a big old pudgy, pudgy, bald headed Phil just flopping around. Yeah.

[Sophie]

With a nice moustach.

[Dr. Phil]

Flopping around like a, like a skink on a hot rock. Okay.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

Later that year, so Dr. Phil helps Oprah out and, and like saves her, saves her bacon and she brings him on her show and does her like verdict episode. She was getting like sued for a lot of money and defamation and shit. Like it was potentially something that would have really did damaged her, her, her bottom line.

[Jamie Loftus]

I was like, I don't know this lingo. Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

So Dr. Phil later that year would become a regular part of her show. And this was part of a pivot.

[Robert Evans]

In Oprah's show where she went from.

[Dr. Phil]

Like doing a normal talk show to.

[Robert Evans]

What she called Change youe Life tv.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The goal of Change youe Life TV was to take the experience people had in Phil's seminars. The very public crowd influenced catharsis of emotional change and put that shit on.

[Dr. Phil]

Television for everybody to watch.

[Robert Evans]

Mostly this involved Dr. Phil confronting people aggressively about their flaws. So they would cry and say they learned something.

[Dr. Phil]

Quote, this is Dr. Phil explaining his methodology.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. In order for people to change, there has to be a dramatic event. I think coming on the Oprah show as an event in itself is a.

[Dr. Phil]

Watershed occurrence in people's lives. They get told the bottom line, truth.

[Robert Evans]

About where they are.

[Dr. Phil]

And in that environment, I don't think they, they will ever forget it. If you embarrass people on national television, they remember.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, that's, you know, that's not untrue.

[Dr. Phil]

That's not untrue.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, okay.

[Robert Evans]

Accurate Dr. Phil. Accurate.

[Jamie Loftus]

Jesus. Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

So, so he's really like heading into the villain years.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, he's solid.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, he's been in villain years territory this whole time. Right.

[Robert Evans]

So On Oprah's show, Dr. Phil focused.

[Dr. Phil]

On clients whose problems were fit.

[Robert Evans]

Things he could justify yelling about to.

[Dr. Phil]

Them or yelling at them for.

[Robert Evans]

One early case was a husband who.

[Dr. Phil]

Was verbally abusive to his wife, calling her obscene names.

[Robert Evans]

Phil could not just condemn the man, but he, like, didn't just condemn the man. He made the man's wife tearfully recount everything he said to her on tv. Tv.

[Dr. Phil]

So, like, he's yelling at this guy.

[Robert Evans]

For being a dick, but he's also.

[Dr. Phil]

Demanding that this woman, like, in detail.

[Robert Evans]

Explain every horrible thing her husband said.

[Dr. Phil]

About her to millions of strangers.

[Jamie Loftus]

Right. Like the classic air out. The worst thing that's ever happened.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Ratings for someone else, which I don't think is great. You know, I don't think that's great behavior would be my. My take on it. Not a psychologist, but Phil isn't really a psychologist, just either. So Phil then, after making this woman laboriously explain the horrible things her husband.

[Robert Evans]

Said to her, got to help provide some of his own homespun wisdom. In this case, he told the wife, you taught him how to treat you.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, this is a variation of one of Dr. Phil's life laws for people.

[Robert Evans]

To follow, which he published in his.

[Dr. Phil]

Plagiarized, bestselling book, Life Strategies.

[Robert Evans]

Quote, no, we teach. Teach people how to treat us own rather than complain about how people treat us.

[Jamie Loftus]

My mom has a book, Robert.

[Dr. Phil]

Did she blame herself for people being.

[Jamie Loftus]

Shitty to her for until about 2008?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, that's good.

[Jamie Loftus]

Life Strategies, Self Matters, The Ultimate Weight Solution.

[Robert Evans]

God, I hate all of his titles.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, we had the relationship rescue. We had that. It wasn't on the main show, but it was in the house.

[Robert Evans]

It was in the house.

[Dr. Phil]

It was somewhere up in there. Yeah, well, I don't know. Did it rescue your relationships?

[Jamie Loftus]

Absolutely not. I think what we got, we got more out of John Edwards. Do you remember him? Or John Edwards?

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, yeah, the talk to the dead guy.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, the one who would, like, record people in the audience talking about the dead people they wanted to hear from and then walking out and being like, aha, I know, exactly. Yeah. That was a fun grift. I mean, also. But also a traumatizing one. They're all traumatizing.

[Robert Evans]

They are all traumatizing grifts. That's what makes them so satisfying.

[Jamie Loftus]

Wow.

[Dr. Phil]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

We all learned a lesson, didn't we?

[Dr. Phil]

No, no, we Didn't.

[Jamie Loftus]

So what's he up to? What's he doing?

[Dr. Phil]

All right, so, Dr. Fucking Phil. So I want to talk a little bit more about these life laws that he lays out in his first book.

[Robert Evans]

Because this is a major reoccurring theme.

[Dr. Phil]

Especially in Earth Dr. Phil, like people will, he'll.

[Robert Evans]

He'll critique people by explaining which life law they violated.

[Dr. Phil]

Like the one where you're responsible for other people treating you shitty because we teach people how to treat us, which.

[Robert Evans]

Is like an inversion of the truth.

[Dr. Phil]

Which is that if you're like abusers and predators are good at spotting your vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them, right?

[Robert Evans]

And so you need to be aware.

[Dr. Phil]

Of your own vulnerabilities because you need to be aware of how dangerous people might take advantage of you. That's the non toxic way of framing that. The toxic way is, hey, you taught him to be like that.

[Robert Evans]

Like, no, you didn't.

[Dr. Phil]

He saw that you had this vulnerability and he took advantage of it. That's a fair way to put it.

[Jamie Loftus]

Abusive tactics in the book. Like, well, actually it was your fault and if you weren't so weak, this wouldn't have happened to you. And it's like, oh, go fuck off and die.

[Dr. Phil]

I want to try this logic with like crimes, like the next time I'm.

[Robert Evans]

Caught speeding, like, look, officer, you taught.

[Dr. Phil]

Me how to drive, drive this car that way. Like by, by having the road be.

[Robert Evans]

This straight and me be this drunk. You kind of taught me to speed.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, I will say that every time I try to teach my dog something that is a some that it's a very low stakes version of that. They're like, well, didn't you teach him? He get cuckoo on your floor when you don't feel like standing up. And I was like, yes, I guess I did.

[Robert Evans]

Christ in heaven.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay, okay. So here's how he introduces the concept.

[Robert Evans]

Of life laws in his book. Life laws are the rules of the game. No one is going to ask you.

[Dr. Phil]

If you think these laws are fair.

[Robert Evans]

Or if you think they should exist like the law of gravity. They simply are.

[Dr. Phil]

You don't get a vote.

[Robert Evans]

You can ignore them and stumble along wondering why you never seem to succeed, or you can learn them, adapt to them, mold your choices and behavior to them and live effectively. Learning these life laws is at the absolute core of what you must master in this book to have the essential knowledge for a personal life strategy.

[Jamie Loftus]

What kind of. He went from zero to being like my laws, much like the law of gravity. That Is like that is galaxy brain that are as unavoidable and as unchanging.

[Dr. Phil]

Is the tide as gravity.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh, God. You got, you have to appreciate the flagrancy on, on display there, G. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

It'S, you know, it's good, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's like you being abused, being your fault. To me, that's gravity. It's like, oh, I want to put you through a shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Wow.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that would be fun. And I think we could probably get a pretty good primetime TV audience if.

[Robert Evans]

We actually did that.

[Dr. Phil]

Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

If someone put Dr. Phil through a gigantic shredder.

[Robert Evans]

If we just put him through a shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Who would watch like that scene in Fargo.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's kind of like that's where his story is building towards.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, fuck. We get Steve Buscemi in to present. That's a hour of TV right there.

[Jamie Loftus]

There you go, There you go. And I'm sure he'd be happy to do it.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm sure he would. Now I bet, Jamie, you're hungry for.

[Robert Evans]

Some more of Dr. Phil's life laws.

[Dr. Phil]

I can see it in your eyes.

[Robert Evans]

You're.

[Dr. Phil]

You're just, you're just, you're just.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dr. Phil]

So most of these laws are pretty self explanatory stuff like life rewards action and you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. My favorite is people do what works.

[Robert Evans]

Which boils down to the idea that we engage in bad behavior because it.

[Dr. Phil]

Rewards us in some way. So Dr. Phil says, if you want.

[Robert Evans]

To stop the behavior, stop rewarding yourself for it. Which makes sense until you think about.

[Dr. Phil]

The way, say heroin or junk food works because you can't stop it from.

[Robert Evans]

The reward is the thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

Like these are also so manipulatively worded. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Next time you take heroin, punch yourself.

[Dr. Phil]

In the dick so you don't enjoy it as much.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

How do you, like, statistically, most of.

[Dr. Phil]

The kind of people who want advice from are gonna be dealing with something like weight loss.

[Robert Evans]

And it's like, no, the reward is eating food.

[Dr. Phil]

Like that's, that strategy isn't going to help.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, it's so frustrating too, because it's like the way they're worded is so deliberate that it's like, oh, I understand, understand why people fell for this too.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just all, it's just very, very transparent nonsense for the most part. Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's words in a certain sequence and charging you, you know, $18.95 for a hardcover.

[Robert Evans]

You gotta give the man Credit.

[Dr. Phil]

It is words in a sequence that is undeniable.

[Robert Evans]

That.

[Jamie Loftus]

Dr. Phil, that was a sentence.

[Robert Evans]

That. That's a. The man uses sentences, you know, you.

[Dr. Phil]

Gotta give that to him.

[Robert Evans]

You can't take that from him.

[Dr. Phil]

So. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Some of his rules are, however, a little more sinister. Probably the worst. Well, one of the worst is.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know, there's a lot of worsts. One is you create your own experiences. Here's how he explains that. 1.

[Robert Evans]

Don't play the role of victim or use past events to build excuses. It guarantees you no progress, no healing. Healing and no victory. You will never fix a problem by blaming someone else.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's first of all not true. And that's just like. I mean, yeah, he's just clearly not even good at the job. He's getting famous for saying he's good at. That's so backwards.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's. It's.

[Jamie Loftus]

I mean, he sounds like a fucking Catholic priest. He's like, oh, push your emotions down, okay.

[Robert Evans]

It's just such bad. It's particularly all bad advice for, like, abuse victims. Because if you're in a abuse victim.

[Dr. Phil]

In a lot of cases, part of.

[Robert Evans]

The healing process is realizing that your abuser is the person to blame and.

[Dr. Phil]

That all these things they got you.

[Robert Evans]

To blame yourself for aren't things you did wrong.

[Dr. Phil]

And that they like that.

[Robert Evans]

That's a big part of healing from.

[Dr. Phil]

That sort of thing. And he's just like, no, no, no. Don't be blaming this guy just because he was beating you.

[Robert Evans]

Maybe you didn't do the laundry right.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, maybe you should have got him his beer faster. I'm Dr. Phil. I'm a doctor. You know, like, God damn it. I really don't like this guy. Yeah. I also want to read you the we said earlier.

[Robert Evans]

One of his rules is we teach people how to treat us. But the actual wording in the book of how he explains that is even.

[Dr. Phil]

Creepier than you might guess.

[Robert Evans]

Quote, you either teach people to treat you with dignity and respect or you don't. This means you are partly responsible for the mistreatment that you get at the.

[Dr. Phil]

Hands of someone else.

[Robert Evans]

You shape others behavior when you teach.

[Dr. Phil]

Them what they can get away with and what they cannot.

[Jamie Loftus]

This is like, oh, God. You're just like, oh, God. Okay, so what did you do that you need to believe this in order to live with yourself?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Right?

[Robert Evans]

Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, he's. He's really a bad person.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't like him.

[Jamie Loftus]

Wow. It was next to. I like, clearly remember it being next to my mom's bed.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, like, you know, it's the good book. Gotta keep it close to you.

[Jamie Loftus]

We didn't own the Bible. We owned Life Strategies, the John Edward book, and that other one by that guy who said he could talk to dead people. I forget who it was.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, John Edwards.

[Dr. Phil]

There's a lot of dead people talking to him.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

So despite the fundamental emptiness of Phil's.

[Robert Evans]

Philosophy, or perhaps because of it, Dr. Phil became a wild success.

[Dr. Phil]

His first episode ran in 2002 of.

[Robert Evans]

The Dr. Phil Show.

[Dr. Phil]

Like he spun off pretty quickly and.

[Robert Evans]

He'S been on the air ever since. He instinctively knew that the real money in this sort of TV was leaning in towards, towards the most tragic and risque stories. Drug addiction, spousal abuse, troubled teens, all that good. He was happy to throw medical best.

[Dr. Phil]

Practices out the window.

[Robert Evans]

In 2004, he interviewed a nine year old boy whose parents said he was being abusive towards his younger sister. Dr. Phil said the child had nine of the 14 characteristics of a serial killer.

[Dr. Phil]

Then he added, Jeffrey Dahmer had seven.

[Sophie]

Jesus.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh my God. That is a very well crafted insult. That's beautiful.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's, it's like so any reputable psychologist or psychiatrist will tell you that.

[Robert Evans]

One thing you can't do, as in, like it's forbidden in the discipline, is to diagnose a child as a psychopath.

[Dr. Phil]

You, you're not allowed to do that because, because their children, their brains are.

[Robert Evans]

Developing and shackling a child with that.

[Dr. Phil]

Diagnosis is incredibly unethical.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil did it on national television.

[Jamie Loftus]

He isn't he still doing it on national television?

[Robert Evans]

I mean.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes, yes, yes. He does this all the fucking time. Yes, yes. From a write up by Buzzfeed, quote.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil purports to be a mental health professional, but he's diagnosing from videotape on the air, said then executive director of the national alliance on Mental Illness, Michael Fitzpatrick Patrick to the Washington post.

[Dr. Phil]

In a 2004 story about Dr. Phil's bad psychotherapy.

[Robert Evans]

It's unethical to do that sort of.

[Dr. Phil]

If you will, pop psychology.

[Robert Evans]

You don't do that for ratings. This is a human being. A spokesperson for Dr. Phil at the time said that McGraw never labeled the child as mentally ill, which is technically true.

[Dr. Phil]

He merely brought up Jeffrey Dahmer.

[Robert Evans]

So there you go.

[Jamie Loftus]

This is like just next level.

[Dr. Phil]

It's.

[Jamie Loftus]

And it, it all rings like semi familiar. It is kind of like interesting to think about how, how used to, as a culture, how used to we are of like Dr. Phil saying the most fucked up thing he can possibly think of at a child because he's been doing it for 25 years.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I love how from the beginning.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, I was like, oh, that wasn't an escalation. It was just always that.

[Dr. Phil]

No, people have been complaining about Dr. Phil in this way from the very.

[Robert Evans]

Beginning of his career. And it is never made a difference.

[Dr. Phil]

For a single second.

[Jamie Loftus]

And it's never made him less money. It doesn't seem like this is so fucking bleak.

[Robert Evans]

I think it's just made him more.

[Dr. Phil]

Money, which is good.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, he picked a good life strategy.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, he's got more money than I do, so.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil stopped renewing his license to.

[Dr. Phil]

Practice as a psychologist in 2006.

[Robert Evans]

He has never held a valid license.

[Dr. Phil]

In California where his show is filmed.

[Robert Evans]

A spokesperson for his show show confirmed that he stopped renewing his license because he, quote, no longer worked as a.

[Dr. Phil]

Therapist, which I don't disagree with, but I would argue he is absolutely marketing.

[Robert Evans]

Himself as a therapist and is still.

[Dr. Phil]

In the business of therapy.

[Jamie Loftus]

He's presenting himself as someone who has a license.

[Robert Evans]

He for sure is. And he's not just still doing therapy on his show.

[Dr. Phil]

He is selling products to companies that.

[Robert Evans]

Make their whole all of their money.

[Dr. Phil]

From doing, doing therapy like he.

[Robert Evans]

I'll get into that now. A Stat news Boston Globe investigation several years ago revealed that Dr. Phil and his son, some dude named Jay, started a business called Dr. Phil's Path to Recovery in the late aughts. This was a virtual reality addiction recovery.

[Dr. Phil]

Program where a VR Dr. Phil would.

[Robert Evans]

Walk you through exercises to help you get and stay sober.

[Dr. Phil]

From buzzfeed quote, Users don virtual reality.

[Robert Evans]

Goggles and are placed in scenarios with Dr. Phil. In one, McGraw sits at a bar, arms folded across his chest, counseling his visitor on how to avoid the triggers of an evening out when alcohol is present. In another scene, he reclines in jeans on the backyard patio of his sprawling estate, sparkling pool and fuchsia flowers behind him and a wide blue sky above.

[Dr. Phil]

And shares coping strategies.

[Robert Evans]

You'll leave these sessions feeling as though you just had an eye opening and insightful conversation about your life with Dr. Phil. The path to Recovery website promises the product is described as the culmination of more than four decades of experience Dr. Phil has working in the mental health profession and addiction recovery.

[Dr. Phil]

So that sounds helpful.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's. Yeah, that would thank you for that clarifying statement.

[Dr. Phil]

Now obviously there's absolutely no evidence that.

[Robert Evans]

This program helps with addiction in any way.

[Dr. Phil]

A disclaimer on the website says that.

[Robert Evans]

It is, quote, solely for general information purposes. Purposes and is, quote, not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical.

[Dr. Phil]

Health, mental or psychological problem or condition.

[Jamie Loftus]

The worst kind of person. The worst kind of person. Because now he's just outright targeting the most vulnerable people he can. It's like it was. I didn't care when he was targeting other grifters.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And he's not even doing it in a situation where they can choose to be grifted by him. Because by the time they're in addiction.

[Dr. Phil]

Recovery, like, they're already paying.

[Robert Evans]

They probably don't even know that this fucking thing is there.

[Dr. Phil]

Right? Yeah. Now, despite the fact that there's no evidence that this thing helps in any.

[Robert Evans]

Way, a number of addiction recovery programs purchased Path to recovery to use.

[Dr. Phil]

You want to guess why they bought it?

[Jamie Loftus]

Why?

[Dr. Phil]

Because Dr. Phil gave them free advertising on their show if they bought it.

[Jamie Loftus]

No, He's a business boy.

[Dr. Phil]

He's a business boy.

[Jamie Loftus]

He's really good business boy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Dr. Phil offered addiction treatment centers free.

[Robert Evans]

Endorsements on both the Dr. Phil show.

[Dr. Phil]

And his spin off series the Doctors.

[Robert Evans]

If they first bought his program. Buzzfeed managed to get a hold of audio of one of these pitch sessions where McGraw salesman told a customer, quote.

[Dr. Phil]

Our job is to get your phones.

[Robert Evans]

To ring and the admissions hopefully follow. He bragged that Dr. Phil's viewers were older, high income people, not the addict calling.

[Dr. Phil]

Because I told my mom I'd do it.

[Sophie]

Oh, my fucking God.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, so we've arrived at cartoon villainy.

[Robert Evans]

We sure have, Jamie Loftus.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, right. We sure as shit have.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, well, what would. Does Oprah ever. Because they forget. Because over the years, Oprah has endorsed a number of questionable people and sometimes.

[Sophie]

Shout out John of God and shout.

[Jamie Loftus]

Out what's his name who wrote A Million Little Pieces.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Jonathan Frey. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

She's had to, like, apologize. Apologize for having endorsed a lot of fucked up people over the years. Has that. That moment has never happened for Dr. Phil.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Jamie Loftus]

She's never backed off. Did she ever back off from him at any point?

[Dr. Phil]

No, no, no, no, no. They're still deeply tied together. Why would she ever back off on him?

[Jamie Loftus]

I guess that's true. God.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Jamie Loftus]

Dead man. How are you? Okay, well, that was. That was the question. I wanted a better answer to accept the truth.

[Dr. Phil]

The truth is that why would she care? She's. She's doing just fine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, she has. She has plenty of money.

[Dr. Phil]

So, like, what do you. What do you Expect her to do, Jamie?

[Jamie Loftus]

I don't know.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's like you can't expect anyone with that much money to be a good person. You're just setting yourself up.

[Robert Evans]

You're just asking to be sad because.

[Jamie Loftus]

They just ask me to be whack a mold right now.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, they never will be.

[Robert Evans]

Because it's not lucrative to be a good person.

[Dr. Phil]

It's the opposite of lucrative to be a good person.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's true. That's true.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

You know what is lucrative though, Jamie?

[Robert Evans]

Shilling the products and services that support this podcast.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, we're back. And I am just having a great.

[Robert Evans]

Time talking with my friend JJ.

[Dr. Phil]

Loft about Dr. Dr. Philomer. Philimar.

[Jamie Loftus]

What's his middle name? Phil. Oh, that's disappointing. Philip Calvin McGraw.

[Robert Evans]

Calvin.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. Jamie, I just talked to you about how Dr. Phil has this VR addiction treatment thing and he, he basically gives people. Gives like treatment centers, free advertising if they buy it.

[Jamie Loftus]

I hate it.

[Robert Evans]

Okay, you want to guess the quality.

[Dr. Phil]

Of the facilities that, that take Dr. Phil up on this offer?

[Robert Evans]

Only the best, right?

[Jamie Loftus]

Is it, is it worse than nothing?

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, Jamie, it's a lot worse than nothing in some cases. One facility that took Dr. Dr. Phil up on this author offer was Inspirations.

[Robert Evans]

For Youth and Families, a Fort Lauderdale based treatment center for teenagers. Phil actually highlighted the facility run by Corcoran Walsh on his show the day he announced his new VR program, saying, we think outside the box in designing what addicts need. What you need is something that pops.

[Dr. Phil]

Out of the noise, something that rises.

[Robert Evans]

Above the noise like a distinctive voice.

[Dr. Phil]

And that voice in this case is me.

[Robert Evans]

Dr. Phil then introduced Walt Walsh, saying she ran the nation's leading family addiction treatment and dual diagnosis center. BuzzFeed actually investigated the facility and found that it had a well documented history of children escaping and getting into danger. Steven Sardui, a PI who was hired to find two different girls who escaped.

[Dr. Phil]

From the facility and disappeared, said, it.

[Robert Evans]

Seems to be an ongoing problem in that. This, in that particular facility, obviously there's.

[Dr. Phil]

A gap somewhere, a loophole somewhere in.

[Robert Evans]

The system where they're just leaving. In the last two years, Inspiration staff members made 180 reports to police about children in their care going missing. Sometimes the teens, sometimes the teens left.

[Dr. Phil]

For days or even escaped the state.

[Robert Evans]

One escapee wound up prostituting herself for drugs. A number of the teens wound up finding drugs one way or another. After getting out of the facility, six were arrested, two were hospitalized. One group who escaped together later robbed A homeless man.

[Dr. Phil]

Buzzfeed talked to Jill Walters of South.

[Robert Evans]

Carolina, whose 17 year old escaped from. From inspirations in 2016 and wound up on the street in Miami. She explained why she initially had chosen.

[Dr. Phil]

Inspirations to help her boy quote, they touted this.

[Robert Evans]

We were on Dr. Phil. They use that as we must be a great facility because we were on Dr. Phil. Well, that has nothing to do with how the facility is run. You entrust your child to the care of these people and something like this happens.

[Dr. Phil]

It's good shit.

[Jamie Loftus]

God, that's. I. That, that, that it wouldn't stop getting worse. That is so off. It's like.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, it's pretty bad. It's pretty, pretty bad, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

It speaks to like. Yeah, just the. The level of clout he. But he's. He still upholds too, because it's like, yeah, I guess that if you think about it for a while, you're like, oh, well, he's not a licensed doctor and look at what he's actually saying. But it's like that the world was reinforcing his bullshit for so long. That is so evil. Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

Yep, it is evil, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

It sure is.

[Dr. Phil]

But you know, it's not evil.

[Jamie Loftus]

What?

[Dr. Phil]

The products and services that I just advertised on this podcast that we're not actually cutting to again. I just. I have a problem, Jamie. I have a problem and I can't stop. I can't stop pivoting to ads.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, you've been.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, I'm. You know what, Jamie? I'm an addict.

[Sophie]

Oh, my God.

[Dr. Phil]

Get it? Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

I don't get it. Can you explain that to me?

[Sophie]

I hated it.

[Dr. Phil]

That one's a good one. That's a keeper. You know what?

[Robert Evans]

We're done with the episode.

[Dr. Phil]

Go home. I nailed it. Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

[Jamie Loftus]

We got to end with Dr. Phil ruining the lives of children. I mean, I guess that that is where the story is going to end, no matter what.

[Dr. Phil]

It's where it begins and it's where it'll end. Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's where it's how it will continue.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil.

[Jamie Loftus]

Just kill me now.

[Dr. Phil]

I got.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, I am gonna. I am gonna continue to advocate for. Put Dr. Phil through a gigantic human sized shredder on live TV. I think that that is the kind of dystopian television. Like, we're already at Masked Singer. That's the next logical step for me.

[Sophie]

Fair enough.

[Jamie Loftus]

Put a hated. A hated evil person through a shredder. It's the modern guillotine. Big old shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it's the best way to do anything really.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Is a shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

Anyway. Jamie J. Loft Joloftus.

[Robert Evans]

Joe Loft Joloft. Sure.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh God.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, we're actually still talking about inspirations.

[Robert Evans]

So. Court records also reveal that the center's co owner, Christopher Walsh is by his own admission a habitual drunkard who in 2015 sued a resort for serving him alcohol, saying they should have known he couldn't handle it. And boy howdy, does it ever get worse.

[Dr. Phil]

Let's talk about Todd Herzog. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Oh yeah, boy.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, that's the end of the inspiration stuff. But so Todd Herzog was another was.

[Robert Evans]

A repeated guest on the Dr. Phil Show.

[Dr. Phil]

Now Todd's backstory is that he won Survivor back in the early aughts. He got like a million dollars and and then became a horrible like developed.

[Robert Evans]

A horrific addiction to alcohol.

[Dr. Phil]

Like a life threatening addiction.

[Robert Evans]

Now Dr. Phil and his producers must.

[Dr. Phil]

Have salivated at the combination of disastrous alcoholic and reality TV star.

[Robert Evans]

Here's how Stat News described what happened next. Quote Herzog told stat in the Boston Globe that he was not intoxicated when.

[Dr. Phil]

He arrived at the Los Angeles studio to film the Dr. Phil Show.

[Robert Evans]

In his dressing room he said he found a bottle of Smirnoff vodka. He drank all of it. Then someone handed him a Xanax, he said, telling him it would calm his nerves.

[Dr. Phil]

So this guy handed him the Xanax.

[Robert Evans]

Managed to sober himself up enough to.

[Dr. Phil]

Like try to go on TV and Dr. Phil's people basically allegedly made sure there was a full bottle of vodka and a fucking gave him a Xanax just because, you know, I think the reasoning is the more of a disaster you seem like on air, the more marketable you are.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, right, right. Which is a proven model given the star of the show. That is like bachelor levels of like fuck up arena.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh no. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

Let's get as close as we can to killing people.

[Dr. Phil]

Dear sweet Jamie Loftus, we are not even at the worst part yet.

[Jamie Loftus]

Oh no. Okay, keep going, keep going.

[Robert Evans]

So by the time Herzog got on stage, he was so wasted that he could barely talk or function. Dr. Phil and his assistant walked them out themselves, making a big show of helping him while highlighting just how wrecked he was.

[Dr. Phil]

And I want you to listen to this, Jamie. I want you to watch this obviously, but I want everyone at home or in your car or pooping or whatever it is you're doing.

[Jamie Loftus]

God, I can't describe the anxiety of seeing Robert Evans as starring started screen sharing.

[Dr. Phil]

I know I Know. I know. All right, here's the Dr. Phil show.

[Matt Lieb]

Todd.

[Dr. Phil]

Dr. Phil. Hi, I'm Todd. Nice to meet you. How you feeling, man?

[Matt Lieb]

Can you walk?

[Dr. Phil]

Barely. I have to help.

[Matt Lieb]

All right.

[Dr. Phil]

Sorry. I'm very. That's all right.

[Matt Lieb]

Brandon, why don't you get over there.

[Dr. Phil]

And take Debbie's spot? Got you. Yeah, I. I'll go.

[Andrew T.]

I'm sorry.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm crying because I just can't believe this is happening. So.

[Matt Lieb]

I'm just going to turn around. Okay. Two, three.

[Dr. Phil]

Here we go. So that's all I want to play of that.

[Robert Evans]

He can barely move.

[Dr. Phil]

It is fundamentally unethical to have someone in that state on your television show.

[Jamie Loftus]

Even.

[Dr. Phil]

I mean, even.

[Jamie Loftus]

Even if they had been inebriated of their own volition and not being, like, fed drugs, that is.

[Dr. Phil]

That.

[Robert Evans]

Even if they had consented earlier.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't think you can consent to that.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, absolutely not. Like, that is like the. The worst situation imaginable. That is fucking evil.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

It's not. It's not good, Jamie.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's just not a good thing to do. I would say.

[Dr. Phil]

I would recommend not doing that if I was. If someone asked me, should I take.

[Robert Evans]

Someone who has a problem with addiction.

[Dr. Phil]

And give them drugs and then film them disastrously wrecked? I would say no. That sounds like an evil thing to do.

[Jamie Loftus]

That is absolute cruelty.

[Dr. Phil]

It's cruel and good. Jamie, having seen that. Cruel and good.

[Jamie Loftus]

And they just had that on in waiting rooms. That was just what you watched while you were waiting to see the dentist.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So when questioned, representatives of the Dr. Phil show deny that they provided Herzog with alcohol and drugs. They said junkies lie, in essence about his claims. And then they pointed out that they weren't a medical facility and couldn't watch.

[Dr. Phil]

Their guests at all times.

[Robert Evans]

The director of the treatment facility where Herzog agreed to go for help at the end of the show, however, was horrified when he saw him on television. He was so upset by the condition that Dr. Phil let Herzog appear on air in that he refused to ever have anything to do with the Dr. Phil show again.

[Dr. Phil]

So this was so outrageous that it.

[Robert Evans]

Convinced the head of a treatment program that all of the free advertising, advertising the Dr. Phil show could provide was not worth the ethical compromise of dealing with that man.

[Jamie Loftus]

I can't. I mean, I can't. You can't really hand it to him for that, but that's. I mean, that's fucking something. That's for sure. So bleak. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. It's just it.

[Robert Evans]

You.

[Dr. Phil]

You have to really like you have to really do bad to, to, to convince someone of that. I think, like that's a. Yeah, like that, that's throwing a lot, lot of money out. And I don't know. I'm not going to say all people in the rehab facility business are sketchy.

[Robert Evans]

But there's a lot of sketchy motherfuckers.

[Dr. Phil]

In that industry, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool and good, Jamie. Wow.

[Jamie Loftus]

I feel really not very good, Jamie.

[Dr. Phil]

That's.

[Robert Evans]

Thank you so much for saying that.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, here at behind the Bastards, that's exactly what we go for at all times.

[Jamie Loftus]

Every time I convince myself that this is going to be a fun one. And every time, except the one time I'm dead wrong.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Even worse than I could have conceived.

[Dr. Phil]

All I ever want is for you to feel bad.

[Jamie Loftus]

Thank you so much.

[Robert Evans]

That's my whole goal, you know, you're a successful person.

[Jamie Loftus]

You're.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not a hero. I'm just.

[Robert Evans]

I'm a hero. Okay.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm a hero, you know?

[Jamie Loftus]

I'm not a hero.

[Robert Evans]

Todd Herzog's story does not appear to be an isolated one.

[Dr. Phil]

No.

[Robert Evans]

Jordan Smith appeared on the Dr. Phil show in 2012 in an episode titled Young, Reckless and Enabled. Smith's aunt claims she contacted the show to help get her niece off of heroin. When they arrived in LA from out of state, Jordan started going through withdrawal. Her aunt told a show producer that her niece needed heroin and something, something or something else to help with the withdrawal. The producer suggested that they go to skid row and buy heroin together.

[Dr. Phil]

She then told them not to say.

[Robert Evans]

Who made that suggestion later. Now guests like Smith receive free addiction treatment at an expensive center after their appearance on the show, which is why many do it. But prior to taping, no medical treatment is provided or offered. Smith and her family were in Los Angeles alone for two nights before taping. A less trusting person than me might suggest that the show does this so that these people will be extra fucked up and sad when it comes time for them to be on television.

[Jamie Loftus]

Sure, sure.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's very ethical.

[Jamie Loftus]

That is extremely. Like you have to be thinking so hard to come up with something like that. It's so innocuous. You mean, wow, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

These people's lives are already off the fucking rails. How can we make it a little worse?

[Dr. Phil]

I'm Dr. Phil.

[Robert Evans]

Joel King Parish brought her 28 year old daughter Caitlin to Dr. Phil for help kicking a heroin addiction. Caitlyn was six months pregnant at the time. Her mother assumed that when they landed, they would receive medical attention since withdrawal could endanger the fetus. But when Caitlin's mom asked the staff for help, they told her to, quote, take care of it. She took her daughter to the hospital, which she left without a sheet receiving treatment. Next from Stat News, quote, the producer texted to say she should stay at the hospital, but Caitlyn would not. And King Parish was terrified the baby would die if her daughter did not get medicine or drugs. King Parish and Caitlyn went to the Dr. Phil studio where another show staffer joined them. All three got into a cab headed for Skid Row. The staffer shot video, which later aired on the show. In it, King Parish tells the camera, I am scared to death right now. The camera follows Caitlyn from behind. She walks towards homeless encampments. King Parish said Caitlyn was gone for about a half hour while she shot up heroin.

[Dr. Phil]

So they just like went out to go buy horse at Skid Row and filmed it.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's. I mean, and that's like, that's good.

[Dr. Phil]

TV is what that is.

[Jamie Loftus]

This is genuinely really upsetting. I mean, yeah. I mean, on top of the fact that that's an extreme disservice to her, that's also like, yet another example of like, bullshit, high rated TV heading into unhoused encampments to just frame people in a completely contextless, fucked up way. I hate that shit so much.

[Andrew T.]

That is awful.

[Dr. Phil]

I think it's cool and good, Jamie. Wow. I think it's cool and good. What?

[Jamie Loftus]

I hate this shit so much.

[Dr. Phil]

Oh, Loftus, we do have fun on this show though.

[Jamie Loftus]

We sure do. We sure do.

[Robert Evans]

We sure do.

[Jamie Loftus]

Time to bust out the Franz. Yeah. And really dial this up.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Franz out. With our glands out. I don't know. I'm stuck making that exact kind of joke repeatedly.

[Jamie Loftus]

I'm still chilling with filling. Chilling with my fill in.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

That's gross. No, no, no.

[Dr. Phil]

It's all deeply uncomfortable, Robert.

[Sophie]

You know what's not deeply uncomfortable?

[Dr. Phil]

The products and services that support this podcast.

[Sophie]

Facts.

[Dr. Phil]

No.

[Robert Evans]

Every one of them will gently cradle your head or whatever other part of your body you.

[Jamie Loftus]

You would like them to cradle.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely. Or wherever. They'll just kiss you.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, they're just gonna kiss you.

[Robert Evans]

That's.

[Dr. Phil]

That's the behind the bastards promise random.

[Robert Evans]

Kisses from a product. Yep.

[Dr. Phil]

Here's some ads. Okay, so there are a bunch of stories like this. And one of the saddest parts of.

[Robert Evans]

All these stories is that the people.

[Dr. Phil]

Who will like who.

[Robert Evans]

The people who Dr. Phil clearly takes Advantage of will still claim that his show helped them because they were able to receive free addiction recovery recovery care that they couldn't have afforded without the Dr. Phil show. Almost no aspect of his show works.

[Dr. Phil]

If there's single payer health care that covers addiction treatment.

[Robert Evans]

The Dr. Phil show profits off of sadness porn, the shock and embarrassment people feel watching the ruined lives of his guests and the sassy, no bullshit advice Dr. Phil gives them. He earns between 60 and 80 million dollars a year. Of course, the Dr. Phil show.

[Dr. Phil]

I know, right?

[Robert Evans]

That's an obscene number, isn't it?

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, fucking obscene.

[Dr. Phil]

It just makes you want to light some shit on fire, doesn't it? Yep. Yeah, it sure does, Jamie. It sure does. So of course the Dr. Phil show.

[Robert Evans]

Would get boring pretty quick if he only dealt with people suffering from drug addictions and abusive spouses. From the beginning, a major source of content for McGraw was so called troubled teens. Kids in crisis are big business for grifty TV therapists because being children, those kids have no ability to regulate their emotions and no sense of proportion. This leads to TV friendly explosions of rage. In 2016, Dr. Phil interviewed Danielle Bregoli for an episode titled I want to give up my car stealing, knife wielding, twerking, 13 year old daughter who tried.

[Dr. Phil]

To frame me for a crime. Which is just a title meant to show up on a leg. Like throwing.

[Robert Evans]

Twerking in there with fucking car stealing.

[Dr. Phil]

Shameless.

[Jamie Loftus]

The word twerking there was that. There was a cultural hefty to it, sure.

[Dr. Phil]

Now Bregoli now goes by the stage name Bad Baby.

[Robert Evans]

B H A D B H A.

[Dr. Phil]

B I E was a primetime ready delinquent.

[Robert Evans]

She spoke in a ridiculously affected hood accent and pretended to basically be a.

[Dr. Phil]

Gangster in the kind of confrontational like.

[Robert Evans]

Nonsense teenage way that gave Dr. Phil a lot of openings to mock her with his witty rejoinders.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't want to play much of.

[Robert Evans]

Her appearance because she was a child and I think what Dr. Phil does by having her on is fundamentally abusive. But I do think it's important to play how the episode starts so you can see how he introduces this segment and hear it. You listening will hear it. Jamie, I want you to pay attention to the looks on the faces of the people in his audience.

[Dr. Phil]

Okay? She's defiant. Stop it. Who are you? What?

[Nancy Grace]

Has she met her match?

[Dr. Phil]

You want to do it again? Sit down with Dr. Phil.

[Matt Lieb]

You can threaten them, good, but I'm your worst nightmare girl. Well, thank you, thank you. Well, you know, I've been doing this show for 15 years. And I've met some truly remarkable people and I have heard thousands of stories. Now in that time, you get to thinking that you've seen and heard just about everything that was until today. Meet Danielle. Now, Danielle's mom, Barbara Ann, has written to me every year for the past three years about her daughter who has stole thousands of dollars, framed her mother as a drug user and then called 911 to report her and is currently facing grand theft charges. Now, I answered her call for help and I sent my film crew across the country to capture what was going on inside this home. Needless to say, while my team was there, something shocking and unexpected happened. Shortly after they had finished filming, one of my crew members noticed that Danielle had vanished with the keys to my crew member's car. Now, sure enough, when Danielle's grandmother Barbara went outside, she found out that Danielle had stolen the car, which had the crew members handbag, wallet, ID and cash inside. Now that's not bad enough. Danielle's only 13 years old.

[Dr. Phil]

So you see, the thing that's most interesting to me about that is the faces of the women in the audience. Because they are particularly the glee.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Like, that's the thing that's most unsettling.

[Dr. Phil]

To me is like how excited they.

[Robert Evans]

Are with every new aspect of this story that Dr. Phil reveals.

[Jamie Loftus]

Well, and I also think that those reactions may not even be. I mean, those reactions in themselves are extremely coached. Where I used to do like audio when I first moved here and had like no money to my name. And you're so extremely coached. And like before the show even starts, you're told to do a series of facial expressions for the editors to work with. And so it's like manipulation top to bottom with how it's handled. Because it's like not only is he obviously not has no vested interest in the well being of this kid. Like he also, like, I would argue probably that editing is completely fucking doctored as well.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, I have no idea if that's, that's the, if those, if those face expressions match, like what was actually going down. But like it's all, I guess, specifically.

[Robert Evans]

The idea that they wanted to show.

[Dr. Phil]

Those reactions because I think they're trying.

[Robert Evans]

To coach a response.

[Dr. Phil]

They're trying to coach a response from.

[Robert Evans]

The people watching at home too, right?

[Dr. Phil]

This, like this, the voyeurism, like it.

[Robert Evans]

Makes it clear none of this is about helping anyone.

[Dr. Phil]

It's about laughing at, quote unquote, low class people in their problems. You know, that's, that's what Dr. Phil really, really makes his bread doing.

[Jamie Loftus]

For sure. Yeah, that's great.

[Sophie]

But him, like, she went on to, like, have a successful. Like, she's 18. She's. She was nominated for an American Music Award.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, she was. I didn't know that.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Good.

[Robert Evans]

I'm glad there's a happy ending.

[Dr. Phil]

I don't know much about bad babies.

[Sophie]

18 now and, like, she's, you know, signed her record label. I mean.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

And she is standing up for. For what happened to her, which is.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, we're not getting. Get into that. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So Bregoli went viral, and within the confines of the episode, Dr. Phil positions himself as the dispenser of tough love. His prescription was to send Bregoli to one of his favorite therapeutic boarding schools, Turnabout Ranch in Utah. This is an actual working ranch where troubled teens are sent under the impression that working in the country and riding horses will get them off of drugs, premarital sex, and petty crime. In subsequent episodes, Bregoli filmed an update from the ranch where she dropped her fake accent and claimed to feel okay with who I am now, but she.

[Dr. Phil]

Was not being honest, understandably so.

[Robert Evans]

In 2018, she released an original song and gave a different view of her experience at Turnabout. Quote, I was pre. It was pretty miserable. I did not know what was going on in the real world. This place was far away from anything. There wasn't even service there. She says in the song. A couple weeks after being home, I finally decided that I wanted to meet up with my best, best friend again. Somebody who was not good for me at all. Instantly, I'd say it was, the next day we got back to doing our old shit again. Smoking, trying to finesse people for money. Just doing really, really dumb shit. Her reintegration into society was made all.

[Dr. Phil]

The more difficult by the fact that.

[Robert Evans]

When she returned to school and the Internet, she realized rather suddenly that she'd gone viral for being a ridiculous train wreck of a person on a nationally syndicated TV program. She claims that this basically made her decide to, quote, lean in to the bad behavior that had made her famous. Once you become a meme, there aren't a lot of ways to get a clean slate.

[Dr. Phil]

There's no right to be forgotten in.

[Robert Evans]

The US So why wouldn't Bregoli just keep being the person everyone already thought she was? Yeah, this gets to one of the things I think is worst about the Dr. Phil show. It's one thing to shamelessly milk the worst moments and the greatest shames in the life of an Adult. It's another thing entirely to do that to a child who has no real way to understand the long term.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

No way that she could have possibly understood the long term consequences of becoming that kind of famous.

[Jamie Loftus]

It's completely, it's like violent, every level. And it's like, whatever. I mean, clearly Dr. Phil does not give a fuck.

[Dr. Phil]

No, no, not a, Not a third of a fuck.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, but it is. And it also, I think, like, speaks to how, especially for a kid, which is like, that should. Doing what he does to children should be illegal.

[Robert Evans]

It should be a crime.

[Dr. Phil]

Yes.

[Jamie Loftus]

You should not be allowed to do shit like that. And on top of that, it speaks to like, how. I don't know, it's like, I remember that clip when it first came out and there was no popular conversation about like, the well being of the child who's clearly being exploited by a multimillionaire.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

And. And it's. And I see that. I mean, it's. When you're introducing the public that way and you are coming from a place of poverty and you are not being empowered at all or protected, like, what are you supposed to do? Like that is such a miserable, cruel situation to be put in.

[Dr. Phil]

It's. Oh, it's fucked up.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil]

Now, Jamie, that's all pretty bad, right? Everything we've talked about happening to Bregoli is bad.

[Robert Evans]

But to make matters worse, the ranch Dr. Phil sent her and, and a bunch of other kids too, was about.

[Dr. Phil]

As ethical as, oh, I don't know, the drug rehabilitation treatment programs he was also sending kids to. I'm going to quote again from buzzfeed. It's not clear if Turnabout is actually.

[Robert Evans]

Helpful to the kids who go or if it's just another facility that takes advantage of the minors who are sent.

[Dr. Phil]

There to get better.

[Robert Evans]

Just last week, 19 year old Hannah Archuleta sued the school for an alleged sexual assault that she said happened to her while she was staying at turnabout. At just 17, this is likely to.

[Dr. Phil]

Be a high profile profile case too.

[Robert Evans]

With Gloria Allred representing her. Turnabout administrators provided a statement to me saying they took immediate action after Archuleta claimed she had been assaulted, but that her father removed her from the facility before we could conduct a full inquiry. The statement continued, we would never take lightly an allegation of mistreatment to any of our students. Now that this incident is the subject of litigation, we must withhold our full.

[Dr. Phil]

Response for a later date.

[Robert Evans]

Now the owner of this ranch is asked Aspen Education Group, which was then bought by crc, which is now owned by Acadia Healthcare. In an email statement to Buzzfeed News, Acadia's director of investor relations, Gretchen Homarek, said, it is my understanding that Turnabout Ranch and Aspen Educational Group were closed or sold prior to Acadia's acquisition of CRC Health. In any event, Acadia never operated either of the facilities. Turnabout has gone through multiple owners and since 2014 has been owned. Owned by current and former employees of the ranch. But Aspen Education has been accused of multiple infractions by former attendees, including lawsuits that claimed psychological torture, abuse, sexual assault, and human trafficking. The torture suit was dismissed, but crc, the owner of Aspen Education at the time, declined to address specific allegations. Arcadia did not answer our questions about these allegations either.

[Dr. Phil]

So just not only, like, a bunch.

[Robert Evans]

Of people involved in this have been.

[Dr. Phil]

Alleged of things including human trafficking, there's been sexual assault allegations at the ranch.

[Robert Evans]

But it, like, goes to this revolving carousel of owners because it's like a shady fucking.

[Dr. Phil]

It's just like they're pumping a quick amount of cash out and then selling it to somebody else.

[Robert Evans]

It's so fucking shady.

[Jamie Loftus]

Sure. That that's. Yeah, I'm sure that that's integral to it being able to survive at all. Like, it needs to be constantly changing hands. That's.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, the whole teen treatment industry.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, I've done a number of art.

[Robert Evans]

Back when I was at Cracked, I did a number of articles with survivors of these facilities.

[Dr. Phil]

Like, all of these facilities. Facilities are basically child molestation factories and, like, child abuse factories in general.

[Robert Evans]

Not always molestation. Sometimes they just kill them from neglect.

[Dr. Phil]

You know, there was.

[Jamie Loftus]

There was a.

[Robert Evans]

The good ones that reached the point.

[Jamie Loftus]

Where, like, Paris Hilton made a documentary about it last year.

[Sophie]

Yeah, yeah, it's Paris Hilton and actually Danielle Bregoli Bhad Bhababy are involved right now with going against Dr. Phil about this exact place. So it's very interesting that you mentioned Paris Hilton.

[Dr. Phil]

It does. I don't know much about her. I'm always mentioning her, but besides the stuff that was, like, famous about how shitty she was 15, 20 years ago, but it seems like she's been doing some, like, good socially responsible stuff lately.

[Sophie]

Paris?

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, yeah, it seems like. It seems like she has. I mean, also, I'm like, I'm not. I'm not about to.

[Dr. Phil]

I'm not gonna go to bat for the. Stop being poor lady. But.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, right, right, right, right. But yeah, that specific instance. I'm glad she did.

[Dr. Phil]

If you have wealth and prominence and.

[Robert Evans]

You use it to take a swing.

[Dr. Phil]

At the teen treatment industry. That gets you a couple of points in my book because it's a nightmare. Maybe we'll do a deeper episode about it at some point, but a lot.

[Robert Evans]

Of the allegations that we just listed.

[Dr. Phil]

About this facility and its many owners.

[Robert Evans]

Predate the episodes of Dr. Phil where he gave free advertisements to the ranch. This means that McGraw and his staff were well aware of the allegations against Aspen and the ranch when they sent children there.

[Dr. Phil]

When questioned about this, a spokesperson for the show said we're aware and and we're monitoring things.

[Robert Evans]

Since Archuleta went public with her allegations, Broli has come forward with more detail about her own experience. She now says she was denied food at times and that camp administrators often refuse to let inmates change their clothes for days on end.

[Dr. Phil]

Inmates, you're yeah and I that's my framing. But yes, you're helpless.

[Robert Evans]

You can't call your parent, you can't email your parent. If the state says they have to give you two pebbles, they're going to find find the smallest pebbles to give you. That's supposed to help kids get over trauma. I would have rather went to jail.

[Dr. Phil]

Like I one of the girls I.

[Robert Evans]

Talked to who did this when she.

[Dr. Phil]

Was like 14 or 15.

[Robert Evans]

Like one of the punishments they gave her was she had to dig up the the stump of a mature tree on her own which if you've never.

[Dr. Phil]

Had to remove a stump, it's something.

[Robert Evans]

Like three to four large adult men usually do with a truck and power tools. Yeah, she just spin spent days in.

[Dr. Phil]

120 degree heat like slowly dying as.

[Robert Evans]

She tried to force the stump out as a child.

[Dr. Phil]

Like these places are all nightmares. Horrible.

[Robert Evans]

Bregoli is of course not the only teenager featured on the Dr. Phil Show. BuzzFeed writer Scotchy Cowell announces announced.

[Dr. Phil]

Sorry Scotchy, I don't know if I'm getting that right. Alleges that while McGraw is healthy, is.

[Robert Evans]

Happy to feature children of all genders, he gets particularly aggressive with teenage girls. Quote their most vulnerable private moments. Screaming and crying at home are used on the show until the very end when their parents decide to send them to turnabout. Every episode of the Dr. Phil show ends with an after the taping segment where the kids find out they're going to a ranch in the middle of nowhere and usually cry, which is of course great television. Most kids featured in this way do not get any Updates on the Dr. Phil show or at most mentioned briefly once more daytime TV Moves too fast for the doctor to actually check back in with most of his patients. In 2008, Dr. Phil spun off and created a new show, the Doctors. Every episode of this show features a plastic surgeon, an obstetrician, and an ER doc who talk about different health topics.

[Jamie Loftus]

This sounds like it might be waiting room classic.

[Dr. Phil]

We're not going to go into a lot of detail about this, but a.

[Robert Evans]

2014 study of the show determined that about 37% of their recommendations were not credible.

[Dr. Phil]

Which honestly means they're doing better than I. Yeah, I expected worse, better report.

[Jamie Loftus]

Card than I expected.

[Dr. Phil]

If your doctor, for example, said 37% of the time, I'm going to give you bad advice, you would find a new doctor. That's fair.

[Jamie Loftus]

I was like, oh, wow. D plus, that's not the worst thing.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, imagine a mechanic saying that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, 37% of the time, the breaks.

[Dr. Phil]

I put in work, you know, your odds are pretty good.

[Jamie Loftus]

Okay, fair enough. I was like, there's no way. They're somewhat correct 63% of the time. Why?

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Dr. Phil]

And again, somewhat being the operative word.

[Robert Evans]

Sure, we could go into a lot of other case studies of particularly egregious guest choices, but going over all these.

[Dr. Phil]

Sad people in the way Phil exploits them ad nauseam kind of runs the risk of being sorrow porn itself.

[Robert Evans]

I do think it behooves us to look at one last case study, perhaps the most nauseating guess, choice, choice of the whole series. 24 year old Gabby came on the Dr. Phil show in February of 2020. She had promised to act as a surrogate womb for two different couples. Gabby had not taken any money from them and she could not bear children. She is infertile and chronically ill. Her father claims she has psychosis, bipolar disorder and learning disabilities. In the show, it's revealed that Gabby's mom died right around the time she started protecting, pretending to be a surrogate, which was also a period where she was the victim of constant bullying at school. From Buzzfeed, Quote, her scam wasn't illegal because Gabby never asked for money or.

[Dr. Phil]

Items from the couple she lied to.

[Robert Evans]

It's just tragic, hurtful behavior from someone deeply isolated and in dire need of mental health care for multiple past traumas. Most of the episode focuses on the producers following Gabby around backstage, begging her to come on stage when she clearly doesn't want to. They call her difficult and volatile, and though she signed an appearance release, it's not clear to the audience that she has read and understood it. When a producer asks her on Camera to confirm she understands the waiver. She doesn't respond and covers her face with the pages of the release. But she's certainly remorseful and seems to feel guilty. In a pre taped interview, Gabby cries to the producers. I just want to say sorry to everyone that I've hurt. When she walks off the Stage in anguish, McGraw mirrors, sips his water and sighs. The episode is near unwatchable.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, I mean, that doesn't sound like consent was gained at all. I mean, there were so many red flags.

[Dr. Phil]

It doesn't sound like she's capable of consenting to that.

[Jamie Loftus]

Yeah, I don't even know what to think. I mean, that entire though, because I don't trust any of the information that anyone is presenting in this way. But that's just, I mean, very clear. This is not an issue that should be handled on television.

[Dr. Phil]

National tv.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Jamie Loftus]

Least that is. Yeah, that is just fucking despicable.

[Dr. Phil]

So Dr. Jeff Sugar, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at USC, provided a.

[Robert Evans]

Description of the Dr. Phil show that.

[Dr. Phil]

I think acts as. As good a coda to this episode as anything. Quote, it's a callous and inexcusable exploitation.

[Robert Evans]

These people are barely hanging on. It's like if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat and instead of throwing them an inflatable donut, but.

[Dr. Phil]

You throw them an anchor and that's Dr. Phil, baby.

[Jamie Loftus]

D Phil, I am so upset about. Like, I just. This was like one of my, like the toughest lessons of all time. Maybe because he's just still such a real present. Public disgrace and danger, but like, yeah, holy shit, I can't even enjoy Dr. Phil memes. I was going to show you Dr. Phil means I'm not gonna. Not worth.

[Dr. Phil]

Him.

[Jamie Loftus]

Put him through a shredder.

[Robert Evans]

Put him through a shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

And you at home, put yourself through a shredder.

[Robert Evans]

But a good kind of shredder that.

[Jamie Loftus]

Makes you healthy, life affirming kind of shredder. Yeah, you know, in a way, in a way, every. Is that, isn't that just capitalism? Put yourself your shredder.

[Dr. Phil]

Well, with that, Jamie, I think it's time for you to plug pluggable and get the, get the out of this zoom call and go live your, your goddamn life, Jamie. Go live your life.

[Jamie Loftus]

You know, I'm, I'm dying to live my life. So you can just, you can, you can listen to the podcast, you can listen to Becky Pass, you listen to Lolita podcast, you can listen to my year in Mensa, and you can listen to my new show about Kathy comics that comes out in June. God damn it.

[Dr. Phil]

God damn it. And all of you at Hunter Robert, this was miserable.

[Robert Evans]

Damn God yourself.

[Dr. Phil]

Yeah, it was, Jamie. It really was. All right, well, the Internet and life.

[Sophie]

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Narrator]

He was a boy Scout leader, a husband, a father. But he was leading a double life. He was a monster hiding in plain sight. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Nancy Grace]

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Phil]

Hey listeners.

[Narrator]

I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, host of the.

[Dr. Phil]

Murder on Songbird Road podcast and I'm excited to share this riveting story with you.

[Nancy Grace]

I'm also excited to tell you that.

[Dr. Phil]

You can now get access to all episodes of Murder on Songbird Road, 100% ad free and one week early through.

[Maria Tremarke]

The I Heart True Crime plus subscription.

[Dr. Phil]

Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts plus, you'll.

[Maria Tremarke]

Get access to other chart topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, the Girlfriends Paper Ghosts, Murder Hunter, Unrestorable, the Godmother, and more.

[Nancy Grace]

So don't wait.

[Jamie Loftus]

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for I.

[Dr. Phil]

Heart True Crime plus and subscribe today.

[Maria Tremarke]

Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.

[Narrator]

And I'm Holly Fry. Together, we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Maria Tremarke]

Each season we explore a new theme. From poisoners to art thieves, we uncover.

[Narrator]

The secrets of history's most interesting figures, from legal injustices to body snatching.

[Maria Tremarke]

And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story.

[Narrator]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.