Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, before we get into the episode, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about a fundraiser we're doing now. Last year
Speaker 1: y'all funded basically the entirety of the Portland Diaper Bank,
Speaker 1: which provides free diapers to people who are in you know,
Speaker 1: financial crisis and whatnot. Um, we're doing that fundraiser again.
Speaker 1: We're trying to raise dollars to fund the Portland Diaper
Speaker 1: Bank for the year. If you want to donate some
Speaker 1: cash to them, you can go to go fund me
Speaker 1: diaper need and COVID nineteen response. If you just google
Speaker 1: go fund me, diaper need and COVID nineteen response, it
Speaker 1: should take you to the fundraiser. You can also find
Speaker 1: my pinned tweet on my Twitter at I right, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll take you right there. So diaper need and COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen response on go fund me. Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1: This is behind the Bastards podcast where Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I never come into this show with a plan, like
Speaker 1: I write ten thousand words a week to do this show,
Speaker 1: and then I consistently just completely fucked the introductions. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. I think it's I think it's fun.
Speaker 1: Brand consistency that's that's our Robert. People thinking that's Robert.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's easy to be have a consistent
Speaker 1: brand when your brand is being like uh like uh,
Speaker 1: brain damaged drug addict who is incapable of doing anything
Speaker 1: but writing long essays about bad people. Simple brand. I
Speaker 1: think that's you're being reductive. But also when people hear
Speaker 1: you say things like that about their solves or about yourself, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's our Robert, I go, my son so so pure,
Speaker 1: so humble, m h so. Probably shouldn't be trusted with
Speaker 1: large machinery anyway, definitely not. You know who else should
Speaker 1: be trusted with large machinery because of the horrible head injury?
Speaker 1: Phil Okay, I thought that was you introducing me. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is really me, you, Jamie. I would
Speaker 1: trust you with her heavy machinery. Although you don't have
Speaker 1: a driver's license, do you. I don't have a driver's license,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't stopped me from driving. Hell yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well good for you, Jamie. I could probably get a keep.
Speaker 1: I get like. I'm like, I could probably get a
Speaker 1: driver's license if I really wanted to. I just don't
Speaker 1: want to. That's not true. I've I've failed the test
Speaker 1: several times. The key thing about cops, Jamie, and this
Speaker 1: is some free advice for all of you out there.
Speaker 1: They're never ready for you to just tuck and roll,
Speaker 1: you know, like if this as long as you're driving
Speaker 1: a cheap car, if they start to pull you over,
Speaker 1: just tuck and roll and then fucking book it. Like
Speaker 1: I guarantee you they will not be ready. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like it. They're just not going to be ready. Um.
Speaker 1: And anyway, we should probably talk about Dr Phil sun
Speaker 1: huh sure, yeah, totally. Probably chill out with our fill out.
Speaker 1: I need to go. Actually that's fair. This this has
Speaker 1: been the final episode behind the Bastards. I'm so sorry. Alright, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's chill out with our phill out. Just a big old, pudgy,
Speaker 1: bald headed Phil just flopping around with a nice moostaf
Speaker 1: like like like a skink on a hot rock. Okay. Um.
Speaker 1: Later that year, so Dr Phil helps Oprah out um
Speaker 1: and and like saves her, saves her bacon um and
Speaker 1: she brings him on her show and does her verdict episode.
Speaker 1: She was getting like sued for a lot of money
Speaker 1: and defamation and ship like it was potentially something that
Speaker 1: would have really damaged her bottom line, like I don't
Speaker 1: know this link. Okay, So Dr Phil later that year
Speaker 1: would become a regular part of her show UM. And
Speaker 1: this was part of a pivot in Oprah where she
Speaker 1: went from like doing a normal talk show UM to
Speaker 1: what she called Change your Life TV. The goal of
Speaker 1: Change your Life TV was to take the experience people
Speaker 1: had in Phil seminars, the very public crowd influenced Catharsis
Speaker 1: of emotional change, and put that ship on television for
Speaker 1: everybody to watch. Mostly this involves Dr Phil confronting people
Speaker 1: aggressively about their flaws so they would cry and say
Speaker 1: they learned something. Quote. This is Dr Phil explaining his methodology.
Speaker 1: In order for people to change, there has to be
Speaker 1: a dramatic event. I think coming on the Oprah Show
Speaker 1: as an event in itself is a watershed occurrence in
Speaker 1: people's lives. They get told the bottom line truth about
Speaker 1: where they are, and in that environment, I don't think
Speaker 1: they will ever forget it. If you embarrass people on
Speaker 1: national television, they remember, I mean, that's you know that,
Speaker 1: that's not untrue. That's okay, okay, accurate Dr Phil? Accurate
Speaker 1: Jesus Yeah. So UM, so he's really like heading into
Speaker 1: the villain years. Yeah, yeah, he's he's solved. I mean
Speaker 1: he's been in villain territory this whole time. Um So.
Speaker 1: On Oprah Show, Doctor Phil focused on clients whose problems
Speaker 1: were fit things he could justify yelling about to them
Speaker 1: or yelling at them. For one early case was a
Speaker 1: husband who was verbally abusive to his wife, calling her
Speaker 1: obscene names. Phil could not just condemn the man, but
Speaker 1: he like didn't just condemn the man. He made the
Speaker 1: man's wife tearfully recount everything he said to her on TV.
Speaker 1: So like, he's yelling at this guy for being a dick,
Speaker 1: but he's also demanding that this woman, like in detail,
Speaker 1: explain every horrible thing her husband said about her to
Speaker 1: millions of strangers, right, like the classic air out the
Speaker 1: worst thing, Yeah for someone else, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is great, you know, but I don't think that's great
Speaker 1: behavior would be my my take it. Not a psychologist,
Speaker 1: but Phil isn't really a psychologist either. Um So, Phil, then,
Speaker 1: after making this woman laborously explain the horrible things your
Speaker 1: husband said to her, got to help provide some of
Speaker 1: his own homespun wisdom in this case, he told the wife,
Speaker 1: you taught him how to treat you. Now. This is
Speaker 1: a variation of one of doctor Phil's life laws for
Speaker 1: people to follow, which he published in his plagiarized bestselling
Speaker 1: book Life Strategies. Quote, we teach people how to treat
Speaker 1: us own, rather than complain about how people treat us.
Speaker 1: My mom has good book, Robert, did she blame herself
Speaker 1: for people being shitty to her? Just for a dental
Speaker 1: about Yeah, like strategies, self matters, the Ultimate Weight Solution. God,
Speaker 1: I hate all his titles. Yeah, we had the relationship Rescue.
Speaker 1: We had that. It wasn't on the main shelf, but
Speaker 1: it was in the house. It was in the house,
Speaker 1: it was it was somewhere up in there. Yeah. Well
Speaker 1: I don't know did it. Did it rescue your relationships?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I think what we got we got more
Speaker 1: out of John Edwards. Do you remember him or John Edwards? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they talk to the dead guy. Yeah, the one who
Speaker 1: would like record people in the audience talking about the
Speaker 1: dead people they wanted to hear from and then walking
Speaker 1: out and being like exactly, yeah, that's that's a That
Speaker 1: was a fun bridge, I mean, also but also a
Speaker 1: traumatizing one. They're all traumatizing. They are all traumatizing grifts.
Speaker 1: That's what makes them so satisfying. Um, wow, we all
Speaker 1: learned a lesson, didn't we. No, No, we didn't. So
Speaker 1: what's up to? What's he doing? All right? So Dr
Speaker 1: fucking phil um, So I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about these life laws that he that he
Speaker 1: lays out in his first book, because this is a
Speaker 1: major reoccurring theme, especially in early Doctor Phil, like people
Speaker 1: will will critique people by explaining which life law they violated,
Speaker 1: like the one where you're responsible for other people treating
Speaker 1: you shitty, because we teach people how to treat us um,
Speaker 1: which is like an inversion of the truth, which is
Speaker 1: that if you're like abusers and predators are good at
Speaker 1: spotting your vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them, right, and
Speaker 1: so you need to be aware of your own vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: because you need to be aware of how dangerous people
Speaker 1: might take advantage of you. That's the non toxic way
Speaker 1: of framing that. The toxic ways, Hey, you taught him
Speaker 1: to be like that, Like, no, you didn't. He saw
Speaker 1: that you had this vulnerability and you took advantage of it.
Speaker 1: That's a fair way to the most abuse abuse of
Speaker 1: tactics in the book, like well, actually it was your
Speaker 1: fault and if you were so weak, this wouldn't have
Speaker 1: happened to you. And it's like, oh, go funk off,
Speaker 1: And I want to try this logic with like crimes,
Speaker 1: like the next time I'm caught speeding, Like look, officer,
Speaker 1: you taught me how to drive this car that way,
Speaker 1: like by by having the road be this straight, and
Speaker 1: maybe this drunk you kind of taught me to speed.
Speaker 1: You know. I will say that every time I tried
Speaker 1: to teach my dog something that is something that it's
Speaker 1: a very low STIGs version of that. They're like, well
Speaker 1: didn't you teach him he get google on your floor
Speaker 1: when you don't feel like standing up, And I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: I guess I did. Christ in Heaven. Okay. So here's
Speaker 1: how he introduces the concept of life laws in his book. Quote,
Speaker 1: life laws are the rules of the game. No one
Speaker 1: is going to ask you if you think these laws
Speaker 1: are fair, or if you think they should exist, like
Speaker 1: the law of gravity, they simply are. You don't get
Speaker 1: a vote. You can ignore them and stumble along wondering
Speaker 1: why you never seem to succeed, or you can learn them,
Speaker 1: adapt to them, mold your choices and behavior to them,
Speaker 1: and live effectively. Learning these life laws is the at
Speaker 1: the absolute core of what you must master in this
Speaker 1: book to have the essential knowledge for a personal life strategy.
Speaker 1: What kind of he went from zero to being? Like
Speaker 1: my laws? Much like the law of gravity? That is
Speaker 1: like that is galaxy brain that are as unavoidable and
Speaker 1: is the tie gravity? Oh god, you got You have
Speaker 1: to appreciate the flagrancy on on display there, Jesus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's good Jamie. It's like you're
Speaker 1: you being abused, being your fault to me, thought's gravity.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I want to put you through a shredder.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, Yeah, that would be fun. And I think
Speaker 1: we could probably get a pretty good primetime TV audience
Speaker 1: if we actually did that, Jamie, have someone watch like
Speaker 1: that's seen in Fargo. It's that that's kind of like
Speaker 1: that's where his story is building to present. That's a
Speaker 1: fucking hour of TV right there. There you go, there
Speaker 1: you go. And I'm sure he'd be happy to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would, now, I bet Jamie, you're hung
Speaker 1: for some more of Dr Phil's life laws. I can
Speaker 1: see it in your eyes. You're you're just you're just
Speaker 1: you're just. Yeah. Absolutely, So most of these laws are
Speaker 1: pretty self explanatory, uh, stuff like life rewards action and
Speaker 1: you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. My favorite
Speaker 1: is people do what works, which boils down to the
Speaker 1: idea that we engage in bad behavior because it rewards
Speaker 1: us in some way. So Dr Phil says, if you
Speaker 1: want to stop the behavior, stop rewarding yourself for it,
Speaker 1: which makes sense until you think about the way say
Speaker 1: heroin or junk food works because you can't stop it
Speaker 1: from the reward is the thing, right, Like these are
Speaker 1: also so manipulatively worded. Yeah, the next time you take heroin,
Speaker 1: punch yourself in the dick so you don't enjoy it
Speaker 1: as much. I don't like. Yeah, how do you like? Statistically,
Speaker 1: most of the kind of people who want advice from
Speaker 1: are gonna be dealing with something like weight loss, and
Speaker 1: it's like, no, the reward is eating food, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's strategy going to to help you know. It's so
Speaker 1: frustrating too, because it's like they're the way they're word
Speaker 1: it is so deliberate that it's like, oh, I understand
Speaker 1: why people fell for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: all it's just very very transparent nonsense for the most part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's words in it in a certain sequence than charging you,
Speaker 1: you know hard. You gotta give the man credit. It
Speaker 1: is words in a sequence that is undeniable. That dr
Speaker 1: Phil that was a sentence, that that's a The man
Speaker 1: uses sentences, you know. You gotta give that to them.
Speaker 1: You can't take that from him. So yeah, some of
Speaker 1: his rules are, however, a little more sinister. Probably the worst.
Speaker 1: While one of the worst is I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of worse. One is you create your own experiences.
Speaker 1: Here's how he explains that. One. Don't play the role
Speaker 1: of victim or use past events to build excuses. It
Speaker 1: guarantees you no progress, no healing, and no victory. You
Speaker 1: will never fix a problem by blaming someone else. That's
Speaker 1: first of all, not true. And that's just like, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just clearly not even good at the job he's
Speaker 1: getting famous for saying he's good at backwards. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's I mean, he sounds like a fucking catholic, crazed
Speaker 1: he's like, well, push your emotions down. Okay, it's just
Speaker 1: such bad. It's particularly all bad advice for like abuse victims,
Speaker 1: because if you're an abuse victim, in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: part of the healing process is realizing that your abuser
Speaker 1: is the person to blame and that all these things
Speaker 1: they got you to blame yourself for aren't things you
Speaker 1: did wrong, and that they like that. That's a big
Speaker 1: part of healing from that sort of thing. And he's
Speaker 1: just like, no, no, don't be blaming this guy because
Speaker 1: because he was beating you, maybe you didn't do the
Speaker 1: laundry right, you know, maybe you should have got him
Speaker 1: his beer faster. I'm Dr Phil, I'm a doctor, you know, Like, God,
Speaker 1: damn it, I really don't like this guy. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: also want to read you the we said earlier what
Speaker 1: if his rules as we teach people how to treat us.
Speaker 1: But the actual wording in the book of how he
Speaker 1: explains that is even creepier than you might guess. Quote,
Speaker 1: you either teach people to treat you with dignity and
Speaker 1: respect or you don't. This means you are partly responsible
Speaker 1: for the mistreatment that you get at the hands of
Speaker 1: someone else. You shape other's behavior when you teach them
Speaker 1: what they can get away with and what they cannot.
Speaker 1: This is like God, You're just like, oh God, okay,
Speaker 1: so what did you do that you need to believe
Speaker 1: this in order to live with yourself? Yeah? Right, fucking Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's really a bad person. I don't like him.
Speaker 1: In my house, it was next to I like clearly
Speaker 1: remember being next to my mom's bet. Yeah. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the good book. You gotta gotta keep it close
Speaker 1: to you. We didn't own the Bible. We own life.
Speaker 1: Strategy is the John Edward book and that other one
Speaker 1: by that guy who said he could talk to dead people.
Speaker 1: I forget what was Oh John Edwards, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of dead people talking. So despite the fundamental emptiness
Speaker 1: of phil philosophy, or perhaps because of it, Dr Phil
Speaker 1: became a wild success. His first episode ran in two
Speaker 1: thousand two of The Doctor Phil Show, Like he spun
Speaker 1: off pretty quickly, and he's been on the air ever since.
Speaker 1: He instinctively knew that the real money and this sort
Speaker 1: of TV was leaning in towards the most tragic and
Speaker 1: risque stories drug addiction, spousal abuse, troubled teens, all that
Speaker 1: good ship. He was happy to throw medical best practices
Speaker 1: out the window. In two thousand four, he interviewed a
Speaker 1: nine year old boy whose parents said he was being
Speaker 1: abusive towards his younger sister. Dr Phil said the child
Speaker 1: had nine of the fourteen characteristics of a serial killer.
Speaker 1: Then he added Jeffrey Dahmer had seven Jesus very well
Speaker 1: crafted and all that's beautiful. Yeah, it's it's like so
Speaker 1: any reputable psychologists like Hiatrist will tell you that one
Speaker 1: thing you can't do, as in like it's forbidden in
Speaker 1: the discipline, is to diagnose a child as a psychopath.
Speaker 1: You you're not allowed to do that because their children,
Speaker 1: their brains are developing, and shackling a child with that
Speaker 1: diagnosis is incredibly unethical. Dr Shils did it on national television.
Speaker 1: He feel he isn't he's still doing it on national television.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, yes, yes, he does this all yes, yes.
Speaker 1: From a write up by BuzzFeed. Quote Dr Phil purports
Speaker 1: to be a mental health professional, but he's diagnosing from
Speaker 1: videotape on the air, said then executive director of the
Speaker 1: National Alliance on Mental Illness Michael Fitzpatrick to The Washington
Speaker 1: Post in a two thousand four story about Dr Phil's
Speaker 1: bad psychotherapy. It's unethical to do that sort of if
Speaker 1: you will pop psychology, you don't do that for ratings.
Speaker 1: This is a human being. A spokesperson for Dr Phil
Speaker 1: at the time said that McGraw never labeled the child
Speaker 1: is mentally ill, which is technically true. He merely brought
Speaker 1: up Jeffrey Dahmer. So there you go. This is like
Speaker 1: just next lot, it's it's it all rings like semi familiar.
Speaker 1: It is kind of like interesting to think about how
Speaker 1: how used to as a culture? How used to? We
Speaker 1: are of like Dr Phil saying the most funked up
Speaker 1: thing he can possibly think of at a child, because
Speaker 1: he's been doing it for twenty five years. And I
Speaker 1: love how from the beginning, Yeah, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that wasn't an escalation. It was just always that. No.
Speaker 1: People have been complaining about Dr Phil in this way
Speaker 1: from the very beginning of his career, and it has
Speaker 1: never made a difference for a single second. And it's
Speaker 1: never made him loss money. It doesn't seem like this
Speaker 1: is so fucking bleak. I think it's just made him
Speaker 1: more money, which is good. I mean he picked a
Speaker 1: good life strategy. You know you can get more money
Speaker 1: than I do. So Dr Phil stopped renewing his license
Speaker 1: to pack practice as a psychologist in two thousand six.
Speaker 1: He has never held a valid license in California, where
Speaker 1: his show is filmed. A spokesperson for his show confirmed
Speaker 1: that he stopped renewing his license because he quote no
Speaker 1: longer worked as a therapist, which I don't disagree with,
Speaker 1: but I would argue he is absolutely marketing himself as
Speaker 1: a therapist and is still in the business of therapy.
Speaker 1: He's presenting himself as someone who has a license. He
Speaker 1: for sure is, and he's not just still doing therapy
Speaker 1: on his show. He is selling products to companies that
Speaker 1: make their whole all of their money from doing therapy.
Speaker 1: Like hell, I'll get into that now. A stat News
Speaker 1: Boston Globe investigation several years ago revealed that Dr Phil
Speaker 1: and his son some dude named Jay started a business
Speaker 1: called Dr Phil's Path to Recovery and the Late Oughts.
Speaker 1: This was a virtual reality addiction recovery program where a
Speaker 1: VR Dr Phil would walk you through exercises to help
Speaker 1: you get and stay sober. From BuzzFeed, quote users dawn
Speaker 1: virtual reality goggles and are placed in scenarios with Dr Phil,
Speaker 1: and one McGraw sits at a bar, arms folded across
Speaker 1: his chest, counseling his visitor on how to avoid the
Speaker 1: triggers of an evening out when alcohol is present. In
Speaker 1: another scene, he reclines in genes on the backyard patio
Speaker 1: of his sprawling estate, sparkling pool and fustia flowers behind
Speaker 1: him and a wide blue sky above, and shares coping strategies.
Speaker 1: You'll leave these sessions feeling as though you just had
Speaker 1: an eye opening and insightful conversation about your life with
Speaker 1: Dr Phil. The Path to Recovery website promises the product
Speaker 1: is described as the culmination of more than four decades
Speaker 1: of experience Dr Phil has working in the mental health
Speaker 1: profession and addiction recovery. So that sounds helpful. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: that was thank you for that clarifying statement. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no evidence that this program helps with addiction
Speaker 1: in any way. A disclaimer on the website says that
Speaker 1: it is quote solely for general information purposes and is
Speaker 1: quote not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any
Speaker 1: medical health, mental or psychological problem or condition, the worst
Speaker 1: kind of part in the worst kind of person, because
Speaker 1: now he's just outright targeting the most vulnerable people he can.
Speaker 1: It's like it was, I didn't care when he was
Speaker 1: targeting other grifters. Yeah, and he's not even doing it
Speaker 1: in a situation where they can choose to be grifted
Speaker 1: by him, because by the time they're in addiction recovery,
Speaker 1: like they're already paying, they probably don't even know that
Speaker 1: this fucking thing is there. Um. Yeah. Now, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that there's no evidence that this thing helps in anyway,
Speaker 1: a number of addiction recovery programs purchased Path to Recovery
Speaker 1: to use you. And I guess why they bought it? Fine,
Speaker 1: because Dr Phil gave them free advertising on the show
Speaker 1: if they bought it. No business, boys, boy, he's really
Speaker 1: good this boy. Yeah. Dr Phil offered addiction treatment centers
Speaker 1: free endorsements on both The Dr Phil Show and his
Speaker 1: spinoff series The Doctors if they first bought his program.
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed managed to get ahold of audio of one of
Speaker 1: these pitch sessions, where mccross salesman told a customer quote,
Speaker 1: our job is to get your phones to ring and
Speaker 1: the admissions hopefully follow. He bragged that Doctor Phil's viewers
Speaker 1: were older, high income people, not the addict calling because
Speaker 1: I told my mom I'd do it. Oh my, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're we've arrived at cartoon villainy. We sure have
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus. Okay, Well, what does does does Oprah? Ever?
Speaker 1: Because they forget because over the years Oprah has endorsed
Speaker 1: a number of questionable people and sometimes out out John
Speaker 1: of God there and and shout out what's his name?
Speaker 1: Who wrote a million little pieces? Oh yeah, Jonathan? Right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she she's had to apologize for having endorsed a lot
Speaker 1: of funked up people over the years. Has that that
Speaker 1: that moment has never happened for doctor phill Right, She's
Speaker 1: never backed off? Did she ever back off from him
Speaker 1: at anything? No? No, no, no, no, no no, they're still
Speaker 1: deeply tied together. Why would she ever back off on him?
Speaker 1: I guess that's true? God dead man, are you okay? Well?
Speaker 1: That was that was the question I wanted a better
Speaker 1: answer to. Yeah, except the truth, the truth is that
Speaker 1: why would she care? She's she's doing just fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she has she has plenty of money, So like, what
Speaker 1: do you what do you expect her to do, Jamie,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. It's like, you can't
Speaker 1: expect anyone with that much money to be a good person.
Speaker 1: You're just sending yourself. You're just asking to be sad
Speaker 1: because they just ask me to whack them all right down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they never will be um because it's not lucrative to
Speaker 1: be a good person. It's the opposite of lucrative to
Speaker 1: be a good person. That's true. Yeah. You know what
Speaker 1: is lucrative though, Jamie Chilling the products and services that
Speaker 1: support this podcast. Ah, we're back and I am just
Speaker 1: having a great time talking with my friend Jay Loft
Speaker 1: about Dr philamar was what's his middle name? What's his name?
Speaker 1: All the disappointed Philip Calvin Calvin. Yeah, Jamie, I just
Speaker 1: talked to you about how Dr Phil has this VR
Speaker 1: addiction treatment thing and he basically gives people gives like
Speaker 1: treatment centers, free advertising if they buy it. Um. You
Speaker 1: want to guess the quality of the facilities that that
Speaker 1: the take Doctor phill up on this offer. Only the
Speaker 1: best right is nothing, Oh Jamie, It's a lot worse
Speaker 1: than nothing in some cases, on the facility that took
Speaker 1: Dr Phil up on this author offer was Inspirations for
Speaker 1: Youth and Families, a Fort Lauderdale based treatment center for teenagers.
Speaker 1: Phil actually highlighted the facility, run by core Cora and
Speaker 1: Walsh on his show the day he announced his new
Speaker 1: VR program, saying, we think outside the box and designing
Speaker 1: what addicts need. What you need is something that pops
Speaker 1: out of the noise, something that rises above the noise,
Speaker 1: like a distinctive voice, and that voice, in this case
Speaker 1: is me to Phil then introduced Walsh, saying she ran
Speaker 1: the nation's leading family addiction treatment and dual diagnosis center.
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed actually investigated the facility and found that it had
Speaker 1: a well documented history of children escaping and getting into danger.
Speaker 1: Stephen Sardoui, a p I who was hired hired to
Speaker 1: find two different girls who escaped from the facility and disappeared,
Speaker 1: said it seems to be an ongoing problem in that
Speaker 1: this in that particular facility. Obviously there's a gap somewhere,
Speaker 1: a loophole somewhere in the system where they're just leaving.
Speaker 1: In the last two years, Inspiration staff members made a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty reports to police about children and their
Speaker 1: care going missing, sometimes the teens. Sometimes the teams left
Speaker 1: for days or even escaped the state. One escape he
Speaker 1: wound up prostituting herself for drugs. A number of the
Speaker 1: teams wound up finding drugs one way or another after
Speaker 1: getting out of the facility. Six were arrested, two were hospitalized.
Speaker 1: One group who escaped together later robbed a homeless man.
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed talked to Jill Walters of South Carolina, who's seventeen
Speaker 1: year old escaped from Inspirations in two thousand sixteen and
Speaker 1: wound up the street in Miami. She explained why she
Speaker 1: initially had chosen Inspirations to help her boy. Quote, they
Speaker 1: touted this we were on Dr Phil. They used that
Speaker 1: as we must be a great facility because we were
Speaker 1: on Dr Phil. Well, that has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: how the facility is run. You entrust your child to
Speaker 1: the care of these people, and something like this happens.
Speaker 1: It's good ship. God, that's that that that it wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop getting worse. That is so fucking off. It's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty bad. It's pretty pretty bad. Jamie.
Speaker 1: It speaks to like, yeah, just the level of clout
Speaker 1: he but he's still upfolds too. Because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that if you think about it for a while,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well, he's not a licensed doctor, and
Speaker 1: look at what he's actually saying. But it's like the
Speaker 1: world was reinforcing his bullshit for so long. That is
Speaker 1: so evil. Oh my god, it is evil, Jamie. Sure,
Speaker 1: but you know it's not evil. What the products and
Speaker 1: services that I just advertised on this podcast that we're
Speaker 1: not actually cutting two again? I just I have a problem, Jamie.
Speaker 1: I I have a problem. You can't stop thinking, and
Speaker 1: I can't stop I can't stop pivoting to ads. You know,
Speaker 1: you're just you've been I mean, I'm you know what, Jamie,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm an addict. Oh my god, get it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hated it. That one's a good one.
Speaker 1: That one's that's a keeper. You know what we're done
Speaker 1: with the episode go Home? I nailed it. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: We've got to end with Dr Phil ruining the lives
Speaker 1: of children. I mean, I guess that that is where
Speaker 1: the story is going to end, no matter what it is,
Speaker 1: It's where it began and it's where it'll end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's where Dr Phil. Just kill me? Now, I got Okay,
Speaker 1: I am gonna. I am going to continue to advocate
Speaker 1: for put Dr Phil through a gigant human size shredder
Speaker 1: on live TV. I think that that is the kind
Speaker 1: of dystopian television. Like we're already at masked Singer. That's
Speaker 1: the next logical step for me. Fair enough, But I hated,
Speaker 1: I hate an evil person threw a shredder. It's the
Speaker 1: modern guillotine, big old shredder. Yeah, it's the best way
Speaker 1: to do anything. Really. Yeah, is a shredder anyway? Jamie
Speaker 1: Jay Loft m hmm, Joe Loft. God, we're actually still
Speaker 1: talking about inspirations. So court records also revealed that the
Speaker 1: center's co owner, Christopher Walsh, is, by his own admission,
Speaker 1: a habitual drunkard, who in two thousand fifteen suit a
Speaker 1: resort for serving him alcohol, saying they should have known
Speaker 1: he couldn't handle it. And boy, how do you does
Speaker 1: it ever get worse? Let's talk about Todd Herzog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, at the end of the inspiration stuff.
Speaker 1: But so Todd Herzog was another was a repeated guest
Speaker 1: on The Doctor Phil Show. Now, Todd's back story is
Speaker 1: that he one survivor back in the early odds he
Speaker 1: got like a million dollars and then became a horrible,
Speaker 1: like developed a horrific addiction to alcohol, um, like a
Speaker 1: life threatening addiction. Now Dr Phil and his producers must
Speaker 1: have salivated at the combination of disastrous alcoholic and reality
Speaker 1: TV star. Here's how stat News described what happened next.
Speaker 1: Quote Herzog told stat in the Boston Globe that he
Speaker 1: was not intoxicated when he arrived at the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: studio to film the Doctor philm show. And his dressing room,
Speaker 1: he said he found a bottle of smearing off vodka.
Speaker 1: He drank all of it. Then someone handed him a Zanix,
Speaker 1: he said, telling him it would calm his nerves. So
Speaker 1: this guy who had managed to sober himself up enough
Speaker 1: to like try to go on TV and Dr Phil's
Speaker 1: people basically allegedly made sure there was a full bottle
Speaker 1: of vodka and um a fucking gave him a Zanex?
Speaker 1: Did you just because you know? I think the reasoning
Speaker 1: is the more of a disaster you seem like on air,
Speaker 1: the more marketable you are. Yeah, right right, But which
Speaker 1: is a proven model given the star of the show
Speaker 1: is like bachelor levels of like Jamie, Jamie, Ji, let's
Speaker 1: get as close as we can killing people. Dear, dear
Speaker 1: sweet Jamie loftus. We are not even at the worst
Speaker 1: part yet. Oh no, okay, keep going. Yeah. So, by
Speaker 1: the time Herzog got on stage, he was so wasted
Speaker 1: that he could barely talk or function. Dr Phil and
Speaker 1: his assistant walked them out themselves, making a big show
Speaker 1: of helping him while highlighting just how wrecked he was.
Speaker 1: And I want you to listen to this, Jamie. I
Speaker 1: want you to watch this, obviously, but um, I want
Speaker 1: everyone at home or in your car or pooping or
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're doing. I can't describe the anxiety
Speaker 1: of seeing Robert Evans has started screen sharing. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know. All right, here's the Doctor Phil show.
Speaker 1: Dr Phil, I'm todd, can you walk ap barely? I
Speaker 1: have to have help. Sorry, I'm very what's all right, random?
Speaker 1: Once you get over there and take spot, yeah, I'll go.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because it just kepler this happening, So just
Speaker 1: come turn around. So that's all I want to play
Speaker 1: of that. Um, he can barely move. It is fundamentally
Speaker 1: unethical to have someone in that state on your television show.
Speaker 1: Even I mean, even even if they had been inebriated
Speaker 1: of their own volition and being like sped drugs, that
Speaker 1: even if they had consented earlier, I know, think you
Speaker 1: can consent to that. Yeah, absolutely not like that is
Speaker 1: like the the worst situation imaginable. That is fucking evil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not good, Jamie. It's just not a
Speaker 1: good thing to do. I would say, I would recommend
Speaker 1: not doing that if if I was if someone asked me,
Speaker 1: should I take someone who has a problem with addiction
Speaker 1: and give them drugs and then film them disastrously wrecked? Um,
Speaker 1: I would say No, that sounds like an evil thing
Speaker 1: to do. That is absolute cruel. God, it's cruel and good, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Cruel and good. And they just had that on in
Speaker 1: waiting rooms. That was just what you watched while you
Speaker 1: were waiting to see the dentist. So, when questioned, representatives
Speaker 1: of the Doctor Phil Show didn't i that they provided
Speaker 1: Herzog with alcohol and drugs. They said, junkies lie in
Speaker 1: essence about his claims, And then they pointed out that
Speaker 1: they weren't a medical facility and couldn't watch their guests
Speaker 1: at all times. The director of the treatment facility where
Speaker 1: her Zog agreed to go for help at the end
Speaker 1: of the show. However, was horrified when he saw him
Speaker 1: on television. He was so upset by the condition that
Speaker 1: Dr Phil let her Zog appear on air in that
Speaker 1: he refused to ever have anything to do with the
Speaker 1: Doctor Phil Show again. So this was so outrageous that
Speaker 1: it convinced the head of a treatment program that all
Speaker 1: of the free advertising that Doctor Phil Show could provide
Speaker 1: was not worth the ethical compromise of dealing with that. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't, I mean, I can't. You can't really hand
Speaker 1: it to him for that. But that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: sucking something that's to late. Yeah, yeah, it's just it.
Speaker 1: You have to really, like, you have to really do
Speaker 1: bad to to to convince someone of that. I think
Speaker 1: like that's a yeah, like that, that's throwing a lot
Speaker 1: of money out And I don't know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say all people in the rehab facility business or sketchy,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of sketchy motherfucker's in that industry,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's cool and
Speaker 1: good Jamie, Wow, I feel really not very good, Jamie.
Speaker 1: That's thank you so much for saying that you know
Speaker 1: hear it behind the bastards. That's exactly what we go
Speaker 1: for At all time. I convinced myself that this is
Speaker 1: going to be a fun one and every time, except
Speaker 1: the one time, I'm dead brown, even worse than I
Speaker 1: could have conceived. All I ever want is for you
Speaker 1: to feel bad. Thank you so much. That's my whole goal.
Speaker 1: You know you're a successful person. I'm not a hero.
Speaker 1: I'm just um. I'm a hero. I'm a hero. You
Speaker 1: know I'm not a hero. Todd Herzog's story does not
Speaker 1: appear to be an isolated one. Jordan's Smith appeared on
Speaker 1: The Tor Phil Show in two thousand twelve in an
Speaker 1: episode titled Young, Reckless and Enabled. Smith's aunt claimed she
Speaker 1: contacted to the show to help get her niece off
Speaker 1: of heroin. When they arrived in l A from out
Speaker 1: of state, Jordan's started going through withdrawal. Her aunt told
Speaker 1: a show producer that her niece needed heroin and something
Speaker 1: or something else to help with the withdrawal. The producer
Speaker 1: suggested that they go to skid Row and buy heroin together.
Speaker 1: She then told them not to say who made that suggestion. Later, now,
Speaker 1: guests like smith Is received free addiction treatment and an
Speaker 1: expensive center after their appearance on the show, which is
Speaker 1: why many do it, But prior to taping, no medical
Speaker 1: treatment is provided or offered. Smith and her family were
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles alone for two nights before taping. A
Speaker 1: less trusting person than me might suggest that the show
Speaker 1: does this, that these people will be extra fucked up
Speaker 1: and sad when it comes time for them to be
Speaker 1: on television. Sure, sure, yeah, it's very ethical. That is
Speaker 1: extremely like, you have to be thinking so hard you
Speaker 1: come up with something like that. It's so innocuous. Seeing
Speaker 1: these people's lives are already off the fucking rails. How
Speaker 1: can we make it a little worse? I'm Dr Phil.
Speaker 1: Joel King Parrish brought her twenty eight year old daughter,
Speaker 1: Caitlin to doctor Phil for help kicking a heroin addiction.
Speaker 1: Caitlin was six months pregnant at the time. Her mother
Speaker 1: assumed that when they landed they would receive medical attention
Speaker 1: since withdrawal could endanger the fetus, But when Caitlin's mom
Speaker 1: asked the staff for help, they told her to quote
Speaker 1: take care of it. She took her daughter to the hospital,
Speaker 1: which she left without a sheet receiving treatment. Next from
Speaker 1: stat news quote, the producer texted to say she should
Speaker 1: stay at the hospital, but Caitlin would not, and King
Speaker 1: Parrish was terrified the baby would die if her daughter
Speaker 1: did not get medicine or drugs. King Parrish and Caitlin
Speaker 1: went to the Doctor Phil studio, where another show stafford
Speaker 1: joined them. All three got into a cab headed for
Speaker 1: skid Row. The stafford shot video which later aired on
Speaker 1: the show. In it, King Parrish tells the camera, I
Speaker 1: am scared to death right now. The camera follows Caitlin
Speaker 1: from behind she walks towards homeless encampments. King Paris said
Speaker 1: Caitlynn was gone for about a half hour while she
Speaker 1: shot up Heroin, So they just like went out to
Speaker 1: go buy a horse at skid Row and filmed it.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, and that's like that's good TV. Is
Speaker 1: what that is? This is ja wine. They really mupseting.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean, on top of the fact
Speaker 1: that that's an extreme disservice to her, that's also like
Speaker 1: yet another example of like bullshit high rated TV heading
Speaker 1: into unhoused encampments to just frame people and completely context
Speaker 1: list bumped up way, I hate that ship so much
Speaker 1: that I think it's cool and good. Jamie, Wow, I
Speaker 1: think it's cooling good. I hate this so much, loft this.
Speaker 1: We do have fun on this show, though, We sure
Speaker 1: do sure to bust out Franzia and really dial Yeah,
Speaker 1: friends out with our glands out. I don't know, I'm stuck.
Speaker 1: I'm stuck making that exact kind of joke repeated. I'm
Speaker 1: still chilling, chilling with filling. Yeah, gross, no, no, no idea.
Speaker 1: It's all deeply uncomfortable, Probert. You know what's not deeply uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast. No, every
Speaker 1: one of them will gently cradle your head or whatever
Speaker 1: other part of your body you you would like them
Speaker 1: to craz absolutely or wherever. They'll just kiss you. You know,
Speaker 1: they're just going to kiss you. That's that's the behind
Speaker 1: the bastards promise random kisses from a product. Here's some ads. Okay,
Speaker 1: So there are a bunch of stories like this, and
Speaker 1: one of the saddest part of all these stories is
Speaker 1: that the people who will like who, the people who
Speaker 1: Doctor Phil clearly takes advantage of, will still claim that
Speaker 1: his show helped them because they were able to receive
Speaker 1: free addiction recovery care that they couldn't have afforded without
Speaker 1: the Doctor Phil Show. Almost no aspect of his show
Speaker 1: works if they're single payer healthcare that covers addiction treatment.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Phil Show profits off of sadness, porn, the
Speaker 1: shock and embarrassment people feel watching the ruined lives of
Speaker 1: his guests, and the sassy, no bullshit advice Doctor Phil
Speaker 1: gives them. He earns between sixty and eighty million dollars
Speaker 1: a year. Of course, the Doctor's Phil Show. I know right,
Speaker 1: that's an obscene number, isn't it? Just make sure you
Speaker 1: want to light some ship on fire, doesn't it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sure does, Jamie, it sure does. So. Of course,
Speaker 1: the Doctor Phil Show would get boring pretty quick if
Speaker 1: he only dealt with people suffering from drug addictions and
Speaker 1: abuse of spouses. From the beginning, a major source of
Speaker 1: content form of GRAW was so called troubled teens. Kids
Speaker 1: in crisis are big business for grift t TV therapists because,
Speaker 1: being children, those kids have no ability to regulate their
Speaker 1: emotions and no sense of proportion. This leads to TV
Speaker 1: friendly explosions of rage. In two thousand sixteen, Dr Phil
Speaker 1: interviewed Danielle Brigoli for a next episode titled I Want
Speaker 1: to give Up My car stealing knife wielding twerking thirteen
Speaker 1: year old daughter who tried to frame me for a crime,
Speaker 1: which is just a title mint to to show up
Speaker 1: on a like like throwing twerking in there with fucking
Speaker 1: car stealing shameless, There was that there was a cultural
Speaker 1: hat to now Brigolie now goes by the stage name
Speaker 1: bad Baby b h A D b h A b
Speaker 1: I E was a prime time ready delinquent. She spoke
Speaker 1: in a ridiculously affected hood accent and pretended to basically
Speaker 1: be a gangster in the kind of confrontational, like nonsense
Speaker 1: teenage way that gave Doctor Fell a lot of openings
Speaker 1: to mock her with his witty rejoinders. I don't want
Speaker 1: to play much of her appearance because she was a child,
Speaker 1: and I think what Dr Phil does by having her
Speaker 1: on is fundamentally abusive. But I do think it's important
Speaker 1: to play how the episode starts, so you can see
Speaker 1: how he introduces this segment and hear it you listening,
Speaker 1: will hear it? Jamie? I want you to pay attention
Speaker 1: to the looks on the faces of the people in
Speaker 1: his audience. She's defiant. What has she met? Her match
Speaker 1: with Dr Phil? You can threaten him, but time your
Speaker 1: worst nightmare. Well, thank you. Well, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this show for fifteen years and I've met some
Speaker 1: truly remarkable people, and I have heard thousands of stories.
Speaker 1: Now in that time, you get to thinking that you've
Speaker 1: seen and heard just about everything that was until today.
Speaker 1: Meet Danielle. Now, Danielle's mom Barbara and has written to
Speaker 1: me every year for the past three years about her daughter,
Speaker 1: who has stold thousands of dollars, framed her mother as
Speaker 1: a drug user, and then called to report her and
Speaker 1: is currently facing grand theft charges. Now I answered her
Speaker 1: call for help, and I sent my film crew across
Speaker 1: the country to capture what was going on inside this home.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, while my team was there, something shocking
Speaker 1: and unexpected happened. Shortly after they had finished filming, one
Speaker 1: of my crew members noticed that Danielle had vanished with
Speaker 1: the keys to my crew member's car. Now, sure enough,
Speaker 1: when Danielle's grandmother, Barbara, went outside, she found out that
Speaker 1: Danielle had stolen the car, which had the crew members
Speaker 1: handback wallet I D and cash inside. That's not bad enough.
Speaker 1: Danielle's only thirteen years old. So you see. The thing
Speaker 1: that's most interesting to me about that is the faces
Speaker 1: of the women in the audience, um, because they are
Speaker 1: particularly the glee right, Like That's the thing that's most
Speaker 1: unsettling to me, is like how excited they are with
Speaker 1: every new aspect of this story that Dr Phil reveals well.
Speaker 1: And I also think that those reactions may not even
Speaker 1: be I mean, those reactions in themselves are extremely coached,
Speaker 1: where I like I used to do like audience work
Speaker 1: when I first had moved here and had like there's
Speaker 1: no money to my name, and you're so extremely coached,
Speaker 1: and like before the show even starts, you're told to
Speaker 1: do a series of facial expressions for the editors to
Speaker 1: work with, and so it's it's like manipulation top to
Speaker 1: bottom with how it's handled, because it's like, not only
Speaker 1: is he obviously not has no vested interest in the
Speaker 1: well being of this kid, like he also, like I
Speaker 1: I would argue probably that editing is completely fucking doctored
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, I have no idea if that's the
Speaker 1: those if those face expressions match, like what was actually
Speaker 1: going down. But like it's all I guess specifically the
Speaker 1: idea that they wanted to show those reactions because I
Speaker 1: think they're trying to coach or response. They're trying to
Speaker 1: coach response from the people watching at home to write
Speaker 1: this like this, the voyeurism, Like it makes it clear
Speaker 1: none of this is about helping anyone. It's about laughing
Speaker 1: at quote unquote low class people in their problems. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's what Dr Phil really makes his bread doing. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: but great, but fuck him. Like she went on to
Speaker 1: like have a successful like she's eighteen, she's she was
Speaker 1: nominated for an American Music Award. She was I didn't
Speaker 1: know that good. I'm glad there's a happy ending that
Speaker 1: I don't know much about baby now. And like she's
Speaker 1: you know, signed a record label. I mean, and she
Speaker 1: is standing up for what happens. We're about to get
Speaker 1: into that. Yeah, So Grigoli went viral, and within the
Speaker 1: confines of the episode, Dr Phil positions himself as a
Speaker 1: dispenser of tough love. His prescription was to send Brigoli
Speaker 1: to one of his favorite therapeutic boarding schools, Turnabout Ranch
Speaker 1: in Utah. This is an actual working ranch where troubled
Speaker 1: teams are sent under the impression that working in the
Speaker 1: country and rate riding horses will get them off of drugs,
Speaker 1: premarital sex, and petty crime. In subsequent episodes, Brigoli filmed
Speaker 1: an update from the ranch where she dropped her fake
Speaker 1: accent and claimed to feel okay with who I am now,
Speaker 1: but she was not being honest understandably so in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen, she released an original song and gave
Speaker 1: a different view of her experience that turnabout quote. I
Speaker 1: was pretty it was pretty miserable. I did not know
Speaker 1: what was going on in the real world. This place
Speaker 1: was far away from anything. There wasn't even service there,
Speaker 1: she says in the song. A couple of weeks after
Speaker 1: being home, I finally decided that I wanted to meet
Speaker 1: up with my best friend again, somebody who was not
Speaker 1: good for me at all. Instantly I'd say it was.
Speaker 1: The next day we got back to doing our old
Speaker 1: shit again, smoking, trying to finance people for money, just
Speaker 1: doing really, really dumb shit. Her reintegration into society was
Speaker 1: made all the more difficult by the fact that when
Speaker 1: she returned to school and the internet, she realized rather
Speaker 1: suddenly that she'd gone viral for being a ridiculous train
Speaker 1: wreck of a person on a nationally syndicated TV program.
Speaker 1: She claims that this basically made her decide to quote
Speaker 1: lean into the bad behavior that had made her famous.
Speaker 1: Once you've become a meme, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to get a clean slate. There's no right to
Speaker 1: be forgotten in the US, So why wouldn't Burgoli just
Speaker 1: keep being the person everyone already thought she was. This
Speaker 1: gets to one of the things I think is worst
Speaker 1: about the Doctor Phil show. It's one thing to shamelessly
Speaker 1: milk the worst moments and the greatest shames in the
Speaker 1: life of an adult. It's another thing, entirely to do
Speaker 1: that to a child who has no real way to
Speaker 1: understand the long term Yeah, no way that she could
Speaker 1: have possibly understood the law long term consequences of being
Speaker 1: coming that kind of famous. It's completely it's like violent
Speaker 1: every level, and it's like whatever I mean, clearly, Doctor
Speaker 1: Bill does not give a fun no, not a not
Speaker 1: a third of a fuck. Yeah, but it is and
Speaker 1: and it also I think like speaks to how especially
Speaker 1: for a kid, which is like that should doing what
Speaker 1: he does to children should be illegal should yes, you
Speaker 1: should not be allowed to do ship like that. And
Speaker 1: on top of that, it speaks to like how, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's like I remember that clip when it
Speaker 1: first came out, and there was no popular conversation about
Speaker 1: like the well being of the child who's clearly being
Speaker 1: exploited by a multimillionaire, and and it's and and and
Speaker 1: I see that. I mean, it's when you're introduced in
Speaker 1: the public that way, and you are coming from a
Speaker 1: place of poverty, and you are not being empowered at
Speaker 1: all or protected, Like what are you supposed to do?
Speaker 1: Like that miserable, cruel situation to be put in, It's
Speaker 1: it's fucked up. Yeah, now, Jamie, that's all pretty bad, right.
Speaker 1: Everything we've talked about happening to Brigolie is bad. But
Speaker 1: to make matters worse, the ranch Dr Phil sent her
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other kids too was about as
Speaker 1: ethical as oh, I don't know, the drug rehabilitation treatment
Speaker 1: programs he was also sending kids to. I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote again from BuzzFeed. It's not clear if turnabout is
Speaker 1: actually helpful to the kids or go who go, or
Speaker 1: if it's just another facility that takes advantage of the
Speaker 1: miners who were sent there to get better. Just last week,
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Hannah archioletta suit the school for an
Speaker 1: alleged sexual assault that she said happened to her while
Speaker 1: she was staying at Turnabout at just seventeen. This is
Speaker 1: likely to be a high profile profile case too, with
Speaker 1: Gloria Alread representing her Turnabout administrators provided a statement to
Speaker 1: me saying they took immediate action after Archiletta claimed she
Speaker 1: had been assaulted, but that her father removed her from
Speaker 1: the facility before we could conduct a full inquiry. The
Speaker 1: statement continued, we would never take lightly an allegation of
Speaker 1: his treatment to any of our students. Now that this
Speaker 1: incident is the subject of litigation, we must withhold our
Speaker 1: full response for a later date. Now, the owner of
Speaker 1: this ranch is Aspen Education Group, which was then bought
Speaker 1: by CRC, which is now owned by Acadia Healthcare. In
Speaker 1: an email statement to BuzzFeed News, Akadia's director of investor Relations,
Speaker 1: Gretchen Hamrick, said, it is my understanding that Turnabout Ranch
Speaker 1: and Aspen Educational Group were closed or sold prior to
Speaker 1: a Kadia's acquisition of CRC. Health. In any event, Akadia
Speaker 1: never operated either of the facilities. Turnabout has gone through
Speaker 1: multiple owners, and since two thousand fourteen, has been owned
Speaker 1: by current and former employees of the ranch, but Aspen
Speaker 1: Education has been accused of multiple infractions by former attendees,
Speaker 1: including lawsuits that claimed psychological torture, abuse, sexual assault, and
Speaker 1: human trafficking. The torture suit was dismissed, but CRC, the
Speaker 1: owner of Aspen Education at the time, declined to address
Speaker 1: specific allegations. Arcadia did not answer our questions about these
Speaker 1: allegations either. So just not only like a bunch of
Speaker 1: people involved in this have been alleged of things including
Speaker 1: human trafficking. There's been sexual assault allegations at the ranch,
Speaker 1: but it like goes there's revolving carousel of owners because
Speaker 1: it's like a shady fucking It's just like they're pumping
Speaker 1: a quick amount of cash at and then selling it
Speaker 1: to somebody else. It's so fucking shady. Sure, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that's the intergirl to it being able
Speaker 1: to survive at all, to be constantly changing hands, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole team treatment industry. Like I've done
Speaker 1: a number of art back when I was at Cracked,
Speaker 1: I did a number of articles survivors of these facilities,
Speaker 1: like all of these facilities are basically child molestation factories,
Speaker 1: and like child abuse factories in general, not always molestation.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they just killed them from neglect. You know, there
Speaker 1: was there was the good ones. That's the point where
Speaker 1: like Harris Hilton made a documentary about it last year. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Paris Hilton and actually Danielle Burgoli Bad Baby are
Speaker 1: involved right now with going against Dr Phil about this
Speaker 1: exact place. So it's very interesting that it does. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about her always mentioned but besides the
Speaker 1: stuff that was like famous about how shitty she was
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years ago, but it seems like she's been
Speaker 1: doing some like good socially responsible stuff lately, Paris. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it seems like it seems
Speaker 1: like she has. I mean, also, I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not about to I'm not going to go to
Speaker 1: back for the stop being poor lady, but yeah, right right,
Speaker 1: right right, But but yeah, that that specific instance, I'm
Speaker 1: glad if you have wealth and prominence and you use
Speaker 1: it to take a swing at the teen treatment industry,
Speaker 1: that gets you a couple of points in my book,
Speaker 1: because it's a fucking nightmare. Um, maybe we'll do a
Speaker 1: deeper episode about it at some point. But a lot
Speaker 1: of the allegations that we just listed about this facility
Speaker 1: and it's many owners pre date the episodes of Dr
Speaker 1: Phil where he gave free advertisements to the ranch. This
Speaker 1: means that McGraw and his staff were well aware of
Speaker 1: the allegations against Aspen and the ranch when they sent
Speaker 1: children there. When questioned about this, a spokesperson for the
Speaker 1: show said, we're aware and we're monitoring things. Since Archiletta
Speaker 1: went public with her allegations, Burgoli has come forward with
Speaker 1: more detail about her own experience. She now says she
Speaker 1: was denied food at times and that camp administrators often
Speaker 1: refused to let inmates change their clothes for days on end.
Speaker 1: You're yeah, and I that's my framing, but yes, you're helpless.
Speaker 1: You can't call your parents, you can't email your parents.
Speaker 1: If the state says they have to give you two pebbles,
Speaker 1: they're going to find the smallest fucking pebbles to give you.
Speaker 1: That's supposed to help kids get over trauma. I would
Speaker 1: have rather went to jail, like I one of the
Speaker 1: girls I talked to who did this when she was
Speaker 1: like fourteen or fifteen. Like. One of the punishments they
Speaker 1: gave her was she had to dig up the stump
Speaker 1: of a mature tree on her own, which if you've
Speaker 1: never had to remove a stump, it's something like three
Speaker 1: to four large adult men usually do with a fucking
Speaker 1: truck and power tools. She just spent days in a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty degree heat, like slowly dying as she
Speaker 1: tried to force the stump out as a child, like
Speaker 1: these places are all nightmares. Um Rogoli is, of course,
Speaker 1: not the only teenager featured on The Doctor Phil Show.
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed writers Scotchy Cowell announces announced Sorry, Scotchy, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm getting that right. Um alleges that while
Speaker 1: McGraw is healthy is happy to feature children of all genders,
Speaker 1: he gets particularly aggressive with teenage girls. Quote their most
Speaker 1: vulnerable private moments, screaming and crying at home, are used
Speaker 1: on the show until the very end, when their parents
Speaker 1: decide to send them to turn About. Every episode of
Speaker 1: The Doctor Phil Show ends with an after the taping
Speaker 1: segment where the kids find out they're going to a
Speaker 1: ranch in the middle of nowhere and usually cry, which
Speaker 1: is of course great television. Most kids featured in this
Speaker 1: way do not get any updates on the Doctor Phil show,
Speaker 1: or at most mentioned briefly once more. Daytime TV moves
Speaker 1: too fast for the doctor to actually check back in
Speaker 1: with most of his patients. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: Doctor Phil spun off and created a new show, The Doctors.
Speaker 1: Every episode of this show features a plastic surgeon, an obstetrician,
Speaker 1: and an e er doc who talk about different health topics.
Speaker 1: Sounds like it might be shop waiting room classic. We're
Speaker 1: not going to go into a lot of detail about this,
Speaker 1: but a two fourteen study of the show determined that
Speaker 1: about thirty seven percent of their recommendations were not credible,
Speaker 1: which honestly means they're doing better than I Yeah, I
Speaker 1: expected worse than I expected. If you're a doctor, for example,
Speaker 1: said thirty seven percent of the time I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you bad advice, you would find a new doctor there.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, d that's not the worst thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine a mechanics saying that, Yeah, thirty seven percent of
Speaker 1: the time the breaks I put in work, you know
Speaker 1: your odds are pretty good. Okay, fair enough. I thought
Speaker 1: it was like, there's no way they're somewhat correct sixty
Speaker 1: percent of the time. Why yes, and again somewhat being
Speaker 1: the operative word. Sure, we could go into a lot
Speaker 1: of other case studies have particularly egregious guest choices, but
Speaker 1: going over all these sad people in the will way
Speaker 1: Phil exploits them at nauseum kind of runs the risk
Speaker 1: of being sorrow porn it's self. I do think it
Speaker 1: behooves us to look at one last case study, perhaps
Speaker 1: the most nauseating guest choice of the whole series. Twenty
Speaker 1: four year old Gabby came on The Doctor Phil Show
Speaker 1: in February. She had promised to act as a surrogate
Speaker 1: womb for two different couples. Gabby had not taken any
Speaker 1: money from them, and she could not bear children. She
Speaker 1: is infertile and chronically ill. Her father claims she has psychosis,
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder, and learning disabilities. In the show, it's revealed
Speaker 1: that Gabby's mom died right around the time she started
Speaker 1: pretending to be a surrogate, which was also a period
Speaker 1: where she was the victim of constant bullying at school.
Speaker 1: From BuzzFeed, quote her scam wasn't illegal because Gavy never
Speaker 1: asked for money or items from the couple she lied to.
Speaker 1: It's just tragic, hurtful behavior from someone deeply isolated and
Speaker 1: in dire need of mental health care from multiple past traumas.
Speaker 1: Most of the episode focuses on the producers following Gabby
Speaker 1: around backstage, begging her to come on stage when she
Speaker 1: clearly doesn't want to. They all her difficult and volatile,
Speaker 1: and though she signed an appearance release, it's not clear
Speaker 1: to the audience that she has read and understood it.
Speaker 1: When a producer asks her on camera to confirm she
Speaker 1: understands the waiver, she doesn't respond and covers her face
Speaker 1: with the pages of the release, but she's certainly remorseful
Speaker 1: and seems to feel guilty. In a pre taped interview,
Speaker 1: Gabby cries to the producers, I just want to say
Speaker 1: sorry to everyone that I've heard. When she walks off
Speaker 1: the stage in anguish, McGraw merely SIPs his water. In size,
Speaker 1: the episode is near unwatchable. Yeah, I mean that that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like consent was gained at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were so many red flags. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: she's capable of consenting to that. Yeah, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to think. I mean that entire though, because
Speaker 1: I don't trust any of the information that anyone is
Speaker 1: presenting in this in this way. But that's just, I mean,
Speaker 1: very clear, there is not an issue that should be
Speaker 1: handled handled only that is Yeah, that is just despicable.
Speaker 1: So Doctor Jeff Sugar, an assistant professor of clinical psychology
Speaker 1: at USC, provided a description of the Doctor Phil show
Speaker 1: that I think acts as as as good a coda
Speaker 1: to this episode as anything. Quote, it's a callous and
Speaker 1: inexcusable exploitation. These people are barely hanging on. It's like
Speaker 1: if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat
Speaker 1: and instead of throwing them an inflatable donut, you throw
Speaker 1: them an anchor. And that's Dr Philip. Baby, d Phil.
Speaker 1: I am so upset about, Like I just this was
Speaker 1: like one of my like the toughest lessons of all times,
Speaker 1: maybe because he's just still such a real present public
Speaker 1: disgrace and danger, but like, holy sh it, I I
Speaker 1: can't even enjoy Dr Phil Needs. I was gonna show
Speaker 1: you Dr Phil Needs. I'm not gonna fuck it, fuck it,
Speaker 1: fuck him. Put him through a shredder. Put him through
Speaker 1: a shredder, and you at home, put yourself through a shredder.
Speaker 1: But a good kind of shredder that makes you helpful,
Speaker 1: life affirming kind of shredder, you know, in a way,
Speaker 1: in a way, every is that if it is not
Speaker 1: just capitalism yourself friend, Well with that, Jamie, I think
Speaker 1: it's time for you to plug a plug double and
Speaker 1: get the get the funk out of this zoom call
Speaker 1: and go live your your goddamn life, Jamie, go live
Speaker 1: your fucking life. You know I'm dying to live my life.
Speaker 1: So you can, just you can. You can listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast. You can listen to the the Ecto Past, you
Speaker 1: listen to the lead Up podcast, and can listen to
Speaker 1: my You're and Mensa, and you can listen to my
Speaker 1: new show about Kathie Comics that comes out in June.
Speaker 1: God damn it, God damn it, and all your this
Speaker 1: is miserable, damn god yourself. Yeah it was, Jamie, it
Speaker 1: really was all right. Well, fight the Internet life,