Part One: Dr. Phil Is Even Worse Than You Think And You Probably Think He Sucks

Robert is joined by Jamie Loftus to discuss Dr, Phil.

FOOTNOTES:

1. https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/28/dr-phil-guests-say-show-risks-health-of-some-addicts/ 
2. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-phil-mcgraw-mental-health-danielle-bregoli 
3. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/analyze-this-6395801 
4. https://www.drphil.com/about-dr-phil/ 
5. https://www.recordnet.com/article/20021017/a_life/310179982 
6. https://grantland.com/features/dr-phil-wild-houston-tulsa-college-football-game/  
7. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-phil-mcgraw-mental-health-danielle-bregoli  
8. https://en.newsner.com/celebrity/dr-phils-ex-wife-describes-her-years-together-with-him/  
9. https://www.drphil.com/advice/dr-phils-ten-life-laws/  
10. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dr-phil-life-laws_n_5734666 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Before we get into the episode, I wanted
to talk about a fundraiser we're doing now. Last year,
y'all funded basically the entirety of the Portland Diaper Bank,
which provides free diapers to people who are in you know,
financial crisis and whatnot. Um, we're doing that fundraiser again.
We're trying to raise dollars to fund the Portland Diaper
Bank for the year. If you want to donate some

(00:21):
cash to them, you can go to go fund me
diaper need and COVID nineteen response. If you just google
go fund me, diaper need and COVID nineteen response, it
should take you to the fundraiser. You can also find
my pinned tweet on my Twitter at I right, okay,
we'll take you right there. So diaper need and COVID
nineteen response on go fund me. Thank you all so much.

(00:43):
Buck you that's the introduction. Just just fuck you people
who listen and give us an income, nice comfortable life.
Not you, Jamie, just the audience. Just just the people
who support us with their ears just out the gate.

(01:06):
Fuck them. 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 exactly like what I do that you
could just turn to. I don't think so, and don't
investigate otherwise. No, please don't search podcasts on Spotify. I

(01:28):
feel like what you just said all could have come
out of Dr Phil's mouth at one point the second
the cameras start off for his show. Well, Jamie, the
orca is out of the tank, um, because that is
the subject of today's episode. Um. And also, you're Jamie Loft,
is my guest on the show that this is the Bastards?

(01:48):
Yes it is. It is behind the Bastards, and and
I'm I'm here. I'm mainly here to bring the Dr
Phil a s R videos this week. Excited is the
wrong word. Dreading. Dreading is the right word. I'm dreading that, Jamie.
You're gonna either really love them or really hate them,
and I can't figure out which it's gonna be. I
can't imagine loving them because they involve Dr Phil, and

(02:11):
I think he's gonna love you know. It's one of
those things. We just did the Doctor Oz episodes and
Doctor Oz also bad. Obviously, he was on this show,
But you have to respect him because he is a
brilliant doctor. Like, he's a man who, for all of
the harm he's done by spreading pseudoscience, has performed like
five thousand successful open heart surgeries, which is an achievement,

(02:32):
you know, and has patented a bunch of useful medical
devices and stuff. Um, he's He's a person who's made
like bafflingly selfish decisions that I don't respect. But as
a person, I have to have some level of respect
for the things that he has achieved because he's impressive.
Dr Phil is just a piece of ship. Dr Phil
is just straight up trash. We were we were talking

(02:54):
about this, Mike. There there was some Doctor Drew drama
in Los Angeles this week that actually like for once
ended well and online bullying um like persevered and Doctor
Drew was like nominated to the Los Angeles Homeless Services
of Authority like board and what is Okay, I don't

(03:17):
know Dr Drew. What is what does Dr Drew do?
I'm assuming he's a nonsense doctor like all of the
other doctors we talked about. He may be technically a doctor,
I'm not totally sure, but he was I think he's
a radio doctor. He also mediates uh the reunions of
teen mom and teen mom two and sixteen in pregnant
and causes uh damage to lots of lots of young

(03:41):
minds all the time. He technically does have he is
a doctor. I don't know if he's currently licensed, but
I know him from DH one in like middle school,
where he had just been ahab Drew Sex Rehab with
Dr Drew, Celebrity Rehab presents sober House and all that

(04:05):
sounds like my nightmare, Like that sounds that sounds like
the hell that I would go to is sober house.
Oh no, I could have I could have shortened my
description and said he's Adam Carolla's best friend, which is
also true, which is like we really Oh yeah, he
hosted like a famous radio show called love Line Forever,

(04:25):
and Adam Carolla was also on the show, and they're
they're close, and so yeah. He was nominated to serve
on the Homeless Authority Board and uh it took it
only took about a day, where like active Is just
bullied him into bullying people into withdrawing the nomination pretty quickly,

(04:45):
and he had a few spicy little comments about it. Um,
he was like, I can't like. He basically was like,
these online bullies are trying to cancel me for not
being a good and irrelevant for this job. So you know,
sometimes bad doctor's fault, I like, I love to see it. Well,

(05:07):
that's fascinating. I'm so happy to have learned about Dr Drew.
But today we're talking about Dr Phil and it's it's
time to get in get into the it's time to
have us a phil gasmka a mgros um mgrasam magras
mgasm yeah um so. Philip Calvin McGraw was born on

(05:30):
September one, nineteen fifty in Venita, Oklahoma, about four hours
from where I grew up. His father was Joseph and
his mother was Anne Geraldine or Jerry is what she
preferred to go by. He had two older sisters and
one younger sister. When he was a kid, his father
moved the family down to the oil fields of North Texas,
which are about as unpleasant a place as I've ever

(05:52):
encountered on this earth. Not a not a good place
to just exist. You know, when a as a general rules,
stay away from oil fields. Um, not nice places. So
his his kind of like Southern desolation is film McGraw's
early childhood. Um, which you know, I can tell you
from experience what that does to a kid, uh and
it it makes you either um a washout or ambitious

(06:17):
and angry. One of the two wind up an alcoholic
working on an oil derrick, or you do everything possible
to escape the desolate South. Anyway, Phil is going to
take that second one. I have strong feelings about that
part of Texas and that part of Oklahoma. Uh. Phil

(06:38):
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 mc graw would
end up moving the family half a dozen times for
the sake of his career. By age eleven, Phil spending

(07:00):
summer's driving a freight truck owned by his grandfather in Monday, Texas.
By age twelve, he was flying planes illegally without a
license as he traveled with the driving A driving at
age eleven not as uncommon as you might think in
certain rural parts of the world still a bit young.

(07:20):
Driving a freight truck is a bit is a bit
odd at age eleven jump and then driving violate at
age twelve. Honestly, if I looked at 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

(07:41):
a there's a there's a picture of him as a kid,
and now like, that does look like a kid that
would steal a plane? Yeah, it just does. It's he's
not even stealing a plane. His dad needs to fly
to these desolate air strips in the middle of nowhere
to deliver oil field equipment, and Phil goes with him
and flies the plane sometime, like says that his dad
is just like, I'm taking a nap. You're flying this

(08:03):
oil field equipment across okay, dad, child, Dr Phil looks
like adult Chris Cuomo. WHOA, I see it, I see it. Okay.
It's it's honestly shocking that he was not a bald baby.

(08:24):
If someone wants to make a comic book Dr Phil
Child Pilot, um, it's pretty decent premise. There's I've heard worse.
So yeah, this is how Phil spends his childhood up
until the point when his dad, Joe, turned forty and decided,
apropos of nothing, that he was going to abandon his
family and become a psychologist. We we truly don't have

(08:48):
more info than that. I have not found more info
than that. His dad's like, I'm gonna become a psychologist.
You guys can keep doing your thing, you know, Like
that's basically how it said. 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. I don't like this,
the closeness of father and son here. It sounds like

(09:11):
why is it? 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 issue. But then but then
it always is. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things
that just interesting to me is like the ways in
which Dr Phil and I's early background are similar and
then diverge. And this is a big divergence point because

(09:33):
when I was a kid, my dad left for like
a couple of years um to work somewhere else. But
it was because we had no money. We were like
the edge of bankruptcy, and the only job he could
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 and
like I didn't go with him. He like had to
go alone to New York to support the family and stuff.

(09:54):
But 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. Um right,
Like Dr Phil's dad is like, you're my wife. Now
you're my wife. Now boy my wife pilot. By the

(10:15):
blame bill, you're my wife now Dr Phil child wife pilot.
The pitch is getting better and better and better. It's
going to be sold by the end of the end.
I actually just got an email from Netflix and it's
a check for a hundred and twelve million dollars. So
we are now contractually obligated to make this show. Jamie

(10:36):
honestly rather do that more than anything else. I know
that would be a dream. Let's leave this life behind Okay,
so we've been in podcast to do Dr Phil Child
Wife Pilot. Yes, I think that would put a lot
of positivity back into the world. So they just they
just bail and it's not I mean it is they're

(10:59):
they're poorish ship his dad wants to go to school,
and it's like, I can't take care of this family anymore. Bye,
is what it? The way it's been described in the
articles i've right now, maybe Dr Phil could could give
us a more detailed story, but I have not run
across it yet. Okay, Yeah, Um, most of the info
I have on his childhood comes from a Dallas Observer article,

(11:21):
and they explained the whole abandoning of Phil's mom and
sisters as a financial move. Um. Phil apparently told the
Dallas Observer quote, there just wasn't enough money to do otherwise,
So we can only feed two members of this family.
So girls, you're on your own. Phil and I are
going to Kansas. Yeah. Extremely, very very sounds like a

(11:43):
really healthy family dynamic. So far. You get the feeling
he grew up in a healthy environment. That's true. Um,
healthy families are all alike. They allowed twelve year olds
to fly planes, that's that's how and Karenina starts loved
that book so much, and it turns out that's the
Pisa statement of the whole thing. How did you just

(12:06):
pronounced that, Robert? I don't know Anna Karna? Now, what
is it? Why I wasn't that I honestly I think
that it. Had Anna Karrennan have been a child pilot,
maybe she wouldn't have gotten crushed by that train. No, no,
and she could have been Dr Phil's dad's child wife.

(12:26):
I actually don't know what happens in that, but I
pretended to read it when I was like eleven. I
just stared really hard over a course of months for
the results of a two thousand six court case. I
am not allowed to read Russian literature. So um. In
more recent post fame interviews, Dr Phil claims those early
days with his father were a humbling experience. Quote we

(12:48):
were so poor we couldn't even pay attention, which is
I don't I think it's 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.
He makes his whole living off of, like saying, stupid,
Doctor Phil witticisms. Yes, and I've I've heard that a
thousand times, like I have heard a thousand different people

(13:10):
say explain their their origins that way. So I don't know,
Fuck you, Dr Phil the original the moms absolutely lose it.
I bet it does. I absolutely bet it makes the
moms lose it. Someone someone on Reddit during the Doctor
Oz episode. You know, I noted a couple of times
that his his audience and the people that he makes

(13:31):
money off of his like middle aged moms. Um and
that that's a great business because they have all the money,
um or at least control all the money, Like middle
aged moms are are one of the most profitable demographics
to get in your corner in the entire world. Um.
And someone was like that, you're being like unfairly negative
towards middle aged moms. It's just a statement of fact,

(13:52):
Like look in the audience of a doctor as show, Like,
it's not sixteen to thirty year old like men. It's
it's it's a bunch of moms. Like if my mom
loved Dr Oz, it's that that's who his audience is.
It's not like a negative statement my mom loves Dr Phil. No, Yeah,
I don't think that that's a negative. Say so if
anyone's hearing that, and it's not like what they're intending

(14:13):
to say, just who the audience is the target. Yeah,
it's like saying, like men eighteen to thirty five, listen
to Joe Rogan. 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, yeah, Dcor, I as someone who was

(14:36):
raised by Dr Phil moms, I am fully and it's
like not what I mean. It is the primary demographic. Yeah,
at least at the peak. I don't know who's watching
Dr philm Now, no matter you're demographic, there's a grifter
for you. Look, I've been honest about the fact that
there was a period of time in my life when
I liked John McAfee before I knew about you know,

(14:57):
the murder and the rape and stuff. Um like all
where we all have a grifter we're vulnerable to. It's
nothing to be ashamed of, you just need to acknowledge it.
And in the case of middle aged suburban moms, it's
Dr Phil and Dr Ross. Mine was I think the
grifter that really that got me was Luke Pearlman, who
made all the boy bands that made me. Oh my god,

(15:18):
I mean one of my favorite, not my favorite, one
of the most legendary, absolutely amazing person like Mr himself. No,
without any sort of joking, like a genius. Um just
just has a genius in terms of knowing exactly what
a specific age group of people want. Right. It doesn't

(15:40):
mean that we were like not smart, but we were
clearly targeted by by Yes, yeah, yeah, we all have
a thing we're vulnerable to. Um. Anyway, we're getting off topic. UM,
which is fine because it pads the run time. And
that's what I do as a grifter, is I pan
the run time in order to make more money off
of you. Fucking sorry UM okay, yeah, uh shameful. So yeah,

(16:07):
the details that Dr Phil gives about his childhood, like
he he gives that kind of pithy we were so
poor we couldn't even pay attention quote. But in the
interview with Dallas Observer, the details he actually gives make
it seem like the issue for Phil was less a
matter of crushing poverty. Like I think they were kind
of poor, but I think they were like my kind
of poor, like, which was not crushing poverty. It was

(16:28):
not your malnourished. It's just there's no money for anything
but the basics, you know, but the basics. Yeah, yeah,
but you're not like you know, you're not like in
in absolute destitution, you know, like not to exaggerate it,
but like you're poor. Like that's kind of what I
think is is really happening. And part of why I
think that is because his real complaint about that time

(16:49):
in his life is that he couldn't buy any cool
shit um quote from the Dallas Observer. It didn't help
that he was fiercely competitive, he says, and he lacked
the clothes and the car to compete for girls. So
I think that's more the big thing for him, right,
Like you're not that poor, you just don't have enough
money to impress girls with possessions. Um right, Okay, yeah

(17:12):
I get that level of poverty. Yes, yeah, I think
most of us had more or less that level of poverty.
Were like especially like I I was like one of
the poorer kids in a school that was not poors.
There were kids in my school who drove BMW's UM
and like I had a beat to ship Ford Taurus. Um,
I'm not complaining, like I had a Ford Taurus. Like

(17:32):
I'm not complaining I had a car. But like you
see that, you see the kids whose like parents are rich,
and you're like, ah, ship, I feel so poor because
they have like a brand new Jaguar. That that's I
think the kind of poor he is. Yeah, school is
like the kid with the Ford Taurus was like, oh
my god, he has a car. What a cool boy.
Yeah yeah, I mean that was just for my senior year,

(17:52):
but yes, I did. I did eventually get a car
um so thankfully. The young doctor Phil was huge, quickly
rossing six feet. He's a massive man. If you've ever
like seen him next to normal sized people, he's a
very large person. I forget that, but yes, yeah he is.
He like six he's like he's yeah, he's like an
intro two taller than me and I think quite a

(18:13):
bit broader. Like he's a big motherfucker. But but most
of that's mustache, Robert, most of that a lot of
its mustache now. But when he was younger, he was
in good shape, and he was he was very like
muscular and as a result of how big and strong.
He was. He was a shoe in for the high
school's football team. He later recalled quote, I was filled
the jock and that was my currency. And by currency,

(18:34):
he means that's how he got girls. Right. He didn't
have the car, he didn't have, but he was able
to get girls because he had, you know, he was
he was on the football team. He was tall. He
was tall, he was and he was apparently 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

(18:55):
go with his dad this time. He supported himself and
he played football because he he was like there was
a period of time where he might have made it
into the NFL, So he didn't want to leave his
high school and like disrupt that. Um, he said, quote,
it wasn't what you were supposed to do. But I
was pretty independent. Interesting. 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

(19:17):
play college ball. Um. He did get picked to play
college ball. His dad had gone to the University of
Tulsa on a football scholarship, and in short order, Phil
was picked by scouts for the same college. So he
gets a college scholarship to the University of Tulsa. He
becomes the captain of the freshman football team, and he
says he was very good. A lot of articles you'll say,
we're very good. We're gonna talk about this in a

(19:38):
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
all time least successful college football teams in the history
of college football. No, you're 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

(19:59):
of like I could have been a big sport. That
was his Hitler's art school, right 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 potentially a villainous origin story.

(20:25):
I mean, I never had any I was on the
high school I did like sorry. I did one year
of UM football and junior high. I never had any
chance of of of going pro and I didn't like football.
There was a period of time where I might have
been able to like do do do well at fencing.
Um I did. I wasn't like a special. It was
pretty I was pretty good at fencing, but no, I

(20:46):
got bored eventually. For you, I could see that for you.
But you're really tall. It helps, yeah, but never like never,
never at the college level or anything. I ran tracking
junior high, but then I threw up one time and
I quit permanently, and to this day I do not.
I was captain of the varsity of basketball team, and

(21:08):
I'm really really short. So I'm the most athletic of
our Budge Sophie is the most successful athlete in in
in this call amazing amazing. Yeahs oh there are, Jamie.
I will personally send them to you. You know, I

(21:29):
will say, having watched the video of that guy's shot
putting a fucking uh bobcat, I think that should be
the most most amazing thing I've seen in such a
long That was that was that you know what that
was is the greatest example of like quality husbanding that
I think I've seen on Twitter like that's that's that's

(21:50):
a that's a you did, you did good man, that's
exactly what you're supposed to do. Like, that's that's that's
wholesome masculinity. Right there is shot putting a wildcat away
from your wife. That's so what a hero well and
it's also you know, it's not going to do any
damage to the cat. Now, he did get out his
gun to shoot the cat, but it charged back at

(22:12):
the family, and I feel at that point the cat
had chosen violence. You know, he gave he gave the
animal a chance to in the interaction. Thank you for that.
That fine forensic analysis. That's that's my that's my opinion
on the by now weeks old video of a guy
hooking a bobcat across the yard. Yeah, the cat shows violence,

(22:32):
that's my that's my end statement here. So um yeah, Anyway,
Dr Phil a lot of interviewsual see he was very
very good, could have maybe could have gone pro Um.
I don't know how accurate that is. I'm not great
at football, but I found an incredible analysis on the
sports website grant Land about a game that he played
in that his freshman football team played in that is

(22:52):
like one of the most famous games in college ball
history because of how badly his team did. Um Yeah.
Grant Land calls it one of the craziest games in
n c a A history. For starters, the bulk of
Phil's team were like actively dying of the flu while
they played. Quote, and especially virulent strain of flu had

(23:14):
been cavorting through the Tulsa Athletic dorm, somehow overcoming the
formidable sanitary standard. Those three words imply in fifteen of
Tulsa's twenty two starters were shivering feverish recks. They tried
to act energetic, but they were so weak. Tulsa coach
Glenn Dabbs remembered in nineteen my son's Glenn the Third
and John were on the team. Their eyes were glazed
with fever. The team the team doctor pleaded with the

(23:38):
coach to call off the game, but Dabbs, a former
Tulsa star who because the world just does whatever at
once had been an icon for the Saskatchewan rough Riders
of the Canadian Football League, refused to surrender. I just
never liked backing out, he said. Afterward. Tulsa had two
defensive linemen who were well enough enough to travel. One
of them passed out before the coin flips. So escape

(23:59):
is fucking disaster for it again, so much, it's so good.
Finally a sports movie for me. Yeah, everyone's just puking
to death. Also, someone named Glenn the Third is involved.
Like just the funniest fucking thing passing out before the

(24:20):
game starts. Oh that is just And kudos to the
grant Land writer. It's very entertaining article. Grant I missed Grantman. Yeah.
By the end of the first quarter, Phil's team was
down fourteen to zero, which is a significant like they're getting.
It's not a great start to a game, but it's
not insurmountable. However, by the ends of the game they
were down by a record breaking one hundred points to six.

(24:47):
Did still get any of the points? No, I don't believe,
so not at all. Um. I think it's one of
the greatest ass kickings in college ball history. Um, like
in the entire history of the sport, Like doctor Phil's
team got their asses b almost the worst way to lose. Yeah,
it's like a famous lee, a famous ass kicking. It
does like several rounds of like going back to being sad,

(25:09):
and then going back to being funny, and then going
back to being sad, and then going and finally landing
on being the funniest ship I've ever It's incredibly funny.
Um So, Dr Phil brags about this game today, saying
that it in that football in general helped awakening him
an interest in psychology by teaching him that people with
advantages don't always win. That said, the author of that
grant Land article takes pains to point out that there

(25:32):
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 like.
It was far enough fact that there's not any comprehensive
way to know for sure. Really, um but the doubt
thrown onto it by this investigation might mean that as
a grown ass multimillionaire, Dr Phil lied to David Letterman

(25:54):
about playing in one of the worst ass kickings in
sports history. And I have no idea what this says
about him, Like, I don't even know how to analyze that.
There are so many levels there, because I think if
he did play in it, you're like, oh, what a yeah, Okay,
that's fun Yeah, you like, I can see like if
I was, if I if I played and if I
partook in a famous ass kicking in a sports history,

(26:17):
I would brag about that as an adult it would
be funny. You know, you get enough distance from it. Sure,
lying about it, Dying about it is baffling. Is that's
like a game of four D chest. I can barely conceive.
I have no idea what's going on with with Dr
Phil but um and for the most part, I do

(26:37):
know what's going on with him. This is just baffling
to me because he's clearly a narcissist. It's very strange
as a narcissist to lie about this, you know, to
lie about one of the greatest failure. Yeah, to just
to lie about just getting just like famous historically wrecked anything.
Cloud Baby means, speaking of cloud, you who has all

(27:00):
of my cloud? Jamie? Does it happen to be a
product or maybe even a service? It is the products
and services that support this podcast. I sacrifice all of
my clout to them, like members of the ancient cult
of the Old Ones sacrifice virgin babies to narrow oathup
the crawling chaos. Much like that here's some ads for

(27:22):
dick pills. All right, we're back, Uh, we're back. We're
back worshiping the old gods. I don't know, might deliver
up some of my bodily fluids to a shagoth later
who knows. Who knows we're talking about Dr Phil. Anything
can happen. So anyways, after this, at some point I

(27:46):
don't know the exact here, but at some point pretty
soon after this disastrous game, because Phil was definitely on
the team. At some point after this, Phil had another
sports disaster. He went in to tackle a running back
and he got hit really hard. Um, And I don't
mean just like you know, sprained something. I mean he
woke up blind. God, the kind of head injury where

(28:08):
when you come to your eyes don't work, which is
it's medically speaking bad. You know, it shouldn't be allowed.
It absolutely, Like I don't know, I think adult should
I think if you're like twenty two and older, you
should be allowed to play football, But certainly eighteen year
olds should not be nor should they be allowed to
join the military. By the way, Um, yeah, yeah, sure,

(28:30):
so uh he's still Yeah, it was. The head injury
was bad. His eyesight came back obviously, but it was
a serious head injury. Um, and it ended ended there
was no chance of him continuing his career after that, right,
Like it's one of those things like you don't get
to ever play football again because you get hit in
the head one more time. That might be fucking it
for you, you know. Um. Once his eyesight, Yeah, and

(28:51):
he still suffers, like he's there's after effects of this today,
Like it's it's a lifelong injury. Um, he got really
messed up. It's a bad thing to do. Yeah, yeah,
it's bad. Um. 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

(29:11):
that he couldn't do a football scholarship. Uh. And he decided,
you know the thing to do now, I'm not gonna
I'm gonna I'm gonna think about college later. I'm gonna
make some money now, right, which is not an unreasonable
call to make in the situation. Um. And I'm gonna
quote from a rite up in the Dallas Observer. He
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,

(29:33):
says Scott Madison, 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 the insight to figure out how things work.
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 of McGraw's

(29:54):
from Wichita Falls. It's like playing golf from someone who
moves the ball around all the time. So how youngest
he when he gets into business, And it's like maybe
twenty at the most, like nineteen or twenty, and very
quickly he's a partnern becomes a part owner in the
sports club he's working at, becomes part owner, and like
a half dozen other clubs like he's so he doesn't

(30:14):
he doesn't have a degree yet of any kind, 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 like he is a terrifying negotiator.
I haven't run into any disagreement about that. He's got all.
He's got all the like the strongest rad scripters have. Yeah,
and he's he's very good at um in negotiating in

(30:37):
a legal manner, which is a separate skill just from grifting,
you know, and is honestly like the best kind of
grifting because you can't get in trouble for that ship. Yeah. Yeah,
if he's willing to go into this game that young,
that's so his brain. He's just he's wired for it,
you know, or at least maybe the football injury scrambled
his wires and made him wired for it. I don't know.
His reality is stressed me out. Okay, he's triggering my

(30:59):
my fight or fly response. Yeah, that's how Dr Phil works.
He really really triggers a lot of a lot of responses. Um. 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

(31:19):
incredibly gifted expert in practical psychology who has a passion
for helping people. 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
make a quick buck. One of these spurned former friends
is Elden Buck, who claimed to the Observer, I put

(31:39):
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 for one thing,
and that's Phil. Now Phil denies all of this, but
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. But we're going

(32:01):
to get to that story and due time. So he's
also involved in in oil fields down there, anything that
will make him money like this is like kind of
all happening over a period of a couple of years.
He's just he starts making money and he immediately reinvests
that's money. He's in a bunch of businesses. You know,
I have I have a good, a very very close
friend who has that kind of brain who's just always
spending off their money into one business or another, and

(32:24):
I don't know how they do it, but they just
are able to 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 in these other three businesses, and those
give me an interest in this 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

(32:44):
open up like a fucking HVAC 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 respect people
who use it for good, but holy sh it, what
an exhausting sounding. It sounds like a nightmare. Um. I

(33:09):
keep all of my money and a pile um and
I will never have investments, like I will never like
I keep it in a bank, but like I have
no I have no 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. I spent my all my savings on

(33:30):
Dilbert n f T s. Well, that's gonna that's gonna appreciate,
you know, a good feeling. It's the only thing they're
not making any more of. That's the real thing, the
the you know, the tashi Dilbert guy Um made Dilbert
n f T s and the only difference from a
regular Dilbert is that he sets fucking this one too

(33:53):
much money anyways. I would pay good money for a
Doilbert n f T where he admits responsibility for the
Oak Home the city bombing. I think that would be
a good n f T. If you're listening, Scott Adams,
I'll invest in that one. Dilbert Dilbert admits to making
a six thousand pounds fertilizer bomb and parking it out
in front of the Murror building. That's the n f

(34:15):
T I want. I can guarantee that Kathy guys By,
creator of Kathy Comics, does not know nor care what
an em n f T is. And that's why she
is she is really she She's my strength in this world.
Stand Kathy stand Cathy Stan Cathy. You know who else
I stand, Jamie? No one that was like it's not

(34:36):
time for an ad. It so loves to do the
like fake ad thing, and then that he thinks that
I can't. I can't stop myself. He's just so good
at it. I mean, you know who I actually stand?
Who I have an unreasonable uh affection for? Steatherwise? No, No,
I think I think I have a reasonable love of
LaVar Burton, as everyone does. Right, it's like a Cathy

(34:58):
bar Right, you know, it's like loving a ca b
Bara like it's LaVar Burton. Of course. No. Verner Herzog
Herzog is my my unreasonable love. Robert. I would love
you should start making Verner Herzog fan camps. I don't
know what that means, Jamie. I'm gonna make one of you,
and you're gonna be horrified if there. I wonder if

(35:19):
Robert Fancam's exist. Listen to what the fun is a
fan cam? It's how do I describe Fancam. 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. I don't think there's

(35:40):
a lot of video of me where like you can
actually see me. Um, so that might be hard to do. Robert,
you would, you would absolutely hate it, my friend, I
know I would. There's enough video footage of you for
a fan camp, you need like three clips. Well, all
all I'm interested of is a fan cam of Verner
Herzog diving into a bunch of cactuses because he promised

(36:02):
a group of little people that if they made it
through the filming of a movie without injury, he would
horribly hurt himself by diving into a bed of saguaros
from twelve feet up. Is that true? 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, and he said, I made a promise, and
if I don't fulfill my promise, there's no reason for
me to be alive. And then he dove into a

(36:22):
pile of cactuses. Because he's a fucking lunatic and I
love him so much. Okay, Werner Herzog Um watch a
guir the Wrath of God. So Dr Phil, Robert, Dr Phil, Yeah, sorry,
we're who off the topic a little bit. So. After
three years as a business slash con man, Phil McGraw

(36:44):
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 huge amounts of drugs went to school. I don't
think Phil spent his time half a mile outside of
campus downing hundred milligrams of two C I andy milligrams
of five m O D five me o m I

(37:05):
p T and vaporizing D m T, which is probably
why he graduated UNT with a PhD, while my friends
and I all dropped out of college to go, you know,
do stupid shit. UM anyway, yeah, Dr, No, he's not um.
In his recollection, Phil both hated and excelled at college.
He later recalled, I almost quit every day. The faculty

(37:28):
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 U n T 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. But
also we are talking unt here, you know, we're not

(37:49):
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 Doc yours 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

(38:11):
is the most brilliant psychologist ever to exist. 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.
I'm assuming he's Zena's father. Um So McGraw got his
doctor in nineteen seventy nine and returned to Wichita Falls
for reasons that are impossible to explain any any person
who returns to Kansas. I just don't I don't understand.

(38:35):
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. One
of Dr films Phil's friends later claimed, quote Phil moved
right into the money circles. If there wasn't a buck
in it, he wasn't much interested. So you know, that's

(38:58):
that's the that's the field he gets into, is dealing
with like rich people who are neurotic or whatever. Okay,
so he comes to being a charlottean early. Yeah. I
mean you know, at this point again, if you're grifting
rich people, I don't care. Yeah, sometimes I might find
it interesting for an off week, but I don't consider
that evil behavior, right, they have too much money whatever.

(39:21):
He specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy, which Phil at least
claimed was a cause and effect therapy that treated thoughts
and behavior the same quote. People would come in and
say I had a hard childhood, therefore I am not
doing well as an adult. A Freudian would say, let's
work through your childhood. I would say that's fine, But
right now you are an adult. You have a choice
to stop yelling at your kids. I've done, I've done. Yeah,

(39:44):
that's not that doesn't sound bad, right, Like that is
a reasonable take, which 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. Reasonable state doesn't perfectly valid statement absolutely um.
And this kind of no nonsense approach was very popular
with some of his clients. I can see how it
would have been useful in a number of cases. But

(40:06):
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 to practice his profession and to market it.
And I should note here as an aside, that during

(40:26):
this period Doctor Phil got married and was briefly with
a woman before cheating on her repeatedly and uh than
leaving her. Yeah, so well, maybe he should have been
a little more patient, maybe should have taken some of
his own medicine. Yeah, I mean he he does. I mean,
to be fair, he admits he was a bad marriage therapist.

(40:47):
So I can't call him like a hypocrite if you're
saying I was I I was a shitty husband and
a shitty marriage therapist that all scared, you know, Like, um,
that's yeah, he's being honest here, so we won't labor
the point. Yeah, he started holding pain clinics, weight loss clinics,
and executive giving executive recruiting advice, and even expert legal

(41:09):
testimony for court cases. He was like an expert witness. Yeah,
and this is like for court cases, right, Like you
need someone to come and you know, you have like
somebody who's claiming like, oh, you know, I can't be
held responsible for this because I'm you know, like mentally
ill or whatever, like you know, not guilty by reason

(41:29):
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. It's just a general mental health professional. Yeah. Yeah,
it's kind of we just we just finished the Chauvin trial.
You know, we had all these kind of use of
force experts. There's a bunch of people in different fields
whose main job is to take that that expertise in

(41:50):
another field and testify about it in court because it's relevant. Right.
You have like engineering specialists who are like, I'm going
to go testify about this bridge that collapse to either
defend the people who made it or explain how we're
responsible they wear whatever, Like that's a whole there's a
whole industry. Dr Phil gets into the providing money. There's
a funckload of you can get real goddamn rich doing that. Yeah, well, yeah,

(42:12):
especially if you're willing to lie about Yeah, and by
the way, lawyers listening, I will testify as an expert
witness on literally anything. As a certified reverend doctor in
the state of New Jersey, my purview is wide. So
you know what, twelve grand an hour the podcast is
just gonna disappear one day and it's the instant I'm

(42:35):
fucking done, you know, like the fun funk this podcast.
I'm gonna go lie under oath about I don't know whatever. Anyway. Um.
Dr Phil started, yeah, holding, you know, so he starts
he gets into like the whole business of if I
really want to make money at scale as a psychologist,
having individual even if they're rich. Individual clients isn't the
thing to do. I'm gonna do a bunch of clinics

(42:55):
on like dealing with pain, dealing with weight loss, you know,
recruiting people. I'll do like. So he gets very quickly
into the I'm less about helping people and more about
making money as a psychologist. In nine four, 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. Now we're talking again

(43:18):
like the seventies eighties, which is the golden age of
motivational seminars. That's when this whole thing really explodes. Motivational
seminars are basically short term cults. For two to five days,
uh several dozen to several hundreds, sometimes even a couple
of thousand, people will pack into an auditorium where a
charismatic frontman and a handful of his buddies will coach them,

(43:39):
usually by hyping the room up, using simple crowd work
tactics to make people feel temporarily elated and tricking them
into having like cathartic experiences and thinking they've learned something.
You know, um, that's the whole idea. Have people get
like people, the mania of a crowd kind of going
make people cry or laugh and think like something significant
has happened. Probing personal questions. Yeah, in public, in front

(44:03):
of a bunch of people. It's a whole big grift.
Film a box was a well, I don't know, grift.
I think a lot of people just like them. I've
known people who like admit that they never got anything
long term out of it, but just enjoy the experience.
And I guess if that's your thing, it kind of
depends whatever. Some people are just like they're like, yeah,
Tonic is maybe not the best people again person it's

(44:23):
like basically full of ship. But you know, I had
a couple of hundred dollars to burn in a weekend
to burn and it made me feel good. You know,
I don't care. I guess if that's your thing, we
all have where you can get it. Yeah, every there's
a lot of people who liked There's people who like
to climb the ice filled sides of mountains with crampons
and fucking like pythons and stuff, and a lot of
them die. There's people who like to do cave diving,

(44:45):
which is the deadliest thing you could possibly do to relax.
So like, I don't know people do ship. I don't care, um,
but most of the people doing these seminars are actually
like people at some kind of like crisis point in
their life having a difficulty and that that's that's the
problem with it. And it's like it depends on how
you sell it to like if you're like promising, oh,
if you come this weekend, you're gonna leave and make

(45:06):
a million dollars in the next you know, there's there's
varying degrees. Some of them are just like I'm gonna
make you feel good about yourself so you can go
out and attack the world. And I guess that's kind
of less 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 film a Box, who you know is

(45:30):
Phil's friend, is a huge fan of these kind of
motivational seminars. She'd done all the big ones. Zig zig
Lar actual guy out there. You can find his books
at any given a state sale Dale Carnegie. You can
also find his books at any given a state sale. Uh,
Tony robbins, you can also find his books at any
given a state sale all the estate sale. Great. She
does their seminars with like bookers on the side of

(45:53):
the books. Yeah, most of her classes had been focused
on her career, like they've been like focused on helping
salesman right, because that's a big subset of this industry.
She sold insurance and real estate, so they had been
conferences to help real estate and insurance salesman sell better. Uh.
Box felt that there was a market for a seminar
focused instead of financial stuff on personal growth, on how

(46:16):
to 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 negotiators 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. And again,
people who disagree about a lot of stuff about Dr Phil,

(46:37):
nobody disagrees about this part. He's apparently just an incredible negotiator. Um.
So she she decides he's going to be a great
frontman for this life improvement seminar she wants to host. 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. Instead,

(46:58):
the plan that he made was for botor Instead. He
was like, we should do like a general like life
improvement for everybody, Like come here and I'll help you
deal with whatever things are holding you back in your life. Right, Like,
that's kind of how Phil Phil innovates the pitch um. Now,
Initially the plan that Box had fronted was for Box
and Phil to be fifty fifty partners in this venture.
But right before they started going, yeah, exactly, right before

(47:21):
they started going, doctor Phil demanded that he was going
to walk if she didn't bring his dad in as
an equal shareholder. Yeah, bringing daddy into it. Yeah, And
this this was a 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. Now, since Box was not a

(47:43):
doctor 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, so she was
kind of in a tight spot here, so she agreed.
She claims that she basically yeah, he's that's the guy is.
She claims she built the curriculum of the program from
the ground up, designing most of the games and all
of like the different like worksheets and ship you had

(48:05):
to do, and basically, in fairness, like I don't think
Box is a great person. She's taking all of the
information for this from other seminars she attended and is
just modifying them enough to avoid the grifter. And the
grifter never likes that she gets sucked over by Phil,
but like, I don't particularly like her either, So I
want to take that negotiation tactic and apply it to

(48:27):
the stand up comedy world. And I'm like, all right,
I know that you're supposed to be featuring for me,
but actually my dad is going to be opening now actually,
so it's gonna be my dad. Then you you'll be
doing a shorter set. I will then be doing five
hours like that. That would be so fun. Uh yeah,
I'm I'm I'm excited for that for you, Jamie, thank you,

(48:51):
But you know what isn't exciting? What is an exciting
life without the products and services that support this podcast
absolutely not even really worth living. Like, if we're being frank,
what are you even doing without these products and services?
What are you? Nothing? Nothing? All right, here's ads We're back. Ah.

(49:17):
I hope you all spent money, because this whole fucking
wheel of blood doesn't keep turning if you don't put
money into it. People, you know, that's how it works.
That's how it works. You want this to fall apart? Yes, anyway?
So yeah. The basic idea of these seminars that Box
mostly cooks up and Phil is supposed to present is
to teach people how to find out what they want

(49:39):
from life by making them more accountable, by expressing vulnerability,
stripping away self deception, which all just means like making
people cry in a big room surrounded by other people,
you know, like that's the goal. That that's the goal,
with no connection to the outside world, and you gas
like them intipulating something that they don't. Short term cults,
which is the kind of cult I'd like to do
because it does sound exhaust having to like every time

(50:01):
I watch my favorite TV show, which is the Waco
TV show where they made David Koresh have incredible come
gutters minutes forty seconds before editing before Waco, I just
it's it seems like it's exhausting. Like we all love
David Koresh, but my god, the man had to put
in a lot of work just to just to keep
a cult going, Like it just doesn't seem worth it.

(50:23):
Begin with that sentence short term cults like if I
could just do like a limited Waco like five or
six times a year over the course of like four days,
that seems much better. 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. Yes, So
if you take out takedown a podcast idea the forty

(50:45):
minute Waco, I think we can make a lot of
money with this um. Anyway back to Dr philp So,
what made the uh this this siminar thing that he
launches with Box special is the the group dynamic, getting
a hundred or so people to get a room, crying
and sharing stories and having the kind of addictive, cathartic
experiences that makes him in our host rich people. Phil

(51:06):
and Box were good at it. And Dr Phil instantly
gained a reputation as a magnetic host. When attendee recalled quote,
his voice was Mike and he sounded godlike. I watched
powerful men crumble as he questioned them. He knew just
the right buttons to push. You know, it's not that
he's a great psychologist, is that he is an incredibly
intuitive man who understands people, which is why he's a

(51:28):
good negotiator. He does have a great voice. I'll give
that to him. He yeah, he knows how to manipulate people, right,
He's a great manipulator, and that you can make a
lot of money doing that. That's the most dangerous trade
in the world is understanding people but just not caring
what happens to them. Yes, yes, yeah, I understand people,
but care about what happens to them, which is why
I tell them to buy machetes and bolt cutters and

(51:51):
play more anti personnel minds. Yes, definitely saving lives. Um.
By the way, when you're ordering your claim more anti
personnel line, use prom o code Bastards for fifteen percent
off if you buy four or more clay More fuck
anyone in front of you. What Sophie Robert, Dr Phil. Okay, yeah,

(52:12):
So the siminar series was called Pathways, and it became
hugely popular. For a while, 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

(52:35):
into filming a pilot episode of a show where three
people went through Dr Phil's training and told their stories
of like you know, how it had helped them. The
show sounds incredibly boring, and clearly it was not picked
up now. 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,

(52:55):
it didn't take long to feel the power. He loved
being godlike and worshiped. The only reason and it didn't
become a cult is because Thelmo wouldn't let it. Yeah, okay,
he really does sound like like Chaos Frasier. Yeah, Chaos Frasier, Yes, yeah,

(53:16):
fer Head. Oh God was the show, the episode The
Devil and Dr Phil. I mean, the thing is, if
you actually Frasier was a big show from my family
growing up, and so like, while my mom was was dying,
we watched a lot of episodes because you know, there
wasn't a lot that she could do, and it was
kind of a thing that was nostalgic for all of us. Um.
But one of the through lines of the series is

(53:38):
that Fraser is not a good psychologist, like not a
good psychiatrist. Like he's bad, Like that's why he's on
the radio. He's a bit of a drifter too, because
Niles is supposed to be good. Yeah, yeah, Niles is
competent um although problematic, Uh, definitely some stalking behavior from Niles. Um. Oh, yes,

(53:58):
Niles is also can But but nobody on that show
is a good person. But John Mahoney, Um the only
good cop Frasier's dad. True, and not even not even
Eddie is safe from no no, from cancelation and honestly
not a good a cop. John Mahoney admits to lying

(54:19):
on the stand in order to get a man incarcerated
during an episode of Frasier. It's just like an offside comment. Yes,
he absolutely does. He's just such a damn charismatic actor.
I can't stay mad at the man. Um So, by
the late nineteen eighties, Pathways had moved to Dallas were
each year more than a thousand people would pay a

(54:39):
thousand dollars each to attend a single weekend defense with McGraw.
That's a million bucks in a weekend, so a great
money in this. Uh So Dr Phil is I don't
know if he's a millionaire at this point, but he
is well off at this point. Um Now, he unfortunately,
like his dad, is involved in the whole thing. And
Dr Phil never had a great relationship with his father.

(55:02):
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 like there to cash a check. Like when he
would show up on stage, you'd be like a erratic
and kind of say nonsense and not really help the
business at all. Worse than nothing, the two men started

(55:25):
to hate each other, which a number of number of
employees noted as somewhat hypocritical. Quote, come on, here was
a guy who was running a relationship seminar, and he
doesn't speak to his own father in the training room
for years, he didn't walk his own talk. That is
a fair hypocritical criticism. Yeah, hilarious. And while Dr Phil's

(55:45):
relationship with his dad, uh kind of went to ship,
his relationship with Thelma Box, who had founded the program
that made him rich and developed its curriculum, got even worse.
The Dallas Observer writes, quote the McGraw and Box were
partners from more than seven years and friends from more
than a dozen. His treatment of her didn't seem much better.
On November sixteenth, nineteen ninety two, Box received a facts

(56:06):
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,

(56:29):
he sold me down the river, says Box, who recalls
having heated discretions with McGraw about either 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 knew we couldn't
go on that way. 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.

(56:50):
On October fifteenth, nineteen ninety one, he signed an agreement
for his sale of path for the sale of his
Pathway stock for three D twenty five thousand dollars. 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 sit to the buyer of his stock,

(57:11):
in which he agreed the buyer agreed that the sale
would be kept confident confidential from everyone, including Box. So
I'm gonna go ahead and say that Phil is the
liar here. He basically knew like he wanted to sell
out early when his stuff was worth more than hers
would be like with with only a third of it
left her like that she's not going to get as
much money for it. Um, and he lies. She keeps

(57:32):
she's trying to buy it from for a year after
he's already sold it, and he's just stonewalling her. Um
Like he's yeah, it's it's it's a shitty way to
treat a business partner. It's 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. Yeah, and he acknowledges that the material
from his first best selling book was basically lifted entirely

(57:55):
from the Pathways curriculum, but he has never acknowledged that
Thelma Box actually wrote the curriculum he based his best
selling book on. So and I definitely didn't mention whoever
Felm A. Box stole it from. So. No, and that again,
that's the thing, right, The point is that he is
a con man, not that she is particularly a victim here.
You know, it's like I don't care about Thelma Box.

(58:17):
In Dr Phil was living and working in Wichita. He
keeps going back to fucking 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 that. Yeah he is her, he
is her doctor and he is her own don't your doctor?

(58:41):
Come on, yeah, shouldn't be doing that with the patient
you're providing psychiatric care to. Definitely don't kind of a
no no, but don't your doctor. He then made the
relationship even more inappropriate when he hired her part time
while she was still his patient and lover, which is
so many conflicts of interest. That is, you got to

(59:04):
give the man credit for really going out of his
way to to to do the most unethical version of
that thing. He could like hand critical support to Dr
Phil from managing the fucking the fucking I don't know
what do you the trifecta. I guess my spirit is
worn down. I'll hand it to him doctor. Dr Phil

(59:25):
considers this transgression to just have been a misdemeanor. Um.
But the journalist from the Doubt behind the journalis 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, and it's pretty
fucking sketchy. Quote. In four, she was a college student
returning home after her sophomore year, depressed, lonely, and suicidal.

(59:48):
I was emotionally abused as a child, she says, and
suffered from low self esteem. When mcbro 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, her anxious. His first question was why didn't
you call me every time I felt bad? He insisted,
only he could fix me. When she wanted to spend

(01:00:10):
the following summer working for a professor at the Houston
University she was attending, he persuaded her to work in
his bio feedback lab, in Whichita falls He kept me
totally dependent on him, she says. So that's textbook abuse,
Like that's just like literally textbook abuse. Yeah, it couldn't
be clearer. Hate it, hate it so much on so

(01:00:31):
many levels, multiple levels. That's terrible. It's really bad. It's
really he's a bad person. Jamie's just a real bad
person your employer, Like fucking hell. Not to be like
complimenting Doctor Oz. But by this point the doctor Oz story,
he's performed thousands of open heart surgeries. Again, Dr Phil,

(01:00:52):
they're both drifters. Dr Phil never does a single good thing,
like to even the scales at all. He's just a monster, right,
and you get the feeling, Doctor Oz. I have never
heard a complaint that he's abusive in his personal relationships
people mostly that I've heard it reports that he's kind
of a narcissist, But I've never heard that he's like
a monster. Doctor Phil's a monster. You make a fan

(01:01:13):
came with him already. I don't know. I'm just he's
a useful He's a useful comparison. I just really hate
Dr Phil. So the formal complaint this woman filed led
to a decision from the Psychology Board that Dr Phil's
practice would have to be supervised for a year. Before
that time came up, he quit his practice and moved
to Dallas to start a new company, courtroom UH Sciences Incorporated,

(01:01:36):
or cs I, 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. Doctor
Phil's company was a hit, and his clients soon included
every major airline on Earth, three TV networks, and dozens
of Fortune five hundred companies. Before long, it came to

(01:01:59):
include bro Winford. Damn. Yeah, I mean like, you know
it's coming, but you know it's coming longer. Why Oprah
and airline? Yeah, the two, the two sacred things in
our society, Oprah in the airlines. I want to know.
Every single time Oprah comes into the discussion, I am like,

(01:02:21):
where was Stepman on all of this? Where does he?
Because Steadman, what were you fucking doing? Where is Stemen
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, I hope that Stepman
was like, something's not right Oprah, and she was like,

(01:02:42):
I'm not listening to Stepman. I'm assuming that's how their
relationship works. She was like, I'm going to make so
much money, an outrageous amount of money. Steadman like, quiet,
we're getting all I will be able to clone you
when you die, Stepman. That's how much money I'm gonna
make off. That's what solved him. I used to I
used to do little fan drawings of Steadman Graham and

(01:03:06):
the Barefoot Contessa's husband hanging out. That's very unsettling, Jamie,
if they would just be like sharing an umbrella. Anyways.
So Oprah had made the questionable decision to do an
episode of her show on the dangers of disease in
the American beef supply. A bunch of Texas cattleman sued

(01:03:28):
her 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. 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 somebody could make money off of, and
he set to work charming her. Filled in his job.
He coached her and the defense team and how to

(01:03:49):
respond under questioning, and he won Oprah's adoration, and to
his credit, it seems like he did a good job
because she was exonerated um 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

(01:04:09):
him one of the smartest men in the world. She
was so impressed that she added that he was like
literally the most intelligent man she'd met in her twelve
years of talking to medical experts. She said she wanted
to share his brilliance with the world. Yeah, this hyperbole
is gonna get and we are. We are going to
talk about where this hyperbole gets all of us in

(01:04:31):
Part two of our epic series Dr Phil, What a
What a dick? Whatever is that? The subtitle of perfect
fuck fucking a? Dr Phil? Come on? Could not? Could
you not? Could you just go back to football? I
feel like one more head injury could really solve a

(01:04:52):
lot of our problems as a country. The thing is
like that, every single time you're like, well, god, damn,
I bet that if this whole football being john different,
the world would be a lot less. Dr Phil. Yeah,
I don't even necessarily want his football career to have gone. Well,
if he's just gotten a hit harder, you know, that
would have been enough for me. Okay, Okay, you know

(01:05:13):
what you I I see, I see your coin to do?
Yeah anyway, Jamie, Ye any plug doubles you want to drop?
Uh yeah, just the usuals. You can listen to back
past the lead to podcast and my R and Mensa
on I Heart Radio. And then I have a new
podcast coming up about Cathy comic Woo woo in June.

(01:05:34):
That's so he's producing. I'm excited check out Jamie's Erotic
Cathy podcast. I assume it's erotic, is that correct? But
I mean it's very you know what I you know,
I wish that Cathy was having a lot of sex,
but you can't do that in the newspapers. Not then,
I mean, it doesn't think she doesn't need to be
having sex for the podcast about Kathy to just be

(01:05:57):
like the fundamental, the fundamental errows Cathy is so overwhelming,
you know you just you just hear that last name
Gus White. And there's still time, there's still I'll let
her know that an erotic podcast, can you make it
horny or Kathy? Just like twelve anyway, I hope the

(01:06:19):
rest of you have a day that's twelve percent horn here.
We'll be back Thursday, m