May 13, 2021 • 58 mins
Robert is joined again by Jamie Loftus to continue to discuss Dr, Phil.
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Episode Transcript
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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.
(00:47):
This is behind the Bastards podcast where Yeah, I don't know.
I never come into this show with a plan, like
I write ten thousand words a week to do this show,
and then I consistently just completely fucked the introductions. Um.
I think it's nice. I think it's I think it's fun.
(01:11):
Brand consistency that's that's our Robert. People thinking that's Robert.
It's you know, it's easy to be have a consistent
brand when your brand is being like uh like uh,
brain damaged drug addict who is incapable of doing anything
but writing long essays about bad people. Simple brand. I
(01:33):
think that's you're being reductive. But also when people hear
you say things like that about their solves or about yourself, like, oh,
that's our Robert, I go, my son so so pure,
so humble, m h so. Probably shouldn't be trusted with
large machinery anyway, definitely not. You know who else should
(01:55):
be trusted with large machinery because of the horrible head injury?
Phil Okay, I thought that was you introducing me. I
was like, this is really me, you, Jamie. I would
trust you with her heavy machinery. Although you don't have
a driver's license, do you. I don't have a driver's license,
but it hasn't stopped me from driving. Hell yeah, yeah,
(02:16):
Well good for you, Jamie. I could probably get a keep.
I get like. I'm like, I could probably get a
driver's license if I really wanted to. I just don't
want to. That's not true. I've I've failed the test
several times. The key thing about cops, Jamie, and this
is some free advice for all of you out there.
They're never ready for you to just tuck and roll,
you know, like if this as long as you're driving
(02:38):
a cheap car, if they start to pull you over,
just tuck and roll and then fucking book it. Like
I guarantee you they will not be ready. Yeah, I
like it. They're just not going to be ready. Um.
And anyway, we should probably talk about Dr Phil sun
huh sure, yeah, totally. Probably chill out with our fill out.
(03:01):
I need to go. Actually that's fair. This this has
been the final episode behind the Bastards. I'm so sorry. Alright, yeah,
let's chill out with our phill out. Just a big old, pudgy,
bald headed Phil just flopping around with a nice moostaf
(03:22):
like like like a skink on a hot rock. Okay. Um.
Later that year, so Dr Phil helps Oprah out um
and and like saves her, saves her bacon um and
she brings him on her show and does her verdict episode.
(03:42):
She was getting like sued for a lot of money
and defamation and ship like it was potentially something that
would have really damaged her bottom line, like I don't
know this link. Okay, So Dr Phil later that year
would become a regular part of her show UM. And
this was part of a pivot in Oprah where she
went from like doing a normal talk show UM to
(04:03):
what she called Change your Life TV. The goal of
Change your Life TV was to take the experience people
had in Phil seminars, the very public crowd influenced Catharsis
of emotional change, and put that ship on television for
everybody to watch. Mostly this involves Dr Phil confronting people
aggressively about their flaws so they would cry and say
(04:23):
they learned something. Quote. This is Dr Phil explaining his methodology.
In order for people to change, there has to be
a dramatic event. I think coming on the Oprah Show
as an event in itself is a watershed occurrence in
people's lives. They get told the bottom line truth about
where they are, and in that environment, I don't think
they will ever forget it. If you embarrass people on
(04:44):
national television, they remember, I mean, that's you know that,
that's not untrue. That's okay, okay, accurate Dr Phil? Accurate
Jesus Yeah. So UM, so he's really like heading into
(05:05):
the villain years. Yeah, yeah, he's he's solved. I mean
he's been in villain territory this whole time. Um So.
On Oprah Show, Doctor Phil focused on clients whose problems
were fit things he could justify yelling about to them
or yelling at them. For one early case was a
husband who was verbally abusive to his wife, calling her
(05:26):
obscene names. Phil could not just condemn the man, but
he like didn't just condemn the man. He made the
man's wife tearfully recount everything he said to her on TV.
So like, he's yelling at this guy for being a dick,
but he's also demanding that this woman, like in detail,
explain every horrible thing her husband said about her to
millions of strangers, right, like the classic air out the
(05:49):
worst thing, Yeah for someone else, which I don't think
is great, you know, but I don't think that's great
behavior would be my my take it. Not a psychologist,
but Phil isn't really a psychologist either. Um So, Phil, then,
after making this woman laborously explain the horrible things your
(06:09):
husband said to her, got to help provide some of
his own homespun wisdom in this case, he told the wife,
you taught him how to treat you. Now. This is
a variation of one of doctor Phil's life laws for
people to follow, which he published in his plagiarized bestselling
book Life Strategies. Quote, we teach people how to treat
(06:30):
us own, rather than complain about how people treat us.
My mom has good book, Robert, did she blame herself
for people being shitty to her? Just for a dental
about Yeah, like strategies, self matters, the Ultimate Weight Solution. God,
I hate all his titles. Yeah, we had the relationship Rescue.
(06:53):
We had that. It wasn't on the main shelf, but
it was in the house. It was in the house,
it was it was somewhere up in there. Yeah. Well
I don't know did it. Did it rescue your relationships?
Absolutely not. I think what we got we got more
out of John Edwards. Do you remember him or John Edwards? Yeah,
they talk to the dead guy. Yeah, the one who
(07:13):
would like record people in the audience talking about the
dead people they wanted to hear from and then walking
out and being like exactly, yeah, that's that's a That
was a fun bridge, I mean, also but also a
traumatizing one. They're all traumatizing. They are all traumatizing grifts.
That's what makes them so satisfying. Um, wow, we all
(07:37):
learned a lesson, didn't we. No, No, we didn't. So
what's up to? What's he doing? All right? So Dr
fucking phil um, So I want to talk a little
bit more about these life laws that he that he
lays out in his first book, because this is a
major reoccurring theme, especially in early Doctor Phil, like people
will will critique people by explaining which life law they violated,
(07:58):
like the one where you're responsible for other people treating
you shitty, because we teach people how to treat us um,
which is like an inversion of the truth, which is
that if you're like abusers and predators are good at
spotting your vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them, right, and
so you need to be aware of your own vulnerabilities
because you need to be aware of how dangerous people
(08:20):
might take advantage of you. That's the non toxic way
of framing that. The toxic ways, Hey, you taught him
to be like that, Like, no, you didn't. He saw
that you had this vulnerability and you took advantage of it.
That's a fair way to the most abuse abuse of
tactics in the book, like well, actually it was your
fault and if you were so weak, this wouldn't have
happened to you. And it's like, oh, go funk off,
(08:41):
And I want to try this logic with like crimes,
like the next time I'm caught speeding, Like look, officer,
you taught me how to drive this car that way,
like by by having the road be this straight, and
maybe this drunk you kind of taught me to speed.
You know. I will say that every time I tried
to teach my dog something that is something that it's
(09:03):
a very low STIGs version of that. They're like, well
didn't you teach him he get google on your floor
when you don't feel like standing up, And I was like, yes,
I guess I did. Christ in Heaven. Okay. So here's
how he introduces the concept of life laws in his book. Quote,
(09:24):
life laws are the rules of the game. No one
is going to ask you if you think these laws
are fair, or if you think they should exist, like
the law of gravity, they simply are. You don't get
a vote. You can ignore them and stumble along wondering
why you never seem to succeed, or you can learn them,
adapt to them, mold your choices and behavior to them,
and live effectively. Learning these life laws is the at
(09:44):
the absolute core of what you must master in this
book to have the essential knowledge for a personal life strategy.
What kind of he went from zero to being? Like
my laws? Much like the law of gravity? That is
like that is galaxy brain that are as unavoidable and
(10:08):
is the tie gravity? Oh god, you got You have
to appreciate the flagrancy on on display there, Jesus. Yeah,
it's you know, it's it's good Jamie. It's like you're
you being abused, being your fault to me, thought's gravity.
It's like, oh, I want to put you through a shredder.
Yeah wow, Yeah, that would be fun. And I think
(10:31):
we could probably get a pretty good primetime TV audience
if we actually did that, Jamie, have someone watch like
that's seen in Fargo. It's that that's kind of like
that's where his story is building to present. That's a
fucking hour of TV right there. There you go, there
(10:53):
you go. And I'm sure he'd be happy to do it.
I'm sure he would, now, I bet Jamie, you're hung
for some more of Dr Phil's life laws. I can
see it in your eyes. You're you're just you're just
you're just. Yeah. Absolutely, So most of these laws are
pretty self explanatory, uh, stuff like life rewards action and
you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. My favorite
(11:17):
is people do what works, which boils down to the
idea that we engage in bad behavior because it rewards
us in some way. So Dr Phil says, if you
want to stop the behavior, stop rewarding yourself for it,
which makes sense until you think about the way say
heroin or junk food works because you can't stop it
from the reward is the thing, right, Like these are
(11:37):
also so manipulatively worded. Yeah, the next time you take heroin,
punch yourself in the dick so you don't enjoy it
as much. I don't like. Yeah, how do you like? Statistically,
most of the kind of people who want advice from
are gonna be dealing with something like weight loss, and
it's like, no, the reward is eating food, Like that's
(11:59):
that's strategy going to to help you know. It's so
frustrating too, because it's like they're the way they're word
it is so deliberate that it's like, oh, I understand
why people fell for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just
all it's just very very transparent nonsense for the most part. Yeah,
(12:20):
it's words in it in a certain sequence than charging you,
you know hard. You gotta give the man credit. It
is words in a sequence that is undeniable. That dr
Phil that was a sentence, that that's a The man
uses sentences, you know. You gotta give that to them.
(12:40):
You can't take that from him. So yeah, some of
his rules are, however, a little more sinister. Probably the worst.
While one of the worst is I don't know, there's
a lot of worse. One is you create your own experiences.
Here's how he explains that. One. Don't play the role
of victim or use past events to build excuses. It
guarantees you no progress, no healing, and no victory. You
(13:02):
will never fix a problem by blaming someone else. That's
first of all, not true. And that's just like, I mean, yeah,
he's just clearly not even good at the job he's
getting famous for saying he's good at backwards. Yeah, it's
it's I mean, he sounds like a fucking catholic, crazed
(13:24):
he's like, well, push your emotions down. Okay, it's just
such bad. It's particularly all bad advice for like abuse victims,
because if you're an abuse victim, in a lot of cases,
part of the healing process is realizing that your abuser
is the person to blame and that all these things
they got you to blame yourself for aren't things you
did wrong, and that they like that. That's a big
(13:45):
part of healing from that sort of thing. And he's
just like, no, no, don't be blaming this guy because
because he was beating you, maybe you didn't do the
laundry right, you know, maybe you should have got him
his beer faster. I'm Dr Phil, I'm a doctor, you know, Like, God,
damn it, I really don't like this guy. Yeah. I
also want to read you the we said earlier what
if his rules as we teach people how to treat us.
(14:05):
But the actual wording in the book of how he
explains that is even creepier than you might guess. Quote,
you either teach people to treat you with dignity and
respect or you don't. This means you are partly responsible
for the mistreatment that you get at the hands of
someone else. You shape other's behavior when you teach them
what they can get away with and what they cannot.
This is like God, You're just like, oh God, okay,
(14:26):
so what did you do that you need to believe
this in order to live with yourself? Yeah? Right, fucking Christ. Yeah,
he's he's really a bad person. I don't like him.
In my house, it was next to I like clearly
remember being next to my mom's bet. Yeah. Like, you know,
it's the good book. You gotta gotta keep it close
(14:46):
to you. We didn't own the Bible. We own life.
Strategy is the John Edward book and that other one
by that guy who said he could talk to dead people.
I forget what was Oh John Edwards, and there's a
lot of dead people talking. So despite the fundamental emptiness
of phil philosophy, or perhaps because of it, Dr Phil
(15:06):
became a wild success. His first episode ran in two
thousand two of The Doctor Phil Show, Like he spun
off pretty quickly, and he's been on the air ever since.
He instinctively knew that the real money and this sort
of TV was leaning in towards the most tragic and
risque stories drug addiction, spousal abuse, troubled teens, all that
(15:27):
good ship. He was happy to throw medical best practices
out the window. In two thousand four, he interviewed a
nine year old boy whose parents said he was being
abusive towards his younger sister. Dr Phil said the child
had nine of the fourteen characteristics of a serial killer.
Then he added Jeffrey Dahmer had seven Jesus very well
(15:50):
crafted and all that's beautiful. Yeah, it's it's like so
any reputable psychologists like Hiatrist will tell you that one
thing you can't do, as in like it's forbidden in
the discipline, is to diagnose a child as a psychopath.
You you're not allowed to do that because their children,
(16:14):
their brains are developing, and shackling a child with that
diagnosis is incredibly unethical. Dr Shils did it on national television.
He feel he isn't he's still doing it on national television.
I mean, yes, yes, yes, he does this all yes, yes.
From a write up by BuzzFeed. Quote Dr Phil purports
(16:34):
to be a mental health professional, but he's diagnosing from
videotape on the air, said then executive director of the
National Alliance on Mental Illness Michael Fitzpatrick to The Washington
Post in a two thousand four story about Dr Phil's
bad psychotherapy. It's unethical to do that sort of if
you will pop psychology, you don't do that for ratings.
This is a human being. A spokesperson for Dr Phil
(16:56):
at the time said that McGraw never labeled the child
is mentally ill, which is technically true. He merely brought
up Jeffrey Dahmer. So there you go. This is like
just next lot, it's it's it all rings like semi familiar.
It is kind of like interesting to think about how
how used to as a culture? How used to? We
are of like Dr Phil saying the most funked up
(17:18):
thing he can possibly think of at a child, because
he's been doing it for twenty five years. And I
love how from the beginning, Yeah, I was like, oh,
that wasn't an escalation. It was just always that. No.
People have been complaining about Dr Phil in this way
from the very beginning of his career, and it has
never made a difference for a single second. And it's
(17:39):
never made him loss money. It doesn't seem like this
is so fucking bleak. I think it's just made him
more money, which is good. I mean he picked a
good life strategy. You know you can get more money
than I do. So Dr Phil stopped renewing his license
to pack practice as a psychologist in two thousand six.
He has never held a valid license in California, where
(17:59):
his show is filmed. A spokesperson for his show confirmed
that he stopped renewing his license because he quote no
longer worked as a therapist, which I don't disagree with,
but I would argue he is absolutely marketing himself as
a therapist and is still in the business of therapy.
He's presenting himself as someone who has a license. He
(18:20):
for sure is, and he's not just still doing therapy
on his show. He is selling products to companies that
make their whole all of their money from doing therapy.
Like hell, I'll get into that now. A stat News
Boston Globe investigation several years ago revealed that Dr Phil
and his son some dude named Jay started a business
(18:42):
called Dr Phil's Path to Recovery and the Late Oughts.
This was a virtual reality addiction recovery program where a
VR Dr Phil would walk you through exercises to help
you get and stay sober. From BuzzFeed, quote users dawn
virtual reality goggles and are placed in scenarios with Dr Phil,
and one McGraw sits at a bar, arms folded across
(19:03):
his chest, counseling his visitor on how to avoid the
triggers of an evening out when alcohol is present. In
another scene, he reclines in genes on the backyard patio
of his sprawling estate, sparkling pool and fustia flowers behind
him and a wide blue sky above, and shares coping strategies.
You'll leave these sessions feeling as though you just had
an eye opening and insightful conversation about your life with
(19:24):
Dr Phil. The Path to Recovery website promises the product
is described as the culmination of more than four decades
of experience Dr Phil has working in the mental health
profession and addiction recovery. So that sounds helpful. That's yeah,
that was thank you for that clarifying statement. Now, obviously
(19:44):
there's absolutely no evidence that this program helps with addiction
in any way. A disclaimer on the website says that
it is quote solely for general information purposes and is
quote not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any
medical health, mental or psychological problem or condition, the worst
kind of part in the worst kind of person, because
now he's just outright targeting the most vulnerable people he can.
(20:05):
It's like it was, I didn't care when he was
targeting other grifters. Yeah, and he's not even doing it
in a situation where they can choose to be grifted
by him, because by the time they're in addiction recovery,
like they're already paying, they probably don't even know that
this fucking thing is there. Um. Yeah. Now, despite the
fact that there's no evidence that this thing helps in anyway,
(20:26):
a number of addiction recovery programs purchased Path to Recovery
to use you. And I guess why they bought it? Fine,
because Dr Phil gave them free advertising on the show
if they bought it. No business, boys, boy, he's really
good this boy. Yeah. Dr Phil offered addiction treatment centers
free endorsements on both The Dr Phil Show and his
(20:48):
spinoff series The Doctors if they first bought his program.
BuzzFeed managed to get ahold of audio of one of
these pitch sessions, where mccross salesman told a customer quote,
our job is to get your phones to ring and
the admissions hopefully follow. He bragged that Doctor Phil's viewers
were older, high income people, not the addict calling because
I told my mom I'd do it. Oh my, okay,
(21:14):
so we're we've arrived at cartoon villainy. We sure have
Jamie Loftus. Okay, Well, what does does does Oprah? Ever?
Because they forget because over the years Oprah has endorsed
a number of questionable people and sometimes out out John
of God there and and shout out what's his name?
(21:36):
Who wrote a million little pieces? Oh yeah, Jonathan? Right? Yeah, yeah,
she she's had to apologize for having endorsed a lot
of funked up people over the years. Has that that
that moment has never happened for doctor phill Right, She's
never backed off? Did she ever back off from him
at anything? No? No, no, no, no, no no, they're still
deeply tied together. Why would she ever back off on him?
(21:58):
I guess that's true? God dead man, are you okay? Well?
That was that was the question I wanted a better
answer to. Yeah, except the truth, the truth is that
why would she care? She's she's doing just fine. Yeah,
she has she has plenty of money, So like, what
do you what do you expect her to do, Jamie,
(22:20):
I don't know. I don't know. It's like, you can't
expect anyone with that much money to be a good person.
You're just sending yourself. You're just asking to be sad
because they just ask me to whack them all right down. Yeah,
they never will be um because it's not lucrative to
be a good person. It's the opposite of lucrative to
be a good person. That's true. Yeah. You know what
(22:41):
is lucrative though, Jamie Chilling the products and services that
support this podcast. Ah, we're back and I am just
having a great time talking with my friend Jay Loft
about Dr philamar was what's his middle name? What's his name?
(23:05):
All the disappointed Philip Calvin Calvin. Yeah, Jamie, I just
talked to you about how Dr Phil has this VR
addiction treatment thing and he basically gives people gives like
treatment centers, free advertising if they buy it. Um. You
want to guess the quality of the facilities that that
the take Doctor phill up on this offer. Only the
(23:26):
best right is nothing, Oh Jamie, It's a lot worse
than nothing in some cases, on the facility that took
Dr Phil up on this author offer was Inspirations for
Youth and Families, a Fort Lauderdale based treatment center for teenagers.
Phil actually highlighted the facility, run by core Cora and
Walsh on his show the day he announced his new
(23:47):
VR program, saying, we think outside the box and designing
what addicts need. What you need is something that pops
out of the noise, something that rises above the noise,
like a distinctive voice, and that voice, in this case
is me to Phil then introduced Walsh, saying she ran
the nation's leading family addiction treatment and dual diagnosis center.
BuzzFeed actually investigated the facility and found that it had
(24:09):
a well documented history of children escaping and getting into danger.
Stephen Sardoui, a p I who was hired hired to
find two different girls who escaped from the facility and disappeared,
said it seems to be an ongoing problem in that
this in that particular facility. Obviously there's a gap somewhere,
a loophole somewhere in the system where they're just leaving.
In the last two years, Inspiration staff members made a
(24:31):
hundred and eighty reports to police about children and their
care going missing, sometimes the teens. Sometimes the teams left
for days or even escaped the state. One escape he
wound up prostituting herself for drugs. A number of the
teams wound up finding drugs one way or another after
getting out of the facility. Six were arrested, two were hospitalized.
One group who escaped together later robbed a homeless man.
(24:52):
BuzzFeed talked to Jill Walters of South Carolina, who's seventeen
year old escaped from Inspirations in two thousand sixteen and
wound up the street in Miami. She explained why she
initially had chosen Inspirations to help her boy. Quote, they
touted this we were on Dr Phil. They used that
as we must be a great facility because we were
on Dr Phil. Well, that has nothing to do with
(25:13):
how the facility is run. You entrust your child to
the care of these people, and something like this happens.
It's good ship. God, that's that that that it wouldn't
stop getting worse. That is so fucking off. It's like,
I mean, it's pretty bad. It's pretty pretty bad. Jamie.
(25:33):
It speaks to like, yeah, just the level of clout
he but he's still upfolds too. Because it's like, yeah,
I guess that if you think about it for a while,
you're like, oh, well, he's not a licensed doctor, and
look at what he's actually saying. But it's like the
world was reinforcing his bullshit for so long. That is
so evil. Oh my god, it is evil, Jamie. Sure,
(25:58):
but you know it's not evil. What the products and
services that I just advertised on this podcast that we're
not actually cutting two again? I just I have a problem, Jamie.
I I have a problem. You can't stop thinking, and
I can't stop I can't stop pivoting to ads. You know,
you're just you've been I mean, I'm you know what, Jamie,
I'm a I'm an addict. Oh my god, get it.
(26:23):
Oh yeah, I hated it. That one's a good one.
That one's that's a keeper. You know what we're done
with the episode go Home? I nailed it. Wow. Wow,
We've got to end with Dr Phil ruining the lives
of children. I mean, I guess that that is where
the story is going to end, no matter what it is,
It's where it began and it's where it'll end. Yeah,
(26:45):
it's where Dr Phil. Just kill me? Now, I got Okay,
I am gonna. I am going to continue to advocate
for put Dr Phil through a gigant human size shredder
on live TV. I think that that is the kind
of dystopian television. Like we're already at masked Singer. That's
(27:07):
the next logical step for me. Fair enough, But I hated,
I hate an evil person threw a shredder. It's the
modern guillotine, big old shredder. Yeah, it's the best way
to do anything. Really. Yeah, is a shredder anyway? Jamie
Jay Loft m hmm, Joe Loft. God, we're actually still
(27:34):
talking about inspirations. So court records also revealed that the
center's co owner, Christopher Walsh, is, by his own admission,
a habitual drunkard, who in two thousand fifteen suit a
resort for serving him alcohol, saying they should have known
he couldn't handle it. And boy, how do you does
it ever get worse? Let's talk about Todd Herzog. Yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, at the end of the inspiration stuff.
(27:56):
But so Todd Herzog was another was a repeated guest
on The Doctor Phil Show. Now, Todd's back story is
that he one survivor back in the early odds he
got like a million dollars and then became a horrible,
like developed a horrific addiction to alcohol, um, like a
life threatening addiction. Now Dr Phil and his producers must
have salivated at the combination of disastrous alcoholic and reality
(28:18):
TV star. Here's how stat News described what happened next.
Quote Herzog told stat in the Boston Globe that he
was not intoxicated when he arrived at the Los Angeles
studio to film the Doctor philm show. And his dressing room,
he said he found a bottle of smearing off vodka.
He drank all of it. Then someone handed him a Zanix,
he said, telling him it would calm his nerves. So
(28:42):
this guy who had managed to sober himself up enough
to like try to go on TV and Dr Phil's
people basically allegedly made sure there was a full bottle
of vodka and um a fucking gave him a Zanex?
Did you just because you know? I think the reasoning
is the more of a disaster you seem like on air,
(29:03):
the more marketable you are. Yeah, right right, But which
is a proven model given the star of the show
is like bachelor levels of like Jamie, Jamie, Ji, let's
get as close as we can killing people. Dear, dear
sweet Jamie loftus. We are not even at the worst
(29:24):
part yet. Oh no, okay, keep going. Yeah. So, by
the time Herzog got on stage, he was so wasted
that he could barely talk or function. Dr Phil and
his assistant walked them out themselves, making a big show
of helping him while highlighting just how wrecked he was.
And I want you to listen to this, Jamie. I
want you to watch this, obviously, but um, I want
(29:47):
everyone at home or in your car or pooping or
whatever it is you're doing. I can't describe the anxiety
of seeing Robert Evans has started screen sharing. I know,
I know, I know. All right, here's the Doctor Phil show.
Dr Phil, I'm todd, can you walk ap barely? I
(30:10):
have to have help. Sorry, I'm very what's all right, random?
Once you get over there and take spot, yeah, I'll go.
I'm sorry because it just kepler this happening, So just
(30:33):
come turn around. So that's all I want to play
of that. Um, he can barely move. It is fundamentally
unethical to have someone in that state on your television show.
Even I mean, even even if they had been inebriated
of their own volition and being like sped drugs, that
(30:56):
even if they had consented earlier, I know, think you
can consent to that. Yeah, absolutely not like that is
like the the worst situation imaginable. That is fucking evil. Yeah,
it's not. It's not good, Jamie. It's just not a
(31:17):
good thing to do. I would say, I would recommend
not doing that if if I was if someone asked me,
should I take someone who has a problem with addiction
and give them drugs and then film them disastrously wrecked? Um,
I would say No, that sounds like an evil thing
to do. That is absolute cruel. God, it's cruel and good, Jamie.
(31:44):
Cruel and good. And they just had that on in
waiting rooms. That was just what you watched while you
were waiting to see the dentist. So, when questioned, representatives
of the Doctor Phil Show didn't i that they provided
Herzog with alcohol and drugs. They said, junkies lie in
essence about his claims, And then they pointed out that
(32:06):
they weren't a medical facility and couldn't watch their guests
at all times. The director of the treatment facility where
her Zog agreed to go for help at the end
of the show. However, was horrified when he saw him
on television. He was so upset by the condition that
Dr Phil let her Zog appear on air in that
he refused to ever have anything to do with the
Doctor Phil Show again. So this was so outrageous that
(32:30):
it convinced the head of a treatment program that all
of the free advertising that Doctor Phil Show could provide
was not worth the ethical compromise of dealing with that. Man,
I can't, I mean, I can't. You can't really hand
it to him for that. But that's I mean, that's
sucking something that's to late. Yeah, yeah, it's just it.
You have to really, like, you have to really do
(32:53):
bad to to to convince someone of that. I think
like that's a yeah, like that, that's throwing a lot
of money out And I don't know, I'm not going
to say all people in the rehab facility business or sketchy,
but there's a lot of sketchy motherfucker's in that industry,
you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's cool and
good Jamie, Wow, I feel really not very good, Jamie.
(33:18):
That's thank you so much for saying that you know
hear it behind the bastards. That's exactly what we go
for At all time. I convinced myself that this is
going to be a fun one and every time, except
the one time, I'm dead brown, even worse than I
could have conceived. All I ever want is for you
(33:40):
to feel bad. Thank you so much. That's my whole goal.
You know you're a successful person. I'm not a hero.
I'm just um. I'm a hero. I'm a hero. You
know I'm not a hero. Todd Herzog's story does not
appear to be an isolated one. Jordan's Smith appeared on
The Tor Phil Show in two thousand twelve in an
(34:01):
episode titled Young, Reckless and Enabled. Smith's aunt claimed she
contacted to the show to help get her niece off
of heroin. When they arrived in l A from out
of state, Jordan's started going through withdrawal. Her aunt told
a show producer that her niece needed heroin and something
or something else to help with the withdrawal. The producer
suggested that they go to skid Row and buy heroin together.
(34:24):
She then told them not to say who made that suggestion. Later, now,
guests like smith Is received free addiction treatment and an
expensive center after their appearance on the show, which is
why many do it, But prior to taping, no medical
treatment is provided or offered. Smith and her family were
in Los Angeles alone for two nights before taping. A
(34:46):
less trusting person than me might suggest that the show
does this, that these people will be extra fucked up
and sad when it comes time for them to be
on television. Sure, sure, yeah, it's very ethical. That is
extremely like, you have to be thinking so hard you
come up with something like that. It's so innocuous. Seeing
these people's lives are already off the fucking rails. How
(35:08):
can we make it a little worse? I'm Dr Phil.
Joel King Parrish brought her twenty eight year old daughter,
Caitlin to doctor Phil for help kicking a heroin addiction.
Caitlin was six months pregnant at the time. Her mother
assumed that when they landed they would receive medical attention
since withdrawal could endanger the fetus, But when Caitlin's mom
asked the staff for help, they told her to quote
(35:30):
take care of it. She took her daughter to the hospital,
which she left without a sheet receiving treatment. Next from
stat news quote, the producer texted to say she should
stay at the hospital, but Caitlin would not, and King
Parrish was terrified the baby would die if her daughter
did not get medicine or drugs. King Parrish and Caitlin
went to the Doctor Phil studio, where another show stafford
(35:50):
joined them. All three got into a cab headed for
skid Row. The stafford shot video which later aired on
the show. In it, King Parrish tells the camera, I
am scared to death right now. The camera follows Caitlin
from behind she walks towards homeless encampments. King Paris said
Caitlynn was gone for about a half hour while she
shot up Heroin, So they just like went out to
(36:11):
go buy a horse at skid Row and filmed it.
That's I mean, and that's like that's good TV. Is
what that is? This is ja wine. They really mupseting.
I mean yeah, I mean, on top of the fact
that that's an extreme disservice to her, that's also like
yet another example of like bullshit high rated TV heading
into unhoused encampments to just frame people and completely context
(36:37):
list bumped up way, I hate that ship so much
that I think it's cool and good. Jamie, Wow, I
think it's cooling good. I hate this so much, loft this.
We do have fun on this show, though, We sure
do sure to bust out Franzia and really dial Yeah,
(37:04):
friends out with our glands out. I don't know, I'm stuck.
I'm stuck making that exact kind of joke repeated. I'm
still chilling, chilling with filling. Yeah, gross, no, no, no idea.
It's all deeply uncomfortable, Probert. You know what's not deeply uncomfortable.
(37:27):
The products and services that support this podcast. No, every
one of them will gently cradle your head or whatever
other part of your body you you would like them
to craz absolutely or wherever. They'll just kiss you. You know,
they're just going to kiss you. That's that's the behind
the bastards promise random kisses from a product. Here's some ads. Okay,
(37:56):
So there are a bunch of stories like this, and
one of the saddest part of all these stories is
that the people who will like who, the people who
Doctor Phil clearly takes advantage of, will still claim that
his show helped them because they were able to receive
free addiction recovery care that they couldn't have afforded without
the Doctor Phil Show. Almost no aspect of his show
(38:16):
works if they're single payer healthcare that covers addiction treatment.
The Doctor Phil Show profits off of sadness, porn, the
shock and embarrassment people feel watching the ruined lives of
his guests, and the sassy, no bullshit advice Doctor Phil
gives them. He earns between sixty and eighty million dollars
a year. Of course, the Doctor's Phil Show. I know right,
(38:38):
that's an obscene number, isn't it? Just make sure you
want to light some ship on fire, doesn't it? Yeah,
it sure does, Jamie, it sure does. So. Of course,
the Doctor Phil Show would get boring pretty quick if
he only dealt with people suffering from drug addictions and
abuse of spouses. From the beginning, a major source of
(38:58):
content form of GRAW was so called troubled teens. Kids
in crisis are big business for grift t TV therapists because,
being children, those kids have no ability to regulate their
emotions and no sense of proportion. This leads to TV
friendly explosions of rage. In two thousand sixteen, Dr Phil
interviewed Danielle Brigoli for a next episode titled I Want
(39:19):
to give Up My car stealing knife wielding twerking thirteen
year old daughter who tried to frame me for a crime,
which is just a title mint to to show up
on a like like throwing twerking in there with fucking
car stealing shameless, There was that there was a cultural
hat to now Brigolie now goes by the stage name
bad Baby b h A D b h A b
(39:42):
I E was a prime time ready delinquent. She spoke
in a ridiculously affected hood accent and pretended to basically
be a gangster in the kind of confrontational, like nonsense
teenage way that gave Doctor Fell a lot of openings
to mock her with his witty rejoinders. I don't want
to play much of her appearance because she was a child,
(40:05):
and I think what Dr Phil does by having her
on is fundamentally abusive. But I do think it's important
to play how the episode starts, so you can see
how he introduces this segment and hear it you listening,
will hear it? Jamie? I want you to pay attention
to the looks on the faces of the people in
his audience. She's defiant. What has she met? Her match
(40:30):
with Dr Phil? You can threaten him, but time your
worst nightmare. Well, thank you. Well, you know, I've been
doing this show for fifteen years and I've met some
truly remarkable people, and I have heard thousands of stories.
Now in that time, you get to thinking that you've
(40:52):
seen and heard just about everything that was until today.
Meet Danielle. Now, Danielle's mom Barbara and has written to
me every year for the past three years about her daughter,
who has stold thousands of dollars, framed her mother as
a drug user, and then called to report her and
(41:15):
is currently facing grand theft charges. Now I answered her
call for help, and I sent my film crew across
the country to capture what was going on inside this home.
Needless to say, while my team was there, something shocking
and unexpected happened. Shortly after they had finished filming, one
(41:39):
of my crew members noticed that Danielle had vanished with
the keys to my crew member's car. Now, sure enough,
when Danielle's grandmother, Barbara, went outside, she found out that
Danielle had stolen the car, which had the crew members
handback wallet I D and cash inside. That's not bad enough.
(42:05):
Danielle's only thirteen years old. So you see. The thing
that's most interesting to me about that is the faces
of the women in the audience, um, because they are
particularly the glee right, Like That's the thing that's most
unsettling to me, is like how excited they are with
every new aspect of this story that Dr Phil reveals well.
(42:28):
And I also think that those reactions may not even
be I mean, those reactions in themselves are extremely coached,
where I like I used to do like audience work
when I first had moved here and had like there's
no money to my name, and you're so extremely coached,
and like before the show even starts, you're told to
(42:48):
do a series of facial expressions for the editors to
work with, and so it's it's like manipulation top to
bottom with how it's handled, because it's like, not only
is he obviously not has no vested interest in the
well being of this kid, like he also, like I
I would argue probably that editing is completely fucking doctored
as well. Yeah, I have no idea if that's the
(43:09):
those if those face expressions match, like what was actually
going down. But like it's all I guess specifically the
idea that they wanted to show those reactions because I
think they're trying to coach or response. They're trying to
coach response from the people watching at home to write
this like this, the voyeurism, Like it makes it clear
none of this is about helping anyone. It's about laughing
(43:30):
at quote unquote low class people in their problems. You know.
That's that's what Dr Phil really makes his bread doing. Sure, yeah,
but great, but fuck him. Like she went on to
like have a successful like she's eighteen, she's she was
nominated for an American Music Award. She was I didn't
know that good. I'm glad there's a happy ending that
(43:50):
I don't know much about baby now. And like she's
you know, signed a record label. I mean, and she
is standing up for what happens. We're about to get
into that. Yeah, So Grigoli went viral, and within the
confines of the episode, Dr Phil positions himself as a
dispenser of tough love. His prescription was to send Brigoli
(44:13):
to one of his favorite therapeutic boarding schools, Turnabout Ranch
in Utah. This is an actual working ranch where troubled
teams are sent under the impression that working in the
country and rate riding horses will get them off of drugs,
premarital sex, and petty crime. In subsequent episodes, Brigoli filmed
an update from the ranch where she dropped her fake
accent and claimed to feel okay with who I am now,
(44:37):
but she was not being honest understandably so in two
thousand and eighteen, she released an original song and gave
a different view of her experience that turnabout quote. I
was pretty it was pretty miserable. I did not know
what was going on in the real world. This place
was far away from anything. There wasn't even service there,
she says in the song. A couple of weeks after
being home, I finally decided that I wanted to meet
(44:57):
up with my best friend again, somebody who was not
good for me at all. Instantly I'd say it was.
The next day we got back to doing our old
shit again, smoking, trying to finance people for money, just
doing really, really dumb shit. Her reintegration into society was
made all the more difficult by the fact that when
she returned to school and the internet, she realized rather
(45:17):
suddenly that she'd gone viral for being a ridiculous train
wreck of a person on a nationally syndicated TV program.
She claims that this basically made her decide to quote
lean into the bad behavior that had made her famous.
Once you've become a meme, there are a lot of
ways to get a clean slate. There's no right to
be forgotten in the US, So why wouldn't Burgoli just
(45:39):
keep being the person everyone already thought she was. This
gets to one of the things I think is worst
about the Doctor Phil show. It's one thing to shamelessly
milk the worst moments and the greatest shames in the
life of an adult. It's another thing, entirely to do
that to a child who has no real way to
understand the long term Yeah, no way that she could
have possibly understood the law long term consequences of being
(46:01):
coming that kind of famous. It's completely it's like violent
every level, and it's like whatever I mean, clearly, Doctor
Bill does not give a fun no, not a not
a third of a fuck. Yeah, but it is and
and it also I think like speaks to how especially
for a kid, which is like that should doing what
he does to children should be illegal should yes, you
(46:25):
should not be allowed to do ship like that. And
on top of that, it speaks to like how, I
don't know. It's like I remember that clip when it
first came out, and there was no popular conversation about
like the well being of the child who's clearly being
exploited by a multimillionaire, and and it's and and and
(46:46):
I see that. I mean, it's when you're introduced in
the public that way, and you are coming from a
place of poverty, and you are not being empowered at
all or protected, Like what are you supposed to do?
Like that miserable, cruel situation to be put in, It's
it's fucked up. Yeah, now, Jamie, that's all pretty bad, right.
(47:10):
Everything we've talked about happening to Brigolie is bad. But
to make matters worse, the ranch Dr Phil sent her
and a bunch of other kids too was about as
ethical as oh, I don't know, the drug rehabilitation treatment
programs he was also sending kids to. I'm going to
quote again from BuzzFeed. It's not clear if turnabout is
actually helpful to the kids or go who go, or
if it's just another facility that takes advantage of the
(47:32):
miners who were sent there to get better. Just last week,
nineteen year old Hannah archioletta suit the school for an
alleged sexual assault that she said happened to her while
she was staying at Turnabout at just seventeen. This is
likely to be a high profile profile case too, with
Gloria Alread representing her Turnabout administrators provided a statement to
me saying they took immediate action after Archiletta claimed she
(47:53):
had been assaulted, but that her father removed her from
the facility before we could conduct a full inquiry. The
statement continued, we would never take lightly an allegation of
his treatment to any of our students. Now that this
incident is the subject of litigation, we must withhold our
full response for a later date. Now, the owner of
this ranch is Aspen Education Group, which was then bought
by CRC, which is now owned by Acadia Healthcare. In
(48:17):
an email statement to BuzzFeed News, Akadia's director of investor Relations,
Gretchen Hamrick, said, it is my understanding that Turnabout Ranch
and Aspen Educational Group were closed or sold prior to
a Kadia's acquisition of CRC. Health. In any event, Akadia
never operated either of the facilities. Turnabout has gone through
multiple owners, and since two thousand fourteen, has been owned
by current and former employees of the ranch, but Aspen
(48:40):
Education has been accused of multiple infractions by former attendees,
including lawsuits that claimed psychological torture, abuse, sexual assault, and
human trafficking. The torture suit was dismissed, but CRC, the
owner of Aspen Education at the time, declined to address
specific allegations. Arcadia did not answer our questions about these
allegations either. So just not only like a bunch of
(49:02):
people involved in this have been alleged of things including
human trafficking. There's been sexual assault allegations at the ranch,
but it like goes there's revolving carousel of owners because
it's like a shady fucking It's just like they're pumping
a quick amount of cash at and then selling it
to somebody else. It's so fucking shady. Sure, that's yeah,
I'm sure that that's the intergirl to it being able
to survive at all, to be constantly changing hands, that's
(49:25):
I mean, the whole team treatment industry. Like I've done
a number of art back when I was at Cracked,
I did a number of articles survivors of these facilities,
like all of these facilities are basically child molestation factories,
and like child abuse factories in general, not always molestation.
Sometimes they just killed them from neglect. You know, there
was there was the good ones. That's the point where
like Harris Hilton made a documentary about it last year. Yeah, yeah,
(49:47):
it's Paris Hilton and actually Danielle Burgoli Bad Baby are
involved right now with going against Dr Phil about this
exact place. So it's very interesting that it does. I
don't know much about her always mentioned but besides the
stuff that was like famous about how shitty she was
fifteen twenty years ago, but it seems like she's been
doing some like good socially responsible stuff lately, Paris. Yeah,
(50:10):
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it seems like it seems
like she has. I mean, also, I'm like, I'm not
I'm not about to I'm not going to go to
back for the stop being poor lady, but yeah, right right,
right right, But but yeah, that that specific instance, I'm
glad if you have wealth and prominence and you use
it to take a swing at the teen treatment industry,
(50:31):
that gets you a couple of points in my book,
because it's a fucking nightmare. Um, maybe we'll do a
deeper episode about it at some point. But a lot
of the allegations that we just listed about this facility
and it's many owners pre date the episodes of Dr
Phil where he gave free advertisements to the ranch. This
means that McGraw and his staff were well aware of
(50:51):
the allegations against Aspen and the ranch when they sent
children there. When questioned about this, a spokesperson for the
show said, we're aware and we're monitoring things. Since Archiletta
went public with her allegations, Burgoli has come forward with
more detail about her own experience. She now says she
was denied food at times and that camp administrators often
refused to let inmates change their clothes for days on end.
(51:14):
You're yeah, and I that's my framing, but yes, you're helpless.
You can't call your parents, you can't email your parents.
If the state says they have to give you two pebbles,
they're going to find the smallest fucking pebbles to give you.
That's supposed to help kids get over trauma. I would
have rather went to jail, like I one of the
girls I talked to who did this when she was
(51:34):
like fourteen or fifteen. Like. One of the punishments they
gave her was she had to dig up the stump
of a mature tree on her own, which if you've
never had to remove a stump, it's something like three
to four large adult men usually do with a fucking
truck and power tools. She just spent days in a
hundred and twenty degree heat, like slowly dying as she
tried to force the stump out as a child, like
(51:56):
these places are all nightmares. Um Rogoli is, of course,
not the only teenager featured on The Doctor Phil Show.
BuzzFeed writers Scotchy Cowell announces announced Sorry, Scotchy, I don't
know if I'm getting that right. Um alleges that while
McGraw is healthy is happy to feature children of all genders,
he gets particularly aggressive with teenage girls. Quote their most
(52:18):
vulnerable private moments, screaming and crying at home, are used
on the show until the very end, when their parents
decide to send them to turn About. Every episode of
The Doctor Phil Show ends with an after the taping
segment where the kids find out they're going to a
ranch in the middle of nowhere and usually cry, which
is of course great television. Most kids featured in this
way do not get any updates on the Doctor Phil show,
(52:41):
or at most mentioned briefly once more. Daytime TV moves
too fast for the doctor to actually check back in
with most of his patients. In two thousand and eight,
Doctor Phil spun off and created a new show, The Doctors.
Every episode of this show features a plastic surgeon, an obstetrician,
and an e er doc who talk about different health topics.
Sounds like it might be shop waiting room classic. We're
(53:04):
not going to go into a lot of detail about this,
but a two fourteen study of the show determined that
about thirty seven percent of their recommendations were not credible,
which honestly means they're doing better than I Yeah, I
expected worse than I expected. If you're a doctor, for example,
said thirty seven percent of the time I'm going to
give you bad advice, you would find a new doctor there.
(53:26):
I was like, oh, d that's not the worst thing. Yeah,
imagine a mechanics saying that, Yeah, thirty seven percent of
the time the breaks I put in work, you know
your odds are pretty good. Okay, fair enough. I thought
it was like, there's no way they're somewhat correct sixty
percent of the time. Why yes, and again somewhat being
(53:47):
the operative word. Sure, we could go into a lot
of other case studies have particularly egregious guest choices, but
going over all these sad people in the will way
Phil exploits them at nauseum kind of runs the risk
of being sorrow porn it's self. I do think it
behooves us to look at one last case study, perhaps
the most nauseating guest choice of the whole series. Twenty
(54:08):
four year old Gabby came on The Doctor Phil Show
in February. She had promised to act as a surrogate
womb for two different couples. Gabby had not taken any
money from them, and she could not bear children. She
is infertile and chronically ill. Her father claims she has psychosis,
bipolar disorder, and learning disabilities. In the show, it's revealed
(54:29):
that Gabby's mom died right around the time she started
pretending to be a surrogate, which was also a period
where she was the victim of constant bullying at school.
From BuzzFeed, quote her scam wasn't illegal because Gavy never
asked for money or items from the couple she lied to.
It's just tragic, hurtful behavior from someone deeply isolated and
in dire need of mental health care from multiple past traumas.
(54:52):
Most of the episode focuses on the producers following Gabby
around backstage, begging her to come on stage when she
clearly doesn't want to. They all her difficult and volatile,
and though she signed an appearance release, it's not clear
to the audience that she has read and understood it.
When a producer asks her on camera to confirm she
understands the waiver, she doesn't respond and covers her face
(55:12):
with the pages of the release, but she's certainly remorseful
and seems to feel guilty. In a pre taped interview,
Gabby cries to the producers, I just want to say
sorry to everyone that I've heard. When she walks off
the stage in anguish, McGraw merely SIPs his water. In size,
the episode is near unwatchable. Yeah, I mean that that
doesn't sound like consent was gained at all. I mean,
(55:35):
there were so many red flags. It doesn't sound like
she's capable of consenting to that. Yeah, I don't even
know what to think. I mean that entire though, because
I don't trust any of the information that anyone is
presenting in this in this way. But that's just, I mean,
very clear, there is not an issue that should be
handled handled only that is Yeah, that is just despicable.
(56:02):
So Doctor Jeff Sugar, an assistant professor of clinical psychology
at USC, provided a description of the Doctor Phil show
that I think acts as as as good a coda
to this episode as anything. Quote, it's a callous and
inexcusable exploitation. These people are barely hanging on. It's like
if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat
and instead of throwing them an inflatable donut, you throw
(56:25):
them an anchor. And that's Dr Philip. Baby, d Phil.
I am so upset about, Like I just this was
like one of my like the toughest lessons of all times,
maybe because he's just still such a real present public
disgrace and danger, but like, holy sh it, I I
(56:45):
can't even enjoy Dr Phil Needs. I was gonna show
you Dr Phil Needs. I'm not gonna fuck it, fuck it,
fuck him. Put him through a shredder. Put him through
a shredder, and you at home, put yourself through a shredder.
But a good kind of shredder that makes you helpful,
life affirming kind of shredder, you know, in a way,
(57:07):
in a way, every is that if it is not
just capitalism yourself friend, Well with that, Jamie, I think
it's time for you to plug a plug double and
get the get the funk out of this zoom call
and go live your your goddamn life, Jamie, go live
your fucking life. You know I'm dying to live my life.
So you can, just you can. You can listen to
(57:28):
the podcast. You can listen to the the Ecto Past, you
listen to the lead Up podcast, and can listen to
my You're and Mensa, and you can listen to my
new show about Kathie Comics that comes out in June.
God damn it, God damn it, and all your this
is miserable, damn god yourself. Yeah it was, Jamie, it
really was all right. Well, fight the Internet life,
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.
(00:47):
This is behind the Bastards podcast where Yeah, I don't know.
I never come into this show with a plan, like
I write ten thousand words a week to do this show,
and then I consistently just completely fucked the introductions. Um.
I think it's nice. I think it's I think it's fun.
(01:11):
Brand consistency that's that's our Robert. People thinking that's Robert.
It's you know, it's easy to be have a consistent
brand when your brand is being like uh like uh,
brain damaged drug addict who is incapable of doing anything
but writing long essays about bad people. Simple brand. I
(01:33):
think that's you're being reductive. But also when people hear
you say things like that about their solves or about yourself, like, oh,
that's our Robert, I go, my son so so pure,
so humble, m h so. Probably shouldn't be trusted with
large machinery anyway, definitely not. You know who else should
(01:55):
be trusted with large machinery because of the horrible head injury?
Phil Okay, I thought that was you introducing me. I
was like, this is really me, you, Jamie. I would
trust you with her heavy machinery. Although you don't have
a driver's license, do you. I don't have a driver's license,
but it hasn't stopped me from driving. Hell yeah, yeah,
(02:16):
Well good for you, Jamie. I could probably get a keep.
I get like. I'm like, I could probably get a
driver's license if I really wanted to. I just don't
want to. That's not true. I've I've failed the test
several times. The key thing about cops, Jamie, and this
is some free advice for all of you out there.
They're never ready for you to just tuck and roll,
you know, like if this as long as you're driving
(02:38):
a cheap car, if they start to pull you over,
just tuck and roll and then fucking book it. Like
I guarantee you they will not be ready. Yeah, I
like it. They're just not going to be ready. Um.
And anyway, we should probably talk about Dr Phil sun
huh sure, yeah, totally. Probably chill out with our fill out.
(03:01):
I need to go. Actually that's fair. This this has
been the final episode behind the Bastards. I'm so sorry. Alright, yeah,
let's chill out with our phill out. Just a big old, pudgy,
bald headed Phil just flopping around with a nice moostaf
(03:22):
like like like a skink on a hot rock. Okay. Um.
Later that year, so Dr Phil helps Oprah out um
and and like saves her, saves her bacon um and
she brings him on her show and does her verdict episode.
(03:42):
She was getting like sued for a lot of money
and defamation and ship like it was potentially something that
would have really damaged her bottom line, like I don't
know this link. Okay, So Dr Phil later that year
would become a regular part of her show UM. And
this was part of a pivot in Oprah where she
went from like doing a normal talk show UM to
(04:03):
what she called Change your Life TV. The goal of
Change your Life TV was to take the experience people
had in Phil seminars, the very public crowd influenced Catharsis
of emotional change, and put that ship on television for
everybody to watch. Mostly this involves Dr Phil confronting people
aggressively about their flaws so they would cry and say
(04:23):
they learned something. Quote. This is Dr Phil explaining his methodology.
In order for people to change, there has to be
a dramatic event. I think coming on the Oprah Show
as an event in itself is a watershed occurrence in
people's lives. They get told the bottom line truth about
where they are, and in that environment, I don't think
they will ever forget it. If you embarrass people on
(04:44):
national television, they remember, I mean, that's you know that,
that's not untrue. That's okay, okay, accurate Dr Phil? Accurate
Jesus Yeah. So UM, so he's really like heading into
(05:05):
the villain years. Yeah, yeah, he's he's solved. I mean
he's been in villain territory this whole time. Um So.
On Oprah Show, Doctor Phil focused on clients whose problems
were fit things he could justify yelling about to them
or yelling at them. For one early case was a
husband who was verbally abusive to his wife, calling her
(05:26):
obscene names. Phil could not just condemn the man, but
he like didn't just condemn the man. He made the
man's wife tearfully recount everything he said to her on TV.
So like, he's yelling at this guy for being a dick,
but he's also demanding that this woman, like in detail,
explain every horrible thing her husband said about her to
millions of strangers, right, like the classic air out the
(05:49):
worst thing, Yeah for someone else, which I don't think
is great, you know, but I don't think that's great
behavior would be my my take it. Not a psychologist,
but Phil isn't really a psychologist either. Um So, Phil, then,
after making this woman laborously explain the horrible things your
(06:09):
husband said to her, got to help provide some of
his own homespun wisdom in this case, he told the wife,
you taught him how to treat you. Now. This is
a variation of one of doctor Phil's life laws for
people to follow, which he published in his plagiarized bestselling
book Life Strategies. Quote, we teach people how to treat
(06:30):
us own, rather than complain about how people treat us.
My mom has good book, Robert, did she blame herself
for people being shitty to her? Just for a dental
about Yeah, like strategies, self matters, the Ultimate Weight Solution. God,
I hate all his titles. Yeah, we had the relationship Rescue.
(06:53):
We had that. It wasn't on the main shelf, but
it was in the house. It was in the house,
it was it was somewhere up in there. Yeah. Well
I don't know did it. Did it rescue your relationships?
Absolutely not. I think what we got we got more
out of John Edwards. Do you remember him or John Edwards? Yeah,
they talk to the dead guy. Yeah, the one who
(07:13):
would like record people in the audience talking about the
dead people they wanted to hear from and then walking
out and being like exactly, yeah, that's that's a That
was a fun bridge, I mean, also but also a
traumatizing one. They're all traumatizing. They are all traumatizing grifts.
That's what makes them so satisfying. Um, wow, we all
(07:37):
learned a lesson, didn't we. No, No, we didn't. So
what's up to? What's he doing? All right? So Dr
fucking phil um, So I want to talk a little
bit more about these life laws that he that he
lays out in his first book, because this is a
major reoccurring theme, especially in early Doctor Phil, like people
will will critique people by explaining which life law they violated,
(07:58):
like the one where you're responsible for other people treating
you shitty, because we teach people how to treat us um,
which is like an inversion of the truth, which is
that if you're like abusers and predators are good at
spotting your vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them, right, and
so you need to be aware of your own vulnerabilities
because you need to be aware of how dangerous people
(08:20):
might take advantage of you. That's the non toxic way
of framing that. The toxic ways, Hey, you taught him
to be like that, Like, no, you didn't. He saw
that you had this vulnerability and you took advantage of it.
That's a fair way to the most abuse abuse of
tactics in the book, like well, actually it was your
fault and if you were so weak, this wouldn't have
happened to you. And it's like, oh, go funk off,
(08:41):
And I want to try this logic with like crimes,
like the next time I'm caught speeding, Like look, officer,
you taught me how to drive this car that way,
like by by having the road be this straight, and
maybe this drunk you kind of taught me to speed.
You know. I will say that every time I tried
to teach my dog something that is something that it's
(09:03):
a very low STIGs version of that. They're like, well
didn't you teach him he get google on your floor
when you don't feel like standing up, And I was like, yes,
I guess I did. Christ in Heaven. Okay. So here's
how he introduces the concept of life laws in his book. Quote,
(09:24):
life laws are the rules of the game. No one
is going to ask you if you think these laws
are fair, or if you think they should exist, like
the law of gravity, they simply are. You don't get
a vote. You can ignore them and stumble along wondering
why you never seem to succeed, or you can learn them,
adapt to them, mold your choices and behavior to them,
and live effectively. Learning these life laws is the at
(09:44):
the absolute core of what you must master in this
book to have the essential knowledge for a personal life strategy.
What kind of he went from zero to being? Like
my laws? Much like the law of gravity? That is
like that is galaxy brain that are as unavoidable and
(10:08):
is the tie gravity? Oh god, you got You have
to appreciate the flagrancy on on display there, Jesus. Yeah,
it's you know, it's it's good Jamie. It's like you're
you being abused, being your fault to me, thought's gravity.
It's like, oh, I want to put you through a shredder.
Yeah wow, Yeah, that would be fun. And I think
(10:31):
we could probably get a pretty good primetime TV audience
if we actually did that, Jamie, have someone watch like
that's seen in Fargo. It's that that's kind of like
that's where his story is building to present. That's a
fucking hour of TV right there. There you go, there
(10:53):
you go. And I'm sure he'd be happy to do it.
I'm sure he would, now, I bet Jamie, you're hung
for some more of Dr Phil's life laws. I can
see it in your eyes. You're you're just you're just
you're just. Yeah. Absolutely, So most of these laws are
pretty self explanatory, uh, stuff like life rewards action and
you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. My favorite
(11:17):
is people do what works, which boils down to the
idea that we engage in bad behavior because it rewards
us in some way. So Dr Phil says, if you
want to stop the behavior, stop rewarding yourself for it,
which makes sense until you think about the way say
heroin or junk food works because you can't stop it
from the reward is the thing, right, Like these are
(11:37):
also so manipulatively worded. Yeah, the next time you take heroin,
punch yourself in the dick so you don't enjoy it
as much. I don't like. Yeah, how do you like? Statistically,
most of the kind of people who want advice from
are gonna be dealing with something like weight loss, and
it's like, no, the reward is eating food, Like that's
(11:59):
that's strategy going to to help you know. It's so
frustrating too, because it's like they're the way they're word
it is so deliberate that it's like, oh, I understand
why people fell for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just
all it's just very very transparent nonsense for the most part. Yeah,
(12:20):
it's words in it in a certain sequence than charging you,
you know hard. You gotta give the man credit. It
is words in a sequence that is undeniable. That dr
Phil that was a sentence, that that's a The man
uses sentences, you know. You gotta give that to them.
(12:40):
You can't take that from him. So yeah, some of
his rules are, however, a little more sinister. Probably the worst.
While one of the worst is I don't know, there's
a lot of worse. One is you create your own experiences.
Here's how he explains that. One. Don't play the role
of victim or use past events to build excuses. It
guarantees you no progress, no healing, and no victory. You
(13:02):
will never fix a problem by blaming someone else. That's
first of all, not true. And that's just like, I mean, yeah,
he's just clearly not even good at the job he's
getting famous for saying he's good at backwards. Yeah, it's
it's I mean, he sounds like a fucking catholic, crazed
(13:24):
he's like, well, push your emotions down. Okay, it's just
such bad. It's particularly all bad advice for like abuse victims,
because if you're an abuse victim, in a lot of cases,
part of the healing process is realizing that your abuser
is the person to blame and that all these things
they got you to blame yourself for aren't things you
did wrong, and that they like that. That's a big
(13:45):
part of healing from that sort of thing. And he's
just like, no, no, don't be blaming this guy because
because he was beating you, maybe you didn't do the
laundry right, you know, maybe you should have got him
his beer faster. I'm Dr Phil, I'm a doctor, you know, Like, God,
damn it, I really don't like this guy. Yeah. I
also want to read you the we said earlier what
if his rules as we teach people how to treat us.
(14:05):
But the actual wording in the book of how he
explains that is even creepier than you might guess. Quote,
you either teach people to treat you with dignity and
respect or you don't. This means you are partly responsible
for the mistreatment that you get at the hands of
someone else. You shape other's behavior when you teach them
what they can get away with and what they cannot.
This is like God, You're just like, oh God, okay,
(14:26):
so what did you do that you need to believe
this in order to live with yourself? Yeah? Right, fucking Christ. Yeah,
he's he's really a bad person. I don't like him.
In my house, it was next to I like clearly
remember being next to my mom's bet. Yeah. Like, you know,
it's the good book. You gotta gotta keep it close
(14:46):
to you. We didn't own the Bible. We own life.
Strategy is the John Edward book and that other one
by that guy who said he could talk to dead people.
I forget what was Oh John Edwards, and there's a
lot of dead people talking. So despite the fundamental emptiness
of phil philosophy, or perhaps because of it, Dr Phil
(15:06):
became a wild success. His first episode ran in two
thousand two of The Doctor Phil Show, Like he spun
off pretty quickly, and he's been on the air ever since.
He instinctively knew that the real money and this sort
of TV was leaning in towards the most tragic and
risque stories drug addiction, spousal abuse, troubled teens, all that
(15:27):
good ship. He was happy to throw medical best practices
out the window. In two thousand four, he interviewed a
nine year old boy whose parents said he was being
abusive towards his younger sister. Dr Phil said the child
had nine of the fourteen characteristics of a serial killer.
Then he added Jeffrey Dahmer had seven Jesus very well
(15:50):
crafted and all that's beautiful. Yeah, it's it's like so
any reputable psychologists like Hiatrist will tell you that one
thing you can't do, as in like it's forbidden in
the discipline, is to diagnose a child as a psychopath.
You you're not allowed to do that because their children,
(16:14):
their brains are developing, and shackling a child with that
diagnosis is incredibly unethical. Dr Shils did it on national television.
He feel he isn't he's still doing it on national television.
I mean, yes, yes, yes, he does this all yes, yes.
From a write up by BuzzFeed. Quote Dr Phil purports
(16:34):
to be a mental health professional, but he's diagnosing from
videotape on the air, said then executive director of the
National Alliance on Mental Illness Michael Fitzpatrick to The Washington
Post in a two thousand four story about Dr Phil's
bad psychotherapy. It's unethical to do that sort of if
you will pop psychology, you don't do that for ratings.
This is a human being. A spokesperson for Dr Phil
(16:56):
at the time said that McGraw never labeled the child
is mentally ill, which is technically true. He merely brought
up Jeffrey Dahmer. So there you go. This is like
just next lot, it's it's it all rings like semi familiar.
It is kind of like interesting to think about how
how used to as a culture? How used to? We
are of like Dr Phil saying the most funked up
(17:18):
thing he can possibly think of at a child, because
he's been doing it for twenty five years. And I
love how from the beginning, Yeah, I was like, oh,
that wasn't an escalation. It was just always that. No.
People have been complaining about Dr Phil in this way
from the very beginning of his career, and it has
never made a difference for a single second. And it's
(17:39):
never made him loss money. It doesn't seem like this
is so fucking bleak. I think it's just made him
more money, which is good. I mean he picked a
good life strategy. You know you can get more money
than I do. So Dr Phil stopped renewing his license
to pack practice as a psychologist in two thousand six.
He has never held a valid license in California, where
(17:59):
his show is filmed. A spokesperson for his show confirmed
that he stopped renewing his license because he quote no
longer worked as a therapist, which I don't disagree with,
but I would argue he is absolutely marketing himself as
a therapist and is still in the business of therapy.
He's presenting himself as someone who has a license. He
(18:20):
for sure is, and he's not just still doing therapy
on his show. He is selling products to companies that
make their whole all of their money from doing therapy.
Like hell, I'll get into that now. A stat News
Boston Globe investigation several years ago revealed that Dr Phil
and his son some dude named Jay started a business
(18:42):
called Dr Phil's Path to Recovery and the Late Oughts.
This was a virtual reality addiction recovery program where a
VR Dr Phil would walk you through exercises to help
you get and stay sober. From BuzzFeed, quote users dawn
virtual reality goggles and are placed in scenarios with Dr Phil,
and one McGraw sits at a bar, arms folded across
(19:03):
his chest, counseling his visitor on how to avoid the
triggers of an evening out when alcohol is present. In
another scene, he reclines in genes on the backyard patio
of his sprawling estate, sparkling pool and fustia flowers behind
him and a wide blue sky above, and shares coping strategies.
You'll leave these sessions feeling as though you just had
an eye opening and insightful conversation about your life with
(19:24):
Dr Phil. The Path to Recovery website promises the product
is described as the culmination of more than four decades
of experience Dr Phil has working in the mental health
profession and addiction recovery. So that sounds helpful. That's yeah,
that was thank you for that clarifying statement. Now, obviously
(19:44):
there's absolutely no evidence that this program helps with addiction
in any way. A disclaimer on the website says that
it is quote solely for general information purposes and is
quote not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any
medical health, mental or psychological problem or condition, the worst
kind of part in the worst kind of person, because
now he's just outright targeting the most vulnerable people he can.
(20:05):
It's like it was, I didn't care when he was
targeting other grifters. Yeah, and he's not even doing it
in a situation where they can choose to be grifted
by him, because by the time they're in addiction recovery,
like they're already paying, they probably don't even know that
this fucking thing is there. Um. Yeah. Now, despite the
fact that there's no evidence that this thing helps in anyway,
(20:26):
a number of addiction recovery programs purchased Path to Recovery
to use you. And I guess why they bought it? Fine,
because Dr Phil gave them free advertising on the show
if they bought it. No business, boys, boy, he's really
good this boy. Yeah. Dr Phil offered addiction treatment centers
free endorsements on both The Dr Phil Show and his
(20:48):
spinoff series The Doctors if they first bought his program.
BuzzFeed managed to get ahold of audio of one of
these pitch sessions, where mccross salesman told a customer quote,
our job is to get your phones to ring and
the admissions hopefully follow. He bragged that Doctor Phil's viewers
were older, high income people, not the addict calling because
I told my mom I'd do it. Oh my, okay,
(21:14):
so we're we've arrived at cartoon villainy. We sure have
Jamie Loftus. Okay, Well, what does does does Oprah? Ever?
Because they forget because over the years Oprah has endorsed
a number of questionable people and sometimes out out John
of God there and and shout out what's his name?
(21:36):
Who wrote a million little pieces? Oh yeah, Jonathan? Right? Yeah, yeah,
she she's had to apologize for having endorsed a lot
of funked up people over the years. Has that that
that moment has never happened for doctor phill Right, She's
never backed off? Did she ever back off from him
at anything? No? No, no, no, no, no no, they're still
deeply tied together. Why would she ever back off on him?
(21:58):
I guess that's true? God dead man, are you okay? Well?
That was that was the question I wanted a better
answer to. Yeah, except the truth, the truth is that
why would she care? She's she's doing just fine. Yeah,
she has she has plenty of money, So like, what
do you what do you expect her to do, Jamie,
(22:20):
I don't know. I don't know. It's like, you can't
expect anyone with that much money to be a good person.
You're just sending yourself. You're just asking to be sad
because they just ask me to whack them all right down. Yeah,
they never will be um because it's not lucrative to
be a good person. It's the opposite of lucrative to
be a good person. That's true. Yeah. You know what
(22:41):
is lucrative though, Jamie Chilling the products and services that
support this podcast. Ah, we're back and I am just
having a great time talking with my friend Jay Loft
about Dr philamar was what's his middle name? What's his name?
(23:05):
All the disappointed Philip Calvin Calvin. Yeah, Jamie, I just
talked to you about how Dr Phil has this VR
addiction treatment thing and he basically gives people gives like
treatment centers, free advertising if they buy it. Um. You
want to guess the quality of the facilities that that
the take Doctor phill up on this offer. Only the
(23:26):
best right is nothing, Oh Jamie, It's a lot worse
than nothing in some cases, on the facility that took
Dr Phil up on this author offer was Inspirations for
Youth and Families, a Fort Lauderdale based treatment center for teenagers.
Phil actually highlighted the facility, run by core Cora and
Walsh on his show the day he announced his new
(23:47):
VR program, saying, we think outside the box and designing
what addicts need. What you need is something that pops
out of the noise, something that rises above the noise,
like a distinctive voice, and that voice, in this case
is me to Phil then introduced Walsh, saying she ran
the nation's leading family addiction treatment and dual diagnosis center.
BuzzFeed actually investigated the facility and found that it had
(24:09):
a well documented history of children escaping and getting into danger.
Stephen Sardoui, a p I who was hired hired to
find two different girls who escaped from the facility and disappeared,
said it seems to be an ongoing problem in that
this in that particular facility. Obviously there's a gap somewhere,
a loophole somewhere in the system where they're just leaving.
In the last two years, Inspiration staff members made a
(24:31):
hundred and eighty reports to police about children and their
care going missing, sometimes the teens. Sometimes the teams left
for days or even escaped the state. One escape he
wound up prostituting herself for drugs. A number of the
teams wound up finding drugs one way or another after
getting out of the facility. Six were arrested, two were hospitalized.
One group who escaped together later robbed a homeless man.
(24:52):
BuzzFeed talked to Jill Walters of South Carolina, who's seventeen
year old escaped from Inspirations in two thousand sixteen and
wound up the street in Miami. She explained why she
initially had chosen Inspirations to help her boy. Quote, they
touted this we were on Dr Phil. They used that
as we must be a great facility because we were
on Dr Phil. Well, that has nothing to do with
(25:13):
how the facility is run. You entrust your child to
the care of these people, and something like this happens.
It's good ship. God, that's that that that it wouldn't
stop getting worse. That is so fucking off. It's like,
I mean, it's pretty bad. It's pretty pretty bad. Jamie.
(25:33):
It speaks to like, yeah, just the level of clout
he but he's still upfolds too. Because it's like, yeah,
I guess that if you think about it for a while,
you're like, oh, well, he's not a licensed doctor, and
look at what he's actually saying. But it's like the
world was reinforcing his bullshit for so long. That is
so evil. Oh my god, it is evil, Jamie. Sure,
(25:58):
but you know it's not evil. What the products and
services that I just advertised on this podcast that we're
not actually cutting two again? I just I have a problem, Jamie.
I I have a problem. You can't stop thinking, and
I can't stop I can't stop pivoting to ads. You know,
you're just you've been I mean, I'm you know what, Jamie,
I'm a I'm an addict. Oh my god, get it.
(26:23):
Oh yeah, I hated it. That one's a good one.
That one's that's a keeper. You know what we're done
with the episode go Home? I nailed it. Wow. Wow,
We've got to end with Dr Phil ruining the lives
of children. I mean, I guess that that is where
the story is going to end, no matter what it is,
It's where it began and it's where it'll end. Yeah,
(26:45):
it's where Dr Phil. Just kill me? Now, I got Okay,
I am gonna. I am going to continue to advocate
for put Dr Phil through a gigant human size shredder
on live TV. I think that that is the kind
of dystopian television. Like we're already at masked Singer. That's
(27:07):
the next logical step for me. Fair enough, But I hated,
I hate an evil person threw a shredder. It's the
modern guillotine, big old shredder. Yeah, it's the best way
to do anything. Really. Yeah, is a shredder anyway? Jamie
Jay Loft m hmm, Joe Loft. God, we're actually still
(27:34):
talking about inspirations. So court records also revealed that the
center's co owner, Christopher Walsh, is, by his own admission,
a habitual drunkard, who in two thousand fifteen suit a
resort for serving him alcohol, saying they should have known
he couldn't handle it. And boy, how do you does
it ever get worse? Let's talk about Todd Herzog. Yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, at the end of the inspiration stuff.
(27:56):
But so Todd Herzog was another was a repeated guest
on The Doctor Phil Show. Now, Todd's back story is
that he one survivor back in the early odds he
got like a million dollars and then became a horrible,
like developed a horrific addiction to alcohol, um, like a
life threatening addiction. Now Dr Phil and his producers must
have salivated at the combination of disastrous alcoholic and reality
(28:18):
TV star. Here's how stat News described what happened next.
Quote Herzog told stat in the Boston Globe that he
was not intoxicated when he arrived at the Los Angeles
studio to film the Doctor philm show. And his dressing room,
he said he found a bottle of smearing off vodka.
He drank all of it. Then someone handed him a Zanix,
he said, telling him it would calm his nerves. So
(28:42):
this guy who had managed to sober himself up enough
to like try to go on TV and Dr Phil's
people basically allegedly made sure there was a full bottle
of vodka and um a fucking gave him a Zanex?
Did you just because you know? I think the reasoning
is the more of a disaster you seem like on air,
(29:03):
the more marketable you are. Yeah, right right, But which
is a proven model given the star of the show
is like bachelor levels of like Jamie, Jamie, Ji, let's
get as close as we can killing people. Dear, dear
sweet Jamie loftus. We are not even at the worst
(29:24):
part yet. Oh no, okay, keep going. Yeah. So, by
the time Herzog got on stage, he was so wasted
that he could barely talk or function. Dr Phil and
his assistant walked them out themselves, making a big show
of helping him while highlighting just how wrecked he was.
And I want you to listen to this, Jamie. I
want you to watch this, obviously, but um, I want
(29:47):
everyone at home or in your car or pooping or
whatever it is you're doing. I can't describe the anxiety
of seeing Robert Evans has started screen sharing. I know,
I know, I know. All right, here's the Doctor Phil show.
Dr Phil, I'm todd, can you walk ap barely? I
(30:10):
have to have help. Sorry, I'm very what's all right, random?
Once you get over there and take spot, yeah, I'll go.
I'm sorry because it just kepler this happening, So just
(30:33):
come turn around. So that's all I want to play
of that. Um, he can barely move. It is fundamentally
unethical to have someone in that state on your television show.
Even I mean, even even if they had been inebriated
of their own volition and being like sped drugs, that
(30:56):
even if they had consented earlier, I know, think you
can consent to that. Yeah, absolutely not like that is
like the the worst situation imaginable. That is fucking evil. Yeah,
it's not. It's not good, Jamie. It's just not a
(31:17):
good thing to do. I would say, I would recommend
not doing that if if I was if someone asked me,
should I take someone who has a problem with addiction
and give them drugs and then film them disastrously wrecked? Um,
I would say No, that sounds like an evil thing
to do. That is absolute cruel. God, it's cruel and good, Jamie.
(31:44):
Cruel and good. And they just had that on in
waiting rooms. That was just what you watched while you
were waiting to see the dentist. So, when questioned, representatives
of the Doctor Phil Show didn't i that they provided
Herzog with alcohol and drugs. They said, junkies lie in
essence about his claims, And then they pointed out that
(32:06):
they weren't a medical facility and couldn't watch their guests
at all times. The director of the treatment facility where
her Zog agreed to go for help at the end
of the show. However, was horrified when he saw him
on television. He was so upset by the condition that
Dr Phil let her Zog appear on air in that
he refused to ever have anything to do with the
Doctor Phil Show again. So this was so outrageous that
(32:30):
it convinced the head of a treatment program that all
of the free advertising that Doctor Phil Show could provide
was not worth the ethical compromise of dealing with that. Man,
I can't, I mean, I can't. You can't really hand
it to him for that. But that's I mean, that's
sucking something that's to late. Yeah, yeah, it's just it.
You have to really, like, you have to really do
(32:53):
bad to to to convince someone of that. I think
like that's a yeah, like that, that's throwing a lot
of money out And I don't know, I'm not going
to say all people in the rehab facility business or sketchy,
but there's a lot of sketchy motherfucker's in that industry,
you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's cool and
good Jamie, Wow, I feel really not very good, Jamie.
(33:18):
That's thank you so much for saying that you know
hear it behind the bastards. That's exactly what we go
for At all time. I convinced myself that this is
going to be a fun one and every time, except
the one time, I'm dead brown, even worse than I
could have conceived. All I ever want is for you
(33:40):
to feel bad. Thank you so much. That's my whole goal.
You know you're a successful person. I'm not a hero.
I'm just um. I'm a hero. I'm a hero. You
know I'm not a hero. Todd Herzog's story does not
appear to be an isolated one. Jordan's Smith appeared on
The Tor Phil Show in two thousand twelve in an
(34:01):
episode titled Young, Reckless and Enabled. Smith's aunt claimed she
contacted to the show to help get her niece off
of heroin. When they arrived in l A from out
of state, Jordan's started going through withdrawal. Her aunt told
a show producer that her niece needed heroin and something
or something else to help with the withdrawal. The producer
suggested that they go to skid Row and buy heroin together.
(34:24):
She then told them not to say who made that suggestion. Later, now,
guests like smith Is received free addiction treatment and an
expensive center after their appearance on the show, which is
why many do it, But prior to taping, no medical
treatment is provided or offered. Smith and her family were
in Los Angeles alone for two nights before taping. A
(34:46):
less trusting person than me might suggest that the show
does this, that these people will be extra fucked up
and sad when it comes time for them to be
on television. Sure, sure, yeah, it's very ethical. That is
extremely like, you have to be thinking so hard you
come up with something like that. It's so innocuous. Seeing
these people's lives are already off the fucking rails. How
(35:08):
can we make it a little worse? I'm Dr Phil.
Joel King Parrish brought her twenty eight year old daughter,
Caitlin to doctor Phil for help kicking a heroin addiction.
Caitlin was six months pregnant at the time. Her mother
assumed that when they landed they would receive medical attention
since withdrawal could endanger the fetus, But when Caitlin's mom
asked the staff for help, they told her to quote
(35:30):
take care of it. She took her daughter to the hospital,
which she left without a sheet receiving treatment. Next from
stat news quote, the producer texted to say she should
stay at the hospital, but Caitlin would not, and King
Parrish was terrified the baby would die if her daughter
did not get medicine or drugs. King Parrish and Caitlin
went to the Doctor Phil studio, where another show stafford
(35:50):
joined them. All three got into a cab headed for
skid Row. The stafford shot video which later aired on
the show. In it, King Parrish tells the camera, I
am scared to death right now. The camera follows Caitlin
from behind she walks towards homeless encampments. King Paris said
Caitlynn was gone for about a half hour while she
shot up Heroin, So they just like went out to
(36:11):
go buy a horse at skid Row and filmed it.
That's I mean, and that's like that's good TV. Is
what that is? This is ja wine. They really mupseting.
I mean yeah, I mean, on top of the fact
that that's an extreme disservice to her, that's also like
yet another example of like bullshit high rated TV heading
into unhoused encampments to just frame people and completely context
(36:37):
list bumped up way, I hate that ship so much
that I think it's cool and good. Jamie, Wow, I
think it's cooling good. I hate this so much, loft this.
We do have fun on this show, though, We sure
do sure to bust out Franzia and really dial Yeah,
(37:04):
friends out with our glands out. I don't know, I'm stuck.
I'm stuck making that exact kind of joke repeated. I'm
still chilling, chilling with filling. Yeah, gross, no, no, no idea.
It's all deeply uncomfortable, Probert. You know what's not deeply uncomfortable.
(37:27):
The products and services that support this podcast. No, every
one of them will gently cradle your head or whatever
other part of your body you you would like them
to craz absolutely or wherever. They'll just kiss you. You know,
they're just going to kiss you. That's that's the behind
the bastards promise random kisses from a product. Here's some ads. Okay,
(37:56):
So there are a bunch of stories like this, and
one of the saddest part of all these stories is
that the people who will like who, the people who
Doctor Phil clearly takes advantage of, will still claim that
his show helped them because they were able to receive
free addiction recovery care that they couldn't have afforded without
the Doctor Phil Show. Almost no aspect of his show
(38:16):
works if they're single payer healthcare that covers addiction treatment.
The Doctor Phil Show profits off of sadness, porn, the
shock and embarrassment people feel watching the ruined lives of
his guests, and the sassy, no bullshit advice Doctor Phil
gives them. He earns between sixty and eighty million dollars
a year. Of course, the Doctor's Phil Show. I know right,
(38:38):
that's an obscene number, isn't it? Just make sure you
want to light some ship on fire, doesn't it? Yeah,
it sure does, Jamie, it sure does. So. Of course,
the Doctor Phil Show would get boring pretty quick if
he only dealt with people suffering from drug addictions and
abuse of spouses. From the beginning, a major source of
(38:58):
content form of GRAW was so called troubled teens. Kids
in crisis are big business for grift t TV therapists because,
being children, those kids have no ability to regulate their
emotions and no sense of proportion. This leads to TV
friendly explosions of rage. In two thousand sixteen, Dr Phil
interviewed Danielle Brigoli for a next episode titled I Want
(39:19):
to give Up My car stealing knife wielding twerking thirteen
year old daughter who tried to frame me for a crime,
which is just a title mint to to show up
on a like like throwing twerking in there with fucking
car stealing shameless, There was that there was a cultural
hat to now Brigolie now goes by the stage name
bad Baby b h A D b h A b
(39:42):
I E was a prime time ready delinquent. She spoke
in a ridiculously affected hood accent and pretended to basically
be a gangster in the kind of confrontational, like nonsense
teenage way that gave Doctor Fell a lot of openings
to mock her with his witty rejoinders. I don't want
to play much of her appearance because she was a child,
(40:05):
and I think what Dr Phil does by having her
on is fundamentally abusive. But I do think it's important
to play how the episode starts, so you can see
how he introduces this segment and hear it you listening,
will hear it? Jamie? I want you to pay attention
to the looks on the faces of the people in
his audience. She's defiant. What has she met? Her match
(40:30):
with Dr Phil? You can threaten him, but time your
worst nightmare. Well, thank you. Well, you know, I've been
doing this show for fifteen years and I've met some
truly remarkable people, and I have heard thousands of stories.
Now in that time, you get to thinking that you've
(40:52):
seen and heard just about everything that was until today.
Meet Danielle. Now, Danielle's mom Barbara and has written to
me every year for the past three years about her daughter,
who has stold thousands of dollars, framed her mother as
a drug user, and then called to report her and
(41:15):
is currently facing grand theft charges. Now I answered her
call for help, and I sent my film crew across
the country to capture what was going on inside this home.
Needless to say, while my team was there, something shocking
and unexpected happened. Shortly after they had finished filming, one
(41:39):
of my crew members noticed that Danielle had vanished with
the keys to my crew member's car. Now, sure enough,
when Danielle's grandmother, Barbara, went outside, she found out that
Danielle had stolen the car, which had the crew members
handback wallet I D and cash inside. That's not bad enough.
(42:05):
Danielle's only thirteen years old. So you see. The thing
that's most interesting to me about that is the faces
of the women in the audience, um, because they are
particularly the glee right, Like That's the thing that's most
unsettling to me, is like how excited they are with
every new aspect of this story that Dr Phil reveals well.
(42:28):
And I also think that those reactions may not even
be I mean, those reactions in themselves are extremely coached,
where I like I used to do like audience work
when I first had moved here and had like there's
no money to my name, and you're so extremely coached,
and like before the show even starts, you're told to
(42:48):
do a series of facial expressions for the editors to
work with, and so it's it's like manipulation top to
bottom with how it's handled, because it's like, not only
is he obviously not has no vested interest in the
well being of this kid, like he also, like I
I would argue probably that editing is completely fucking doctored
as well. Yeah, I have no idea if that's the
(43:09):
those if those face expressions match, like what was actually
going down. But like it's all I guess specifically the
idea that they wanted to show those reactions because I
think they're trying to coach or response. They're trying to
coach response from the people watching at home to write
this like this, the voyeurism, Like it makes it clear
none of this is about helping anyone. It's about laughing
(43:30):
at quote unquote low class people in their problems. You know.
That's that's what Dr Phil really makes his bread doing. Sure, yeah,
but great, but fuck him. Like she went on to
like have a successful like she's eighteen, she's she was
nominated for an American Music Award. She was I didn't
know that good. I'm glad there's a happy ending that
(43:50):
I don't know much about baby now. And like she's
you know, signed a record label. I mean, and she
is standing up for what happens. We're about to get
into that. Yeah, So Grigoli went viral, and within the
confines of the episode, Dr Phil positions himself as a
dispenser of tough love. His prescription was to send Brigoli
(44:13):
to one of his favorite therapeutic boarding schools, Turnabout Ranch
in Utah. This is an actual working ranch where troubled
teams are sent under the impression that working in the
country and rate riding horses will get them off of drugs,
premarital sex, and petty crime. In subsequent episodes, Brigoli filmed
an update from the ranch where she dropped her fake
accent and claimed to feel okay with who I am now,
(44:37):
but she was not being honest understandably so in two
thousand and eighteen, she released an original song and gave
a different view of her experience that turnabout quote. I
was pretty it was pretty miserable. I did not know
what was going on in the real world. This place
was far away from anything. There wasn't even service there,
she says in the song. A couple of weeks after
being home, I finally decided that I wanted to meet
(44:57):
up with my best friend again, somebody who was not
good for me at all. Instantly I'd say it was.
The next day we got back to doing our old
shit again, smoking, trying to finance people for money, just
doing really, really dumb shit. Her reintegration into society was
made all the more difficult by the fact that when
she returned to school and the internet, she realized rather
(45:17):
suddenly that she'd gone viral for being a ridiculous train
wreck of a person on a nationally syndicated TV program.
She claims that this basically made her decide to quote
lean into the bad behavior that had made her famous.
Once you've become a meme, there are a lot of
ways to get a clean slate. There's no right to
be forgotten in the US, So why wouldn't Burgoli just
(45:39):
keep being the person everyone already thought she was. This
gets to one of the things I think is worst
about the Doctor Phil show. It's one thing to shamelessly
milk the worst moments and the greatest shames in the
life of an adult. It's another thing, entirely to do
that to a child who has no real way to
understand the long term Yeah, no way that she could
have possibly understood the law long term consequences of being
(46:01):
coming that kind of famous. It's completely it's like violent
every level, and it's like whatever I mean, clearly, Doctor
Bill does not give a fun no, not a not
a third of a fuck. Yeah, but it is and
and it also I think like speaks to how especially
for a kid, which is like that should doing what
he does to children should be illegal should yes, you
(46:25):
should not be allowed to do ship like that. And
on top of that, it speaks to like how, I
don't know. It's like I remember that clip when it
first came out, and there was no popular conversation about
like the well being of the child who's clearly being
exploited by a multimillionaire, and and it's and and and
(46:46):
I see that. I mean, it's when you're introduced in
the public that way, and you are coming from a
place of poverty, and you are not being empowered at
all or protected, Like what are you supposed to do?
Like that miserable, cruel situation to be put in, It's
it's fucked up. Yeah, now, Jamie, that's all pretty bad, right.
(47:10):
Everything we've talked about happening to Brigolie is bad. But
to make matters worse, the ranch Dr Phil sent her
and a bunch of other kids too was about as
ethical as oh, I don't know, the drug rehabilitation treatment
programs he was also sending kids to. I'm going to
quote again from BuzzFeed. It's not clear if turnabout is
actually helpful to the kids or go who go, or
if it's just another facility that takes advantage of the
(47:32):
miners who were sent there to get better. Just last week,
nineteen year old Hannah archioletta suit the school for an
alleged sexual assault that she said happened to her while
she was staying at Turnabout at just seventeen. This is
likely to be a high profile profile case too, with
Gloria Alread representing her Turnabout administrators provided a statement to
me saying they took immediate action after Archiletta claimed she
(47:53):
had been assaulted, but that her father removed her from
the facility before we could conduct a full inquiry. The
statement continued, we would never take lightly an allegation of
his treatment to any of our students. Now that this
incident is the subject of litigation, we must withhold our
full response for a later date. Now, the owner of
this ranch is Aspen Education Group, which was then bought
by CRC, which is now owned by Acadia Healthcare. In
(48:17):
an email statement to BuzzFeed News, Akadia's director of investor Relations,
Gretchen Hamrick, said, it is my understanding that Turnabout Ranch
and Aspen Educational Group were closed or sold prior to
a Kadia's acquisition of CRC. Health. In any event, Akadia
never operated either of the facilities. Turnabout has gone through
multiple owners, and since two thousand fourteen, has been owned
by current and former employees of the ranch, but Aspen
(48:40):
Education has been accused of multiple infractions by former attendees,
including lawsuits that claimed psychological torture, abuse, sexual assault, and
human trafficking. The torture suit was dismissed, but CRC, the
owner of Aspen Education at the time, declined to address
specific allegations. Arcadia did not answer our questions about these
allegations either. So just not only like a bunch of
(49:02):
people involved in this have been alleged of things including
human trafficking. There's been sexual assault allegations at the ranch,
but it like goes there's revolving carousel of owners because
it's like a shady fucking It's just like they're pumping
a quick amount of cash at and then selling it
to somebody else. It's so fucking shady. Sure, that's yeah,
I'm sure that that's the intergirl to it being able
to survive at all, to be constantly changing hands, that's
(49:25):
I mean, the whole team treatment industry. Like I've done
a number of art back when I was at Cracked,
I did a number of articles survivors of these facilities,
like all of these facilities are basically child molestation factories,
and like child abuse factories in general, not always molestation.
Sometimes they just killed them from neglect. You know, there
was there was the good ones. That's the point where
like Harris Hilton made a documentary about it last year. Yeah, yeah,
(49:47):
it's Paris Hilton and actually Danielle Burgoli Bad Baby are
involved right now with going against Dr Phil about this
exact place. So it's very interesting that it does. I
don't know much about her always mentioned but besides the
stuff that was like famous about how shitty she was
fifteen twenty years ago, but it seems like she's been
doing some like good socially responsible stuff lately, Paris. Yeah,
(50:10):
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it seems like it seems
like she has. I mean, also, I'm like, I'm not
I'm not about to I'm not going to go to
back for the stop being poor lady, but yeah, right right,
right right, But but yeah, that that specific instance, I'm
glad if you have wealth and prominence and you use
it to take a swing at the teen treatment industry,
(50:31):
that gets you a couple of points in my book,
because it's a fucking nightmare. Um, maybe we'll do a
deeper episode about it at some point. But a lot
of the allegations that we just listed about this facility
and it's many owners pre date the episodes of Dr
Phil where he gave free advertisements to the ranch. This
means that McGraw and his staff were well aware of
(50:51):
the allegations against Aspen and the ranch when they sent
children there. When questioned about this, a spokesperson for the
show said, we're aware and we're monitoring things. Since Archiletta
went public with her allegations, Burgoli has come forward with
more detail about her own experience. She now says she
was denied food at times and that camp administrators often
refused to let inmates change their clothes for days on end.
(51:14):
You're yeah, and I that's my framing, but yes, you're helpless.
You can't call your parents, you can't email your parents.
If the state says they have to give you two pebbles,
they're going to find the smallest fucking pebbles to give you.
That's supposed to help kids get over trauma. I would
have rather went to jail, like I one of the
girls I talked to who did this when she was
(51:34):
like fourteen or fifteen. Like. One of the punishments they
gave her was she had to dig up the stump
of a mature tree on her own, which if you've
never had to remove a stump, it's something like three
to four large adult men usually do with a fucking
truck and power tools. She just spent days in a
hundred and twenty degree heat, like slowly dying as she
tried to force the stump out as a child, like
(51:56):
these places are all nightmares. Um Rogoli is, of course,
not the only teenager featured on The Doctor Phil Show.
BuzzFeed writers Scotchy Cowell announces announced Sorry, Scotchy, I don't
know if I'm getting that right. Um alleges that while
McGraw is healthy is happy to feature children of all genders,
he gets particularly aggressive with teenage girls. Quote their most
(52:18):
vulnerable private moments, screaming and crying at home, are used
on the show until the very end, when their parents
decide to send them to turn About. Every episode of
The Doctor Phil Show ends with an after the taping
segment where the kids find out they're going to a
ranch in the middle of nowhere and usually cry, which
is of course great television. Most kids featured in this
way do not get any updates on the Doctor Phil show,
(52:41):
or at most mentioned briefly once more. Daytime TV moves
too fast for the doctor to actually check back in
with most of his patients. In two thousand and eight,
Doctor Phil spun off and created a new show, The Doctors.
Every episode of this show features a plastic surgeon, an obstetrician,
and an e er doc who talk about different health topics.
Sounds like it might be shop waiting room classic. We're
(53:04):
not going to go into a lot of detail about this,
but a two fourteen study of the show determined that
about thirty seven percent of their recommendations were not credible,
which honestly means they're doing better than I Yeah, I
expected worse than I expected. If you're a doctor, for example,
said thirty seven percent of the time I'm going to
give you bad advice, you would find a new doctor there.
(53:26):
I was like, oh, d that's not the worst thing. Yeah,
imagine a mechanics saying that, Yeah, thirty seven percent of
the time the breaks I put in work, you know
your odds are pretty good. Okay, fair enough. I thought
it was like, there's no way they're somewhat correct sixty
percent of the time. Why yes, and again somewhat being
(53:47):
the operative word. Sure, we could go into a lot
of other case studies have particularly egregious guest choices, but
going over all these sad people in the will way
Phil exploits them at nauseum kind of runs the risk
of being sorrow porn it's self. I do think it
behooves us to look at one last case study, perhaps
the most nauseating guest choice of the whole series. Twenty
(54:08):
four year old Gabby came on The Doctor Phil Show
in February. She had promised to act as a surrogate
womb for two different couples. Gabby had not taken any
money from them, and she could not bear children. She
is infertile and chronically ill. Her father claims she has psychosis,
bipolar disorder, and learning disabilities. In the show, it's revealed
(54:29):
that Gabby's mom died right around the time she started
pretending to be a surrogate, which was also a period
where she was the victim of constant bullying at school.
From BuzzFeed, quote her scam wasn't illegal because Gavy never
asked for money or items from the couple she lied to.
It's just tragic, hurtful behavior from someone deeply isolated and
in dire need of mental health care from multiple past traumas.
(54:52):
Most of the episode focuses on the producers following Gabby
around backstage, begging her to come on stage when she
clearly doesn't want to. They all her difficult and volatile,
and though she signed an appearance release, it's not clear
to the audience that she has read and understood it.
When a producer asks her on camera to confirm she
understands the waiver, she doesn't respond and covers her face
(55:12):
with the pages of the release, but she's certainly remorseful
and seems to feel guilty. In a pre taped interview,
Gabby cries to the producers, I just want to say
sorry to everyone that I've heard. When she walks off
the stage in anguish, McGraw merely SIPs his water. In size,
the episode is near unwatchable. Yeah, I mean that that
doesn't sound like consent was gained at all. I mean,
(55:35):
there were so many red flags. It doesn't sound like
she's capable of consenting to that. Yeah, I don't even
know what to think. I mean that entire though, because
I don't trust any of the information that anyone is
presenting in this in this way. But that's just, I mean,
very clear, there is not an issue that should be
handled handled only that is Yeah, that is just despicable.
(56:02):
So Doctor Jeff Sugar, an assistant professor of clinical psychology
at USC, provided a description of the Doctor Phil show
that I think acts as as as good a coda
to this episode as anything. Quote, it's a callous and
inexcusable exploitation. These people are barely hanging on. It's like
if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat
and instead of throwing them an inflatable donut, you throw
(56:25):
them an anchor. And that's Dr Philip. Baby, d Phil.
I am so upset about, Like I just this was
like one of my like the toughest lessons of all times,
maybe because he's just still such a real present public
disgrace and danger, but like, holy sh it, I I
(56:45):
can't even enjoy Dr Phil Needs. I was gonna show
you Dr Phil Needs. I'm not gonna fuck it, fuck it,
fuck him. Put him through a shredder. Put him through
a shredder, and you at home, put yourself through a shredder.
But a good kind of shredder that makes you helpful,
life affirming kind of shredder, you know, in a way,
(57:07):
in a way, every is that if it is not
just capitalism yourself friend, Well with that, Jamie, I think
it's time for you to plug a plug double and
get the get the funk out of this zoom call
and go live your your goddamn life, Jamie, go live
your fucking life. You know I'm dying to live my life.
So you can, just you can. You can listen to
(57:28):
the podcast. You can listen to the the Ecto Past, you
listen to the lead Up podcast, and can listen to
my You're and Mensa, and you can listen to my
new show about Kathie Comics that comes out in June.
God damn it, God damn it, and all your this
is miserable, damn god yourself. Yeah it was, Jamie, it
really was all right. Well, fight the Internet life,
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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