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Miss Cleo Bio

Miss Cleo

“Miss Cleo” is a world-renowned self-proclaimed psychic, most famous for her psychic infomercials, spam e-mails, various over-the-top claims, and for her lawsuits.

Miss Cleo’s name is actually Youree Dell Harris. She was born on August 12, 1962, in Los Angeles, California, although she often made claims that she was born and raised in Jamaica.

Miss Cleo has also made claims that she has the ability to tell the future, which is why she advertised her services as a phone-based physic through T.V. infomercials. On her psychic commercials, Miss Cleo often used catchphrases such as, “The cards never lie!”, “Call me now!” and “Call me now, babies”—she usually called her customers, clients, viewers and deemed potential customers “babies.”

While she appeared in psychic commercials, Miss Cleo sent out many spam e-mails, which read, “[Miss Cleo has] been authorized to issue you a Special Tarot Reading!... it is vital that you call immediately!...” As a result of her spamming, as well as for several of her various claims, Miss Cleo was sued multiple times, beginning in 2001, by the Federal Communications Commission as well as the states of Florida and Missouri, among other organizations.

Miss Cleo did not retain any ownership or even interest in her own hotline, and was only paid to appear in the psychic infomercials. One of her claims is that she was even paid a one-time rate of $1,700 to appear in the commercials.

Miss Cleo’s psychic techniques, methods and practices have also been called into question. Bob Steiner, a Fellow and Magician of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), researched Miss Cleo and reported that her psychic methodology was iffy, questionable, and not reliable, scientific or credible.

Many popular television shows and sitcoms have made spoofs and paradies of Miss Cleo and her persona, including Matt Groening’s The Simpsons and Futurama, MadTV (produced by Quincy Jones), That’s So Raven (starring Raven-Symoné), Chappelle’s Show (with comedian Dave Chappelle), The Man Show, That’s My Bush (a political satire from South Park’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone), and Jay Leno’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the latter in which Vicki Randle imitated her. In addition, famous musician Ja Rule makes fun of Miss Cleo in a skit on his album entitled Pain is Love.

Also, interestingly, Miss Cleo also did some voice acting in a video game for Rockstar Games—Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in which she voiced the character Auntie Poulet, a female Haitian gang leader. Further, in late 2006/early 2007, Miss Cleo is scheduled to participate as a cast member in season seven of The Surreal Life, a newer reality television series which debuted in 2003.

Miss Cleo has not always been Miss Cleo. Though she was born as Youree Dell Harris, she has used aliases such as Ree Perries, Rae Dell Harris, Youree Cleomili, and Youree Cleolil, and Dell Harris among many others.