‘Miss Cleo’ gained fame as TV, hotline psychic in 1990s

Miss Cleo, the 1990s television and telephone psychic who died Tuesday at age 53, was no stranger to media attention during her years spent in South Florida.

Miss Cleo — a self-described psychic whose real name was Youree Harris and who lived in both Palm Beach and Broward counties — rose to stardom with her telephone hotline service, and became a recognizable TV personality when she appeared in a Psychic Readers Network infomercial.

However, she and that company ended up in trouble with state and national authorities.

In 2002, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth charged the psychic with violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

I n J u ne 2 002, s t a t e pro s e - cutors interviewed Miss Cleo about inconsistencies in her background. On TV, she claimed to be a Jamaican shaman, but her birth records showed she was born in Los Angeles to American parents.

Her attorney at the time, William Cone, said, “She had the abilit y to be a psychic, a shaman. She’s had all the training and she has a gift.”

Cone added that Miss Cleo could foresee events and that the state’s lawsuit against her was either politically motivated or a bad remake of the Salem witch trials.

The same day the attorney general pressed charges, the Federal Trade Commission sued to

Youree Harris was known to 1990s TV audiences as the psychic Miss Cleo.