She explained that her late parents knew. And in 2003, she signed on as a spokesperson for Fuse Network.
Advertisement
Harris briefly reprised the Miss Cleo character a year ago in a series of online advertisements for General Mills, which was bringing back its French Toast Crunch cereal.
She eventually started her own hotline where she took calls for a fee.
“People give me mad love, sweetheart”, she said.
Sadly, our favorite TV psychic, Miss Cleo has passed away at the age of 53.
Author Tiffany D. Jackson called Miss Cleo the “greatest fake Jamaican that ever lived!”
“I have clients in New Zealand, Australia, a few here in Toronto, a bunch all over the US, Jamaica, obviously”, she said to Vice.
The character of Miss Cleo first emerged in a 1996 play that Harris (then known as Ree Perris, one of several aliases) wrote and starred in Seattle, according to a 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article.
Since the fallout, Miss Cleo had pretty much disappeared from public life.
The federal lawsuit ordered the companies to forgive $500 million in customers fees and later in court, PRN’s owners Steven Feder and Peter Stoltz settled the suit to a $5 million fine.
Shaff, 38, said Miss Cleo knew that he was not a true psychic during his time with the network, but would not comment on whether he thought she was one.
In a 2014 interview with Vice, Cleo said she was still working as a psychic.
Miss Cleo was actually born in L.A. – she just nailed the accent.
Her real name was Youree Harris, and she was a cultural touchstone from the 1990s through the early 2000s.
Advertisement
In 2002, she voiced a character in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. She also published a book. And while word of her death is still spreading, many have already expressed their condolences, and the tributes to Miss Cleo have been genuinely touching, and – OK, OK – strangely humorous.
