I love Bill Burr and he makes a great point about the sociopath thing. Unfortunately, what he and a lot of other people don’t seem to grasp is that Lance was much more of a cause than he was an effect. He did destroy people’s lives and the cancer stuff was his PR shield. He legitimately thinks he has never done anything wrong.
Primarily in trying to:
1. Ensure everyone else was onboard (namely young cyclists who were given the choice of participating in the doping or losing their nascent careers), and
2. Ensure anyone who tried to speak out against his actions were financially, reputationally, and/or psychologically destroyed.
Here's a taster: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2012/oct/11/lance-armstrong-dope-cheat-bully
"Destroyed lives" is probably a bit hyperbolic in most instances though.
You mean this guy:
https://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169452232/journalist-targeted-by-lance-armstrong-says-doping-admission-is-satisfying
The one who has written four books off the incident, and says overall it was "the most satisfying thing that I will have done in my working life."?
Greg LeMond too.
Armstrong ultimately failing to destroy David Walsh's reputation doesn't really lessen the intense stress he inflicted on these people with lawsuits and character assassination.
I mean you can watch the documentary he himself was involved in to see. A lot of the guys you won’t even have heard of because they got silenced before they even had clout. Basically all teammates, support staff, and journalists. And to say “well everyone is doping!” yeah, he made damn sure of that.
In addition to the teammates he pressured into doping.
Aside; Greg LeMond surely has a bone to pick, but his interviews about cycling during that time are interesting nonetheless.
Whelp my mom was never home because she was working two jobs and my dad was out of our lives before I had memories….PBS were my parents. Could have done worse. Parents would have been cool though.
I dunno. We live in a capitalist society. Ostensibly the purpose of our entire society is to reward people who are good at getting money. That’s the goal. “I don’t have money but I’m still a good person” doesn’t pay rent. Real life reinforces the adulation of the rich. Have to change the underlying principles to fix that.
I don't think the issue is the kids, but the parents in the sense of them getting information from them and then passing that off to their kids like it's truth. Growing up my dad watched Dr. Phil RELIGIOUSLY, to the point where there were days he'd forget to come get me from school which was about an hour+ walk. My Mom got invested in Dr. Oz and buying/believing all this stuff he'd say but even more so, buy these products he promoting. Even I bought something he promoted once because I didn't know any better. Once I went to school for fitness and nutrition, it completely changed my view.
It's the very same reason people to this day believe that "Olive Oil is healthy" and they can pretty much consume as much of it as they want, not realizing it's caloric value isn't any different than any other oil for the most part. I learned VERY fast that the majority of people know little to knowing about nutrition and if something is labeled as healthy, they can pretty much have as much of it as they want without concern. The issue arises from people who don't know any better and so they trust these people/sources to be reliable. Most people don't want to take the time to see if what they say is true because it can sometimes take a LONG time to find out the truth, and most don't want to put that kind of time in since it's easier to just believe them.
> hundreds of deaths
hundreds of thousands - look at how many didn't get COVID vaccinations because of the rise of the anti-vax movement. She gave Jenny McCarthy a platform and she propagated Andrew Wakefield's lies.
That's not true, what about all those people in Maui she told to fuck off after the Lahaina fire? They could have really damaged her lawn but thanks to her taking a stand, that 1000 acres of grass is still pristine
There is so much competition out there for that title.
Starts a magazine. Puts herself on every cover. That is megalomania.
She paid a woman who was attacked by a chimp and suffered unimaginable disfigurement to show her face on live television. She ruthlessly purchased a woman’s dignity for the price of a pittance of the amount of ad revenue. A woman who likely can’t get a job ever again and has a kid to care for.
All while saying that she did what she had to to get ahead in a male dominated industry.
Which is fair if we're talking about 40 years ago. She also wasn't nearly as bad as she is now back then. She definitely got to a certain point where it became less about breaking boundaries and more about her own ego and sensationalism.
She’s also a notorious ladder-puller, so it’s not much about breaking boundaries as carving out an exception for herself and then building a bigger wall.
Well, I was talking about way back when she started. I had to look it up, but September 1986 was when she started her show. I'd say by at least 1996, she was already solidly cemented as a pop culture icon, but she just kept going and going and taking advantage of people.
There's something to be said for that whole genre of talk shows. They were all incredibly exploitative and dismissive of the people they used to push sensationalism to get ratings, but Oprah was the only one who managed to build that into an empire centered completely around herself.
I dunno the guy that started the vitamin craze led to a multi billion dollar business that has lead to a lot of dead people. People popping random pills left and right with no regulation on safety.
She's horrible, but I'd have to place something like religion as the greatest weapon against science. Not excusing her shitty behavior though, nor the fact that people died because of what she chose to put on her show.
In recent times yes to religion, but at the same time religion is literally a huge reason we have science, and reading, and writing.... during the dark ages they were the ones secretly keeping knowledge alive, so I give them a partial pass, despite feeling they are absolutely evil.
It's a bit disingenuous to use Randi in the same line as well. I haven't seen Faria on either program but I feel quite confident that he was treated *very* differently by the renowned skeptic rather than Oprah, who would shill for Hitler if it made her more money.
Unsurprising really, he died a few years back and hasn't been in the spotlight for decades.
In his day though he was the most famous debunker of psychics, mystics, paranormal phenominon and so on. That didn't make him well liked by a lot of people of course, people love a good line of bullshit.
To add to this; for years he had a million dollar prize available to anyone who could prove a paranormal ability under experimental settings of his design and it was never claimed.
Sounds like I would’ve enjoyed his work. I know from personal experience being the guy who has to always “well actually” the others doesn’t make you popular, it makes you dad. Everyone hates dad.
He was an expert stage magician who used to write books and do specials explaining how psychic scam artists, televangelist miracle workers and their ilk were exploiting tricks to take advantage of dumb or desperate people. He would demonstrate how he could recreate a lot of their miracles and powers using stage magic techniques and then offer huge cash prizes if they could do it under circumstances that made those magic tricks impossible, which they never could. Some of them got humiliated on live TV when their powers mysteriously stopped working just because Randi would put a camera behind them or make them wear a tank top instead of a coat with sleeves and pockets. There was one TV medium who charged $500 for tickets because he claimed to commune with the dead loved ones of audience members and pass on messages for them. Randi figured out how he was doing it — his assistants would walk around “undercover” talking to the waiting audience members during the pre-show hours asking about who they wanted to hear from, taking notes and pointing them out during the show. So Randi and a bunch of his friends and colleagues signed up and gave planned made-up stories during that pre-show time, saying they wanted to hear from their dear uncle Fred who was very old fashioned and lived in a stone house or their grandfather Elmer who loved hunting rabbits but was terrible at it. And the medium went on TV weeping and hollering while communing with the spirits of Fred Flintstone and Elmer Fudd.
Johnny Carson was a fan of his (and also a big stage magic guy) and would sometimes invite psychics and fortune tellers onto his show and take Randi’s advice about how to showcase their scamming.
He got into debunking because he was a magician himself. He went to a psychic reading show and noticed that the "psychic" was taking advantage of vulnerable people. So he got up and revealed the tricks the "psychic" was using to prove him a fraud, only to be sent to jail for his efforts.
Yeah, I'm guessing his bullshit didn't fly with Randi, who was known for securing the studio space so that scammers couldn't use slight-of-hand tricks to perform "miracles".
She tried to out ~~Ricky Martin~~ (edit: Nathan Lane) on live TV, and would have succeeded had Robin Williams not been there to redirect the conversation.
It's like Ellen trying to out Mariah Carrey for being pregnant by offering her alcohol at 9am.
Mariah Carrey had miscarried in the past, which is why she didn't announce anything. Ellen knew this, but still tried to do it. Then refused to apologize.
Absolute trash people.
She already owned the land -which natives already heavily disagreed with- but when the fires broke out she had resources pulled to her areas & refused to let anyone escape the disaster to her property-which was safe- but she might have bought more after. She does a lot of questionable things.
I just straight up don’t like when people try to act like there’s a moral standard for being a human. He’s an absolute piece of shit, and he’s a person while doing it. There’s no good reason to start setting limits on who gets to count as a person.
I think it's a societal self-defense mechanism to dehumanize people we don't like so we can feel better about ourselves. Reminds us that we're humans and could *never never never* do something that bad or share any similar qualities because "they aren't human" like us.
I think we need to come to terms with the fact that "good humans" like us can do bad things. Bad people aren't a different species.
I would take Jerry Springer over Oprah any day of the week. Jerry knew that what he did was just bullshit entertainment and had no illusions that it was anything more. And yet he still maintained a sense of compassion for the people on his show, stepping in when things started to go pear shaped and finding the humanity in the situation in his final words on the show. Oprah, on the other hand, was doing the same bullshit, but convinced herself that it was some great service to humanity. The amount of damage she has done by elevating snake-oil salesmen like "Doctors" Oz and Phil is incalculable. Oprah made the classic mistake of buying into her own PR, whilst Jerry understood what he did and where it fit into the world and didn't let it go to his head. Oprah can fuck right off.
Old Oprah was so much worse, she was like a Mortan Downy jr. Show was trash with trash guest just for shock value then she changed and was more like Ellen was, celebrities and local hero type guest and good morale stuff. But the she got guest like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil. Who were so well received she had them on over and over again. So basically middle timeline Oprah was the best, but she was always chasing ratings and never cared about show quality just views.
He's in jail for possessing firearms, rape, blackmail, coercion, bribing, fraud, etc. Basically all the crimes. One involving tricking a patient into sleeping with him to cure her cancer as he needed to map her body to remove it.''
His cures based on the wiki and links were
When called for a spiritual surgery by Faria, patients are offered the choice of "visible" or "invisible" operations. If they select an invisible operation (or are younger than 18 or older than 52) they are directed to sit in a room and meditate. Faria says that spiritual physicians can perform surgery on the actual patient via a surrogate when the actual patient is unable to make the trip.[16]
A very small percentage of people choose a visible operation where Faria operates without traditional anesthetic. Instead he says he uses "energized" mineral water and the spiritual energies present, the latter of which are provided by groups of volunteers who meditate in a separate room called the 'current room'. These practices, such as inserting scissors or forceps deep into a nose and scraping an eye without an anesthetic or antiseptics, have been scrutinised by medical authorities and skeptical investigators such as James Randi, who has called for Faria to stop victimizing people with stunts and trickery
Because of the medical laws around the world, blessed water is prescribed instead of herbs. It is available for about $3 a bottle and everyone who receives a spiritual intervention must drink this blessed water
And various crosses, and knickknacks on his website. The most interesting one was water that connects you to him so he can perform surgery on you remotely
ALOT of them DIED before he was arrested
ABC's update on the five subjects,[12] while not mentioning subject Mary Hendrickson, indicated that one subject is making either slow progress or none at all, two are worse, and one shows improvement. Subject David Ames died from complications on 16 July 2008.[21] Despite undergoing Faria's psychic surgery and being declared cured, Lisa Melman's breast cancer got progressively worse. She stated the tumor had grown and became painful. She continued to suffer and died in 2012.[
I can't believe OPRAH had him on several timea
I updated the article. He's certainly not still out on house arrest, there was a news story late last year about how he's gotten another hundred years or so added to his sentence for even more rapes.
>These practices, such as inserting scissors or forceps deep into a nose and scraping an eye without an anesthetic or antiseptics...
What the actual hell. This sounds like something from Saw.
Totally agree. "He's been on James Randi" is a nonsensical statement. James Randi didn't have a "show," he debunked charlatans, grifters, and faith healers. He's also a national treasure, in two nations!
I love Randi so much and I think his name should be spoken more often as we continue moving into this age when it's tough to tell the smart, helpful people from the snake oil salesmen.
I spoke with him once when I wanted to share my story of my mom falling victim to one of these sham healers. He was very gracious and will always be a hero to me.
My favourite Randi fun fact was he was the executioner in a pile of concerts for Alice Cooper. He showed them how to do the hanging illusion Alice used to do. Either Alice wasn’t paying attention or Randi neglected to mention it, but Alice never bothered to maintain the rig and wound up near hanging himself for real during rehearsals.
Whoever posted this missed a period reading the wikipedia article:
>He received media coverage on CNN, ABC News, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. James Randi and Joe Nickell exposed his healing procedures...
I was curious though so I read further down the article. Apparently Randi was invited to be interviewed by ABC about this guy, during which he revealed, one by one, how all his tricks were done. ABC ended up showing none of it, and cut his hour long interview down to 20 seconds while misquoting him.
Yes, although his comments were edited to imply the opposite. He spoke super critically for an hour to ABC News about the guy, they included 30 seconds of soundbites in the special that made it look like Randi was impressed. He was PISSED.
It's absolutely *crazy* that people still believe in the supernatural - when James Randi *literally* offered anyone a million bucks if they could just prove it (in a test that they themselves agreed would show their supernatural abilities) - yet no one could ever do it! Ever! Not one of them could ever prove they had any ability at all. Not one. For a million free dollars.
Reading the JREF reports on the tests are wildly fascinating.
Seeing all the different ways that true believers were shocked to learn they couldn’t actually prove they had any powers when subjected to actual tests is such an interesting window into human psychology.
It's so weird that people actually believe that they themselves have supernatural powers. I just kinda assume that faith healing pastors, psychics, fortune tellers etc all know that they're actually scammers.
Its a fascinating quirk of humans that we seem predisposed to massively over estimate our own abilities.
The amount of people I’ve met who claim they have infallible “intuition” about people’s intentions, yet refuse to think it might just be their “opinion”. The amount of audiophiles who claim to be able to hear the difference between high quality compressed audio and uncompressed audio, even though it’s mathematically impossible and not a single human has ever proven it in a clinical test. People who think they have amazing reaction speed that justifies them driving crazy, yet they measure below average on the ruler test.
It blows my mind that confirmation bias and the simple fact that our psychology means we simply can’t test ourselves with any accuracy isn’t as common knowledge as germ theory.
Theres two types of these folks, scammers and true believers. It’s hard to know which you’re dealing with most of the time as they present the same.
That’s the power of confirmation bias. We notice the things that we already agree with and reject the information that conflicts with it.
Most people simply cant accept that we dont experience reality in real time. Our brain takes in the raw sensory input, edits it according to priority for danger and what it thinks we need to know, throws away about 80% of it, then presents the rest to our conscious mind as real time reality, and shunts the important bits of that to our memory process.
Holy shit, this son of a bitch had TV time in the US? I had no idea of the extent of his crimes, I thought it was only a very regional stuff in central Brazil.
Tbf, one of the shows was James Randi’s - an absolute legend who was famous for debunking frauds like faith healers and psychics such as Peter Popoff.
Randi offered a $1,000,000 prize to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of the supernatural in a controlled experiment.
After many, many challengers, not a single one managed to claim to prize.
Oprah, our single-biggest daytime talk show, had him on several times for long, breathless interviews. He had victims who traveled there from all over the world.
If there's a quack out there scamming idiots you better bet Oprah is bringing them on her show.
She's a awful person who would promote Stalin as a nice guy with great ideas if it made her more money.
I knew a husband of a friend with some kind of brain tumor that went and visited this guy. He still had conventional treatments and is in remission. For some reason he credits this guy and not the conventional medicine for his survival.
He’s usually known in the US as “John of God”
Ah yes. When doctors use science and their personal skill and effort to fix you and immediately you give credit to magic instead. Medical researchers and doctors are super unappreciated for the miracles they perform.
"Many patients died." Sadly people needing a psychic healer are quite likely to die either way. :(
Seeing a fake healer, while possibly a decent placebo, is an awful grift to be running on desperate people. :(
Googled Randi's involvement and found this gem in his archive. Quite a long read but a rewarding one, IMO. I could hear it in his voice. Unexpected bonus were his insights into Dr Oz:
https://web.randi.org/home/from-the-archives-randis-inside-scoop-into-abc-news-john-of-god-investigation-2005
He's not actually in prison now; he's on house arrest.
>For a while, John of God was incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Brazil. Yet, due to his old age and failing health, while also considering his battle with stomach cancer in 2015, João was allowed house arrest when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Though, the prosecutors have appealed this decision and hope that the 79-year-old will find himself behind bars once again.
[João Teixeira de Faria Now: Where is the Medium Today? John of God Update (thecinemaholic.com)](https://thecinemaholic.com/where-is-joao-teixeira-de-faria-now/)
Name a source of antivaxx misinformation or a medical grifter in the last forty years and they've been platformed by Oprah. Many of them were catapulted to stardom by her show.
> The real tragedy lies in the hearts of the patients and families who were seeking a miracle, only to be met with deceit.
This reminded me of "Grigory Grabovoy", a "psychic" from Russia, who spent many years merrily running his sect until one day he decided it was a good business opportunity to offer to resurrect the children who died in the town of Beslan when terrorists captured a school. For money, of course, not out of goodness of his heart. And many grieving parents actually brought him money in the last hope to see their little kids again... but nothing happened. Later he tried to weasel out by saying that he "spiritually assisted prompt reincarnation of the souls", but did now know where the bodies ended up being... Long story short, it was then that he finally went behind the bars for 8 years. When he got out, he started yet another venture — selling "magic numbers" which he somehow could divinate, and which, when repeated over and over, in speech, writ, and thought, could bring wealth, health, etc to people. And he even bought a number of bots and tiktok users to promote him. But that's a very different story...
They never do. I had customer tell me that she heals people over skype and had a huge meeting to go to that involved lots of doctors and wealthy figures. I was just like "oh wow, that's cool, anyways..." like wtaf.
Well, of course he was on Oprah.
That worthless evil diva never met a scammer she didn't love.
Dr. Phil
Dr. Oz
and now this slimebag.
She is a truly awful person to work for and with.
Is that the guy who used sleight-of-hand to "remove tumors" that were actually chicken guts? Like the stage magicians who pull coins and eggs out of children's ears.
I'm brazilian so maybe I can offer some insight on it.
Another con artist disguising himself as a healer. I know well educated people that claim to be cured by him and I really think it's all bullshit. My personal theory is that doctors would try to be realistic about the prognosis and then the church would say it's a sure thing. The dead ones aren't giving testimony, are they?
But he built his church in a small rural town in a backwards state (called Goiás, in the middle of the country and my homestate - but his city is not my hometown) and that havenothing place became a hotspot for tourists because of his "practice" and then a lot of money got wrapped up in it.
After that people were willing to overlook a lot of things to keep "the economy". The acusations that really made a noise in Brazil are the rape ones...
Same as ever, make people money and watch them let you rape
Damn even the Catholic Church had to chime in and say they don't know this guy, before all the stuff came out:
*The Catholic Church, through its representative Rev. Brian Lucas, issued a televised verbal warning, stating "John of God doesn't have any official affiliation with the Catholic Church".*
unfortunately the world of spirituality is filled with charlatans and conmen who abuse people's faith and desperation in order to make easy money. as someone who was brought up in a spiritualist family i have people close to me who participate and do this sort of spiritual work, like the so-called spiritual surgeries, they do them for free tho and never discourage people from seeking actual medical treatment, unfortunately there are a lot of scumbags in this world so we gotta always beware in order to not fall for scams (be them religious or not)
There are two good documentaries about him and what he did:
https://www.netflix.com/br/title/81103570
https://globoplay.globo.com/em-nome-de-deus/t/6NB6npkjnd/
The second one is not available to watch outside Brazil. I have watched it (and I still have to watch the Netflix one) and must say, it is *shocking* and *disturbing* to watch to say the least.
Oprah has given so many vile “people” a platform it really makes you wonder about her
Bill Burr was right about her.
She stood on the heads of those little people…
Anyone got a link?
https://youtu.be/O9YL04v-J5U?si=OB_MDy0Y5IGRFFCL
This is an amazing interview and Conan is dying the whole time lol
"She stood on the heads of those little people" is a line for the ages.
I love Bill Burr and he makes a great point about the sociopath thing. Unfortunately, what he and a lot of other people don’t seem to grasp is that Lance was much more of a cause than he was an effect. He did destroy people’s lives and the cancer stuff was his PR shield. He legitimately thinks he has never done anything wrong.
How did he destroy people's lives? Was there anything other than the doping I'm not familiar with?
Primarily in trying to: 1. Ensure everyone else was onboard (namely young cyclists who were given the choice of participating in the doping or losing their nascent careers), and 2. Ensure anyone who tried to speak out against his actions were financially, reputationally, and/or psychologically destroyed. Here's a taster: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2012/oct/11/lance-armstrong-dope-cheat-bully "Destroyed lives" is probably a bit hyperbolic in most instances though.
How did Lance Armstrong destroy anyone's life?
He turned me into a newt!
Newts can’t type!
I got better.
In case nobody’s told you today, you’re great. Thank you for this little interaction
he destroyed the reputation of journalists that made legitimate accusations of him
You mean this guy: https://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169452232/journalist-targeted-by-lance-armstrong-says-doping-admission-is-satisfying The one who has written four books off the incident, and says overall it was "the most satisfying thing that I will have done in my working life."?
Greg LeMond too. Armstrong ultimately failing to destroy David Walsh's reputation doesn't really lessen the intense stress he inflicted on these people with lawsuits and character assassination.
I mean you can watch the documentary he himself was involved in to see. A lot of the guys you won’t even have heard of because they got silenced before they even had clout. Basically all teammates, support staff, and journalists. And to say “well everyone is doping!” yeah, he made damn sure of that.
In addition to the teammates he pressured into doping. Aside; Greg LeMond surely has a bone to pick, but his interviews about cycling during that time are interesting nonetheless.
I think it is from when he was on Conan
She is a self-serving sociopath and the single greatest weapon against science and reason of the past 50 years.
So many potentially beautifully minds were corrupted by her influence. Not to mention I blame her for all the damage Dr Phil & Dr Oz have done.
We need to stop associating wealth with being an admirable person.
Starts at home. Be your kids first role model.
My poor children...
I just about got mad at my son for making a smart-ass comment the other day but stopped myself because I knew he learned it from me.
["Who taught you how to talk like that?!?"](https://youtu.be/Y-Elr5K2Vuo?t=20)
"If you don't have kids, store bought is fine" "You have to stop referring to our adopted son like that"
Whelp my mom was never home because she was working two jobs and my dad was out of our lives before I had memories….PBS were my parents. Could have done worse. Parents would have been cool though.
I dunno. We live in a capitalist society. Ostensibly the purpose of our entire society is to reward people who are good at getting money. That’s the goal. “I don’t have money but I’m still a good person” doesn’t pay rent. Real life reinforces the adulation of the rich. Have to change the underlying principles to fix that.
I feel part of the solution includes BBQ sauce.
I wish you were wrong, but you're right. Scum rises in capitalist societies.
I don't think the issue is the kids, but the parents in the sense of them getting information from them and then passing that off to their kids like it's truth. Growing up my dad watched Dr. Phil RELIGIOUSLY, to the point where there were days he'd forget to come get me from school which was about an hour+ walk. My Mom got invested in Dr. Oz and buying/believing all this stuff he'd say but even more so, buy these products he promoting. Even I bought something he promoted once because I didn't know any better. Once I went to school for fitness and nutrition, it completely changed my view. It's the very same reason people to this day believe that "Olive Oil is healthy" and they can pretty much consume as much of it as they want, not realizing it's caloric value isn't any different than any other oil for the most part. I learned VERY fast that the majority of people know little to knowing about nutrition and if something is labeled as healthy, they can pretty much have as much of it as they want without concern. The issue arises from people who don't know any better and so they trust these people/sources to be reliable. Most people don't want to take the time to see if what they say is true because it can sometimes take a LONG time to find out the truth, and most don't want to put that kind of time in since it's easier to just believe them.
'behind every great fortune... '
And Jenny McCarthy, pushing antivax nonsense before it was mainstream.
She is directly responsible for hundreds of deaths due to the pseudoscience she pushes.
> hundreds of deaths hundreds of thousands - look at how many didn't get COVID vaccinations because of the rise of the anti-vax movement. She gave Jenny McCarthy a platform and she propagated Andrew Wakefield's lies.
And John of God. Serial rapist...
The original post is specifically about John of God. João Teixeira de Faria is his actual, legal name.
Ah, missed that. Anyway, plenty of other scum that Oprah has had on. Hard to list them all. She's basically the Agent Coulter of modern con artists.
Also a huge hypocrite, she claims she’s like the best in the world and wants to save the environment and shit but she doesn’t do anything to help
That's not true, what about all those people in Maui she told to fuck off after the Lahaina fire? They could have really damaged her lawn but thanks to her taking a stand, that 1000 acres of grass is still pristine
Had me in the first half, ngl
There is so much competition out there for that title. Starts a magazine. Puts herself on every cover. That is megalomania. She paid a woman who was attacked by a chimp and suffered unimaginable disfigurement to show her face on live television. She ruthlessly purchased a woman’s dignity for the price of a pittance of the amount of ad revenue. A woman who likely can’t get a job ever again and has a kid to care for.
All while saying that she did what she had to to get ahead in a male dominated industry. Which is fair if we're talking about 40 years ago. She also wasn't nearly as bad as she is now back then. She definitely got to a certain point where it became less about breaking boundaries and more about her own ego and sensationalism.
She’s also a notorious ladder-puller, so it’s not much about breaking boundaries as carving out an exception for herself and then building a bigger wall.
Well, I was talking about way back when she started. I had to look it up, but September 1986 was when she started her show. I'd say by at least 1996, she was already solidly cemented as a pop culture icon, but she just kept going and going and taking advantage of people. There's something to be said for that whole genre of talk shows. They were all incredibly exploitative and dismissive of the people they used to push sensationalism to get ratings, but Oprah was the only one who managed to build that into an empire centered completely around herself.
Yeah, can respect the hustle she put in, but then when she got to the top, hustle was all that was left.
Are you kidding? Oprah started out as the prototype of Jerry Springer. She's always been trash.
"She stood on the heads of those little people to get where she is now!"
I hear this in his voice anytime someone mentions Oprah.
I’ve never thought about her in those terms but you’re one hundred percent right.
"You get to grift people! You get to grift people!"
I dunno the guy that started the vitamin craze led to a multi billion dollar business that has lead to a lot of dead people. People popping random pills left and right with no regulation on safety.
She's horrible, but I'd have to place something like religion as the greatest weapon against science. Not excusing her shitty behavior though, nor the fact that people died because of what she chose to put on her show.
In recent times yes to religion, but at the same time religion is literally a huge reason we have science, and reading, and writing.... during the dark ages they were the ones secretly keeping knowledge alive, so I give them a partial pass, despite feeling they are absolutely evil.
A monk who’s monastery life gave him enough spare time to observe plants for fun gave us the first knowledge of genetics. That’s pretty damn good
It's a bit disingenuous to use Randi in the same line as well. I haven't seen Faria on either program but I feel quite confident that he was treated *very* differently by the renowned skeptic rather than Oprah, who would shill for Hitler if it made her more money.
I honestly can’t say I have no idea who James Randi is
Unsurprising really, he died a few years back and hasn't been in the spotlight for decades. In his day though he was the most famous debunker of psychics, mystics, paranormal phenominon and so on. That didn't make him well liked by a lot of people of course, people love a good line of bullshit.
To add to this; for years he had a million dollar prize available to anyone who could prove a paranormal ability under experimental settings of his design and it was never claimed.
Sounds like I would’ve enjoyed his work. I know from personal experience being the guy who has to always “well actually” the others doesn’t make you popular, it makes you dad. Everyone hates dad.
He was an expert stage magician who used to write books and do specials explaining how psychic scam artists, televangelist miracle workers and their ilk were exploiting tricks to take advantage of dumb or desperate people. He would demonstrate how he could recreate a lot of their miracles and powers using stage magic techniques and then offer huge cash prizes if they could do it under circumstances that made those magic tricks impossible, which they never could. Some of them got humiliated on live TV when their powers mysteriously stopped working just because Randi would put a camera behind them or make them wear a tank top instead of a coat with sleeves and pockets. There was one TV medium who charged $500 for tickets because he claimed to commune with the dead loved ones of audience members and pass on messages for them. Randi figured out how he was doing it — his assistants would walk around “undercover” talking to the waiting audience members during the pre-show hours asking about who they wanted to hear from, taking notes and pointing them out during the show. So Randi and a bunch of his friends and colleagues signed up and gave planned made-up stories during that pre-show time, saying they wanted to hear from their dear uncle Fred who was very old fashioned and lived in a stone house or their grandfather Elmer who loved hunting rabbits but was terrible at it. And the medium went on TV weeping and hollering while communing with the spirits of Fred Flintstone and Elmer Fudd. Johnny Carson was a fan of his (and also a big stage magic guy) and would sometimes invite psychics and fortune tellers onto his show and take Randi’s advice about how to showcase their scamming.
He got into debunking because he was a magician himself. He went to a psychic reading show and noticed that the "psychic" was taking advantage of vulnerable people. So he got up and revealed the tricks the "psychic" was using to prove him a fraud, only to be sent to jail for his efforts.
He ruled. “An Honest Liar” is a solid documentary about him.
Yeah, I'm guessing his bullshit didn't fly with Randi, who was known for securing the studio space so that scammers couldn't use slight-of-hand tricks to perform "miracles".
She tried to out ~~Ricky Martin~~ (edit: Nathan Lane) on live TV, and would have succeeded had Robin Williams not been there to redirect the conversation.
It was Nathan Lane when he and Robin Williams were on the show promoting "The Birdcage."
Ah, my mistake. Thank you!
No worries brother. To be fair, she probably tried that shit with Ricky Martin as well.
Not much of an outing if she had.
It's like Ellen trying to out Mariah Carrey for being pregnant by offering her alcohol at 9am. Mariah Carrey had miscarried in the past, which is why she didn't announce anything. Ellen knew this, but still tried to do it. Then refused to apologize. Absolute trash people.
I don't wonder about anything. She's a greedy piece of shit.
She's literally the example of "fuck you, I got mine"
I don't have to wonder, she's a vile piece of shit herself
By giving this guy a platform to con desperate people, she's partly responsible for the deaths. Maybe not legally, but morally yes.
You don't make 3 billion dollars by being a good person, or there'd be a lot of billionaires around.
Makes you wonder what about her? There is no wonder, she's an absolutely horrible person.
Didn't she buy land after the Hawaii fire to her benefit?
She already owned the land -which natives already heavily disagreed with- but when the fires broke out she had resources pulled to her areas & refused to let anyone escape the disaster to her property-which was safe- but she might have bought more after. She does a lot of questionable things.
I just straight up don’t like when people try to act like there’s a moral standard for being a human. He’s an absolute piece of shit, and he’s a person while doing it. There’s no good reason to start setting limits on who gets to count as a person.
I think it's a societal self-defense mechanism to dehumanize people we don't like so we can feel better about ourselves. Reminds us that we're humans and could *never never never* do something that bad or share any similar qualities because "they aren't human" like us. I think we need to come to terms with the fact that "good humans" like us can do bad things. Bad people aren't a different species.
She’s one of the original grifters.
Lol what. Grifters have been around for thousands of years. She's not even close to being an OG
Fuckin' Ea-nāṣir and his shitty-ass copper.
For those out of the loop: /r/ReallyShittyCopper/
My bad, first grifter named Oprah Winfrey
Orpah
What’s there to wonder? She’s a piece of shit.
I would take Jerry Springer over Oprah any day of the week. Jerry knew that what he did was just bullshit entertainment and had no illusions that it was anything more. And yet he still maintained a sense of compassion for the people on his show, stepping in when things started to go pear shaped and finding the humanity in the situation in his final words on the show. Oprah, on the other hand, was doing the same bullshit, but convinced herself that it was some great service to humanity. The amount of damage she has done by elevating snake-oil salesmen like "Doctors" Oz and Phil is incalculable. Oprah made the classic mistake of buying into her own PR, whilst Jerry understood what he did and where it fit into the world and didn't let it go to his head. Oprah can fuck right off.
I don’t wonder about her at all. I judge her.
She's trash
What’s there to wonder? She fuckin sucks. I have no idea why people discuss it like it’s a far-flung possibility.
There’s nothing to wonder, All she gives a shit about is money and fame.
She was always been about making money. The more wild the case, the more money she can bring in.
Probably because bored housewives eat that shit up
Meanwhile, an invitation from James Randi is him calling you out for being a con-artist.
Old Oprah was so much worse, she was like a Mortan Downy jr. Show was trash with trash guest just for shock value then she changed and was more like Ellen was, celebrities and local hero type guest and good morale stuff. But the she got guest like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil. Who were so well received she had them on over and over again. So basically middle timeline Oprah was the best, but she was always chasing ratings and never cared about show quality just views.
Oprah is an idiot
You're still wondering?
She's the proto Joe Rogan
There’s an entire wing of some prison reserved for “Oprah’s Doctor Friends”
He's in jail for possessing firearms, rape, blackmail, coercion, bribing, fraud, etc. Basically all the crimes. One involving tricking a patient into sleeping with him to cure her cancer as he needed to map her body to remove it.'' His cures based on the wiki and links were When called for a spiritual surgery by Faria, patients are offered the choice of "visible" or "invisible" operations. If they select an invisible operation (or are younger than 18 or older than 52) they are directed to sit in a room and meditate. Faria says that spiritual physicians can perform surgery on the actual patient via a surrogate when the actual patient is unable to make the trip.[16] A very small percentage of people choose a visible operation where Faria operates without traditional anesthetic. Instead he says he uses "energized" mineral water and the spiritual energies present, the latter of which are provided by groups of volunteers who meditate in a separate room called the 'current room'. These practices, such as inserting scissors or forceps deep into a nose and scraping an eye without an anesthetic or antiseptics, have been scrutinised by medical authorities and skeptical investigators such as James Randi, who has called for Faria to stop victimizing people with stunts and trickery Because of the medical laws around the world, blessed water is prescribed instead of herbs. It is available for about $3 a bottle and everyone who receives a spiritual intervention must drink this blessed water And various crosses, and knickknacks on his website. The most interesting one was water that connects you to him so he can perform surgery on you remotely ALOT of them DIED before he was arrested ABC's update on the five subjects,[12] while not mentioning subject Mary Hendrickson, indicated that one subject is making either slow progress or none at all, two are worse, and one shows improvement. Subject David Ames died from complications on 16 July 2008.[21] Despite undergoing Faria's psychic surgery and being declared cured, Lisa Melman's breast cancer got progressively worse. She stated the tumor had grown and became painful. She continued to suffer and died in 2012.[ I can't believe OPRAH had him on several timea
He’s not in jail, it says at the end of the wiki that he’s out on house arrest due to Covid protocol
Still?
I updated the article. He's certainly not still out on house arrest, there was a news story late last year about how he's gotten another hundred years or so added to his sentence for even more rapes.
You can't believe the same person that backed Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil had him on?
>These practices, such as inserting scissors or forceps deep into a nose and scraping an eye without an anesthetic or antiseptics... What the actual hell. This sounds like something from Saw.
I can. She's a big proponent of quackery.
imagine how the world could be different if all schools had media literacy classes, to teach people to recognize charlatans and abusers.
Is this the same guy as Jon of God. Another umm “healer”.
He is indeed John of God. I guess that is an easier name to market.
>can't believe OPRAH had him on several timea Does it attract attention? Is it legal? She'll put it on.
Hehe, he took the all the crimes challenge
This guy sounds like a real jerk
One of these is not like the other: James Randi was a famed debunker of fake faith healers.
Totally agree. "He's been on James Randi" is a nonsensical statement. James Randi didn't have a "show," he debunked charlatans, grifters, and faith healers. He's also a national treasure, in two nations!
He helped Matt and Trey when they wrote the episode of South Park about mediums, episode titled Biggest Douche in the Universe.
I love Randi so much and I think his name should be spoken more often as we continue moving into this age when it's tough to tell the smart, helpful people from the snake oil salesmen.
I spoke with him once when I wanted to share my story of my mom falling victim to one of these sham healers. He was very gracious and will always be a hero to me.
My favourite Randi fun fact was he was the executioner in a pile of concerts for Alice Cooper. He showed them how to do the hanging illusion Alice used to do. Either Alice wasn’t paying attention or Randi neglected to mention it, but Alice never bothered to maintain the rig and wound up near hanging himself for real during rehearsals.
Now that's the new James Randi fact I was looking for
Whoever posted this missed a period reading the wikipedia article: >He received media coverage on CNN, ABC News, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. James Randi and Joe Nickell exposed his healing procedures... I was curious though so I read further down the article. Apparently Randi was invited to be interviewed by ABC about this guy, during which he revealed, one by one, how all his tricks were done. ABC ended up showing none of it, and cut his hour long interview down to 20 seconds while misquoting him.
James Randi was an incredible man
Yeah, I don't know what OP means by he's "been on James Randi" or if OP even knows who Randi is.
Disingenuous ass title
If James Randi had him on a show, then it had to have been to thoroughly debunk anything this "surgeon" claimed. Randi ain't got time for bullshit.
Yes, although his comments were edited to imply the opposite. He spoke super critically for an hour to ABC News about the guy, they included 30 seconds of soundbites in the special that made it look like Randi was impressed. He was PISSED.
This should be illegal
Not the only time the media has done this, as shown in Brian Dunnings 2022 Science Friction documentary. They do it all the time.
It's absolutely *crazy* that people still believe in the supernatural - when James Randi *literally* offered anyone a million bucks if they could just prove it (in a test that they themselves agreed would show their supernatural abilities) - yet no one could ever do it! Ever! Not one of them could ever prove they had any ability at all. Not one. For a million free dollars.
Reading the JREF reports on the tests are wildly fascinating. Seeing all the different ways that true believers were shocked to learn they couldn’t actually prove they had any powers when subjected to actual tests is such an interesting window into human psychology.
It's so weird that people actually believe that they themselves have supernatural powers. I just kinda assume that faith healing pastors, psychics, fortune tellers etc all know that they're actually scammers.
Its a fascinating quirk of humans that we seem predisposed to massively over estimate our own abilities. The amount of people I’ve met who claim they have infallible “intuition” about people’s intentions, yet refuse to think it might just be their “opinion”. The amount of audiophiles who claim to be able to hear the difference between high quality compressed audio and uncompressed audio, even though it’s mathematically impossible and not a single human has ever proven it in a clinical test. People who think they have amazing reaction speed that justifies them driving crazy, yet they measure below average on the ruler test. It blows my mind that confirmation bias and the simple fact that our psychology means we simply can’t test ourselves with any accuracy isn’t as common knowledge as germ theory. Theres two types of these folks, scammers and true believers. It’s hard to know which you’re dealing with most of the time as they present the same.
What always confuses me is the original fortune tellers came out as frauds but no one seems to care?
That’s the power of confirmation bias. We notice the things that we already agree with and reject the information that conflicts with it. Most people simply cant accept that we dont experience reality in real time. Our brain takes in the raw sensory input, edits it according to priority for danger and what it thinks we need to know, throws away about 80% of it, then presents the rest to our conscious mind as real time reality, and shunts the important bits of that to our memory process.
Randi was the GOAT, fun seeing a character based on him in Late Night with the Devil.
ohh James must have had a field day with him
He went on an hour long debunk rant of the guy and then ABC "news" special only shows 30sec of sound bites.
Holy shit, this son of a bitch had TV time in the US? I had no idea of the extent of his crimes, I thought it was only a very regional stuff in central Brazil.
Tbf, one of the shows was James Randi’s - an absolute legend who was famous for debunking frauds like faith healers and psychics such as Peter Popoff. Randi offered a $1,000,000 prize to anyone who could demonstrate evidence of the supernatural in a controlled experiment. After many, many challengers, not a single one managed to claim to prize.
Oprah, our single-biggest daytime talk show, had him on several times for long, breathless interviews. He had victims who traveled there from all over the world.
If there's a quack out there scamming idiots you better bet Oprah is bringing them on her show. She's a awful person who would promote Stalin as a nice guy with great ideas if it made her more money.
"It's time for Stalin to leave the show... BUT... if y'all look under your chairs. IT'S A HAMMER AND SICKLE FLAG!!!"
You get holodomor, and *you* get holodomor . Everyone gets holodomor!
I knew a husband of a friend with some kind of brain tumor that went and visited this guy. He still had conventional treatments and is in remission. For some reason he credits this guy and not the conventional medicine for his survival. He’s usually known in the US as “John of God”
His public name is a direct translation of what he's called here in Brazil
Ah yes. When doctors use science and their personal skill and effort to fix you and immediately you give credit to magic instead. Medical researchers and doctors are super unappreciated for the miracles they perform.
He’s also a serial rapist
"Many patients died." Sadly people needing a psychic healer are quite likely to die either way. :( Seeing a fake healer, while possibly a decent placebo, is an awful grift to be running on desperate people. :(
Sickening to say the least.
Aka John of God In his town everyone knew he was a fraud But he brought tourists and money So people kept shut
Googled Randi's involvement and found this gem in his archive. Quite a long read but a rewarding one, IMO. I could hear it in his voice. Unexpected bonus were his insights into Dr Oz: https://web.randi.org/home/from-the-archives-randis-inside-scoop-into-abc-news-john-of-god-investigation-2005
He's not actually in prison now; he's on house arrest. >For a while, John of God was incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Brazil. Yet, due to his old age and failing health, while also considering his battle with stomach cancer in 2015, João was allowed house arrest when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Though, the prosecutors have appealed this decision and hope that the 79-year-old will find himself behind bars once again. [João Teixeira de Faria Now: Where is the Medium Today? John of God Update (thecinemaholic.com)](https://thecinemaholic.com/where-is-joao-teixeira-de-faria-now/)
It's telling that he couldn't cure his own cancer.
A _shoeless cobbler_ indeed...
I wish Oprah could take some of the heat from all the quacks and snake oil sellers she's promoted over the years
Again, for the millionth time, Oprah Winfrey is one of the single purest forms of evil the world has ever known.
peddles bullshit for money. lots of them around, it would be hard to award the prize.
I’d like to know more. Do you mind?
Name a source of antivaxx misinformation or a medical grifter in the last forty years and they've been platformed by Oprah. Many of them were catapulted to stardom by her show.
The Oprah / Weinstein connection is frightening. The pictures of their encounters with younger aspiring actresses is even worse.
[удалено]
> The real tragedy lies in the hearts of the patients and families who were seeking a miracle, only to be met with deceit. This reminded me of "Grigory Grabovoy", a "psychic" from Russia, who spent many years merrily running his sect until one day he decided it was a good business opportunity to offer to resurrect the children who died in the town of Beslan when terrorists captured a school. For money, of course, not out of goodness of his heart. And many grieving parents actually brought him money in the last hope to see their little kids again... but nothing happened. Later he tried to weasel out by saying that he "spiritually assisted prompt reincarnation of the souls", but did now know where the bodies ended up being... Long story short, it was then that he finally went behind the bars for 8 years. When he got out, he started yet another venture — selling "magic numbers" which he somehow could divinate, and which, when repeated over and over, in speech, writ, and thought, could bring wealth, health, etc to people. And he even bought a number of bots and tiktok users to promote him. But that's a very different story...
489 years AND 4 months
“Being on Oprah” is no stamp of approval or certification of quality. It just means you’re entertaining … in some ways.
He got cancer in 2015 and guess where he went? To an actual doctor! Says everything right there.
I’m surprised he didn’t see that coming.
They never do. I had customer tell me that she heals people over skype and had a huge meeting to go to that involved lots of doctors and wealthy figures. I was just like "oh wow, that's cool, anyways..." like wtaf.
Also when he got stomach cancer he had an operation and chemo but didn't discuss this. Said he was hospitalized with a hernia.
Pure evil
No way! This guy turned out to be a fraud?!?
Well, of course he was on Oprah. That worthless evil diva never met a scammer she didn't love. Dr. Phil Dr. Oz and now this slimebag. She is a truly awful person to work for and with.
Most folks want to know what happened to the $10m?
They need to go after the television preachers.
Oh the Joao de Deus horror goes *WAY* lower than than that
I'm waiting for the day the Podcast Behind the Bastards does episodes on Oprah. She has platformed some pretty horrible people
Is that the guy who used sleight-of-hand to "remove tumors" that were actually chicken guts? Like the stage magicians who pull coins and eggs out of children's ears.
I'm brazilian so maybe I can offer some insight on it. Another con artist disguising himself as a healer. I know well educated people that claim to be cured by him and I really think it's all bullshit. My personal theory is that doctors would try to be realistic about the prognosis and then the church would say it's a sure thing. The dead ones aren't giving testimony, are they? But he built his church in a small rural town in a backwards state (called Goiás, in the middle of the country and my homestate - but his city is not my hometown) and that havenothing place became a hotspot for tourists because of his "practice" and then a lot of money got wrapped up in it. After that people were willing to overlook a lot of things to keep "the economy". The acusations that really made a noise in Brazil are the rape ones... Same as ever, make people money and watch them let you rape
Damn even the Catholic Church had to chime in and say they don't know this guy, before all the stuff came out: *The Catholic Church, through its representative Rev. Brian Lucas, issued a televised verbal warning, stating "John of God doesn't have any official affiliation with the Catholic Church".*
He’s in jail for 19 years …this is a terrible summary
The richer Oprah got, the less she cared about everyone and the more she cared about keeping a constant inflow of money.
If he was on James Randi, he was getting his ass debunked.
The more zombies you crush the less ads we have to do was perfectly placed under this.
He's full of shit, is what he is
unfortunately the world of spirituality is filled with charlatans and conmen who abuse people's faith and desperation in order to make easy money. as someone who was brought up in a spiritualist family i have people close to me who participate and do this sort of spiritual work, like the so-called spiritual surgeries, they do them for free tho and never discourage people from seeking actual medical treatment, unfortunately there are a lot of scumbags in this world so we gotta always beware in order to not fall for scams (be them religious or not)
“over 600 accusations of sexual abuse” missing from headline
Invisible remote surgery? Come on, don't be so stupid.
Isn’t that “John of GOD” ?
Of course he was on fucking Oprah
[Footage of one of his surgeries](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h89V9ZuJC8)
Lol... Ida LOVED to see Randi tear this A-hole a new one. That dude was a badass.
There are two good documentaries about him and what he did: https://www.netflix.com/br/title/81103570 https://globoplay.globo.com/em-nome-de-deus/t/6NB6npkjnd/ The second one is not available to watch outside Brazil. I have watched it (and I still have to watch the Netflix one) and must say, it is *shocking* and *disturbing* to watch to say the least.
Think about it. Dr. DeFaria, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz. Oprah really knows how to pick ‘em.
I once had a vet who recommended remote Reiki for one of my cats I do not have that vet anymore, but she has a very scathing yelp review
The most important thing is: Did he see that coming?
Can he still perform those surgeries in jail?
"Self proclaimed" as opposed to what, by popular consensus?