Latest news with #MontelWilliams
Daily Mail
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Truth behind viral 'world's worst psychic' Sylvia Browne from 90s talk show and her wildly wrong predictions
TV psychic Sylvia Browne, who gained nationwide infamy for her wildly inaccurate predictions to the families of missing children, has gone viral yet again. Thanks to a steady flow of appearances with Montel Williams and Larry King, she was massively popular, with a years-long waiting list for phone consultations and fans willing to pay thousands of dollars to go on a cruise with her. Browne died in 2013 at the age of 77, but during the COVID-19 pandemic she became a phenomenon again online, where no less than Kim Kardashian shared a quote that many readers regarded as prophetic. 'In around 2020,' Browne had written in her bestselling 2004 book End of Days: 'a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.' Now social media users are sharing clips of her, this time mocking her as an alleged grifter who said the 'wildest nonsense' that she pulled 'out of thin air.' But who was Sylvia Browne, the smoky-voiced, platinum blonde media magnet whom one critic branded the 'world's worst psychic'? Born Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker in 1936 in Kansas City, she claimed to have seen visions since she was three years old during the Great Depression. After she spent 18 years teaching at a Catholic school and trained as a 'trance medium' on the side, she became a professional psychic in 1973. By the 1980s, she had fashioned herself into a charismatic media figure, thanks to her blunt sense of humor, her gravelly voice and her distinctive appearance: a fuller figure topped by an extravagantly made-up face and platinum hair with fringe. In the 1990s she was a regular on The Montel Williams Show, and she also frequently appeared on Larry King Live and the late-night radio show Coast to Coast AM, which specialized in conspiracies and the paranormal. Her sprawling enterprise included several bestselling books in which she professed an ability to see into the future and the afterlife, plus cruise ship appearances, 30-minute phone consultations costing $750 a pop, her own gnostic church and even a murky gold-mining venture that led to her conviction of securities fraud in 1992. But she was most notorious for the jaw-droppingly incorrect predictions she delivered to frantic families about the fate of their missing children. In 2004 on The Montel Williams Show, Browne told Louwanna Miller that her vanished daughter Amanda Berry was 'not alive, honey,' adding: 'Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call.' Miller said she believed the medium '98 percent,' and died of heart failure in 2005 - eight years before her daughter escaped years of captivity by Ariel Castro and was found alive, in a case that inspired a media frenzy. 'Only God,' said Browne in her defense: 'is right all the time.' In 1999 on The Montel Williams Show, the grandmother of a six-year-old Texas kidnap victim called Opal Jo Jennings pleaded with Browne: 'I can't stand this. I need your help, Sylvia. Where is Opal? Where is she?' 'She's not dead,' said Browne. 'But what bothers me - now I've never heard of this before - but she was taken and put into some kind of a slavery thing and taken into Japan. The place is Kukouro.' Kokouro, Japan does not exist, and Opal's remains were discovered in Texas, with the pathologist saying she was killed the night of her abduction. In 2002, Browne told the mother of a missing woman named Holly Krewson that her daughter was working as a stripper in Hollywood. Four years later, the dental records from human remains that had been found in San Diego in 1996 were used to identify the deceased as Krewson. In 2003, four months after 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck disappeared in Missouri, Browne told his parents on The Montel Williams Show that their son was dead after being abducted by a dark-skinned man who had dreadlocks. Shawn Horbeck was discovered alive in 2007 in the apartment of one Michael J. Devlin, who is white and had short hair. The incident prompted the first of Browne's four husbands Gary Dufresne, whom she divorced the year before she became a professional psychic, to give an interview to a website called and openly accuse her of being a fraud. He recalled a tarot party she gave during their marriage, after which he supposedly asked her: '"Sylvia, how can you tell people this kind of stuff? You know it's not true, and some of these people actually are probably going to believe it." And she said: "Screw 'em. Anybody who believes this stuff oughtta be taken."' After his interview, Browne shot back that he was 'a liar and dark soul entity, but at least the a**hole gave me children,' via Jon Ronson's profile of her in the Guardian. Disgruntled exes aside, she was a persistent target of the skeptic movement, particularly one of its best-known figures, retired stage magician James Randi, who made a crusade out of debunking psychics. In response to his criticisms, Browne audaciously announced that she would accept Randi's million-dollar challenge to submit to a scientifically controlled experiment in which she would have to prove she was a real medium, but she later backed out. The Skeptical Inquirer released a study of 115 of her predictions about murder and missing persons cases, and found that out of the 25 instances when the truth had been discovered at all, Browne had not been right even once. Fans have also sniggered at her false predictions online, including one who posted a 'fraud montage' of some of her lowlights to YouTube several years ago. One woman on The Montel Williams Show told Browne that she 'lost my boyfriend tragically' and he was 'never found,' to which Browne said: 'The reason why you didn't find him is 'cause he's in water.' 'Well, it was September 11. He was a fireman,' the woman explained. Now clips of Browne are once again flying around social media, and a new crop of viewers are reacting with incredulity to her onscreen antics. One showed a woman discussing her mystery illness, and without even hearing any of her symptoms, Browne confidently advised her to 'look for lupus.' An Instagram user posted a clip of a woman almost crying as she discussed a childhood dream that had stalked her thoughts into adulthood. 'Can you tell me the dream, honey? 'Cause I can't read your mind,' said Browne. 'I've recently started rewatching Sylvia Browne, and I swear, this woman would just stare at you and say the wildest nonsense,' wrote an X user over another video. That footage showed Browne confronted by a woman who said: 'Almost a year ago my little nephew had a very violent death. Can you tell me why?' 'Honey, I just got through telling you, it's because it was his time to go,' Browne said, deploying her reputed powers of farsightedness. 'It was his time. He was like an angel that came passing through and then went out.' She then gruffly asked: 'What is this about, that he couldn't breathe? What is that?' and the woman fought back tears as she replied: 'His lungs were blown out.' 'Well, that's why he couldn't breathe,' Browne managed to divine. Browne died of heart failure in San Jose, California in 2013 at the age of 77, a decade after she predicted on Larry King Live that she would live to be 88.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Who was Sylvia Browne? Truth behind viral 'world's worst psychic' and her wild predictions
TV psychic Sylvia Browne, who gained nationwide infamy for her wildly inaccurate predictions to the families of missing children, has gone viral yet again. Thanks to a steady flow of appearances with Montel Williams and Larry King, she was massively popular, with a years-long waiting list for phone consultations and fans willing to pay thousands of dollars to go on a cruise with her. Browne died in 2013 at the age of 77, but during the COVID-19 pandemic she became a phenomenon again online, where no less than Kim Kardashian shared a quote that many readers regarded as prophetic. 'In around 2020,' Browne had written in her bestselling 2004 book End of Days: 'a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.' Now social media users are sharing clips of her, this time mocking her as an alleged grifter who said the 'wildest nonsense' that she pulled 'out of thin air.' But who was Sylvia Browne, the smoky-voiced, platinum blonde media magnet whom one critic branded the 'world's worst psychic'? Born Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker in 1936 in Kansas City, she claimed to have seen visions since she was three years old during the Great Depression. After she spent 18 years teaching at a Catholic school and trained as a 'trance medium' on the side, she became a professional psychic in 1973. By the 1980s, she had fashioned herself into a charismatic media figure, thanks to her blunt sense of humor, her gravelly voice and her distinctive appearance: a fuller figure topped by an extravagantly made-up face and platinum hair with fringe. In the 1990s she was a regular on The Montel Williams Show, and she also frequently appeared on Larry King Live and the late-night radio show Coast to Coast AM, which specialized in conspiracies and the paranormal. Her sprawling enterprise included several bestselling books in which she professed an ability to see into the future and the afterlife, plus cruise ship appearances, 30-minute phone consultations costing $750 a pop, her own gnostic church and even a murky gold-mining venture that led to her conviction of securities fraud in 1992. But she was most notorious for the jaw-droppingly incorrect predictions she delivered to frantic families about the fate of their missing children. In 2004 on The Montel Williams Show, Browne told Louwanna Miller that her vanished daughter Amanda Berry was 'not alive, honey,' adding: 'Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call.' Miller said she believed the medium '98 percent,' and died of heart failure in 2005 - eight years before her daughter escaped years of captivity by Ariel Castro and was found alive, in a case that inspired a media frenzy. 'Only God,' said Browne in her defense: 'is right all the time.' In 1999 on The Montel Williams Show, the grandmother of a six-year-old Texas kidnap victim called Opal Jo Jennings pleaded with Browne: 'I can't stand this. I need your help, Sylvia. Where is Opal? Where is she?' 'She's not dead,' said Browne. 'But what bothers me - now I've never heard of this before - but she was taken and put into some kind of a slavery thing and taken into Japan. The place is Kukouro.' Kokouro, Japan does not exist, and Opal's remains were discovered in Texas, with the pathologist saying she was killed the night of her abduction. In 2002, Browne told the mother of a missing woman named Holly Krewson that her daughter was working as a stripper in Hollywood. Four years later, the dental records from human remains that had been found in San Diego in 1996 were used to identify the deceased as Krewson. In 2003, four months after 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck disappeared in Missouri, Browne told his parents on The Montel Williams Show that their son was dead after being abducted by a dark-skinned man who had dreadlocks. Shawn Horbeck was discovered alive in 2007 in the apartment of one Michael J. Devlin, who is white and had short hair. The incident prompted the first of Browne's four husbands Gary Dufresne, whom she divorced the year before she became a professional psychic, to give an interview to a website called and openly accuse her of being a fraud. He recalled a tarot party she gave during their marriage, after which he supposedly asked her: '"Sylvia, how can you tell people this kind of stuff? You know it's not true, and some of these people actually are probably going to believe it." And she said: "Screw 'em. Anybody who believes this stuff oughtta be taken."' After his interview, Browne shot back that he was 'a liar and dark soul entity, but at least the a**hole gave me children,' via Jon Ronson's profile of her in the Guardian. Disgruntled exes aside, she was a persistent target of the skeptic movement, particularly one of its best-known figures, retired stage magician James Randi, who made a crusade out of debunking psychics. In response to his criticisms, Browne audaciously announced that she would accept Randi's million-dollar challenge to submit to a scientifically controlled experiment in which she would have to prove she was a real medium, but she later backed out. The Skeptical Inquirer released a study of 115 of her predictions about murder and missing persons cases, and found that out of the 25 instances when the truth had been discovered at all, Browne had not been right even once. Fans have also sniggered at her false predictions online, including one who posted a 'fraud montage' of some of her lowlights to YouTube several years ago. One woman on The Montel Williams Show told Browne that she 'lost my boyfriend tragically' and he was 'never found,' to which Browne said: 'The reason why you didn't find him is 'cause he's in water.' 'Well, it was September 11. He was a fireman,' the woman explained. Now clips of Browne are once again flying around social media, and a new crop of viewers are reacting with incredulity to her onscreen antics. One showed a woman discussing her mystery illness, and without even hearing any of her symptoms, Browne confidently advised her to 'look for lupus.' An Instagram user posted a clip of a woman almost crying as she discussed a childhood dream that had stalked her thoughts into adulthood. 'Can you tell me the dream, honey? 'Cause I can't read your mind,' said Browne. 'I've recently started rewatching Sylvia Browne, and I swear, this woman would just stare at you and say the wildest nonsense,' wrote an X user over another video. That footage showed Browne confronted by a woman who said: 'Almost a year ago my little nephew had a very violent death. Can you tell me why?' 'Honey, I just got through telling you, it's because it was his time to go,' Browne said, deploying her reputed powers of farsightedness. 'It was his time. He was like an angel that came passing through and then went out.' She then gruffly asked: 'What is this about, that he couldn't breathe? What is that?' and the woman fought back tears as she replied: 'His lungs were blown out.' 'Well, that's why he couldn't breathe,' Browne managed to divine. Browne died of heart failure in San Jose, California in 2013 at the age of 77, a decade after she predicted on Larry King Live that she would live to be 88.
New York Post
26-05-2025
- General
- New York Post
Montel Williams recalls when the famous USS Intrepid lost steering, went ‘careening through a battle group' and had to be sailed home
From the tragedy earlier this month when a Mexican Navy ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge to the German battleship Bismarck having its rudder damaged and eventually sinking after being attacked by the British in 1941, one of the most treacherous issues a military vessel can face is losing its maneuverability. 'This is something that sends fear in the hearts and minds of any sailor,' Montel Williams told The Post. A 22-year veteran of the US Navy and Marines, the Emmy-winning television personality is no stranger to maritime disaster. Advertisement 9 A new book by Montel Williams and David Fisher looks at a little known chapter in the history of the USS Intrepid. In 1981, he was deployed as a special duty intelligence officer on the USS Kitty Hawk in the Indian Ocean when two fighter jets collided on the flight deck. A sailor was killed and an F-14 went overboard in one of the worst peacetime accidents for the time. 'It was devastating,' Williams said. Advertisement The experience helped inform his captivating new book, 'The Sailing of the Intrepid: The Incredible Wartime Voyage of the Navy's Iconic Aircraft Carrier,' co-written with David Fisher. It details a little known chapter in the long, storied history of the USS Intrepid, which launched planes during World War II, recovered NASA space capsules in the 1960s and now hosts over a million visitors each year at NYC's Pier 86. In 1944, on its maiden combat voyage, the ship was badly damaged in a Japanese torpedo strike. Eleven men died and the ship's rudder was jammed, sending it careening through what was, at that point, the largest battle group ever staged. 'It was like a ball inside of a pinball machine,' Williams said. 'It almost hit the USS Essex.' The quick-thinking captain and crew came together to hastily assemble a 3,000-square-foot sail to help maneuver the Intrepid 3,300 miles home to Pearl Harbor for repair. Advertisement 9 Williams spent more than two decades in the Navy and Marines. Courtesy of Montel Williams 'This most modern ship [for the time] had to resort to the fundamentals of seafaring,' Williams said. 'There was this incredible spirit of ingenuity … Instead of saying, 'there's nothing we can do, let's abandon ship,' they said 'We're gonna save this ship.'' Here, he shares an excerpt. 9 The Intrepid was commissioned in August 1943. Collection of the Intrepid Museum. Advertisement Initially, much of the crew thought it was a bad joke. They were all concerned about the jammed rudder, but they were confident their officers would figure out some solution. Something technological, the kind of stuff the brass had been taught at Annapolis that was above their pay grade. As much as possible, they just went about doing their jobs. So when they heard a rumor that the captain wanted them to make a sail, they didn't believe it. 'What does he think we're going to do, sail this ship back to Pearl [Harbor]?' Another rumor claimed that the radar shack had been warned to keep a lookout for pirate ships appearing on the horizon. Slowly, the word spread that this sailmaking wasn't a joke. The captain actually intended to raise a sail and steer the ship home with it. Most of the crew didn't understand the concept; they visualized Errol Flynn's popular 'Captain Blood,' in which the ship was propelled by numerous white sails billowing in the wind. It was impossible to imagine Intrepid flying those big sails. 9 In 1944, on its maiden combat voyage, the ship was badly damaged in a Japanese torpedo strike. National Archives It created serious anxiety. It didn't make a lot of sense. When they had moved the planes forward and flooded the stern, they sort of understood the reason: redistributing the weight changed the profile of the ship in the water. It made it lower, diminishing the impact of the wind. The captain knew what he was doing. But a sail? Until that moment, few of them had realized the situation was desperate enough to require a crazy solution. The fact they had to resort to something as wild as this … this … they didn't know how to describe it, but it meant that they had run out of proven solutions. The news shook up a lot of people. Everybody on board knew the story of Bismarck, how its jammed rudder had led directly to the British sinking her. Somewhere, deep in their minds, they identified with Bismarck's crew. They would do whatever it took to avoid that fate. Advertisement 9 Eleven men were killed, and the ship's rudder was jammed, sending it careening through the battle group. National Archives, courtesy ResearcherAtLarge *** The crew created an assembly line. Pickers handed sheets of canvas to the cutters, who gave them to the feeders — two men facing each other across the worktable — who fed them to Petty Officer Gordon Keith. Dozens of individual sheets of canvas had to be sewed together to form strips several feet wide and almost 30 feet long. Then those strips would be sewed together lengthwise, sort of like sewing the stripes in an American flag. The shop had not been designed to make anything near this size, so they had to figure it out and make the necessary adjustments as the work progressed. For example, two men sat cross-legged under the table to hold up the folded cloth and keep it moving so Keith could continue sewing. Two other sailors, the pullers, stood on the other side of the machine, pulling the now bound pieces until they were free of the table and letting the cloth fold naturally into a pile. The rhythmic pounding of the machine briefly lulled Keith into the warmth of nostalgia. While his industrial machine made a deeper, more defined thumping sound than the faster, lighter pat-pat-patter of his mother's home model, for a few brief seconds, it brought him back to those late afternoons when he sat under the vibrating wooden sewing table while his mother made necessary repairs and alterations. Advertisement They worked through the night. The shop grew hot and uncomfortable. The fans helped a bit, but more people were crammed into the compartment than had ever been intended. Several men had taken off their shirts, and beads of sweat rolled down their backs. The sewing wasn't difficult. Singer made a quality machine. 9 Captain Sprague was determined to find a way to save the ship. Collection of the Intrepid Museum. 1943-1945 USS Intrepid Cruise Book. There was little conversation in the workshop beyond 'Do you really think this thing is going to work?' That was the question for which there was no answer. Keith was noncommittal. 'Well, the Captain thinks so and he knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. Let's just get it done, then we'll see.' 'Tell you one thing,' one of the cutters said. 'This is gonna make a helluva story one day.' He added with typical doomsday humor, 'Assuming we make it, that is.' Advertisement **** The sail slowly took shape, although no one in Keith's crew could accurately describe its shape: sort of like a rectangle but not exactly. Or, think of a big square, then forget that because it definitely was not square. They finished just as the sun was rising. No one knew precisely how big it was, but in his official reports, First Captain Thomas Sprague reported it was 3,000 square feet. That was a guess. It was far too large to spread out in the compartment to measure. They couldn't even estimate how much it weighed. Maybe 400 pounds? 500? It easily could have been more. But it was big, bulky, and heavy. 9 A hastily rigged sail helped maneuver the boat to Pearl Harbor for repair. Collection of the Intrepid Museum. Advertisement There was a brief discussion about naming it; there was a Navy tradition of assigning nicknames to equipment. The inflatable life vest, for example, was widely known as a Mae West in tribute to that movie star's legendary figure. A couple of Keith's crew suggested the sail be referred to as the Rita to honor pinup star Rita Hayworth's impressive measurements. But beyond a few salacious snickers, it just didn't catch on. It was 'the sail,' 'the thing,' or on occasion, 'Sprague's sail.' Getting it to the fo'c'sle through the narrow passageways, numerous hatches, and up ladders proved to be considerably more of a challenge than anyone had anticipated. As tired as they were, each of them hoisted a section and began carrying it through the ship. They had to carry it, push it, drag it, pull it. All along the route, men popped out of compartments to get a look at it or give some assistance. Frank Johnson later compared it to the Chinese New Year parade he had seen in San Francisco, in which dozens of men inside a dragon costume weaved through the narrow streets of Chinatown. 9 'This most modern ship [for the time] had to resort to the fundamentals of seafaring,' Williams said. 'There was this incredible spirit of ingenuity … Instead of saying, 'there's nothing we can do, let's abandon ship,' they said 'We're gonna save this ship.'' U.S. Navy/ Public Domain A swarm of carpenters was already at work when they finally got there. Montfort had solved the issue of the open space on the starboard side in typical ConEd fashion: if you can't fix it, board it up. He wouldn't even estimate how many doors and windows in aging buildings he had ordered sealed until potentially dangerous violations could be corrected. The same solution would work in this relatively small space. Board it up. Put up a wind barrier. Carpenters were busy erecting a wooden wall; three lengths of timber stretched horizontally across the opening were holding plywood sheets in place. Sprague and Commander Richard K. Gaines were waiting in the forecastle with more men to hang it, most of them wearing foul weather gear. None of them had had any idea what the finished sail would look like, but they were disappointed. 'That's it?' one of them said. 'Wow.' 9 Today, more than a million people visit the Intrepid at NYC's Pier 86 each year. Chad Rachman/New York Post They looked to Sprague for guidance. He was doing his best to convey confidence, but the reality of the pile of canvas in front of him made that difficult. 'Great job, men,' he told Keith's crew with as much enthusiasm as he could generate, then went down the line, shaking each man's hand. Finally, he turned to his crew and said the historic words he had never heard said in his career: 'Okay, men. Let's hoist the sail.' Adapted from The Sailing of the Intrepid by Montel Williams and David Fisher. Copyright © 2025 by Montel Williams and David Fisher. Published by arrangement with Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Surprising fix brought crippled aircraft carrier home during WW2
(NewsNation) — Memorial Day is a time to pause and remember the U.S. service members who made the ultimate sacrifice. A new book about World War II, 'The Sailing of the Intrepid: The Incredible Wartime Voyage of the Navy's Iconic Aircraft Carrier,' also recognizes enlisted personnel who defied the odds through determination and resourcefulness. The USS Intrepid is today a museum ship docked on the Hudson River in New York. But before it became a tourist attraction, the aircraft carrier known as 'The Fighting I' was a hard-working member of the Pacific Fleet. 100-year-old Navy vet keeps World War II spirit alive In February 1944, a deadly torpedo strike jammed the ship's rudder so that the vessel could only move in circles, more than 3,000 miles from its Pearl Harbor base. 'The Sailing of the Intrepid' tells the story of problem-solving under desperate conditions. 'We're living in a nation that's so divided,' co-author Montel Williams told 'Elizabeth Vargas Reports' on Friday, the start of Memorial Day weekend. 'Think about 3,000 young men from all over the country who came together to realize, 'We are not going to let this thing fall into the hands of an enemy.'' Surviving crew members scrambled to find canvas aboard the ship and created a massive sail that was affixed to the ship's front. 'Not to actually be the propulsion,' Williams explained, 'but to actually counterbalance the effects of the wind and the currents, to allow it to sail straight 3,300 miles back to Hawaii.' He said the Intrepid was repaired and redeployed and suffered additional attacks from the Japanese in the Pacific Theater. The aircraft carrier was decommissioned in 1974 and set to be scrapped. Instead, it was privately purchased and turned into a museum. Williams, a former television host who served in the Navy and Marines, collaborated with author David Fisher to write the ship's story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paramount VetNet Coffee With Vets: Maurice P. Kerry of CBS' Beyond The Gates
NORTHAMPTON, MA / / May 16, 2025 / Join the Paramount Veterans Network for an inspiring, monthly podcast-style panel discussion and interview that brings together military veterans, families, and advocates for powerful conversations and stories. Each episode dives into the rich backgrounds and experiences of our guests-whether they're veterans, veteran service organizations, or military-themed creators. From behind-the-scenes insights into your favorite military-themed shows, to personal stories of resilience and camaraderie, this is your front-row seat to engaging with the military community in an impactful way. Grab your coffee (or tea) and connect with those who've served and those who support them. The Paramount Veterans Network hosted another engaging session featuring guest host, Montel Williams, Marine Corps/Navy Veteran, tv host, producer, author speaking to special guest, CBS' Beyond The Gates' Maurice P. Kerry, Marine Corps Veteran and actor. In this episode, Maurice opened up about overcoming PTSD, homelessness, and personal loss as well as transforming pain into purpose. His journey from combat boots to call sheets is a testament to grit, growth, and never giving up. Maurice also chatted recently with Paramount VetNet's Betty Diaz during a powerful fireside chat hosted by OppZo, a mission-driven FinTech company who provides fair and affordable working capital to SMB Government Contractors. The event entitled "From the Battlefield to the Big Screen.", featured a night of purpose-driven storytelling, resilience, and reinvention by Maurice's journey. View the full story here! View other Paramount VetNet Coffee Chats here! View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Paramount on Contact Info:Spokesperson: ParamountWebsite: info@ SOURCE: Paramount View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire Sign in to access your portfolio
