Miss Cleo: The Actress Behind America’s Most Famous Psychic—and the Billion-Dollar Scam She Never Controlled

For a generation of late-night television viewers, Miss Cleo was impossible to forget. Draped in a turban, speaking in a thick Jamaican accent, and urging callers to “Call me now,” she became the face of psychic hotlines at the turn of the millennium—offering certainty, comfort, and destiny for $4.99 a minute.

Classic Miss Cleo infomercial/tarot promo image

But the woman behind the persona, Yuri Del Harris, never owned the empire that made her famous. And when that empire collapsed under fraud investigations, she was left with the blame—and none of the fortune.

By 2000, Miss Cleo was a cultural phenomenon. Her infomercials flooded late-night TV, her catchphrases became comedy shorthand, and her image powered Psychic Readers Network (PRN), a company that generated as much as $24 million a month at its peak. Over its lifetime, the network earned an estimated $1 billion.

Harris, however, was paid a flat $1,750 for the shoot that launched the brand.

Miss Cleo on TV

Born in Los Angeles in 1962, Harris was raised in a strict Catholic household and attended boarding school. She showed early signs of theatrical talent and charisma, but her path was far from easy. By her early 20s, she was divorced and raising a child. A second daughter followed years later, leaving Harris a single mother struggling to balance ambition with survival.

In the early 1990s, she found creative footing in Seattle’s theater scene, producing and starring in original plays. While praised for her stage presence, her productions were often plagued by financial mismanagement, leaving debts and damaged reputations behind. By the mid-1990s, doors were closing. Harris packed up her life and moved to South Florida in search of steady work.

That work came in the form of a headset.

Promotional portrait of Miss Cleo

In 1997, Harris was hired by Psychic Readers Network as a call-taker—one of hundreds answering late-night calls from people seeking advice about love, money, and fate. The job required no psychic ability, just adherence to a script designed to keep callers on the line. Harris brought something extra: professional acting skills, vocal control, and a warm, invented Jamaican accent that made callers feel seen and heard.

For years, she was just another anonymous voice. That changed in 2000, when PRN executives watched her perform in person at a Florida mall promotion. Recognizing her magnetism, they built a brand around her. Over the course of a few days, Harris became “Miss Cleo,” the public face of PRN’s nationwide advertising blitz.

The fame was instant and overwhelming. Miss Cleo appeared everywhere—infomercials, talk shows, comedy sketches. The phrase “Call me now” entered the American lexicon. Harris even voiced a character in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, embedding her voice in one of the most successful video games of all time.

Behind the scenes, the power dynamics were stark. PRN was owned by cousins Steven Feder and Peter Stoultz, who controlled the billing systems, advertising strategy, and profits. Harris had no ownership stake, no royalties, and no control over the deceptive practices that would soon attract federal scrutiny.

In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from multiple states accused PRN of widespread fraud: misleading “free” offers, unauthorized charges, billing customers for time on hold, and trapping callers in systems designed to maximize fees. PRN eventually agreed to forgive $500 million in consumer debt and pay $5 million in fines. Feder and Stoultz pleaded guilty to fraud charges and received probation.

Harris was never charged with any crime.

Miss Cleo smiling in a media photo

Still, when the scandal broke, public attention focused almost entirely on her. Media reports emphasized that Miss Cleo wasn’t Jamaican and wasn’t psychic, framing the revelation as personal deceit rather than corporate manipulation. Harris later said she was discouraged from speaking publicly while the company’s lawyers protected its owners.

The result was devastating. Work dried up. Public perception hardened. Many assumed she had secretly profited, despite evidence to the contrary. In reality, Harris struggled financially for the rest of her life, taking small commercial gigs and appearances that leaned heavily on the very persona that had trapped her.

In later years, Harris began reclaiming her identity. She came out publicly as a lesbian in 2006, describing the relief of finally living without another mask. She distanced herself from the Miss Cleo character and reframed her work not as psychic prophecy, but as spiritual guidance—helping people reflect rather than promising certainty.

When Harris died in 2016 at age 53 from metastatic colorectal cancer, many obituaries still referred to her simply as “TV psychic Miss Cleo.”

Miss Cleo Tarot Power deck – Visual of the merchandise tied to her brand and persona.

It wasn’t until years later that the narrative began to shift. In 2022, HBO released Call Me Miss Cleo, a documentary that recast Harris as a victim of exploitation rather than the architect of a scam. Younger audiences, encountering her through YouTube clips and social media, began asking different questions: Who really profited? Who really paid the price?

A 2024 Lifetime biopic continued that reassessment, portraying Harris as a talented actress consumed by a system she did not control. Even then, legal battles over her story persisted, underscoring the irony that ownership disputes continued long after her death.

Today, Miss Cleo remains a pop culture icon. Her voice still echoes through Vice City. Her infomercials still circulate online. But the fuller story is no longer just about a scam—it’s about exploitation, race, labor, and how easily blame falls on the most visible face rather than the most powerful hands.

Yuri Del Harris never saw the fortune her image created. What remains is a belated recognition that the biggest con may not have been what Miss Cleo sold—but what was taken from the woman behind the turban.