Miss Cleo turns 50 today

When I was a contributing writer to The Advocate, one of the stories I wrote – way back in 2006 – was the coming out interview with Miss Cleo, the late-night infomercial psychic.

She was quite candid with me about her struggle to come out and sent me a heartfelt email after the article ran.

Today she turns 50 so I thought I’d run some excerpts from that article:

She’s known for the catchphrase “The cards never lie,” and now Miss Cleo, the controversial former infomercial psychic, is finally telling some truths—about herself.

From the late 1990s through 2002, the woman whose real name is Youree Dell Cleomili Harris was a late-night staple who, in a thick Jamaican accent, urged viewers to dial a
charge-by-the-minute 900 number to have their fortunes read.

What those viewers didn’t know, and what some members of her own family still don’t know, is that Miss Cleo is a lesbian. Four years after the infomercials were pulled from the air under a cloud of various lawsuits and federal and state investigations, Harris says she has been inspired to come out publicly by a teenage godson.

“He and I started talking when he was concerned about coming out. He was 16. When he made the decision I told him I’d be there to support him 100%, and he embraced [coming out] wholeheartedly,” Harris says. “It’s a different vibe than when I was his age, being raised Catholic in an all-girls boarding school. But he was afraid of nothing, and I thought, I can’t be a hypocrite. This boy is going to force me to put my money where my mouth
is.”

She is sure that coming out will be quite liberating, but she still has some trepidation. “The reason it’s scary is because in my personal experience, black cultures throughout the world have a more difficult time accepting homosexuality in their family. I have family members who will be shocked; they don’t know. I have some family members who are very close to me, and they do know. But I’ve been afraid of the wrath, of the exile. When I came out to a number of friends in the late ’80s I had a number of friends who turned their backs on me and walked away. That was really intense.